Economic- and Ecohistory 139 Ž. Zwitter - Subsistence, PRosperity and Abandonment oF Alpine ISolated Farms Subsistence, PRosperity and Abandonment oF Alpine ISolated Farms in the dynamic 17th CentuRy Environment: Case STudy froM the Upper Savinja Valley with Special Emphasis oN Tenants’ Inventories OpstanaK, prosperitEt i naPuštanjE OSAMLJENIH GOSPODARSTAVA u dinaMičnoM oKolišu 17. stoljEća (priMjer dolinE goRnjE savinjE s PosEbniM naglasKoM na ostavinske invEntaRE kmetova) Žiga Zwitter Received / Primljeno: 12. 9. 2014.
[email protected] Accepted / Prihvaćeno: 1. 7. 2015. University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts, Original scientific paper / Izvorni znanstveni rad Department of History UDC / UDK [332:631.1] (231.323.61)“16” SI–1000 Ljubljana, Aškerčeva 2 [316.4+314+502.31] (497.4:436)“16”
[email protected] Summary Archival sources, mostly tenants’ inventories presented in the context of further documents from archives of seigneuries, state and ecclesiastical administration, prove that environmental, economic and societal changes in the dynamic 17th century did not affect mountainous isolated farms in the western part of Eastern Karawanks and in central Kamnik-Savinja Alps in a uniform way. I presented opportunities and pitfalls of this kind of analysis of tenants’ inventories. The method for assessing environmental loading of the 17th century animal husbandry is based on comparison of tenants’ inventories with descriptions of farms. Its fundamental components include the weight of the 17th century livestock and the relationship between feed requirements of different animal species, obtained from seigneurial accounts and visitation proceedings. I analysed cereal production with special emphasis on species diversity, quantities of home-grown grain and cereal stocks.