Women’s Labour Migration and Serfdom in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries)

Mateusz Wyżga ()
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Mateusz Wyżga: Pedagogical University of Krakow

Chapter Chapter 6 in Gender and Migration in Historical Perspective, 2022, pp 175-213 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract This article studies women’s labour migration in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. The rural economy of that period was based on corvée and serfdom of the peasants, which, however, did not completely restrict their mobility. Based on diverse sources, I set out to demonstrate the significance of female mobility, especially its range, causes (other than employment as domestic servants), the differences between women’s and men’s mobility and the importance of social networks in the migration patterns. The Cracow urban complex, along with its micro-region, was selected for detailed analyses as this makes it possible to observe mobility and rural–urban migrations with the use of a considerable quantity of surviving sources. The research has been complemented with archival materials from several small towns in the Cracow Province, part of the Małopolska (Lesser Poland) region, located in the south-west of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, along the northern range of the Carpathians.

Keywords: Women’s migration; Serfdom; Labour; Social networks; Daily mobility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palscp:978-3-030-99554-6_6

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-99554-6_6

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