ABSTRACT
The complexity of Italian rural society was considerable.1 The common word contadino which is often used as the equivalent of the English peasant, has some of the same derogatory connotations for modern users, as it did in the past. The English term assumes a rural dweller living in a small village or an isolated farm or huts. In Italy the contado meant the whole area dependent on a main city or town; and it could mean quite considerable communities of many hundreds or even thousands of inhabitants in a kind of urban community such as Prato. Perugia (population 19,234 in 1582) had in its official contado (population 57,234 in 1582) towns or villages such as Deruta, Marsciano, Castiglionfosco, Corciano, Paciano, Passignano, Piegaro, Antria, Fratta (modern Umbertide) and Sigillo with well over 500 persons, and Panicale with over 1000, through the sixteenth century.2 Many inhabitants would not have been primarily dependent on agricultural work (peasants) – the maiolica pottery makers of Deruta for example – but still be called contadini, with or without adverse connotations.
