ABSTRACT
At the end of the Middle Ages, most Europeans lived in rural surroundings in settlements of less than 5,000 inhabitants, and despite the growth of the urban sector, this still remained true in the middle of the eighteenth century. Environmental conditions, emphasized as crucial factors of early modern experience in a seminal study of the Mediterranean world (Braudel 1972), were highly varied – ranging from Atlantic and Alpine to harsh Continental climates; from coastal regions and fertile plains to mountainous areas; and from soils suitable for cereal farming and viticulture to those more appropriate for grazing and market gardening. Prominent European products included barley and wheat in the north, olives and grapes in the south, but also imports from the New World: maize in some areas (like northern Italy) from the late sixteenth century, potatoes towards the end of our period. For the vast majority of the population, however, typical diets were cereal-based, and the average European ate less meat in the seventeenth century than his ancestors had done in the late Middle Ages. Men, and to a lesser extent women, drank wine (in the south and west) and beer (in the north and east of the Continent) on a regular basis, while variables like region, prosperity and seasons affected the consumption of other key victuals like vegetables, fruit, fish, spices and dairy products. The rhythms of plenty and want – both across the agricultural year and over the longue durée from 1500 to 1800 – remained basic characteristics of early modern rural life (Albala 2003).
