ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the concept of ‘peripherization’, with the meanings usually given to it, is not sufficient to describe the social-economic developments taking place in the Languedoc area in southern France. ‘Relictual space’ is, like ‘periphery’, a concept on a fairly high level of abstraction. Regions to which it is applied may show considerable individual differences, while in some borderline cases its application may be a matter of discussion as such. The Languedocian economic system was then based on polyculture (wheat, olives, wine, sheep farming), the products of which were both traded within the region and exported, while sheep farming provided the primary material for a regional, export-orientated drapery industry. The central position of the Languedoc in the Mediterranean trade system broke down in the period of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars, when British naval dominance in the Mediterranean wrecked French seaborne trade.
