Los asalariados en la cerealicultura de la Italia meridional, siglos XVIII-XIX

The extensive grain farming on the Southern Italy plains has been marked, at least since the Late Middle Age, by the prevalence of large farms (masseria) employing a large number of regular labourers and seasonal workers from areas of small holdings and small leaseholders. This article, based on business archives and bibliographic sources, focuses on the masseria in the Apulian Tavoliere. It explains how the expanding area of grain farms with paid workers depends less on the huge inner processes of proletarianization than on increasing of the transformation of grazing areas into ploughed fields during the 19th century. The labour supply came from the Tevoliere inland areas as well as from the crisis of the small farms in the overcrowded surrounding hills. Moreover, at the end of the 19th century, the ever greater use of temporary labour, which meant few regular labourers and the increasing number of day workers, managed to change the social structure of the plain.