Project code: J6-70239
Project type: basic research project
Project leader: Aleksander Panjek
Project team: Aleksej Kalc, Petra Kavrečič Božeglav, Ines Beguš Bavcon, Polona Sitar, Helena Bažec, Borut Žerjal, all University of Primorska, Faculty of Humanities.
Source of funding: Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency (ARIS)
Research area (ARIS): 6.01 Historiography
Project duration: 1. 3. 2026 – 28. 2. 2029

SICRIS

Data Management Plan

Project description

Probate inventories represent the best available source for an insight into the standard of living, that is of material culture, consumption patterns and housing conditions between the 17th and 19th c. They consist in a list of movable and immovable objects and goods that belonged to a person, and are widely used in historical research in Europe.

In Slovenia, their use is more limited and quite unbalanced in favour of the nobility, of central Slovenia, and of men. Moreover, except for Štuhec (1995; 2009), the majority of studies base on single or few inventories, they don’t address long-term series and the developments they can unveil, and they don’t contextualize the results in an international framework. Where we lag behind are therefore the urban and rural middle and lower classes, and the material culture and consumer behaviour of women. We also miss the long chronological perspective and the comparative approach with other European regions.

The project aims at addressing this backwardness by proposing a research aimed at achievable objectives. We will work on northern Istria, an area of about 400 km² with about 30.000 inhabitants in 1816, small enough to be manageable and wide enough to represent a valuable study. It had long been part of the Venetian Republic and from the beginning of the 19th c. came under Austrian rule. We chose this case-study area because of the exceptional available sources. In fact, this is one of the rare areas of nowadays Slovenia in which notaries were active and consequently post-mortem inventories and marriage contracts are preserved (around 500 inventories for the 17th and 18th centuries). Here, the new Austrian authorities fully enacted the new legislation on inheritance, so that an uninterrupted series of inheritance files is preserved for the district courts in Koper and Piran from 1814 to 1918 (3 to 4.000 inventories). This is the only area in Slovenia where both conditions are met, creating a continuous long-term serial-type source (17th-19th c).

Research objectives:

1. To obtain a reliable base of information with an ascertained chronology on material culture and consumption between the 17th and 19th centuries.
2. To ascertain patterns and inequalities basing on social group and gender in urban and rural milieu.
3. To enable international comparability of the standard of living.

On a methodological level, we will work with the help of indices, that enable better comparisons (Schuurman 2014), by defining key goods used as indicators of change in consumption (Béaur 2017). Our intention is to work on the following categories of goods: luxury items, new consumption goods (coffee, chocolate etc.), clothing, cooking and dining items, furniture and bedding, housing. We will determine the key goods and compile an index in such a way to ensure the international comparability of results. We will combine this method with a more complete analysis of all household objects on samples granting social, gender and chronological equilibrium of representativity.

Research questions:

1. What are the changes in material culture and consumption in northern Istria between the 17th and 19th c. and when do they appear?
2. How do changes relate to the social and gender variables in the urban and rural areas?
3. Which are the local and the global factors influencing change?
4. How does the pattern of change in northern Istria compare to other European regions and to existing interpretations?

The project group is formed by older and youngers scholars who combine competences in economic, social, rural, urban, gender and population history, and Italian language, who already cooperated in several history research projects. G. Béaur (Directeur at CNRS and at EHESS) will grant additional expertise.