DEMOGRAPHIC PATTERNS AND RURAL SOCIETY IN PORTUGAL

IMPLICATIONS OF SOME RECENT RESEARCH

ROBERT ROWLAND

Inrtituto Gulbenkian & CGncia, Oeiras, Portugal

I

The main purpose of this brief essay is to outline and discuss some of the possibilities suggested by recent research in historical demography and family history for the study of social organisation in Portugal and of its variation across space and over time. By “social organisation”, in this context, I mean what might better be termed the social organisation of reproduction: the ways in which the biological reproduction of the population and the social reproduction of particular patterns of produc- tion, distribution and consumption are jointly ensured by regionally and historically specific relations between the dynamics of population, family forms, and the transmission of rights of access to the means of production.’

The fields of historical demography and family history are relatively new in Portugal, and it is probably fair to say that at present less is known about the history of population in Portugal than about any other Western European population. This discouraging situation is unlikely to endure very much longer. There has in recent years been a renewal of interest in these neglected fields and the fruits of research now in progress should soon begin to alter our cloudy perception of the Portuguese demographic past. At this stage, however, any conclusions prompted by the suggestive, though fragmentary, results already available could only be speculative, and it seems advisable, while making explicit the precarious basis on which they are grounded, to offer them more as questions than as conclu- sions. Emphasis has accordingly been given to recent research and to results which appear to have sociological implications and to suggest possible areas for future research. Although such an exercise might seem at first sight premature, it may contribute- at a stage where the definition of research problems is still relatively fluid and unconstrained by disciplinary traditions- towards establishing a framework for future research which would enable full use to be made of the available sources and encourage an informed dialogue between students of Portuguese rural society and historians of population and the family.

Sociologia Rurllis 1986. Vol. XXVI-1

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I1

Our ignorance regarding the history of Portuguese population derives both from the nature of the sources that have survived and from the methods so far employed to interpret the information they can provide. The kinds of sources which in other countries constituted a starting point for population history in the traditional sense - early censuses, cadasters and enumerations of households - are in Portugal both scarce and of dubious quality. Between the enumeration of 1527/31, which gives us the number of households for the whole of Portugal except the Algarve, and the 18th century, we have little or no reliable information on the size of the population. The known enumerations surviving from the 18th Cen- tury are imperfect and their interpretation is debatable. Until recently, what could be said about the period between the 16th and the beginning of the 19th century had already been said by Adrien Balbi in 1822.

Although a rudimentary census of population was taken in 1801 (and partial returns have survived for a more satisfactory, but never completed, census for 1802), there is nothing in Portugal comparable to the Spanish Censo de Floridublanca (1787) or Censo de Godoy (1797). The first modern census was undertaken in 1864, the earliest civil registration statistics are for 1887, and regular national statistics for mortality by age begin only in the 20th century.’

Under these circumstances, even the traditional expedient of applying a multiplier to the number of households has failed to produce a clear indication of population trends in the early modern period. It is generally accepted that at the beginning of the 15th century the Portuguese population numbered about one million, but estimates for the 16th century, based on the household enumeration of 1527/31, range from one to one and a half millions. The situation as regards the 17th century is hardly more satisfactory, since military sources for 1636140 have been variously interpreted as evidence for a population of somewhere between 1.1 and 2.0 million. For the beginning of the 18th century an estimate of just over two million is generally accepted; by 1758 the population had risen to about 2.5 million, and by the end of the century it had reached 3.0 million. After a difficult start to the 19th century the rate of growth accelerated and the population rose to 4.2 million in 1864 and 5.4 million in 1900.’

Little can be said, on the basis of such imprecise numbers, regarding the chronology of population growth. The figures which are generally accepted for the 18th century imply a growth rate of just over 0.4%, comparable to that which has been calculated for the Spanish population in the same period (Nadal, 1984, p. 90). But for earlier centuries the chronology is far from certain. If one accepts the figures proposed by Magalhies Godinho, the population experienced moderate growth

38

(0.3%) between about 1400 and 1530, and again between 1530 and 1640. In the latter case, however, this figure almost certainly masks a clear contrast between faster growth up to about 1590, and the very slow growth or stagnation which then set in and appears to have lasted until near the end of the 17th century.

But even if these aggregate figures are accepted, they can provide us with little guidance concerning periods of economic expansion or con- traction, the extent of population pressure on available resources, etc. We would need to know a great deal more about regional patterns of popula- tion growth and about regional economic conditions over time. There is some indication, for example, that in the Coimbra area and in parts of the Minho recovery after the difficult years of 17th century began relatively early.‘ If this early recovery (possibly aided by the spread of maize cultivation) turns out to be a phenomenon common to a large part of Central and North Western Portugal it would fit the general pattern already established for Spain (Nadal, 1984, pp. 73-85).

At the same time, however, it follows that if the population of the whole country only began to grow again at the end of the century, the crisis must have been all the more severe and enduring in at least some of the remaining regions. And in this case sharp regional differences in the severity and duration of the demographic recession of the 17th century would have to be reckoned with as a possible explanation for some of the regional contrasts - in family forms, marriage patterns and levels of emigration, for example - that are beginning to emerge on the basis of local studies.

Such uncertainty regarding regional population trends underlines the fact that in Portugal what Drake (1982) has aptly termed ‘parish register demography’ is still at its very beginnings. Wrigley and Schofield (1981) have shown - even without recourse to the intensive methods of family reconstitution’ - analysis of the yearly totals of baptisms, marriages and burials in a large number of parishes over a long period can contribute towards establishing, in great detail, the history of a national population. On a more modest scale, Nadal (1984) has used baptismal cumes from parish registers to establish in outline regional patterns of population growth in Spain from the 16th to the end of the 18th century. Given the lack of alternative sources, it seems clear that the broad context of national and regional population history in Portugal can only be reconstructed once a sufficiently large (and representative) number of parish-level studies, covering long periods of time, has been completed.

Although studies using parish registers were first undertaken as undergraduate dissertations over 25 years ago in the University of Lisbon,

39

these monographs, like those produced in Coimbra and Oporto until this kind of dissertation was abolished in 1974, are little more than scholastic exercises.6 Only three parish monographs covering adequate periods of time have been published to date. These studies, all undertaken by Nor- berta Amorim, are based on a form of family reconstitution technique and go back to the early 17th and late 16th ~entur ies .~

Unfortunately, although all three parishes are from the same region (Trh-0s-Montes), the curves of vital events differ considerably from one parish to another and do not display any common pattern. With such limited evidence it does not seem possible to reach any conclusion regard- ing population trends in that region; and extrapolation to other regions is obviously out of the question. A very great many more parish studies will need to be undertaken before any firm conclusions can be reached con- cerning population trends in any part of the country or concerning regional differentials in the chronology of population growth.*

The need for such studies is further emphasised by the fact that most of the available evidence points towards the existence of clear and persistent demographic patterns. It is not possible, at present, to characterise these patterns at all fully, or to work out in detail their implications for the relationship, over time, between demographic and other socio-economic variables. But the evidence we do have is sufficient to make it clear that no adequate account can be given of Portuguese population dynamics unless this regional dimension is fully accounted for.

There is inevitably a risk that concentrating on variation across space rather than over time may lead to distortion and create an artificial de'mogruphie immobzle. Nevertheless, it is hard to escape the implications of the fact that evidence for significant change in demographic patterns between the 16th and the second half of the 19th centuries has yet to be unearthed, and that this absence of visible change is beginning to con- stitute reasonable evidence for a surprising degree of continuity in regio- nal demographic patterns.

The evidence is generally fragmentary and unsatisfactory. At this stage, little can be said about regional patterns of mortality, even during the 19th century. Although the available figures may be imprecise or unrepresentative, or both, it does nevertheless seem clear that normal levels of mortality were considerably higher in the South of the country than in the North, and higher in the North East than in the North West.

A similar pattern can be observed in crude birth rates, which in the first sixty years of the 19th century seem to have been close to 30% in the Minho and Beira, around 35% in Trk-0s-Montes, and near or over 40%

40

in the Alentejo and Algarve (Rowland, 1984, p. 30). This is a wide range: as Livi-Bacci (1971, p. 58) notes, the lowest values are comparable to those prevailing in ‘pre-transition’ England or Scandinavia, while the highest ones are closer to those recorded for Eastern Europe at the end of the 19th century.

It is perhaps no exaggeration, in the light of these figures, to speak of the coexistence in Portugal, during the 19th century, at least, of two con- trasting demographic regimes a high pressure rigime, characterized by high birth and death rates, in most of the South, and a low pressure rigime in the North and Centre West.9

V

Crude birth and death rates are blunt analytical instruments, and at best they can only help identify clear cut situations. Little can at this stage be said concerning regional differences in mortality: we would need to know a great deal more about its incidence by sex and age in different regions and about the stability of such patterns over time and through short term fluctuations; about the relative vulnerability of regional populations to crisis mortality; about patterns of recovery from such crises, etc. At this stage all we can do is take note of regional differentials in the level of mortality in the 19th century and of the fact that these coincide with regional differentials in the crude birth rate.

As regards fertility we are more fortunate. In the first of the mono- graphs to result from the Princeton European Fertility Project, Massimo Livi-Bacci (1971) subjected Portuguese fertility over the last 100 years to a regional analysis. Although most of his attention was attracted by fertility decline in the 20th century, he devoted considerable space to an attempted reconstruction of the ‘pre-transition’ (i.e. late 19th -century) situation. Among his most interesting conclusions is the relative homogeneity of marital fertility in 19th-century Portugal. In 1890 the index of marital fertility (I,) was 0.659 in the South of the country (Algarve and Alentejo) and 0.712 in the North (Beira, Trb-0s-Montes and Minho). In 1815-19 the available figures imply - assuming that the sex-age-marital status distribution of the population was the same as in 1864 -values for I, in the North and South of 0.809 and 0.822 respectively, despite the fact that the crude birth rate in the South (43.3%) was 23% higher than in the North.lo

The evident differences in fertility (general fertility, as reflected in crude birth rates) that can be observed in the 19th century are not, then, produced by regional differences in marital fertility. They appear, on the contrary, to be result of sharply contrasting patterns of nuptiality - of regional differences in the timing and incidence of marriage for women during their fertile years.

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VI

Of all demographic variables, nuptiality is the least 'natural' and the most amenable to sociological analysis. For although nuptiality is irreducibly statistical in its implications, it is nevertheless the result of a large number of individual acts of will whose explanation - statistical or otherwise - falls clearly within the purview of sociology. To the extent that marriage leads to the creation of a new household, or to the definition of the conditions under which a pre-existing household will be continued into another generation, nuptiality is also the demographic variable most relevant to a conceptualization of the process which I have referred to, above, as the social organisation of reproduction.

It is also, fortunately, the demographic variable for which we possess the most satisfactory evidence. Thanks to the technique developed by John Hajnal(1953), it is possible under certain conditions to obtain, from a census sex-age-marital status distribution, estimates of the proportion of each generation still single at age 50 and of the mean age at first marriage." The latter estimate is directly comparable with the mean age at first marriage calculated after nominal linkage between records of baptisms and marriages in parish registers. It would thus ideally be possible to combine a regional analysis of the nuptiality of the whole population - based on 19th-century censuses - with selective excursions into earlier centuries, based on the intensive analysis of an appropriate sample of parishes chosen to illustrate and verify any regional patterns which emer- ged from the analysis of 19th-century nu tiality.

nuptiality across space and over time in this way, it is becoming possible to bring together the results of isolated studies and research in progress and to provide a limited preview of the results which might be obtained through such an exercise.'*

A regional analysis of the 1878 census has shown that in the second half of the 19th century two broad patterns of nuptiality can be observed in continental Portugal. In the South (Algarve, Alentejo) about 90% of each female generation had married by the age of 51, and those who did so married, on average, at the age of 24. In the North (Beira Alta, Beira Litoral, Trk-0s-Montes, Minho) only about 75% of each female genera- tion married - and did so, on average, at the age of 27. As regards men a similar contrast can be observed between North and South, but only in relation to the incidence of marriage. Throughout the country the mean age at first marriage of men was 29-30; but whereas in the South over 90% of each generation married, in the North the proportion was considerably lower, ranging from 78% in Trk-0s-Montes to no more than 63% in the Minho. The majority of those excluded from marriage - between a quarter and a third of each generation, in some areas - chose to emigrate.

Although no concerted attempt has yet \ een made to study patterns of

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These aggregate figures conceal the wide range of variation that can be observed at lower levels of analysis. At the level of the concefho (munici- pality), for example, female marriage ages ranged at the same date from 22 in five Southern concefbos to an extreme of 31 in a mountain concefho of the far North (cf. map in Rowland, 1984, p. 28). Similarly, the proportion of women marrying by 51 ranged from under 70% in the North West to almost 95% in some parts of the South.

The evidence we possess for earlier periods is much less satisfactory, and in general relates only to ages at marriage. But the available results confirm the regional pattern that can be observed in greater detail at the end of the 19th century. Thus we have evidence of late female marriage (25-28 years) in the North in the 17th and 18th centuries, and of early female marriage (20-21 years) in the South in the 16th and 18th Centuries. '3

VII

We do not know whether these very considerable differences in age at marriage were associated with differences in the incidence of marriage comparable to those observed at the end of the 19th century; but even if they were not, they still imply that general fertility will have been much higher in the South than in the North. Under these circumstances - since we do not have any evidence of widely disparate growth rates, except per- haps (cf. above) during the 17th century - one would expect there to be a corresponding difference in the level of mortality, and it would not perhaps be too implausible to regard the persistent differential in female marriage age as reflecting the persistence of a high pressure demographic regime in the South and of a low pressure rigime in the North.

The evidence we possess is clearly insufficient for this to be more than a speculative suggestion. In particular, we would need to know more about the behaviour of nuptiality in periods of demographic crisis and recovery during the 17th century, for instance - in different parts of the country before we could be justified in treating the persistence over four centuries of these two demographic rigimes as even a working hypothesis.

Nevertheless, if we are to make sense of the regional patterns that are beginning to emerge we will have to go beyond the level of mere descrip- tion. The suggestion that there may have coexisted in Portugal two distinct and contrasting demographic regimes does at least have the advantage of requiring us to examine other variables involved in the process of social reproduction.

VIII

One such variable, seldom fully integrated into demographic analyses, is household organisation. The demographic evidence I have been summari-

43

sing points towards the importance of marriage in differentiating between the demographic rigimes that appear to have existed in South and North Portugal. Marriage, as I have said, is the demographic variable most amenable to integration in a sociological frame of analysis precisely because of its relation to the process of household formation and repro- duction. Can similar contrasts be detected in household organisation?

The earliest Portuguese census which yields usable information on household composition is the 1960 Census. Although this is far too late for any attempt to be made to relate household structure to ‘traditional’ demographic patterns it does provide, like the 19th-century censuses in the case of nuptiality, an appropriate starting point for the necessarily more selective analyses undertaken in relation to earlier periods. With the aid of some slight simplifications it has been possible to reorganise the information so as to produce a close approximation to the by now standard ‘Cambridge typology’ (Hammell and Laslett, 1974) and to undertake a statistical analysis of the covariation between household structure and a range of socioeconomic and demographic indicators.

The main results of the exercise can be summarised as follows. There are clear regional differences in household structure, with the proportion of simple family households (or ‘nuclear families’) increasing as one moves from North West to North East, and from North to South. The range is from 56% in Viana do Castelo (district) to 79% in Evora. The proportion of complex (extended and multiple) households is correspondingly grea- test in the Centre West and North West, ranging from 9% in Portalegre to 21 % in Viana.

The observed pattern of variation in the respective proportions of all five types of household make it possible to speak, at a very general level, of two broad systems of household formation. In the South (Algarve, Alen- tejo, Beira Baixa) we have neolocal household formation system, where the principle that each marriage leads to the creation of an independent household is reflected in very high proportions of simple family hou- seholds. In the North West, on the other hand - Minho, parts of Tris- 0s-Montes and of Beira Alta and Beira Litoral - we find a household formation system based on patrilocal residence after marriage for the heir and restrictions on the marriage (with neolocal residence) of the remaining children. Although it is never the most numerous type of household, the dominant mode of household formation is here that of a stem family system (Rowland, 1984).

Although differences in household structure between regions are clearly associated with patterns of land tenure and rural economy - the highest proportions of complex households occur in districts where the smallholding peasantry is most numerous - this relationship does not necessarily hold within regions, and only in the North West was it possible to establish a statistically significant relationship between pro-

44

perty owning and household structure. In the South, although a complex of variables representing ‘peasant agriculture’ did display a tenuous rela- tionship with household structure, no such association was evident in relation to property owing.

These results suggest that household structure cannot always be regarded as simply dependent on economic and property arrangements, and that other - cultural - variables may be equally relevant. Such a suggestion is reinforced by the results of attempts to investigate house- hold organisation in the past. Here, as with the parish studies referred to earlier, the number of cases that has been studied is too small for any positive conclusion regarding persistence to be justified. But it remains true that there is no visible evidence of change. Listings of inhabitants from the South in the 19th, 18th, and 16th centuries reveal a household structure virtually identical to that observed in the same areas in the 20th. Century; the same is true of listings from the Centre and North, going back to the 19th and 18th centuries.

IX

One might hesitate in stretching this evidence if it were not for the fact that the regional patterns in household organisation that emerge from the 1960 Census and appear to be confirmed by earlier listings correspond to the regional patterns of nuptiality that emerge from late 19th-century censuses and likewise appear to be confirmed, for earlier periods, by studies based on parish registers and other local sources.

The existence of these latter patterns raised the question of the possible persistence of two contrasting demographic regimes in Portugal. We now find that in the areas corresponding to each of these two hypothetical regimes we have - possibly during the same periods - two contrasting household formation systems. This apparent coincidence in space and time raises a number of questions

particularly relevant to the analysis of Portuguese rural society. I should like to close this brief essay by considering only two of them.

In the first place, the coincidence raises the question of the nature of the relationship between nuptiality and household formation. Are particular modes of household formation functionally related to particular marriage patterns, as has sometimes been suggested apropos of North Western Europe (cf. Laslett, 1977, 1983)? Or is the relationship indeterminate except in the context of specific patterns of land tenure and systems of property devolution? In this case, what factors underlie the particular association between nuptiality and household structure that can be obser- ved in Portugal?

Secondly, and bearing 1fi mind &at in Portuguese nuptiality the element of continuity over time and contrast across space is provided by the mean

. . .

45

age at first marriage of women (and not of men, as one might have expected if marriage patterns reflected land tenure or systems of inheri- tance), to what extent is the apparent persistence of regional patterns of female nuptiality and household formation not simply an expression of the persistence of regional cultural systems?

The two questions, and the approaches they embody, are not mutually exclusive. My conslusion - insofar as these open ended remarks can be called a conclusion - would be that the most interesting question which the results here presented suggest ought to be explored together by students of rural society in Portugal and by historians of population and the family is precisely the way in which these two questions are related.

NOTES

1. For an attempt at definition, with illustrations from North West Portugal in the 19th

2. There is no satisfactory survey of the sources for Portuguese population history. Cf.,

3. Cf. the general history of Oliveira Marques (1972). The most plausible estimates and

4. Ant6nio de Oliveira (197 ); AurClio de Oliveira,personal communication. 5. Fleury and Henry (1976); on the methodological problems posed by all forms of

nominal record linkage, cf. the essays in Wrigley, ed. (1973). 6. A number of these dissertations were subsequently published. Although they often

contain some interesting information, their utility for population history is frequently limited.

7. Amorim (1973,1980,1983-4). The author has developed and used a personal technique of family reconstitution. Although it is considerably faster than the original Henry- Fleury method, no comparison of results appears to have undertaken.

8. It will be a long time before we possess for Portugal information comparable to that produced by the 404 English parish studies collected at the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social StrIICture, or by the 127 Spanish parishes whose data was used by Nadal. Although a number of more intensive reconstitution studies are in progress or due to be published priority ought perhaps to be given at this stage to aggregative studies rather than to reconstitutions, which are far more time consuming.

9. I should perhaps stress that neither of these terms refer either to population density or to rates of growth.

10. The 1890 figures for North and South are weighted averages of the corresponding provincial figures as given by Livi-Bacci (1971, p. 63). The figures for 1815-19 (Ibid., p. 20) would be over estimated if, as seems likely, nuptiality became less intense by 1864: in any case. the important point is the similatity between I, in N o d and South rather than the actual level.

11. Under Iberian conditions, as a result in particular of sex-specific out-migration, Hajnal’s technique will produce distorted estimates of male nuptiality. For a discussion and technique for measuring and correcting these distortions, cf. Rowland (1985).

12. The results that follow, which make allowances for migration, are presented and discus- sed in full in Rowland (1986).

13. This cleavage, and its persistence over time, can be observed at the level of the Iberian Peninsula. The Spanish results confirm that female marriage ages change very little from the 16th and 17th centuries to the end of the 19th. apart from a steady upward trend affecting all regions.

century. cf. Brandio and Rowland (1980).

however, Akola Net0 (1963) and Sousa Franco (1968), for an overview.

chronology are those of Magalhies Godinho (1971, p. 20; 1981-4, IV, p. 219).

46

REFERENCES

AHORIM, M.N.S.B. (1973), Rebordios e a s n a p o p u ~ nos siculor XVII e XVIII (Lisbon: Instituto Nacional de Estatistica)

AMORIM, N. (1980), Mitodo de explora@o dos livros de registroparoquiuis; e Cardunha e a suapopulagrio de 1573 a 1800 (Lisbon: Instituto Nacional de Esutistica)

AHORIM, N.B. (1983-4), S. Pedro de Poiares e a sua populagio de 1561 a 1830, Brigantiu BALBI, A. (1822), Essai sutistique sur le Royaume de Portugal et de /‘Algawe, compari aux

autres huts de 1’Europe (Paris: Rey et Gravier) BRANDAO; M.F. & R. ROWLAND (1980). Hisdria da propriedade e comunidade rural:

quest6es de mitodo, A&e S o d 61-2, 173-207 DRAKE, M. (1982), An Introduction to Parish Register Demography (Miiron Keynes: Open

University Press) FLEURY, M. & L. HENRY (1976), Nouveau manuel de dipondement et d’exploitation de I’htat

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Estrutura Demogrifica Portuguesa, Bolrtim do Bunco Nacional Ultramurino,

GODINHO, V. Magalhies (1971). Estrutura da antiga sociedudeportuguesa (Lisbon: Arcidia) GODINHO, V. Magalhies (1981-4), Or Dercobrimentos e a Economiu Mundiul (Lisbon:

HAJNAL, J. (1953), Age at Marriage and Proportions Marrying, Population Studies, VII/2,

HAMMEL, E.A. h P. L A S L ~ (1974), Comparing household S t N C N T C over time and between

LASLETT, P. (1977a) Characteristics of the Western family considered over time, in P.

LASLEIT, P. (1977b), Family Lift and Illicit Love in Past Generations (Cambridge: Cam-

LASLETT, P. (1983). Family and household as work group and kin group: areas of traditional

LIVI-BACCI, M. (1971), A Century of Portuguese Fertility (Princeton: Princeton University

MARQUES. A.H. de Oliveira (1972). History of Portugal (New York: Columbia University

NADAL, J. (1984) La p o b M n eqan6la, sighs XVI-XX (Barcelona: Ariel) NETO, M.L. Akola M. do C. (1963), Demografia-nas I?pocas Moderna e Contemporinea, in

OLIVEIRA, A. (1971), A vidu econornicu e social de Coimbra de 1537a 1640, (Coimbra) ROWLAND, R. (1984), Sistemas familives apadr6es demogrificos em Portugal: quest6es para

uma investigagio comparada. Ler Histbria 3, 13-32 ROWLAND. R. (1985), Mortality, migration and age at first marriage: problems in the analysis

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47

ABSTRACT

The essay outlines some possible implications of recent research on demographic patterns for the historical study of rural society in Portugal. The first part is devoted to a summary of population trends since the 16th century, and the need for aggregative studies based on parish registers is emphasised. It is argued that the available evidence suggests the pertinence of a regional perspective, in which variation across space is given as much prominence as change over time. A number of regional patterns - in mortality, fertility and nuptiality - are described and shown to be associated with regionally specific patterns of household organi- zation. Some implications are suggested of the fact that this regional configuration of family forms and demographic patterns appears to have been in existence and to have persisted since the 16th century.

RkSUMk

Les rechcrches rkentes i propos des mouvemenw dtmographiques ont des implications pour I’ttude historique de la socittt rurale au Portugal. La premitre partie dc I’article propose une synthtse des tendances dtmographiques depuis le 1 6 h e sikle. et insiste sur la ntcessitt d’ttudes de synthhe bastes sur les rcgistres paroissiaux. Les donntes disponibles tendent iconfirmer la pertinence d’une approche rtgionale oh les variations spatiales seraient plus importantes que les variations dans le temps. Quelques modtics dtmographiques rtgionaux, -de m o d i t t , de fertilitt. dc nuptialitt, sont dtcrits en montrant leur lien avec des modtles particuliers d’organisation f d i a l e . La conclusion suggkre quelques constquences de cette association, au niveau rtgional, entre des structures familides et des modeles dtmographiques.

KURZFASSUNG

In der Studie werden einige Folgerungen aus jiingstcn Fonchungsarbcitcn uber demogra- phische Modelle h r die Untersuchung der geschichtlichen Entwicklung dcr lindlichen Gexllschrft in Portugal gezogen. Dcr erstc Teil in einer Ubersicht iiber die Bevdkerungs- entwicklung seit dem 16. Jahrhundert gewidmet. Es wird die Notwendigkeit von Gesamt- studien auf der Basis von Registern der Kirchengmeinden betont. Es wird behauptet, d d das verftigbare Quellenmaterial cine regionale Perspektive als angemessen encheinen liilt, wobei riumlichcn Unterschieden ebenso vie1 Bedeutung beigemessen wird wie Verinderun- gcn im Zeitabhuf. Einc Anzahl regionaler Muster - von Sterblichkeit, Fruchtbarkeit und Heirat - werden beschrieben und ihr Zusunmenhang mit regional spezifischen Mustern der Haushaltorganisation aufgczeigt. Einige Folgerungcn werden daraus abgeleitet, dai3 diese regionale Kodiguntion von Familienform und demographischen Mustern tatsichlich seit dem 16. Jhrhundert zu bestchen und bis heute iibcrdauen zu haben scheint.