Chapter Income and wealth mobility in the smaller towns of the late medieval and early modern Low Countries: an exploratory analysis

Abstract

In this paper, we set out to explore trends in mobility levels in six smaller towns in the Low Countries during the late Middle Ages and early modern period. We use pairs of tax lists to divide the population into quintiles and draw up mobility tables. We estimate mobility as the proportion of people moving into a different quintile. We did not find a long-term trend in mobility levels. Mobility levels did fluctuate in the towns we investigate, but we did not find any relation to trends in or levels of population or inequality. Our results suggest that preindustrial urban societies remained fairly rigid. Many people remained either in the top or bottom half of the distribution. It seems particularly people at the top managed to stay at the top.