Page 218 - Panjek, Aleksander, Jesper Larsson and Luca Mocarelli, eds. 2017. Integrated Peasant Economy in a Comparative Perspective: Alps, Scandinavia and Beyond. Koper: University of Primorska Press
P. 218
integr ated peasant economy in a compar ative perspective

the entire karstic district with some exceptions in which it differs and pre-
sents specific traits.

Graph 9.4: Births in the chaplaincy of Bazovica 1645–1800 (absolute values and 5-year
mobile average)

The period from the mid-17th to the end of the 18th century is analysed
by means of the birth statistics, which are displayed in Graph 9.4. The esti-
mation of the population by adopting the birth coefficient is not appropri-
ate in this case, because it generates excessive fluctuations. The movements
of birth events can be nevertheless considered as a good indicator of the
growth’s tendency. In the second half of the 17th century and in the first two
decades of the 18th century three waves of rising and falling of the births
are observed, which undoubtedly correspond to an oscillation of the pop-
ulation number. At the end of this period, however, the population num-
ber seems not to have been significantly more than at the beginning, this is
about 300 or something more. Then the population considerably increased
in the 1740s and 1750s. Adopting the ratio between births and the popula-
tion number occurring in correspondence with the conscription of 1777–78
its number can be estimated at about 530. The 1760s again were a period of
depression coinciding with the crisis affecting the city. A new phase of in-
crease followed in the 1770s and continued until 1810.

Until 1800 Bazovica also witnessed some years of negative natural bal-
ance, this is in the years of smallpox epidemics 1789 and 1797. However, na-
tality was much higher than mortality in the long period and the annual

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