Agricultural History Review, Volume 54 Part 1 (2006), p. 178

The title of this book evokes not only the fruitful relationship that has long existed between rural historians and rural geographers in France, but also the specific circumstances of the pôle rural that Jean-Marc Moriceau co-directs with geographer Philippe Madeline at the Maison de la récherche en sciences humaines at the Université de Caen. Such centres for the social sciences have been established in recent years in each of the French regions and now provide enviable support for research in history, geography, anthropology, sociology and related disciplines. They have also revitalized publication of monographs, edited collections and periodicals by university presses throughout France. As well as holding a chair of modern history, Moriceau edits the periodical Histoire et sociétés rurales that has published a suite of important articles since 1994 whose spatial reach extends far beyond France. In addition, he has been instrumental in republishing a number of ‘classics’ in rural history and ensuring that innovative thematic volumes also reach their audience.

Against the background of a major doctoral thesis (Les fermiers de l’Île-de-France, 1994) and a range of other volumes, including Terres mouvantes: les campagnes fraçaises du féodalisme à la mondialisation published in 2002, Jean-Marc Moriceau presents his Histoire et géo graphie de l’élevage. In fact, this is a repackaged and much expanded version of L’élevage sous l’ancien régime (1999). He has retained essentially the same structure and chapter headings but the present book has been enriched by the addition of many new examples and references and a suite of most attractive maps drawn by Maguy Desgardin. Moriceau is most certainly aware of the importance of space and social structure – at a variety of scales – as well as of time in his work. The end result is 478 pages of text, compared with 256 pages in 1999.

Fifteen chapters of unequal length trace how livestock economies have functioned across a wide span of time, stopping short of the dramatic changes that accompanied the railway age. The quantity of enquêtes and other sources of documentation from the later decades of the ancien régime means that discussion of eighteenth-century conditions is privileged over examination of earlier periods. France is, and always has been, an expression of diversity, and thus Moriceau begins by sketching out the geographies of cattle rearing, pig raising, and horse rearing in the 1790s, with his unavoidably incomplete maps for 1794 being complemented by nationwide coverage for 1852 (reproduced from Michel Demonet, Tableau de l’agriculture française, 1990). Source of fertilizer, food and so many other products, livestock farming was also a fragile affair subject to the vagaries of weather, floods, droughts, frost and other natural hazards, as well as to animal diseases and attacks from wolves and other wild beasts. Cattle rearing takes pride of place in the discussion, with some excellent maps of agricultural systems and of supply areas of livestock to Paris and Lyons (however, these are even more impressive in their colour versions in Terres mouvantes). Sheep, goats and pigs have a chapter of their own, and this is followed by a short but intriguing chapter that covers rabbits, pigeons, poultry, freshwater fisheries and bees. Such sources of foodstuff were undoubtedly important for both urban and local consumption but scarcity of documentation has meant that they have often been overlooked.

Dairy farming and the functioning of internal systems of trade for butter, cheese and milk are examined at length, before Moriceau offers a critique of traditional, and spatially variable, sources of fodder (stubble, heaths and moors, marshes, natural pastures, leaves from deciduous trees) and then turns to the ‘revolutionary’ impact of fodder crops introduced to some pays during the eighteenth century and the couchage en herbe of areas that could supply dynamic urban markets and thereby escape from the centuries-old exigency of polyculture. Such changes were not simply outworkings of the discipline of distance and evolving communications. As Moriceau has shown compellingly in his earlier work, they reflected the changing perception of specific landowners and occasionally of whole communities. New opportunities could lead to overexploitation of fragile fodder resources, as growing population numbers or human greed outran ‘natural potential’ in the context of available knowledge and technologies. Transhumance offered a way of managing differing seasonal availability of fodder resources and was surprisingly widespread. A long and detailed chapter relates not only to the Alps, Pyrenees and Massif Central but also to parts of northern France. Hence the excellent work of Mlle Thérèse Sclafert on estivage and hivernage of sheep in Haute- Provence is complemented by intriguing maps showing the seasonal movement of herds of pigs in seventeenth-century Burgundy and in the Île-de-France. But transhumance was open to abuse when excessively large numbers of animals were involved or were not controlled effectively as they moved along drove roads (drailles). Agricultural environments were, indeed, con-tested spaces with individual livestock farmers having dramatically different appreciations of rural resources from those espoused by peasant communities. In the final chapters of Histoire et géographie, Moriceau brings society to the foreground of discussion to complement the enduring, but constantly reappraised, presence of space.

With the inclusion of boxed extracts from documents, numerous tables, reproductions of drawings of livestock (for example, from the Nouvelle maison rustique), and excellent maps, Professor Moriceau’s latest book is a most welcome addition to the literature on the agricultural history of France. As a geographer, I am particularly impressed by the quality of the maps. Most are highly effective, even in black and white, but it is a pity that J-R. Pitte’s map (p. 205) presenting the spatial logic of cheese production was not redrawn. The bibliography of some five hundred items is an invaluable source for further studies, covering not only classic regional monographs by historians and geographers but many articles that have appeared in recent years (however François Sigault’s 1975 article on agricultural systems before the railway age is not listed). At 29 Euros, Histoire et géographie de l’élevage français is excellent value. Professor Moriceau’s next book, mentioned on page 78, will be Le loup et l’homme depuis le moyen âge.