Loyal Servants of Seasons: Enduring Early Modern Patterns of Labor Mobility and Political and Environmental Flux

Impermanent labor—limited by contract or by season, and employed in projects of varying scale, over distances small and large—offers a new perspective on the loyalties, compromises and risks that characterized the early modern labor market and continue to resonate today. The nature of these laborers’ work—the mobility embedded within it and its fixed time frame—sheds light on the ties that bound people to shifting political landscapes and the natural world. These workers’ patterns of life and labor also posed unique challenges to governing bodies that sought both to limit their influence and protect their welfare.