The building industries of eastern brittany, 1600-1790

The aim of the thesis is to examine the organisation and development of the building industries of eastern Brittany during the last two centuries of the ancien regime. A large part of the work is concerned with the identification of the structure of the industry in both town and countryside on both `high status' and vernacular sites. The component parts of this heterogeneous industry are examined in detail, from contractors to individual artisans, as are their working relationships with each other and with their employers. Attention is also given to the peripheral trades involved in construction, notably those producing raw materials, in terms of their geographical location and the varieties of exchange mechanisms used to provision building sites and thus link the two activities together. Once the component parts of the industry and its subsidiaries have been identified, their development over time has been examined. Of particular interest is the question of structural change caused by the emergence of entrepreneurial capitalism in both construction and the exchange of raw materials. Other factors of structural change such as changing costs of wages and prices and increased demand for construction will also be examined and their relative importance assessed. Several themes of social history have also been examined, to illustrate how the documentary evidence for building can be used to identify wider social themes. Thus, topics such as the working conditions of 18th century artisans, the role of women in the arts mecaniques and the geographical origin and movement of building artisans have been examined in some detail. Finally, the study of the building industry allows us to make observations about the nature of the wider pre-industrial Breton economy, principally in terms of the extent of regional compartmentalisation and autarky. A study of construction not only illustrates the economic fragmentation of ancien regime Brittany but shows how rural industries helped to maintain this by providing employment locally and reducing the need for population movements to the larger towns in search of work.