Life Death And Migration In Early Modern City – Jan De Vries (1)

Did these rejected marriage applications prevent or only delay and displace marriage (and increase illegitimate births)? Formal political controls on marriage appear not to have existed in the city of Würzburg in 1696–1711 and, even after the 1732 prohibition on pauper marriages throughout the Hochstift, the question remains whether it had much effect in the city. While the Sharlin Thesis, with its focus on migrants’ access to marriage, speaks directly to the social life of larger cities, the two-tiered demographic regime, which was focused on political surveillance and the husbanding of a community’s limited economic resources, appears most applicable to small communities, including Mack Walker’s “hometowns” and Sheilagh Ogilvie’s highly regulated Schwabian small towns and villages.

From what we have learned thus far, marriage in Würzburg as elsewhere in Germany was an object of acute public and official concern, but marriages involving migrants were common, indeed, predominant in a community whose native-born single people were highly prone to out-migration. Living Arrangements of the Recently Married The European Marriage Pattern to which Würzburg conformed has at its center the nuclear family, a conjugal family unit that forms a new house- hold at marriage. Newlyweds do not live with their parents or with their siblings; they form a household of their own.

The French historical demographer Jacques Dupâquier summarized the unwritten rules as follows: “One married couple to each home, no marriage without a home, no babies outside of marriage.”15 We have already established that extended families were uncommon in Würzburg. Only 9 percent of households included relatives beyond the conjugal unit, primarily females – the mothers and/or sisters of the head or his wife.

Resources are required to establish an independent house- hold, which is one reason the marriage age was relatively high in regions that adhered to the European Marriage Pattern.

Life, Death, and Migration in the Early Modern City In this rich study of early modern Würzburg, Jan de Vries reconstructs the demographic life of a preindustrial city. Utilizing modern demo- graphic techniques, he analyzes data about thousands of families between 1696 and 1711 and examines every stage of the life course from infancy, leaving home, marriage, and fertility, to widowhood, remarriage, and mortality.

Close study of a single German city allows for special attention to be paid to differences of social class and migrant status, and de Vries emphasizes the critical role of migrants to the make- up of the urban community. This new interpretation allows for the Sharlin theory and other questions concerning marriage choice, fertility control, and mortality risks to be tested. At every stage, de Vries com- pares the findings for Würzburg to those of other cities in Germany and Europe, developing existing generalizations, and contributing to a better understanding of urban historical demography.

Jan de Vries is Emeritus Professor of History and Economics at the University of California at Berkeley. He is the author of The Industrious Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 2008), The First Modern Economy (with Ad van der Woude, Cambridge University Press, 1997), and European Urbanization, 1500–1800 (Methuen, 1984). Life, Death, and Migration in the Early Modern City The Urban Historical Demography of Würzburg Jan de Vries University of California, Berkeley Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8EA, United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10006, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia 314–321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi – 110025, India 103 Penang Road, #05–06/07, Visioncrest Commercial, Singapore 238467 Cambridge University Press is part of Cambridge University Press & Assessment, a department of the University of Cambridge.

We share the University’s mission to contribute to society through the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781009641517 DOI: 10.1017/9781009641470 © Jan de Vries 2026 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press & Assessment.

When citing this work, please include a reference to the DOI 10.1017/9781009641470 First published 2026 Cover image: Matthäus Merian, Panorama of Würzburg with castle Marienberg, in Cornelis Danckerts, “Historis,” 1642. Image courtesy of Peace Palace Library. A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library A Cataloging-in-Publication data record for this book is available from the Library of Congress ISBN 978-1-009-64151-7 Hardback Cambridge University Press & Assessment has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: f1590fa1ec12d7fa
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 6,457,172 bytes (6.158 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• ISBN: 9781009641517, 9781009641470
• Pages: 305
• Language: English (en)

Reading & Word Statistics

• Estimated Reading Time: 519.51 minutes
• Total Words: 103,902
• Total Characters: 635,386
• Average Words per Page: 340.66
• Average Characters per Page: 2083.23

Most Frequent Words

age (768), population (550), würzburg (515), census (489), marriage (433), percent (394), city (380), total (335), urban (330), fertility (303), table (279), birth (275), children (270), women (261), family (259), mortality (256), years (246), social (240), migrants (222), married (222), first (211), one (205), household (196), life (195), class (188), number (187), status (183), city’s (179), death (173), many (171), marriages (170), ages (167), born (165), births (164), period (159), cities (158), between (157), also (157), parish (156), households (153), records (151), data (150), early (148), demographic (148), families (146), study (145), migrant (145), single (138), deaths (138), rate (136), infant (132), time (132), würzburg’s (130), migration (125), modern (122), large (122), men (121), female (121), servants (118), intervals (116), months (115), per (115), native (111), figure (111), among (110), male (109), two (108), found (107), european (106), marital (106), average (104), within (104), rural (103), university (102), resident (98), history (95), press (94), couples (94), high (91), recorded (91), much (91), young (91), higher (90), rates (89), nearly (89), baptism (88), german (87), der (87), remarriage (86), widows (86), cambridge (85), century (85), persons (84), since (83), und (83), pattern (82), likely (82), even (81), behavior (79), year (79).

PDF Download