Reasons are given for doubting the currently fashionable thesis that economic growth and industrialisation in the case of England derived from establishing secure property rights after 1688. Customary and public rights remained at risk. Ancient arrangements often persisted far into Victorian times. Detailed evidence is presented of survivals and of illiquid features in the land market. Evidence is also given of endemic disputes over enclosure and tithes. Unlike some European countries, England failed to establish a land registry. Limited transactions probably reflected unwillingness to risk litigation. That unsatisfactory property rights did not, however, stifle growth is tribute to the underlying power of the market.

This study examines the policies applied to French immigrants in Aragon between 1635 and 1697, a period of economic decline and constant conflict between Spain and France. The commercial and tax measures imposed by the Spanish monarchy on French immigrants to support the war effort were opposed and constrained by Aragonese institutions, such as the Diputación or the Corte del Justicia de Aragón. After a period of debate the Aragonese Parliament developed an autonomous policy towards the end of the seventeenth century. In the interests of the Aragonese economy and elites, restrictions on migrants were lowered and revised, until they focused mainly on merchants. This legislation allowed immigrant flows to continue, but it could not counteract the decline of economic opportunities for the French in Aragon.

Large, concentrated settlements known as ‘agro-towns’ abound across Southern Italy and other parts of the Mediterranean. The prevalence and persistence of these settlements are very curious but not yet well understood. Initially, scholars interpreted their development as stemming from Southern Italy's economic and social ‘backwardness’ and inequality. This view has now been challenged by scholarship which emphasises that the pre-industrial Mezzogiorno supported not only a dynamic economy but also a diverse array of institutional structures. By recourse to a comparative study within Apulia, this paper suggests that both interpretations are equally correct. ‘Agro-towns’ in Southern Italy were linked to the inequitable distribution of land, perpetuated over the long term, but the institutional origins of this inequality were both diverse and dynamic.

This article examines the nature of pauperism in the south and east of England during the time of the Old Poor Law by using census material from five predominately rural parishes in Oxfordshire between 1786 and 1832. The proportion of people receiving poor relief was calculated for each parish, together with the types of people receiving such relief. While pauperism was significant in some parishes, others had relatively low levels of people receiving relief, and groups of poor hit by traditional life-cycle poverty were still common. Previous notions of widespread pauperism in the south and east during this period may thus need to be revised, with greater acknowledgement of the influence of local factors.

This article makes use of autobiographies and oral interviews in order to explore the lifestyles of the first generation of immigrants within one particular provincial Jewish community – the Gorbals in Glasgow – between 1890 and 1945. The experience of this generation of immigrants was characterised by diversity to an extent that was not true of the second generation. Thus, the community cannot be described in terms of either ‘assimilation’ or ‘separation’. Instead, an alternative description has been coined: ‘variegated acculturation’ in order to encompass the complexity of the lives of the immigrants.