nternal Peripheries as Research Approach.

The Emsland from the Middle Ages until Industrialisation

Abstract

The article aims to show connections between capitals and provinces in a more precise fashion than traditional regional history has done. It starts with an overview of methods in the “internal peripheries” approach. The Emsland, a region in Northwest Germany with heathlands and poor soils, serves as a case study. Until 1803 it was part of the Prince-Bishopric of Münster. The number of “Heuerlinge”, a social group below the peasantry, increased from the 15th to the 18th century, which contri-buted to an overexploitation of natural resources by turning woodlands into heathlands. Economically the Emsland developed into a reservoir of cheap seasonal labour for the Netherlands, while politically the new border cut re-lations and the prince-bishop enforced Catholicism. During the short period when the Emsland was part of France labour costs and taxes rose. It was not before nineteenth-century industrialisation in Germany that these conditions changed.