Abstract

The Persistence of Peasant Outrage.

Conflicts over Forest Use, Poaching and Fraternity Revolts in the Zillertal from the 16th to the End of the 18th Century

When I tried to follow the traces of Salzburg poachers in the 18th century more than twenty years ago, I was not aware of how deeply rooted their social protest was in earlier, less spectacular but much more widespread forest conflicts between peasants and the archepiscopal state. Of course, these were different conflicts fought by different opponents, but they aimed at the same goal: to resist increasing restrictions from a bureaucratic state whose existence brought the peasants no benefits. The inhabitants of this extreme mountain region wanted to remain autonomous in their traditional economical and social practices and resisted the introduction of a forest economy by a state that was unable and unwilling to support and compromise with them. Thus, the remote forests, whose economic use was in many ways legally unclear, became the centre of social conflict. The article reconstructs two protest traditions – that of illegal forest use and that of poaching – in a micro-historical analysis of the situation in the Zillertal. It argues that the intermingling of these traditions ultimately created an Alpine protest culture in the minds and memories of the peasantry that was stable and persistent enough to undermine the episcopal state during the Napoleonic wars.