Summary Studies dealing with inequality in European societies have multiplied in recent years. It has now become clear that pressing questions about the historical trends showing both income and wealth inequality as well as the factors leading to an increase or drop of inequality over time, could be answered only by taking into account preindustrial times. Therefore, this book deals with inequality in the long-run, covering and comparing a very long time span, starting its investigations in the later middle ages and ending before the nineteenth century, the period that marks the beginning of most available studies. Hitherto, urban distribution of income and wealth is much better known than rural inequality. This book intends to reduce this gap in knowledge, bringing rural inequality to the fore of research. Since at least until the nineteenth century the majority of people were country men, looking at the rural areas is crucial when trying to identify the underlying causes of inequality trends in the long run of history.? The book consists of nine original papers and deals with a variety of topics about inequality covering no less than eight different countries in Europe. The majority of the studies published in this book are the result of teamwork between European universities where a range of research centres are currently exploring different aspects of income and wealth inequality in preindustrial times. TABLE OF CONTENTS List of contributors List of figures List of tables 1. Economic inequality in rural Europe: an introduction Guido ALFANI and Erik THOEN 2. Inequality in Spain during the Early Modern Period, 1500-1800. Notes and results Esteban NICOLINI and Fernando RAMOS-PALENCIA 3. Land ownership and social inequality: the Algarve example in the 60s and 70s of the eighteenth century Andreia FIDALGO 4. Inequality, growth and taxation in the countryside of the Republic of Venice, c. 1450-1750 Matteo DI TULLIO and Guido ALFANI 5. Socio-economic inequalities in fifteenth-century Tuscany: the role of the mezzadria system Davide CRISTOFERI 6. Property rights and rural inequality in the sixteenth-century ottoman empire Pinar CEYLAN 7. 'All equal in the presence of death?' Epidemics and redistribution in the pre-industrial period Daniel CURTIS 8. A regional comparison of social inequality & economic development in 16th century Flanders Wouter RYCKBOSCH 9. Economic Inequality in Late Medieval and Early Modern Rural Hainaut (c. 1450-c.1540) Thijs LAMBRECHT