Living standards in south Swedish towns, c. 1570-1865

This paper analyses the evolution of material living standards in three Swedish, before 1658 Danish, towns (Malmö, Ystad and Falkenberg) of varying size from the late 1500s to the advent of industrialization in the 1860s. We use population registers and church books, but above all a new dataset of 1381 probate inventories for the time periods 1570–1599, 1670–1720, the 1780s, and the 1860s. Based on the probate inventories, we document the prevalence of an array of goods crucial for one’s material living standards and degree of affluence: gold and silver, porcelain and items related to tea and coffee, books, and furniture. The results give a relatively optimistic view of the material living standard in these small towns. The frequency with which households held goods such as porcelain, tea and coffee was markedly lower than the Low Countries, one of Europe’s leading economic regions, but comparable to Venice and English smaller towns. The development over time was, except for the first hundred years of Swedish rule when Malmö citizens’ wealth declined, positive. The results support a view of Swedish towns as small but well-connected to the European economy.