Raffaella Sarti, Domestic Service as a “Bridging Occupation”. Past and Present, Servant Project, Essex Seminar, May 2002 1
Please quote this text in this way:
Raffaella Sarti, “Domestic Service as a ‘Bridging Occupation’. Past and Present”, in Suzy
Pasleau and Isabelle Schopp (eds), with Raffaella Sarti, Proceedings of the Servant Project, Liège,
Éditions de l’Université de Liège, 2005 (but 2006), 5 vols., vol. IV, pp. 163-185.
Domestic Service as a “Bridging Occupation”
Past and Present*
SARTI, Raffaella
University of Urbino – Italy & Centre de Recherches Historiques, École des Hautes Études en Sciences
Sociales/CNRS, Paris – France
I need you
On November 22, 2001 a surprising sit-in took place in Rome in front of the Chamber of
Deputies. Several thousand elderly people protested vigorously. Their slogan was: “Do not prevent
migrant workers from helping us to live!” In the following months, analogous demonstrations took
place in many other Italian cities. Many of these old ladies and gentlemen were accompanied even
during the sit-ins by their carers, who were mainly migrants from East-European countries1
or countries
outside Europe. At that time Parliament was discussing a very restrictive proposed law on immigration
(Italy had, and still has a right-wing government which strongly emphasised the fight against
clandestine immigration in its electoral programme. This emphasis was an important reason for the
victory of the right). Among other things, the proposed law excluded the possibility of regularising the
position of irregular migrants who were working in Italy2
.
According to a survey carried out in 2000-2001 of 5,398 people aged 65 or over living in
seven different large and medium-sized Italian cities, 13.3 percent were helped by a migrant carer. The
percentage was much higher among the “oldest-of-all” (80+): almost a quarter of them were cared for
by a foreign worker (24.1 percent). The survey also showed that 61.9 percent of the migrant carers had
no regular residence permit3
. Considering that employing irregular migrants was an offence punishable
by 3-12 months’ imprisonment4
, one can easily understand how serious the problem of caring for the
elderly is (Italy is an intensely and rapidly ageing country. The ageing index, which was 38.9 in 1961,
1
“Anziani in piazza per gli immigrati”, Corriere della sera, 23 November 2001; “Gli anziani a Montecitorio:
‘Gli stranieri ci aiutano’”, La Repubblica, 23 November 2001. The demonstrations were organised
by the association “Viva gli anziani” (“Long Live the Elderly”), which is part of the Catholic
Community of Sant’Egidio. But the reasons for criticising the proposed law went beyond the solidarity
values shared by the members of the Community, see www.santegidio.org.
2
See for example “Immigrazione, il testo del governo. Espulsioni facili, niente sanatoria” in La Repubblica,
14 September 2001 and the comments by the demographer Antonio Golini in the newspaper Il
Messaggero, 7 September 2001.
3
www.santegidio.org. In large cities the recourse to paid services is probably higher than the national
average.
4
EURISPES, Il lavoro domestico in Italia. Regolare e sommerso, Rome, Eurispes,, without date, but
2002, p. 31.
Raffaella Sarti, Domestic Service as a “Bridging Occupation”. Past and Present, Servant Project, Essex Seminar, May 2002 2
reached 127.1 in 20015
. As a consequence of this change, Italy has the highest percentage of old people
in the world among states with more than 10 million inhabitants (24.5 percent above age 60)6
.
This is one of the reasons why Parliament in the end approved a law which allowed the regularisation
of domestic workers already working in Italy. Around 350,000 were “regularised”7
.
There is no doubt, however, that some of the carers did not qualify for regularisation, for example
the badanti. These carers from Eastern Europe enter Italy on a tourist visa and only stay for
three months before leaving and passing their employment onto a relative or a friend thanks to well
organised chains. In this way they are likely to enter Italy several times to work in the “black” econ-
omy8
). There must also have been, however, regularisations of “false” domestic workers9
.
Foreign domestics today
As far as migration is concerned, it is only in the last 30 years, that Italy has turned from a
country of emigration into one of immigration. Domestic service is one of the sectors where the presence
of migrants is higher than average. Domestic service is the most common occupation for female
migrants10
.
Fig. 1
Percentage of immigtants among regular servants
(Italy 1972-2001)
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
1972-
1982
1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001
Immigrants
Source: Inps databank (www.inps.it). The data for the period 1972-1982 refers to the total of enrolments into the INPS.
5
ISTAT, L’Italia in cifre 2001, Rome, Istat, 2001, p. 4; ISTAT, Annuario statistico italiano 2002, Rome,
Istat,, 2002, p. 32. The ageing index is the number of people 65 years old or over per hundred people
under age 15.
6
WORLD HEALTH ORGANISATION (WHO), Active ageing. A Policy Framework, Geneva, WHO,
2002, p. 8, table 1. People age 65 or more in 2000 were 18 percent, see ISTAT, Annuario statistico italiano
2002, p. 37, table 2.1.
7
www.interno.it/news/pages/2003/200302/news_000017382.htm.
8
GUBBINI C., “Nel triangolo delle badanti”, Il Manifesto, 9 November 2002.
9
BARBAGLI M., COLOMBO A., SCIORTINO G., I sommersi e i sanati. Le regolarizzazioni degli
immigrati in Italia, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2004.
10
ALEMANI C., FASOLI M. G. (eds), Donne in frontiera. Le colf nella transizione, Milano, Cens, 1994,
p. 64; REYNERI E., Sociologia del mercato del lavoro, Bologna, Il Mulino 1996, p. 315; ZANFRINI
L., La ricerca sull’immigrazione in Italia. Gli sviluppi più recenti, in FONDAZIONE CARIPLO PER
LE INIZIATIVE E LO STUDIO SULLA MULTIETNICITÀ, Quaderni, 1 1997; ISTAT, La presenza
straniera in Italia negli anni ’90, Informazioni n. 61, Roma, Istat, 1998, pp. 71-87 (74-86).
Raffaella Sarti, Domestic Service as a “Bridging Occupation”. Past and Present, Servant Project, Essex Seminar, May 2002 3
Fig. 1 only takes into account regular domestic workers, who represent a small percentage of
those employed in domestic service. However, it clearly shows a shocking increase in the percentage
of migrants among domestics. In fact, it jumped from 16.5 percent in 1991 to 53.25 percent in 2000.
Today, after the amnesty for foreign domestic workers it is about 80 percent11
.
According to a recent survey, in Italy paid domestic workers probably totalled 953,900 in
1992 and presumably reached 1,049,500 in 2000, or even more. The figures for the increasing number
of domestic workers in Italy were partially conjectural, since they included irregular workers, who
were estimated to represent 74.5 percent of the total in 1992 and 77 percent in 2000. Today, irregular
domestic workers possibly represent 40-50 percent.
Table 1 - Regular and irregular domestic workers
1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000
Domestic servants 953,9 954,8 950,7 959,1 1,050,2 1,042,2 1,048,0 1.043,8 1,049,5
Irregular domestic servants 710,3 723,9 711,8 713,2 802,7 801,4 799,1 797,9 807,9
Percentage of irregular domestic workers 74,5 75,8 74,9 74,4 76,4 76,9 76,3 76,4 77,0
Source: Istat, L’occupazione non regolare nelle stime di contabilità nazionale secondo il Sec95. Anni 1992-1999, dati
analitici maggio 2001, Table 1.3 and 1.4.
Table 2 - Place of origin of regular migrant domestic workers (Italy, 1991, 2000)
Area 1991 2000
Africa: Central and South Africa 16.0 8.8
Africa: North Africa 8.5 7.0
America: Central America 3.5 3.9
America: North America 1.2 1. 3
America: South America 5.5 15.4
Asia: Middle East 0.3 0.2
Asia: Far East: Philippines 44.3 30.8
Asia: Other 10.9 11.0
Europe: Eastern Europe 4.5 19.3
Europe: Western Europe 5.3 2.2
Australasia 0.0 0.0
Total 100.0 99.9
Source: Inps databank
If we consider current demographic and socio-economic trends, in particular ageing of population
and increasing female employment, as well as policies aiming at expanding the proxiity services
sector, we can expect a further increase in the recourse to paid domestic work, particularly as Italy
only has quite a limited welfare in this area. However, countries with more developed welfare are also
currently experiencing a “resurgence in waged domestic labour”,12
a “Rückkehr der Dienstmädchen”13
,
a “retour de la domesticité”14
, even though, according to certain scholars, this phenomenon has been
over emphasized15
.
11
Il mondo della collaborazione domestica: i dati del cambiamento. INPS – Monitoraggio dei flussi migratori
in collaborazione con il “Dossier Statistico Immigrazione Caritas/Migrantes”, unpublished document,
2004.
12
GREGSON N. and LOWE M., Servicing the Middle Classes. Class, gender and waged domestic labour
in contemporary Britain, London and New York, Routledge, 1994, p. 4.
13
ODIERNA S., Die heimliche Rückkehr der Dienstmädchen. Bezahlte Arbeit im privaten Haushalt,
Opladen, Leske und Budrich, 2000. Se also LUTZ H., Ethnizität. Profession. Geschlecht. Die neue
Dienstmädchenfrage als Herausforderung für die Migrations- und Frauenforschung. 2. vollständig überarbeitete
Auflage, available on http://www.uni-muenster.de/InterkulturPaedagogik/Publika-
tion/iks_querformat/IKS_Querpdf/IKSLutz.pdf.
14
SARTI R., “La domesticité durant la période du fascisme (1922-1943)”, Sextant, 15-16 (2001), pp. 165-
202 (p. 199). See also SARTI R., “‘Noi abbiamo visto tante città, abbiamo un’altra cultura’. Servizio
domestico, migrazioni e identità di genere in Italia : uno sguardo di lungo periodo”, Polis, XVIII, 2004,
Raffaella Sarti, Domestic Service as a “Bridging Occupation”. Past and Present, Servant Project, Essex Seminar, May 2002 4
Foreign domestics in the past
The presence of many foreign people is not a peculiar feature of recent times. As I showed in
the paper I presented in Barcelona, in Mediterranean Europe there were foreign slaves both in medieval
times and early modern times. Slaves disappeared as late as the 19th
century16
.
In medieval times slaves arrived mainly from the area around the Black Sea, where Genoa had
some important colonies. In early modern times they were blacks from Africa and Muslims captured
during the wars and battles between Muslims and Christians.
Traditionally, slaves were often captured enemies. This is probably one of the reasons for the
ancient Latin proverb quot servi tot hostes which was still quoted many centuries later (in the 14th
century Petrarch, spoke, for example, of domestici hostes, i.e. domestic enemies )17
. However, as explained
by Maria Casalini, the definition of servants as domestic enemies was still in use as late as in
the 19th
century18
.
However, as an 18th
century Bolognese law states, masters should fear domestics not because
of their foreign origin, but because of their bad luck: they were born poor and so they were forced to
work for a wealthier master, whom therefore they might hate19
. Indeed, in early modern times foreign
slaves only represented a small share of domestics, as I showed in the seminar we held in Barcelona20
.
1, pp. 17-46 and SARTI R., “Domestic Service and European Identity”, i.e. the Conclusion of these
Proceedings (see vol. V).
15
COLOMBO A., “Struttura e Cambiamenti del lavoro domestico salariato in Italia (1970-2003)”, forthcoming
in Polis, XIX, 2005, no. 3 (I am grateful to the author for allowing me to read this still unpublished
paper).
16
See for example BONO S., Schiavi musulmani nell’Italia moderna. Galotti, vu’ cumprà, domestici,
Napoli, Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1999. See also MARTÍN CASARES A., La esclavitud en la Granada
del Siglo XVI, Granada, Universidad de Granada, Diputación Provincial de Granada, 2000;
MARTÍN CASARES A., “Domestic Service in Spain. Legislation, Gender and Social Practice”, in
FAUVE-CHAMOUX A. (ed.), Domestic Service and the Formation of European Identity. Understanding
the Globalization of Domestic Work, 16th
-21st
Centuries, Bern - Berlin etc., Peter Lang, 2004 (but
2005), pp. 189-209; MARTÍN CASARES A., “Domestic Service in Medieval and Early Modern Spain:
Legislation and Social Practice” in this Proceedings, vol. 3; SARTI R., “Viaggiatrici per forza. Schiave
‘turche’ in Italia in età moderna”, in SOCIETÀ ITALIANA DELLE STORICHE, Altrove. Viaggi di
donne dall’antichità al Novecento, edited by CORSI D., Roma, Viella, 1999, pp. 241-296; SARTI R.,
“Esclavitud y religión en la Italia de la Edad Moderna”, in Arenal, 7, 2000, special isue on slavery ed.
by Aurelia Martín Casares, pp. 63-122 (unfortunately the proofs of this paper were not sent to me; so I
couldn’t correct them and there are some errors in them. I am very grateful to Aurelia Martín Casares
for translating it); SARTI R., Bolognesi schiavi dei ‘Turchi’ e schiavi ‘turchi’ a Bologna tra Cinque e
Settecento: alterità etnico-religiosa e riduzione in schiavitù, in “Quaderni storici”, n. 107, agosto 2001,
pp. 437-473; SARTI R., “Freedom and Citizenship? The Legal Status of Servants and Domestic Workers
in a Comparative Perspective (16th
-21st
Centuries)”, in these Proceedings, vol. III, all with further
references.
17
ORIGO I., “The Domestic Enemy: The Eastern Slaves in Tuscany in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries”,
Speculum, 30, 1955, pp. 321-366. This definition has been used also by FAIRCHILDS C., Domestic
Enemies. Servants and Their Masters in Old Regime France, Baltimore and London, The Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1984.
18
CASALINI M., “Un univers en mutation. La domesticité à Florence au XIXe
siècle”, in this volume.
19
Bando generale della Legazione di Bologna e suo contado fatto pubblicare li 12. Ottobre 1756
dall’Eminentiss., e Reverendiss. Sig. Cardinale Fabrizio Serbelloni Legato a Latere di detta Città. Bologna,
Saffi per la Stamperia Camerale, 1756, p. 89.
20
SARTI R., “Freedom and Citizenship?”.
Raffaella Sarti, Domestic Service as a “Bridging Occupation”. Past and Present, Servant Project, Essex Seminar, May 2002 5
Table 3 - Percentage of migrant servants in several European cities, 16th
-20th
centuries
City Time period Women Men Women
and Men
England
London 1660-1750 74 84
1851 761
France
Lyon 1597 86
Toulouse 1727-1729 96 92
1787-1789 94 96
Bordeaux 1727-1729 93 94
1787-1789 97 97
Paris 1787-1789 91 98
Versailles 1820 85
1872 94 96
Reims 1802 86 -
Germany
Schwäbisch
Hall
1635-90 69
Bremen 1862 73
Hamburg 1871 79
Berlin 1885 92 89
1890 93
1895 85
Austria
Wiener Neu-
stadt
1869 76
1880 78
Italy
Udine 183-34 33
Bologna 1796 26 34 30
1857 43 67 69
1899 93 79 90
Firenze 1810 60
1866 94 71
Perugia 1853-54 53 65 56
Spain
Monforte 1860-1898 79
1915-1920 59
Lugo 1860-1898 53
1915 78
Ourense 1899 87
1915 86
Santiago 1860 59
1924 76
A Coruña 1915-1920 82
Muros 1860-1898 21
1915-1920 24
Sources: MELDRUM T., Domestic Service and Gender 1660-1750: Life and Work in the London Household, Harlow, Pearson
Education Limited, 2000, p. 18 (London 1660-1750); WALL R., “The Social and Economic Significance of Servant
Migration”, in these Proceedings, vol. III, and in FAUVE-CHAMOUX A. (ed.), Domestic Service and the Formation of
European Identity. Understanding the Globalization of Domestic Work, 16th
-21st
Centuries, Bern - Berlin etc., Peter Lang,
2004 (but 2005), pp. 19-42 (p. 30, London 1851); ZELLER O. Les recensements Lyonnais de 1597 et 1636. Démographie
historique et géographie sociale, Lyon, Presses universitaires de Lyon, 1983, p. 199 (Lyon); FAIRCHILDS C., Domestic
Enemies. Servants and Their Masters in Old Regime France, Baltimore and London, The Johns Hopkins University Press,
1984, p. 62 (Toulouse, Bordeaux, Paris); MCBRIDE Th., The Domestic Revolution. The Modernisation of Household Service
in England and France 1820-1920, London, Croom Helm, 1976 (Versailles); FAUVE-CHAMOUX A., “Le surplus urbain
des femmes en France préindustrielle et le rôle de la domesticité”, Population, 1998, pp. 359-378 (p. 370, Reims); DÜRR R.,
Mägde in der Stadt. Das Beispiel Schwäbisch Hall in der Frühen Neuzeit, Frankfurt a. M. - New York, Campus, 1995, p. 186
(Schwäbisch Hall); LEE R., “Domestic service and female domestic servants: A port-city comparison of Bremen and Liverpool,
1850-1914”, The History of the Family, X, 2005, pp. 435-460 (p. 448, Bremen); MÜLLER H., Dienstbare Geister.
Leben und Arbeitswels städtischer Dienstboten, Berlin, Staatliche Museen Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Schriften des Museums
für Deutsche Volkskunde Berlin, 1985, p. 33 (Hamburg, Berlin 1885, 1890, 1895); WALSER K., Dienstmädchen. Frauenarbeit
und Weiblichkeitsbilden um 1900, Frankfurt a. M., Neue Kritik, 1986 (Frankfurt a. M., Extrabuch, 19851
), p. 135 (Berlin
1890); ORTH K., “‘Nur weiblicher Besuch’. Dienstbotinnen in Berlin, 1890-1914, Frankfurt a. M. – New York, Campus,
1993, p. 14 (Berlin 1895); HAHN S., “Nowhere at home? Female migrants in the nineteenth-century Habsburg Empire”, in
Raffaella Sarti, Domestic Service as a “Bridging Occupation”. Past and Present, Servant Project, Essex Seminar, May 2002 6
SHARPE P., (ed.), Women, Gender and Labour Migration, Historical and global perspective, London and New York, Rutledge,
2001, pp. 108-126 (p. 117, Wiener Neustadt, my calculation on data provided by the author); MARINO D., “Servi e
domestici in Udine austriaca”, Working Papers 10 – 94, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche, Università degli Studi di
Udine, 1994, pp. 8-10 (p. 13, Udine); GOZZINI G., Firenze francese. Famiglie e mestieri ai primi dell’Ottocento, Firenze,
Ponte alle Grazie, 1989, p. 164 (Firenze 1810); CASALINI M., Servitù, nobili e borghesi nella Firenze dell’Ottocento, Firenze,
Olschki, 1997, p. 187 (Firenze 1866); on Bologna see the sources of Table 5; DUBERT I., Del Campo a la Ciudad.
Migraciones, familia y espacio urbano en la historia de Galicia, 1708-1924, Santiago, Consorcio de Santiago, Nigra imaxe
s.l., 2002, p. 280 (Spanish cities).
Notes:
1
The data refers to the percentage of servants resident in certain districts of West London (Kensington, Fulham, Chelsea,
Mayfair, Belgrave, St Margaret and Berwick St.) who were born in Middlesex.
Yet free servants were also often migrants. In pre-industrial French cities, for example, the percentage
of migrants among domestics oscillated between 86 and 98 percent (see table 4). Although even in
early modern times there were also international migrant domestic workers, they generally had not
come from very far. Nevertheless, mainly because of their mobility, they were often considered dangerous
and had to be tightly controlled, particularly when they were unemployed and risked becoming
vagrants without a master to control them or, often, a roof over their heads21
.
In the 19th century domestic service represented the main route to the cities – i.e. to the “modern”
urban environment and culture – for millions of rural women, as shown, among others, by
McBride for Britain and France, Walser for Germany and, in a different perspective, by Arru for It-
aly22
.
Bridging occupation?
About forty years ago, in 1963, Broom and Smith included domestic service among the socalled
“bridging occupations”23
. In their original version, they attempted to define an occupation that
can be transformed into a channel for horizontal mobility. However, in later times some researchers –
developing some points already present in Broom and Smith’s paper – also interpreted domestic service
as a bridge to upper positions, i.e. as a channel for vertical mobility24
.
However, the idea that domestic service could be a way for bettering one’s social position is
not only the result of modern sociological and historical research. The stereotype of the so-called
laquais financier, for example, was quite common in Ancien Regime France25
. Moreover, at least
from the end of the 19th
century there are history books which devote some analysis to the career opportunities
for domestics26
.
Yet the idea that domestic service was a path to upward mobility has often been questioned, as
many researches have shown the risks of downward mobility often associated with domestic service.
21
Ibid.
22
MCBRIDE Th., The Domestic Revolution. The Modernisation of Household Service in England and
France 1820-1920, London, Croom Helm, 1976; WALSER K., Dienstmädchen: Frauenarbeit und
Weiblichkeitsbilder um 1900, Frankfurt, Extrabuch-Verl., 1985; ARRU A., Il servo, Bologna, Il Mulino,
1995. See also SARTI R., “‘Noi abbiamo visto tante città, abbiamo un’altra cultura’”, pp. 33-40.
23
BROOM L., SMITH J.H., “Bridging Occupations”, British Journal of Sociology, XIV, 1963, pp. 321-
334.
24
SARTI R., “Il servizio domestico: un canale di mobilità sociale? Il caso di Bologna (fine ‘700-inizio
‘900)”, in SOCIETÀ ITALIANA DI DEMOGRAFIA STORICA, Disuguaglianze: stratificazione e
mobilità sociale nelle popolazioni italiane (dal secolo XIV agli inizi del secolo XX). Relazioni e comunicazioni
presentate da autori italiani al II congré Hispano Luso Italià de Demografía Histórica, Savona,
18-21 novembre 1992, Bologna, Clueb, 1997, tomo I, pp. 145-167, with furher references.
25
DESSERT D., “Le ‘Laquais-financier’ au Grand Siècle: mythe ou réalité?”, XVIIe Siècle, 31, 1979, pp.
21-36.
26
BABEAU A., Les artisans et les domestiques d'autrefois, Paris, Librairie Firmin-Didot et Cie, 1886, pp.
249-255.
Raffaella Sarti, Domestic Service as a “Bridging Occupation”. Past and Present, Servant Project, Essex Seminar, May 2002 7
Several investigations, for example, showed the risks, of serving women giving birth to illegitimate
children and/or becoming prostitutes27
.
There has therefore been wide discussion about domestic service as a channel for vertical mo-
bility28
. On the other hand, as far as I can see, the idea that it was a channel for horizontal mobility, in
particular between the countryside and the cities, has not been questioned to the same extent. Even
though many historians underline an increasing ruralisation of domestic servants as far as their geographical
origin is concerned, the idea that domestic servants working in the cities were mainly of
rural origin has often been taken more or less for granted.
However, if we take a closer look at the available data about the origin of domestic servants
working in the past times in European cities, we discover that there were cases where a large proportion
of domestics, or even the majority of them, were born in cities, as shown by Isidro Dubert for
several Galician cities (table 3)29
. But let’s go back to the present.
The case of Bologna or the peculiarity of single case studies
Probably more than 10,000 migrant domestic workers are currently working in the province of
Bologna30
. Looking back, however, at the end of the 18th
century, we find a completely different situation.
In fact, at that time, 70 percent of servants working in Bologna were neither foreign nor migrants:
they were Bolognese. Only 1 percent came from outside Italy. Indeed this data is not really comparable
with that from 2000-2002, as it refers only to the city, while the data on the present refers to the
province. Yet the contrast is really amazing (table 5).
This result clearly contrasts with the idea that also in the past servants were mainly migrants,
though from the countryside rather than from (poor) foreign countries. In reality in Bologna, only during
the first half the 19th
century did the proportion of migrants, among servants, increase significantly,
probably because the population in the countryside was growing at a much higher rate than in towns.
Moreover, there where interesting differences both between female and male domestics and
between lower and upper servants. As far as gender differences go, women came from outside less
often than men, both in 1796 and 1857 (table 6). In Florence it was exactly the opposite (table 3).
As far as the differences between different kinds of servants go, it is interesting that upper servants
were of urban origin – they came from Bologna or also, in 1857, from other Italian cities – more
often than lower servants. Lower servants were more likely to come from the countryside. Among
male servants, in 1796 those of rural origin were particularly numerous among the personnel assigned
to horses and carriages, whose tasks were indeed probably closer to the tasks that men would perform
in rural families (tables 7-8).
In conclusion, this data also shows that making a career in domestic service was easier for urban
people. Even though during the 19th
century this occupation became, in Bologna too, a “bridge”
between the countryside and the city, it did not offer the same chances to urban and rural people. Integration
in urban networks or at least knowledge of the urban environment seemed important to get the
upper places in the professional hierarchy.
27
SARTI, “Il servizio domestico: un canale di mobilità sociale?”, with further references.
28
Ibid. As there were many different kinds of servants, it is quite difficult to generalise. In my own research,
focusing on intergenerational mobility, male children of Bolognese domestics seemed to be upwardly
mobile quite frequently (33 percent in 1870-1902). Available data is more limited for females,
but they don’t seem to be downwardly mobile.
29
DUBERT I., “Domestic Service and Social Modernization in Urban Galicia, 1752-1920”, Continuity
and Change, 14, 1999, pp. 207-226; DUBERT I., Del Campo a la Ciudad. Migraciones, familia y
espacio urbano en la historia de Galicia, 1708-1924, Santiago, Nigra imaxe s.l., Consorcio de Santiago,
Santiago, 2002, pp. 273-319.
30
The number of migrant domestic workers is increasing very quickly: among regular domestic workers
they were 60.8 percent in 2000, while five years earlier (1996) they were 50.9 percent.
Raffaella Sarti, Domestic Service as a “Bridging Occupation”. Past and Present, Servant Project, Essex Seminar, May 2002 8
Table 4 - Origin of domestic servants working in the province of Bologna in 2000-2002
Origin Total number percentage
Regular workers – Italian 2,090 39.2
Regular workers- Migrants 3,235 60.8
Total 5,325 100.0
Irregular migrants who asked for regularisation before the deadline (11 November 2002) 6,365
total of migrant domestic workers 9,600
Source: Inps data-bank.
Table 5 - Origin of domestic servants, Bologna, 1796-1857 ( percentage)
year Bologna rural
areas
other
Italian
cities
foreign
places
tot. percent N.
1796 70 21 8 1 100 699
1857 31 59 9 1 100 460
1899 10 77 13 - 100 153
Sources:
1796: Archivio di Stato di Bologna (State Archive of Bologna), Legato, Censimento di famiglie distinto per parrocchie (ex
notificazione 2 maggio 1796): parishes of S. Giovanni in Monte, S. Maria della Carità, S. Maria della Ceriola, S. Maria delle
Muratelle, S. Maria Labarum Coeli, S. Maria Maggiore, S. Michele Arcangelo di Porta Nova, S. Salvatore, SS. Silvestro e
Martino (the census includes about 10 percent of the Bolognese population);
1857: Archive of the Parish of S. Giovanni in Bologna, Monte, Status animarum 1857. In 1857 the parish was much bigger
than in 1796. Its population represented almost 5 percent of the total population of Bologna.
1899: Archive of the Parish of S. Giovanni in Bologna, Monte, Status animarum 1899. Unfortunately in this register information
on the birthplace in most cases is lacking.
Table 6 - Origin of female and male domestic servants, Bologna, 1796-1857 ( percentage)
Bologna rural
areas
other
Italian
cities
foreign
places
tot. percent N.year
F M F M F M F M F M F M
1796 73,5 66 20 24 6 9 0,5 1 100 100 380 319
1857 33 27 57 63 9 9 1 1 100 100 298 162
1899 7 10 82 77 11 13 - - 100 100 120 33
Sources: see previous table.
Table 7 – Origin of lower and upper female servants, Bologna 1796-1857 ( percentage)
Bologna rural
areas
other
Italian
cities
foreign
places
tot. percent N.year
1796 1857 1796 1857 1796 1857 1796 1857 1796 1857 1796 1857
simple servants 72 26 20,5 68 7 6 0,5 - 100 100 344 185
governesses, chamber maids
etc.
89 45 11 40 - 13 - 2 100 100 36 113
Sources: see previous tables.
Raffaella Sarti, Domestic Service as a “Bridging Occupation”. Past and Present, Servant Project, Essex Seminar, May 2002 9
Table 8 – Origin of lower and upper male servants, Bologna 1796-1857 ( percentage)
Bologna rural
areas
other
Italian
cities
foreign
places
tot. percent N.year
1796 1857 1796 1857 1796 1857 1796 1857 1796 1857 1796 1857
servants assigned to horses
and carriages
46 24 39 66 13 10 2 - 100 100 56 29
simple servants, lackeys 67 29 22 67 10 4 1 - 100 100 156 51
cooks and other servants
assigned to the kitchen
75 24 20 67 5 9 - - 100 100 65 45
butlers, secretaries, accountants
etc.
79 30 14 51 5 16 2 3 100 100 42 37
Sources: see previous tables.
The brotherhood of San Vitale, or the “Servants’ University”
The fact that in early modern times Bolognese domestics were well “rooted” in the city is
shown also by the features and the policy of the Confraternity of San Vitale, that is the brotherhood
that from 1697 to the end of the 19th century brought together the servants of the city31
.
Both servitori di cappa nera, or braccieri, and staffieri (grooms), or servitori di livrea (lackeys)
took part in the foundation of this brotherhood. The latter belonged to what in large houses was
sometimes called famiglia inferiore (lower family), that is the “low” servants, who had to wear their
master’s livery; the former to the famiglia superiore (higher family), that is the “high” servants, entrusted
with managerial tasks and responsibilities32
. They usually wore their own clothes, rather than
livery: hence their name, servitori di cappa nera or cappenere, which literally means servants wearing
a black cape.
In a first phase there were enormous conflicts between the two groups, to the point that the
brotherhood split: for some years, there were two associations in conflict. Only in 1703 the association
of the cappenere (which also included some livree) merged with the brotherhood founded by the staf-
fieri.
The policy of the Confraternity was original in many regards. It developed a very “modern”
mutual help system among its members. After the initial phase of conflict, it allowed into the association
as equals staffieri and cappenere in the name of their common status as domestic staff. Staffieri
and cappenere were probably becoming closer in social standing but were undoubtedly still far apart.
Moreover, the confraternity presented itself as representative – and exclusive – of the servants, a previously
not clearly definable group. Finally, it defined authoritatively who the “true servant” was, in a
context where the term “servant” had many different meanings.
The problem of defining who was a servant and therefore could be part of the association was
there from the beginning. But in the first years of life of the confraternity, the desire to overcome the
divisions between staffieri and braccieri prevailed over the problem of defining who could be described
as a servant. Yet later the concern to establish who really was a servant prevailed. In 1753, in
particular, it was decided to admit only “actual servants of the following types and not others, that is:
ministers, cappenere, staffieri, lackeys, first coachmen, second coachmen, lead-horse riders (cavalcanti),
cooks, undercooks doing only this single service job, and butlers”. They all also had to satisfy
31
On the history of this brotherhood see SARTI R., “L’Università dei Servitori di Bologna, secc. XVIIXIX”,
in GUENZI A., MASSA P. and MOIOLI A. (eds), Corporazioni e Gruppi Professionali
nell’Italia Moderna, Milano, Angeli, 1999, pp. 717-754; SARTI R., “The True Servant. Self-definition
of Male Domestics in an Italian City (Bologna, 17th-19th centuries)”, The History of the Family, X,
2005, pp. 407-433.
32
For the use of the term famiglia to designate the array of the servants, see SARTI R., Europe at Home.
Family and material culture, 1500-1800, New Haven and London, Yale U.P. 2002, pp. 31-34 (ed. or.
Vita di casa. Abitare, mangiare, vestire nell’Europa moderna, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 1999).
Raffaella Sarti, Domestic Service as a “Bridging Occupation”. Past and Present, Servant Project, Essex Seminar, May 2002 10
the condition of not having to carry out “in public” “any base job” which would cause them to be considered
as something other than “actual servants”. Therefore, “those commonly called kitchen boys, or
scullery boys, stable boys, and porters” were absolutely excluded. The brothers were trying to identify
themselves as representatives of a job which (at least in public) did not involve carrying out vile and
degrading tasks33
. The exclusion of entire categories of workers was maybe the inevitable outcome of
the policy pursued by the brothers, a policy designed not only to define the identity of domestics, but
also to give this identity a prestigious appearance. The brothers portrayed themselves as people engaged
in a dignified occupation that, in public, was not at all degrading.
The Confraternity pursued its prestige policy on the city scene. For example, it took upon itself
the burden of performing the funerals of its deceased members, because they represented an important
function that was “public, and well thought of and honourable for the Confraternity”34
. Another
occasion of visible public activity was the celebration of the festival of San Vitale. Vitale was, at
the same time, “specifically” the saint of servants, having himself been a servant during his lifetime,
and an important member of the city’s pantheon, having been martyred in Bologna with his master
Agricola, probably during Diocletian’s persecution35
. Therefore, worthily celebrating his festival day
lent prestige not only to the confraternity that had chosen him as its protector, but also to the entire city
that traditionally revered him. In short, the confraternity was the representative body of all the city’s
servants36
, and this principally thanks to its great activity in the city’s public life37
.
In this role, the confraternity organised many activities. Among them, the collection of donations
for the construction of the porch and the church of San Luca, that still today is one of the symbols
of Bologna, also recognised as such by non religious people. The construction of the dome of the
church, in particular, completed in 1742, was entirely financed by the donations collected by the Università
dei Servitori from all the Bolognese servants38
. In short, the Confraternity policy expressed and
emphasised the conviction that domestic workers were members of the urban community, and very
important ones.
Significantly, this capacity on the part of the confraternity to stand as representative of all
Bolognese servants, to play this role in the life of the town and to define authoritatively who servants
were was lost during the 19th century. Probably its last public appearance was (ironically) the collection
of contributions for the construction of the cemetery porch in 1822. In the same year, the brothers
printed newly reformed statutes. Chapter 1 stated that the confraternity only accepted “in its class only
true and proper servants”, that is, more or less, the kind of servants already listed in 175339
. The same
33
Riforma de’ Capitoli, e Statuti della Congregazione di S. Vitale detta l’Università de’ Servitori in Bologna
Fatta l’Anno 1753, Bologna, Longhi Stampatore Arcivescovile, [1753].
34
US, cart. 2, LC (1697-1767), vol. 2, 29/5/1700, c. 41r.
35
GORDINI G. D., “Vitale e Agricola”, Bibliotheca Sanctorum, vol. 12, cols. 1225-1228, Roma, La Città
Nuova, 1969; FASOLI G., (ed.), Vitale e Agricola. Il culto dei protomartiri di Bologna attraverso i secoli
nel XVI centenario della traslazione, Bologna, Centro Editoriale Dehoniano, 1993.
36
From the first meetings, the servants who gathered to found the confraternity presented themselves as
the università dei servitori, and had presented the confraternity about to be founded as the gathering of
the totality of servants. So they actually decided to display “printed edicts inviting all servants to pay
five soldi per month” to the confraternity, almost as though it were a true guild, US, cart. 2, LC (1697-
1676), vol. 2, 13/7/1697, c. 3v, italics added. However, the attempt to make all servants join the confraternity
had failed: even during the 1780s when the confraternity was at the height of its expansion, only
a fifth or a sixth of male Bolognese servants were a part of it. Nevertheless, the two definitions of the
Confraternity of San Vitale and the Università dei servitori very soon became largely interchangeable,
as though the confraternity really were the representative body of all the city’s servants. In fact, it cannot
be denied that this was the case.
37
It was, in fact, the members of the confraternity who encouraged all the Bolognese servants to contribute
donations towards the city’s various devotional activities, who had notices and announcements concerning
their collection printed, provided collectors and collection boxes, were in charge of the funds
collected and at times managed their investment and took care of the maintenance of objects acquired. It
was on these occasions that the officers from the Confraternity of San Vitale “so-called Università dei
Servitori” addressed, in a game of reciprocal identification, all the city servants, that is, the “università
dei servitori” (that is the totality of Bolognese servants), as was written on the notices.
38
SARTI, “L’università dei Servitori”, p. 747.
39
“By servants are meant: all those who by profession live in someone else’s service as domestics, or
almost domestics in houses and civilian positions, with receipt of a salary; that is, stewards, book-
Raffaella Sarti, Domestic Service as a “Bridging Occupation”. Past and Present, Servant Project, Essex Seminar, May 2002 11
formulation, with a slight variation, would be repeated in the reformed statutes of 185540
. But compared
to the 18th century, many things had now changed and their definition of the “true servant”
seemed increasingly obsolete.
Braccieri, sedan-chair carriers, staffieri, were in fact disappearing almost completely, while
stewards and clerks, secretaries and book-keepers were increasingly being considered private clerks,
rather than servants. The exit from the ranks of domestic staff of the wealthiest and most respected
figures ultimately allowed the concept of servant to be reduced to those who had once been the lowest
layers of the varied world of servants. The members of the Università dei Servitori had tried to make
domestic service an honourable profession, but “History” was moving in a different direction.
The problem was not, in any case, only linked to the disappearance of “display servants” and
to the exit from domestic staff of a considerable number of those who could once have been described
as “cappenere”. It was undoubtedly linked to other ongoing transformations, especially to the feminization
and ruralisation of domestic service.
The Confraternity of San Vitale was a male confraternity. When they had to represent all servants,
the brothers also addressed female servants, in particular during the collection of donations (the
notices for the collections were always addressed to “servants of both sexes”). However, women were
(tacitly) excluded from the possibility of joining the Confraternity.
In the 19th
century, the number of women among domestic servants (the majority even in the
17th-18th century) was increasing, although not linearly: towards the end of the 19th century women
would make up about 80 percent of domestic staff41
(fig. 2). The increasing number of women among
servants and the brothers’ stubborn indifference towards them contributed to make the Confraternity
less and less representative of the totality of servants. The refusal to admit women can, then, be considered
one of the causes of its decline (fig. 3). The confraternity was proposing an ever more outdated
model of the servant: a male servant, clearly of city origin or at least very well integrated into urban
life, mainly of civilian status, not involved in filthy or abject tasks. But domestic service was increasingly
a humble job carried out by women of peasant origin who had migrated to the city.
Significantly enough, in the same period during which the Confraternity was dying, a new
servant association open to women was founded (1880). It was dedicated both to Saint Vitale e Saint
Agricola, and was open to masters too (one of its aims was to promote Christian brotherhood between
masters and servants). It was possibly active until 1943 (but its activity never was as wide and visible
as that of the old Confraternity)42
.
keepers, secretaries, cappenere, staffieri, coachmen, cooks, butlers, and sedan-chair carriers as long as
the latter serve a single master. Then porters, scullery-boys, stable-hands, craftsmen, workers, those
who practise mechanical crafts, shop assistants and the like who carry out vile and abject tasks are excluded,
because they do not fall into the category of Servants as it is understood by this Confraternity”,
Statuti pel Buon Regolamento della Congregazione di San Vitale Martire Bolognese detta L’Università
de’ Servitori (...) riformati per la quarta volta l’anno MDCCCXXI, Bologna, Gamberini, e Parmeggiani
Stampatori Arcivescovili, 1822, p. 4, italics added.
40
Statuti pel buon regolamento della Congregazione di S. Vitale Martire Bolognese detta l’Università dei
Servitori (...) riformati per la quinta volta nell’anno 1855, Bologna, Tipi Arcivescovili, 1856, p. 4.
41
SARTI R., “Notes on the feminization of domestic service. Bologna as a case study (18th-19th Centuries)”,
in FAUVE-CHAMOUX A. and FIALOVÁ L. (eds.), Le phénomène de la domesticité en Europe,
XVIe-XXe siècles (Acta Demographica, XIII), Praha, Ceská Demografická Sociologický Ústav av CR,
1997, pp. 125-163.
42
SARTI R., “‘Noi abbiamo visto tante città’”, p. 32.
Raffaella Sarti, Domestic Service as a “Bridging Occupation”. Past and Present, Servant Project, Essex Seminar, May 2002 12
Fig. 2
Bologna, Italy
1581-1911
0,0
20,0
40,0
60,0
80,0
100,0
1581
1587
1588
1600
1606
1617
1624
1631
1796
1841
1881
1901
1911
Sources: SARTI R., “Notes on the Feminization”, p. 145; ARCHIVIO DI STATO DI BOLOGNA (STATE ARCHIVE OF
BOLOGNA), Legato, Censimento di famiglie distinto per parrocchie (ex notificazione 2 maggio 1796).
F ig. 3
N um ber of servants m em bers of theC onfraternity of San V itale
B ologna, 1697-1883
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
1 6 9 0 1 7 0 0 1 7 1 0 1 7 2 0 1 7 3 0 1 7 4 0 1 7 5 0 1 7 6 0 1 7 7 0 1 7 8 0 1 7 9 0 1 8 0 0 1 8 1 0 1 8 2 0 1 8 3 0 1 8 4 0 1 8 5 0 1 8 6 0 1 8 7 0 1 8 8 0 1 8 9 0
Sources: SARTI R., “L’Università dei Servitori”, p. 722; SARTI R., “The True Servant”.
Conclusion
Between the ends of the 14th and 16th centuries, Bologna experienced considerable economic
and demographic growth deriving from the silk industry (between 1580 and 1590 the city had around
72,000 inhabitants, a level which was reached again only in the 19th century)43
. Thanks to the extremely
high level of technology achieved, the Bolognese silk industry monopolised the market until
the end of the 16th century and held off competition for another seventy years. From the end of the
17th century, the silk industry entered a long period of decline, despite moments of revival. By the end
of the 18th century, unemployment and pauperism had reached alarming levels. While industrial development
was taking hold in other countries, Bologna underwent a true process of deindustrialization.
The crisis was further exacerbated by the outbreak of the French Revolution and the
arrival in Italy of Napoleon’s armies. After a final period of recovery at the beginning of the 19th cen-
43
BELLETTINI A., La popolazione di Bologna dal secolo XV all'Unificazione italiana, Bologna, Zanichelli,
1961, pp. 21-43.
Raffaella Sarti, Domestic Service as a “Bridging Occupation”. Past and Present, Servant Project, Essex Seminar, May 2002 13
tury, Bologna’s silk industry suffered its definitive collapse44
. These transformations led to a “ruralization”
of the local economy, which was to experience a new wave of industrial development only in the
last three decades of the 19th century and in the first of the 20th45
. This demographic and economic
situation is very probably the reason for the limited immigration of servants until the end of the 18th
century, while the increasing presence of migrating servants was probably due, in a first phase, i.e. in
the first half of the 19th century, to the much higher demographic development of the countryside in
comparison to the city.
I have described the case of Bologna to show that we don’t have to take for granted the idea
that domestic service is a “bridge” between the countryside and the city, even though this is often the
case. For each context we have to analyse the recruitment area of domestic workers and how it
changes over time. And the difference over time can be as sharp as in Bologna.
Some years ago Sheila Cooper gave a paper on the “shared culture” of masters and servants46
.
In early modern Bologna, among servants there were some Muslim slaves (generally converted to
Christianity). Apart from them, the majority of servants working in the city were Bolognese, as far as
we can see47
. In this sense, even though they did not belong to the same social strata as their masters,
as was often the case for English life-cycle servants, in a certain sense they shared the same
“Bolognese” culture of their masters. They spoke the same language, had the same devotion to Saint
Vitale and Saint Luca and so on. As the recruitment area of the servant became larger, domestic service
increasingly put in touch people with different cultural backgrounds. As shown by table 3, in
many European cities this was already the case in early modern times.
The presence of people with a different cultural background in the same household leads us to
question the representation of the family and the household as a “private sphere” and as a closed universe.
The household and the family employing domestic workers, particularly if they are migrants
from far away places, seems rather a place which is open to the arrival of different people from the
outside, i.e. a place where people with different backgrounds were/are negotiating their identities.
The awareness that these negotiations could easily turn into conflict seemed very ancient, as
demonstrated, for instance, by the idea that a master had as many enemies as servants48
. This awareness
emerges also in the varied literature addressed to masters and heads of the families in order to
give them instructions about how to manage their households. Indeed, the masters are warned to
choose their servants carefully, to give them safe instructions, to punish them or even to dismiss them
if they are not good Christians, to keep them in their place, at the right distance, to discourage servants
from aping the masters etc.49
From our point of view, the acute awareness of the “bad” influence that
44
DAL PANE L., Economia e società a Bologna nell'età del Risorgimento. Introduzione alla ricerca,
Bologna, Zanichelli, 1969; PONI C., “All’origine del sistema di fabbrica: tecnologia e organizzazione
produttiva dei mulini da seta nell'Italia settentrionale (sec. XVII-XVIII)”, Rivista storica italiana,
LXXXVIII (1976), pp. 444-497; PONI C, “Per la storia del distretto industriale serico di Bologna (secoli
XVI-XIX)”, Quaderni storici, XXV, 1990, pp. 93-167; GUENZI A., La ‘fabbrica delle tele’ tra città
e campagna. Gruppi professionali e governo dell'economia a Bologna nel secolo XVIII, Ancona, Il Lavoro
Editoriale, 1987; GIUSBERTI F,, Impresa e avventura. L'industria del velo di seta a Bologna nel
XVIII secolo, Milano, Angeli, 1989; SARTI, “Notes on the feminisation”, etc.
45
ROMBALDI O., “Manifatture e commercio nell'età napoleonica e della Restaurazione”, in BERSELLI
A. (ed.), Storia della Emilia Romagna, Bologna, Santerno, University Press, 1976-1980, 3 vols., vol. 3,
pp. 181-205; PACETTI P., “Gli anni 1850-1860: fra innovazione e conservazione. L’attività manifatturiera
a Bologna e Ferrara”, ibid., pp. 206-230; PRETI A., “Caratteri e limiti dello sviluppo industriale”,
ibid., pp. 329-360; ZAMAGNI V., “L’economia”, in ZANGHERI R. (ed.), Bologna, Roma-Bari, Laterza,
1986, pp. 245-314, etc.
46
COOPER S., “The Shared Culture of Masters and Servants”, paper presented at the ESSHC, Amsterdam,
April 2000.
47
My data refers to the late 18th
century.
48
Some interesting cases are analysed by ROMANO D., “The Regulation of Domestic Service in Renaissance
Venice”, Sixteenth Century Journal, XXII, 1991, pp. 661-677; ROMANO D., Housecraft and
Statecraft. Domestic Service in Renaissance Venice, 1400-1600, The Johns Hopkins U. P., Baltimore
and London, 1996 and by MÜLLER-STAATS D., Klagen über Dienstboten. Eine Untersuchung über
Dienstboten und ihre Herrschaften, Insel, Frankfurt a. M., 1987.
49
SARTI R., “Obbedienti e fedeli. Note sull’istruzione morale e religiosa di servi e serve tra Cinque e
Settecento”, Annali dell’Istituto storico italo-germanico in Trento, XVII, 1991, pp. 91-120, with further
references.
Raffaella Sarti, Domestic Service as a “Bridging Occupation”. Past and Present, Servant Project, Essex Seminar, May 2002 14
servants, particularly wet-nurses and nannies, could have on the children, (for example by telling them
frightening folktales50
) is particularly interesting.
On the other hand, in upper class family an important part of the education of the children was
assigned to servants (nannies, governesses, tutors etc.). So a certain influence by the servants on the
children was taken for granted and even encouraged as is the case today, when Filipina domestic
workers are asked to speak English with the employer’s children51
. Consequently, in the past, domestic
servants were often represented, at the same time, as people who should be “educated” by their masters
and as those who were educating the masters’ children.
Thus, domestics often found themselves on a borderline between cultures which in some cases
could be really very distant (an extreme case is probably that of the European governesses working in
Muslim families in the Ottoman Empire or in the colonies in the 19th
and 20th
centuries52
). It is no surprise,
therefore, that they were seen as cultural mediators. The earlier sociological and historical research
has mainly emphasized their role as a channel for the transmission of elements of the culture of
the upper classes to the lower53
, but there is increasing interest in seeing the masters/servants relationship
as a negotiation with exchanges in both directions, though within an asymmetric relationship and
therefore a different power54
.
The current “resurgence” and globalisation of domestic service55
are stimulating scholars to
analyse the negotiations between employers and employees, trying to pinpoint the current features of
the phenomenon56
. Today, for many people, domestic service is clearly a “bridge” between different
places and cultures. But it is not yet clear whether it is also a bridge toward better social conditions.
50
SARTI R., “Nuovi bisogni, vecchie soluzioni? Per una storia dell’attività di cura verso bambini e anziani
in ambito familiare”, paper presented at the Conference Le relazioni tra le generazioni, Pistoia, Università
di Firenze, Comune di Pistoia e Regione Toscana, Convegno internazionale, 15-16 March 2001,
with further references; DELPIANO P., SARTI R., Servants, Domestic Workers and Children, special
issue of Paedagogica Historica, forthcoming; SARTI R., “Wet-nurses, nannies and governesses at the
crossroad between cultures, classes and countries”, paper presented at the International Conference Migration
and Domestic Work in Global Perspective, The Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies,
Wassenaar, 26 - 29 May 2005. For the analysis of some cases of the bad influence of servants on master’s
children see FAIRCHILDS C., op. cit.
51
We can find some evidence of the actual cultural influence of the servants on the children in autobiographies.
Some case are quoted by ENGELSING R., “Dienstbotenlektüre im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert”, in
ENGELSING R., Zur Sozialgeschichte deutscher Mittel- und Unterschichten, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht,
Göttingen, 1978, pp. 180-224. FAIRCHILDS, op. cit., pp. 111-119 is quite skeptical as regards
the possibility of servants transmitting their own culture to the masters. See also, on this point, GRENDI
E., “Storia sociale e storia quantitativa”, Quaderni Storici, no. 61, 1986, pp. 201-210.
52
PETZEN B., Matmazels nell’harem. Le governanti europee nell’Impero ottomano”, Genesis. Rivista
della Società Italiana delle Storiche, I, 2002, pp. 61-84.
53
VEBLEN T., The Theory of the Leisure Class, New York - London, Macmillan, 18991
(It. transl. La
teoria della classe agiata, in VEBLEN T., Opere, edited by De Domenico F., Utet, Torino, 1969, pp.
65-347, part. p. 238); HECHT J. J., The Domestic Servant in Eighteenth Century England, London Boston,
Routlegde & Kegan Paul, 1980 (19561
), pp. 220-228 (who speaks of domestics as a “cultural
nexus”); ROCHE D., “Les domestiques comme intermédiaires culturels”, in Les intermédiaires culturels.
Actes du Colloque du Centre Meridional d’Histoire Sociale, des Mentalités et des Culture, Publications
Université de Provence, Aix-en-Provence - H. Champion, Paris, 1978, pp. 189-202 and
ROCHE D., Le peuple de Paris, Aubier Montaigne, Paris, 1981 (Il popolo di Parigi. Cultura popolare e
civiltà materiale alla vigilia della Rivoluzione, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1986).
54
From a different point of view the importance of negotiations has been particularly emphasised by
ARRU, Il servo.
55
PARREÑAS R. S., Servants of Globalisation: Women, Migration and Domestic Work, Stanford University
Press, Stanford, 2001.
56
ANDERSON B. and PHIZACKLEA A., Migrant Domestic Workers. A European Perspective. Report
for the Equal Opportunities Unit, DGV, Commission of the European Communities, May 1997;
ANDERSON B., Britain’s Secret Slaves. An Investigation into the Plight of Overseas Domestic Workers,
Antislavery, 1993; MOMSEN J., H. Gender, Migration and Domestic Service London and New
York, Routledge, 1999; ANDERSON B., Doing the Dirty Work? The Global Politics of Domestic Labour,
London and New York, Zed Books, 2000; HOCHSCHILD A. R., “Global Care Chains and Emotional
Surplus Value”, in On the Edge: Living with Global Capitalism, ed. Will Hutton and Anthony
Giddens, London, Jonathan Cape, pp. 130-146; ANDALL J., Gender, Migration and Domestic Service:
Raffaella Sarti, Domestic Service as a “Bridging Occupation”. Past and Present, Servant Project, Essex Seminar, May 2002 15
The Politics of Black Women in Italy, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2000; PARREÑAS, Servants of Globalisation
etc. In recent years numerous studies have been devoted also to Asian, South-American and African
countries. See for example HANSEN K. T., Distant Companions: Servants and Employers in Zambia,
1900-1985, Ithaca and London, Cornell University Press, 1989; GILL L., Precarious Dependencies:
Gender, Class, and Domestic Service in Bolivia, New York, Columbia University Press, 1994;
CHIN Ch., In Service and Servitude: Foreign Domestic Workers and the Malaysian ‘Modernity Project’,
New York, Columbia University Press, 1998; ADAMS K. M. and DICKEY S. (eds), Home and
Hegemony: Domestic Service and Identity Politics in South and Southeast Asia, An Arbor, The University
of Michigan Press, 2000; ÖZYEGIN G., Untidy Gender. Domestic Service in Turkey, Philadelphia,
Temple University Press, 2001; DESTREMEAU B. and LAUTIER B. (eds), Femmes en domesticité.
Les domestiques du Sud, au Nord et au Sud, special issue of Revue Tiers-Monde, 43, no. 170 (2002).
See also the conference Domestic Service and Mobility: Labour, Livelihood and Lifestyles (Amsterdam,
5-7 February 2001), organised by Annelies Moors and Ratna Saptari within the CLARA (Changing Labour
Relations in Asia) Research Programme and the conference Conference Migration and Domestic
Work in Global Perspective, The Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies, Wassenaar, 26 - 29 May
2005 (organised by Helma Lutz), besides, obviously, the papers published in these Proceedings.