Who were the rural servants in Mediterranean regions? Contracts, wages and mobility of servants in the island of Mallorca, 1654-1680

The present work wants to contribute to the regional analysis of the role of male rural servants in the emergence of the agrarian labour markets based on the case study of the island of Mallorca in the 17th century The aim of this article is to characterize the male rural servants of the olive sector in the island of Mallorca mid-17th century where the wage-labour market had developed more extensively and deeply The main sources will be the account books of the estates of the second Count of Formiguera, Ramon Burgués-Saforteza. since no other general o local sources of social and occupational nature are available. The systematization of this information shows that the male rural servants were adult workers and mostly hired for brief periods of time. So a different social and demographic profile emerges for the Majorcan farm servants in contrast to the one observed in the northern European regions where servants were unmarried young males and were hired for longer periods.