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Research undertaken over the last generation has greatly enhanced our understanding of the survival strategies of the labouring poor in early modern Europe. Under economic conditions where poverty was endemic, most families were forced to take to various forms of work and to draw on whatever forms of income were available. Whether among small peasants, proto-industrial producers, landless labourers or casual workers, their mere subsistence depended on the effort of as many family members as possible. Women's and children's work were the norm well into the nineteenth century, and their contribution to the family income greater than previously assumed. There were, nevertheless, many who could not make ends meet. The reasons for which people had to turn to others for help are legion: structural, cyclical or seasonal unemployment and underemployment; insufficient earnings and debts; illness and accidents; death within the family. A lot of assistance was informal and went through networks of kinship, neighbourhood and local community. Friendly societies provided rudimentary forms of collectively-organized support. Some state or municipal agencies supplying poor relief and charitable institutions offered assistance of various types, but most of it was meagre and combined with social control of the clients. It is no wonder, therefore, that many people took to begging, prostitution or petty crime. 1While there is ample evidence, then, that the labouring poor were forced to engage in a broad spectrum of activities and to draw on numerous resources in order to gain their subsistence, the strategic decisions involved in this remain less well understood. Strategic action implies choice. Ideally, it involves the rational choice between alternative opportunities and the assessment of the pros and cons of a particular course of action against other possible courses. It also involves a notion of the possible consequences of the alternative options to hand. But considerations of that kind are scarcely documented for labouring people before the middle of the nineteenth 1. Jean-Pierre Gutton, La sociiti et Ies pauvres en Europe (xrve-xville siecles) (Paris, 1974); Olwen

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