Abstract EN:

The state of Savoy undertook an exhaustive census of its population in 1561 in order to control the Salt Tax (also called "Gabelle"). The couting of families in each parish or even locality implied the registration of the name, forename and nickname of each family head, his activity, the identity of each member of his family, his financial status and the composition of the family livestock. We have studied in detail the corpus of 85 villages, which represents more than 80 000 people and about 16 000 families. This huge data base allows us to carry out several thematic analysis such as family strcture, anthroponomy, toponomy, pauperism, cattle breeding, economic activities, movements of population, administrative and religious frames. . . The calculating of statistics and the cartographic analysis have been largely undertaken on a computer-aided basis. This thesis brings out a few towns that were important poles of social and economic development in a society which was on the whole very poor, overpopulated and in which the strong geographical roots of the families didn't produce any drift from the land although they were scattered in nuclear households. The coexistence of squirearchy and groups of inhabitants shows how much of the transition period that was, a century when the ever-growing power of syndics was opposed to the decadence of squires. As far as the power of religion is concerned, we can say that its presence was not always secured but several clues hint at the fact that the society was deeply catholic. This piece of work shows the benefits of having computerized population censures.