L’impact de la production du sucre sur les campagnes méditerranéennes à la fin du Moyen Âge

The development of the sugar production in the Mediterranean in the late Middle Ages has generated repercussions on the urban as well as the countryside landscapes. Our investigation in this study will be restricted to this issue in order to indicate how the agrarian countryside was redesigned. Wherever the sugar cane is established with its means of transformation, it grabs water and soil and sometimes, its expansion is carried out at the expense of food crops which are the bases for the peasants’ consumption of food. The sugar cane also initiates the surrounding forests. The carefully selected examples bring to light an impressive consumption of wood and curves of the soil which were worn down for the refining and the processing of sugar. The effects of this industry are not only negative. This activity lured a vast labour, which sometimes came from far away places to look for higher wages. In addition, this activity managed to set up the nucleus of a rural settlement. Likewise, it contributed to the development of the irrigation systems, the improvement of the regions’ amenities where it was established, while integrating them in the commercial mainstream, thus rendering them more accessible to the means of transport.