documented only by the repression which begins in the 1330’s and continues without cease up to the crusade of 1488 and thus destabilizes the Waldensian settlements permanently during a period marked by crises in any case. Can this phenomenon be expressed in numbers? Which are the migration types? Can one form a picture of the periods of rupture and the resulting effects, both within and without the valleys? What significance have they for the shaping of a Waldensian identity? Are they imposed, passively tolerated, or are they evidence of creative forces within a milieu to the solidarity of which they contribute?
JEAN-CLAUDE DUCLOS, "TRANSHUMANCE, A MODEL OF COMPLEMENT BETWEEN MOUNTAINS AND PLAINS"
The great sheep transhumance is of very ancient origin, but it undergoes towards the end of the 14th century in all the lands of the western mediterranean area, where it is common, a hitherto unknown expansion. Two factors are prominent therein: The diffusion of fulling-mill technology allows wool processing on a great scale and results in a strong growth of sheep numbers. At the same time the rapid expansion of cultivated land is incompatible with the continuous presence of flocks. At this juncture the practice becomes generalized of moving the flocks into the mountains for four summer months - that is the great transhumance. The people who organize this, arrange for the transport of flocks, provide summer pasture for them and watch over their fattening originate all from the mountains. As has often been said, transhumance is first and foremost a child of the mountains. It belongs to the most elementary and ancient form of exploitation of the highlands, which is bound up with the seasonal wanderings of mankind and animals in order to profit thus from the variations of altitude and climate to the greatest extent possible.
