Taverns, Alcohol Monopoly in the Early Modern Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the Micro/Global Perspective

In the early modern period, landowners, primarily the nobility and clergy, secured exclusive rights to produce and sell alcohol, making the so-called propination monopoly a highly lucrative income source. Being distorted in historiography, propination is now surrounded by myths. This article aims to unravel the global configurations that led to the development of the monopoly and its significance in the early modern period, laying the groundwork for a more nuanced interpretation. Revisiting debates on grain export, the evolution of the manorial-corvee economy, and shifts in global consumption patterns, the paper reframes these discussions to assess the economic impact of the propination and discern economic changes deviating from states transforming faster into emerging capitalist systems. Moreover, the article briefly explores how the examination of propination and analogous phenomena can enrich discussions on microand global history methods.