From the mid-14th century until around 1500, demographic mobility throughout Europe reached very high levels in both quantitative and qualitative terms. The causes of human movements were multiple, as were the people and groups involved. In this context, the migrations that have been described as “elite” stand out, especially because they involved professionally qualified and sometimes economically solvent groups that moved even over long distances. This is the case of the economic operators of the cities and regions of central-northern Italy today, especially merchants and craftsmen, who were dispersed throughout most of the major cities of western Europe. In the Iberian Peninsula, their presence has been highlighted in centres such as Barcelona, Valencia, Mallorca, Zaragoza, Granada, Seville, Toledo, Valladolid and Lisbon. In the specific case of Valencia, micro-analyses carried out on local notarial sources from the period 1452-1500 have detected up to 734 individuals of this origin, whose regions of origin and professions are shown in the table below. Among these individuals were those who developed a prolonged residence in the city and an intense and powerful socio-economic activity. But there were also those who only stayed sporadically in Valencia and have left scarce traces in the documentation. In any case, they are all examples of international migration, whose effects on the host society (the Valencian one, in this example) were notable for the dose of cosmopolitanism and supralocal connection they brought.
Collection: Statistics
Project: 4. Family, daily life and social inequality in Europe.
Chronology: XV
Scope: Secondary Education, Baccalaureate, University
Resource type: Statistics
Format: Table
Source: Igual Luis, D. (1996). Valencia e Italia en el siglo XV. Rutas, mercados y hombres de negocios en el espacio económico del Mediterráneo occidental. Valencia: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Valencia (Colección de Tesis Doctorales en Microficha), vol. I, p. 142.
Language: Spanish
Date: 1996
Owner: Pablo Ballesta Fernández (Modernalia)
Copyright: David Igual Luis© Universitat de València©
Abstract: Spatial mobility and professional activity carried out by Italian foreigners in Spain
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