During the Modern Age, the confraternities were the most widespread and established associative channel in Spain. Born in the heat of the Middle Ages, the confraternities could have, in their origin, a guild character; a character that would be maintained until the “guild character” and the devotional forms of popular religiosity transformed an association of the aggregated faithful into one of the lay faithful. This step can be concretised in the accounts of the confraternities. The author of the resource exemplifies it with the evolution of the income of the confraternity of San Roque de Ferrol (Galicia) between 1706 and 1797. At the beginning of the century, the guild had an income derived from the economic activity of its members: fishing with 92.8% of the total. In the middle of the century, this figure decreased slightly (87.5%) while income in the form of alms increased (from 4.6% to 8.6%). As the century progressed, the strengthening of devotional forms of religion and the urban growth of the municipality led the confraternity to open up to more social groups; consequently, it lost its guild character and, in the second part of the 18th century, fishing activity became 23% of the income between 1765-1769, and 0% from 1780 onwards. For its part, the quantity and amount of alms increased, making up for the decline in fish, to previously unthinkable levels: 88.4% in 1780 and 82.9% between 1790 and 1797.

Collection: Statistics

Project: 2. Social and economic impact of technological revolutions in Europe., 3. Rural world and urban world in the formation of the European identity.

Chronology: XVIII

Scope: Secondary Education, Baccalaureate, University

Link: http://www.tiemposmodernos.org/tm3/index.php/tm/article/view/4209/772

Resource type: Statistics

Format: Table

Source: Martín García, A. (2018). "Expansión urbana y asociacionismo religioso en la Galicia de finales del Antiguo Régimen: cofradías, hermandades y órdenes terceras en la Real Villa de Ferrol", en Tiempos Modernos, nº 36, p. 543.

Language: Spanish

Date: 2018

Owner: Pablo Ballesta Fernández (Modernalia)

Copyright: ©Tiempos Modernos ©Alfredo Martín García

Abstract: Resource showing the evolution of a guild from a guild to a devotional confraternity through income

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