Antequera - History Lab

The plague of 1679 in Antequera, Málaga

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:32:12 +0000

The plague, one of the greatest threats to public health, struck Antequera in 1679. After the strong impact it had on the city of Seville, reflected in an anonymous painting dated 1649, the city of Malaga followed the same fate. The painting, an anonymous oil painting dated 1723, depicts the religious nature of these episodes: the Virgin of the Rosary appears in the upper left-hand band as part of the religious programme. On the right is a rainbow, symbol of God’s mercy, above a pious procession. Below, the city, under a rain of arrows representing the plague, the action unfolds. The dead are piled into mass graves while objects and personal belongings are burnt. The living are assisted by doctors and surgeons, who perform precarious medicinal work for healing (bloodletting, draining buboes, gauzing with ointments or cauterising wounds with hot irons). In short, the author depicted the tragedy of the plague, its social implications and its connection with the religious mentality.

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Evolution of the volume of foundlings and legitimacy in Antequera, Malaga, between 1667 and 1700

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:29:41 +0000

The parish registers of Antequera, shown in the graph provided by the author, show how the number of foundlings in Antequera at the end of the 17th century only decreased. However, this decrease was directly related to the epidemic crisis of 1679 which altered the demography and life cycles, lowering the nuptiality and, consequently, the birth rate. The research reveals that in the year with the highest number of baptisms, 1676, legitimate children accounted for 89%, while illegitimate children constituted 11%. On the other hand, in the year in which the fewest baptisms took place, 1684, foundlings accounted for 14%, an increase of 3%. Thus, the rate of abandonment was inversely proportional to the number of births. Finally, the fin-de-siècle crisis did not lead to an increase in the abandonment rate as families needed more useful hands to boost their economy.

The post Evolution of the volume of foundlings and legitimacy in Antequera, Malaga, between 1667 and 1700 first appeared on History Lab.

Evolution of the volume of foundlings and legitimacy in Antequera, Malaga, between 1701 and 1750

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:29:41 +0000

The resource shows us the number of abandoned children, foundlings, that took place in Antequera (Malaga) in the first half of the 18th century. The data reveal that the annual average number of foundlings was 60, a figure that remained relatively stable throughout this chronological period. However, the number of abandoned children is inversely related to the number of baptisms: on the one hand, the maximum number of baptisms is found in 1745, when 1,058 children were sacramentalised; in this year, foundlings accounted for 8%. On the other hand, in the year in which the fewest baptisms were recorded, 1738, foundlings accounted for 11%. These dynamics follow the same trends as at the end of the 17th century, unlike the second half of the 18th century when the periods of fewer abandonments coincided with the lowest number of baptisms.

The post Evolution of the volume of foundlings and legitimacy in Antequera, Malaga, between 1701 and 1750 first appeared on History Lab.

Evolution of the volume of foundlings and legitimacy in Antequera, Malaga, between 1751 and 1803

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:29:41 +0000

The author reflects in the resource the evolution of foundlings throughout the second half of the 18th century. In these 50 years, the number of total baptisms showed a decreasing trend compared to the first half of the century, although the rate of foundlings fell to an annual average of 51. It was in this period at the end of the Ancien Régime when the trends of previous decades were reversed. From the 17th century onwards, it could be seen that the rates of foundlings were inversely related to the number of baptised children; from this time onwards, lower birth rates coincided with a low level of abandonments. Thus, in 1751, the year with the lowest baptismal registers, the number of foundlings was 7%, in contrast with other years of higher birth rates (in 1788 the abandonment rate was 10% and in 1802 it was 8%).

The post Evolution of the volume of foundlings and legitimacy in Antequera, Malaga, between 1751 and 1803 first appeared on History Lab.

Fragment of the genealogy of the Gálvez de Antequera family (18th century)

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:29:36 +0000

In this fragment of the genealogy of the Gálvez family, based in Antequera since the end of the 17th century, we can observe the intergenerational transmission of the craftsman’s trade ascribed to the surname, in this case, circumscribed to goldsmith work. It should be pointed out that, despite the stereotyping of craftsmanship, we do not always find a transmission as accentuated as that visible in the case of the Gálvez family, so that, although some families did operate under these reproductive criteria, we cannot generalise without first contextualising the economic and social environment in which it took place.

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Andalusian heritage privatised between 1750 and 1852

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:29:25 +0000

When analysing the process of appropriation and privatisation of Andalusian lands – centred in this case on Antequera, Archidona and Malaga – attention must be paid to the different ways in which public lands were alienated, such as the Carolinian distributions, usurpations, the fragmentation of boundaries and finally the liberal disentailments.
The documentation records the highest proportion of usurpations during the first half of the 19th century, especially during the War of Independence and the Liberal Triennium. The method followed by the usurpers was to extend private plots with some municipal lands -under an average of 3.7 hectares per plot-. Among the causes of this land-grabbing fever may have been the demographic increase and the deficit in cereal production, which made it impossible for the most disadvantaged social groups to have access to foodstuffs.
In addition to encroachment, the neighbours adjacent to each area caused the deforestation of many areas due to the felling of trees and the introduction of livestock in these hitherto forbidden places, leading to a drastic reduction in the communal area to the benefit of privatised agricultural uses. The resource shows the process of alienation of territorial patrimony through five distinct phases, with the one corresponding to 1835-1852 as the maximum exponent of the trends that had been observed almost a century earlier.

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