Cáceres - History Lab

Bread prices in Trujillo (Cáceres) between 1551 and 1610

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:30:03 +0000

As in many other places in Castile, one of the problems in Trujillo was to ensure sufficient food and provisions to meet social demand. Inflation in the 16th century affected many basic necessities, with the price of bread being a significant example. The data show large inter-annual fluctuations, reaching the highest levels in years when the price of bread soared, mainly due to bad harvests.
From 1570 onwards, the price of bread fell progressively and then rose again from 1575 onwards, maintaining rising prices for almost 10 years. As can be seen at the beginning of 1580, at the end of the 16th century and at the beginning of the 17th century, the price of bread reached progressive peaks, reaching its highest point in 1606 and falling again until 1610.
The rise in the price of wheat led the municipality to try to fix the price of some primary goods such as bread. Thus, its manufacture and distribution was regulated by ordinances and agreements that were revised every week.

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Grammar Schools in Extremadura: establishment and financing (18th century)

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:29:48 +0000

During the Modern Age, the teaching of the middle arts did not follow an organised plan; rather, it was a conglomerate of teaching between the learning of the first letters and the university. This intermediate level included humanities colleges (the forerunners of today’s secondary schools), schools founded by economic societies, teaching in ecclesiastical or noble seminaries, and grammar studies, which could be public or private, conventual or secular. Each centre had autonomy in the design of its curriculum. Of all the medium studies, the most widespread were those of grammar, the aim of which was to learn the classical Latin language. In the province of Extremadura, at the end of the 18th century, there were 66 centres of this type. The centres were established with varying intensity in the districts of Extremadura: Llerena had 17, followed by the districts of Trujillo (14), Alcántara (13), and Badajoz (11). The rest, as a whole, had 5 schools. The author notes that Mérida had approximately 6 centres, a figure which may change in the light of further research. How were the grammar schools financed? Most of them were not endowed from private sources: donations, pious works, testamentary mandates, etc. In the district of Plasencia, which had a smaller proportion of schools, all of them were financed from private sources; the same tendency was found in Trujillo and Badajoz, where endowed schools outnumbered those which were financed only by student fees. In contrast, Alcántara, Llerena, Coria, Cáceres and La Serena had more schools without endowment.

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Income from the Cáceres estate of Don Francisco de Ribera Ovando between 1624 and 1642

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

Using the example of Don Francisco de Ribera Ovando, it is possible to reconstruct the way in which a noble estate in Cáceres was administered in the first half of the 17th century, both in terms of the assets it owned and the amount of income it generated.
As with other members of this social group, land ownership was the main source of income, to which could be added the exploitation of the land if it was exploited directly or leased for this purpose. The second source of income came from seed land, which was exploited by means of leases to different farmers in exchange for an amount of between two and three reales per bushel, in addition to land and pasture land. In addition, thanks to the possession and exploitation of their lands, they received large amounts in kind, such as wheat, barley and rye. Finally, the third major source of income was olive groves and oil mills, which accounted for 17.7% of the total.

The post Income from the Cáceres estate of Don Francisco de Ribera Ovando between 1624 and 1642 first appeared on History Lab.

Approximation to the value of dowry letters in the Sierra de Alcaraz in the 18th century

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:28:27 +0000

The dowry was the movable and immovable property that the woman brought to the marriage. Its amount and composition varied according to the economic possibilities of the family: clothes, kitchen utensils, furniture and household goods were the most common. From the studies carried out in the Sierra de Alcaraz (province of Albacete) for the 18th century, we obtain that the average value of the dowry was 10,086 reals. This average is the result of a clear inequality between the few most valuable dowries (10% of the dowries were worth more than 25,000 reales, accounting for 44% of the overall amount) and the greater number of dowries with a value ranging between 1,000 and 5,000 reales: 52% of the cases. This 52% is a reflection of the general economic inequality, although regional variables can be observed; in the cities of Lorca and Murcia this percentage drops to 40; the party of Cáceres shows similar data, although the city of Cáceres doubles the average amount of the dowry in relation to the Sierra de Alcaraz. The variability is explained through socio-economic factors predominant in each place, as well as its demographic structure and property ownership.

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