Corona de Castilla - History Lab

Process of faith of the Moors

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:32:42 +0000

During his reign, Philip II (1556-1598) encountered serious social problems within his dominions. In particular, the case of the Moors, i.e. Mudejars who had accepted their conversion to Christianity in order to remain on Spanish soil, is particularly relevant. For decades, numerous processes of confirmation of conversion and faith took place in order to account for the correct religious behaviour of the converted families. The historical process, marked by events such as the Rebellion of the Alpujarras or the War of the Alpujarras, finally led to the expulsion of the Moors from the Hispanic Monarchy. This order, issued by Philip III, was carried out in stages between 1609 and 1613.

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Warnings from France on the uprising being prepared by the Moors in Spain

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:32:42 +0000

During his reign, Philip II (1556-1598) encountered serious social problems within his dominions. Of particular relevance was the case of the Moors, i.e. the Mudejars who had accepted their conversion to Christianity in order to remain on Spanish soil. An example of this can be seen in this document, which warns, from France, of the possibility of an uprising in the territories of the Monarchy. As a result of these events, numerous processes of confirmation of conversion and faith took place over the decades in order to account for the correct religious behaviour of the converted families. The historical process, marked by events such as the Rebellion of the Alpujarras or the War of the Alpujarras, finally led to the expulsion of the Moors from the Spanish Monarchy. This order, issued by Philip III, was carried out in stages between 1609 and 1613.

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Holders of bonds and the percentage of the bonds in Murcia (1544-1680)

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:29:56 +0000

One of the forms of financing that the Hispanic monarchy had were the juros. The juros, or debt securities, consisted of private economic disbursements to the monarchy in order to obtain, in the medium and long term, returns from the royal institution. A predecessor of the current system of issuing public debt, it was the system used in Castile. The resource deals with the typology of holders of juros and their percentage amount as a group with respect to the total. We look at Murcia between 1544 and 1680, a period in which the number of juros rose from 20 to 133 (from 3,266,459 to 14,011,285 maravedíes). The growth of the Empire was accompanied by an increase in the issue of juros. Who were the holders? In all these years, merchants and businessmen were the main purchasers. Without belonging to the privileged classes, these wealthy men owned more than 80% of the land in 1544; the rest belonged to the nobility. As the century and the turn of the century progressed, more bonds were issued, with other institutions, such as the church, acquiring part of them. Thus, from 1560 onwards, the ecclesiastical organisation began to own juros in Murcia, although its share did not exceed 10% until the end of the 16th century, falling at the beginning of the 17th century and reaching its highest percentage of the total in 1680.

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Estimates of metals and coins transported by bankers in Spain between 1601 and 1675

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

During the Modern Age, the availability of real physical money was of great importance for the Royal Treasury when it came to making payments without the need for another financial instrument such as bills of exchange. The transport of this money was conditioned by the strategies and organisation that the banquerons deployed when offering credits and making investments in America, Spain, Europe and Asia. The resource presented here shows the estimate of metals and coins transported by bankers in Spain between 1601 and 1675. The different coins and their quality were due to the type of currency used in each territory: while in Castile it was the real de vellón, in the Crown of Aragon, such as the cities of Barcelina, Zaragoza and Valencia, the metal used was silver and double silver. The author warns us that the documentary sources used are confined to Madrid, so the results are filtered through the filter of Madrid activity. The sample he has collected totals 8,760,000 ducats, equivalent to the annual expenditure of the Monarchy at the beginning of the 17th century. Of the total, 79% were coined silver reales, 10.8% uncoined silver, 9.4% fleece coins, and 0.8% gold coins. This reflects the large internal trade in metals that the Monarchy had on the peninsula.

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Servants and the average age of women at marriage in the Crown of Castile in 1787

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

The graph shows that among men there was no direct connection between access to marriage and the abandonment of servant work. The three provinces with the highest number of servants (Madrid without the capital, Toledo and Albacete) show how the age of access to marriage is among the lowest in Castile, only surpassed by Ciudad Real, Extremadura, Andalusia and Murcia. The latter had the lowest percentage of servants; a fact that put it in line with the central and northern regions of the peninsula. Of all of them, Galicia, Asturias, León and Burgos stood out for having few servants and a high rate of marriage access (over 24 years of age). The demography, socio-economic structure and life cycles are reflected and differentiated geographically in this graph.

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Jurisdiction of Palencia’s vassals in the last third of the 18th century

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

The Aranda Census in the last third of the 18th century reveals the great administrative division present in the province of Palencia, which was subject to the jurisdiction of several lords who applied different local rules to each of their territories. Thus, in 1769 the census showed that 73.7% of the inhabitants of Palencia resided under the jurisdiction of a lord who was not the king. The model of realengo, similar to other provinces such as Burgos, was maintained, with settlement in small villages of few inhabitants and separated from each other, which favoured direct government by a lord.
Furthermore, 68.8% of the inhabitants of Palencia were answerable to a lay lord, continuing the downward trend of ecclesiastical lordships since even before the confiscations of the 16th century, so that the disappearance of religious jurisdictions only served to allow another, better established lord to absorb into his domains as many smaller towns.

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Taxation of Christians and Moriscos in Ávila (1503-1610)

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

In Ávila there are documents that confirm the existence of Mudejars as early as the end of the 12th century, with up to three aljamas in the 15th century. This Moorish minority was the second highest paying minority in the whole of the Crown of Castile after the town of Hornachos in Badajoz. To this situation must be added the tension caused by the long war in Granada at the end of the 15th century, giving the constant feeling that this population was permanently in enemy territory, and even more so after the forced conversion of 1502.
However, this adverse situation, although it led to the emigration of many of them, allowed them to arrive at the beginning of the 16th century, making up 10% of the city’s population, mainly employed in trade and metalwork. Thanks to the information contained in the resource, it can be seen that the Moriscos paid a much higher per capita tax than the Old Christians, mainly because after their conversion they ceased to have a tax regime similar to that of the Old Christians and added several extra burdens that they had to face.

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Value of cloth sales in Castile, 1614-1616

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:28:46 +0000

The author, José Ignacio Andrés Ucendo, offers us a statistical overview of the price of different fibres, such as wool, silk and linen, in different territories of the Crown of Castile at a time contextualised by the decline of civil manufacturing at the beginning of the 17th century. Overall, wool was traded more than linen and silk, which were the second and third most traded products respectively. By areas, in Old Castile the predominant fabric was wool, taking 73.6% of the market, this value being lower in Andalusian localities with 44%. Within the woollen cloths, the most traded were those of Segovia, Cordoba, Úbeda and Baeza; logistical centres of production. Thus, the market was divided into two areas: Andalusia and the Northern Plateau. The author notes that Andalusian consumption was greater than that of the north due to the difficulties that the Segovian drapery had in marketing its products; a crisis in demand from which it barely recovered. In the 18th century, consumption patterns were reversed, with linen dethroning wool in Castile. These consumption and marketing dynamics are similar to the data provided for the Catalan area of the Crown of Aragon.

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Neighbours, families and secular inhabitants according to the Cadastre of Ensenada (1752)

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:28:40 +0000

The Cadastre of the Marquis de la Ensenada, carried out in the middle of the 18th century in the Crown of Castile, is one of the main historical sources for the study of demography, economy and territory. It consisted of several books dealing with numerous aspects; the resource shown here corresponds to the Neighbourhood and Census books. By regions, the territories of Andalusia had 1,462,449 inhabitants, Old Castile and León had 1,988,698, New Castile, including Madrid, had 1,040,972, Extremadura had 373,022 inhabitants, while Galicia and Murcia had 1,299312 and 272,057 respectively. A total of approximately 6,436,510 inhabitants for the Crown, where the most populated provinces were Seville (694,771), León (563,689) and Granada (545,285); those with the fewest inhabitants were Zamora (62,304), Toro (79,212) and Ávila (98,873).

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Neighbourhood of 1683, original data and reconstruction

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:28:40 +0000

In 1683, by order of Charles II, the Vecindario was published, which counted the inhabitants of the Crown of Castile in order to establish a more up-to-date tax system that would allow for more efficient revenue for the Royal Treasury. Who were considered to be inhabitants? Family units were counted as neighbours, so the data does not reflect the number of inhabitants. In order to obtain the total population, the author applies an average coefficient based on the size of the family. The resource shows this demographic data in column “F”, giving a total population of 4,786,882. By region, the North Atlantic coast, Galicia, Asturias and Cantabria had 1,416,200 inhabitants, the largest population, followed by Andalusia (1,117,880) and Castile and Leon (1,087,202). At the provincial level, Seville, Granada and Toledo were the most inhabited areas with 316,800, 304,100 and 241,240 inhabitants respectively. Of all the regions and provinces, Galicia stands out with 950,000 inhabitants, a significant number in relation to the size and type of population. In contrast, the most depopulated territories were Zamora (39,120), Toro (47,576) and Córdoba (65,480). From 1683 to 1753, the years of the Ensenada Cadastre, the general trend continued; although the population increased in all areas, the imbalances were similar.

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