Cultura material - History Lab

Plan of Benavente and its urban structure in the 16th century

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:32:25 +0000

The Spanish aristocracy devoted part of its efforts to establishing an urban structure that would identify it as a nobiliary space and would be another part of its propaganda strategy. The ties that bound these power elites obliged them, to a certain extent, to behave in a supportive manner towards the community as part of their social legitimisation. Within this vision, the nobiliary city can be analysed as a material cultural product and as a structuring element of aristocratic power.
During the 16th century, several nobiliary parties tried to exercise power at Court, and their rivalry can be seen in the different cultural features they applied in the cities under their influence: politics, religion and urban structure. Each side systematically applied common architectural criteria in the cities, but these resulted in very different forms of administration and ideologies.
In towns such as Cuéllar, Benavente or Alba de Tormes, the aristocracy established guidelines linked to medieval traditions, such as the dominance of the castle over the rest of the town. Efforts, therefore, were made to modernise the castle on the inside, even reforming it towards more luxurious standards, but maintaining the sober and powerful image on the outside.

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Plan of the house of María Arenas Romero. Lezuza, 1751

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:32:18 +0000

By studying the house and its distribution by rooms, it is easier to understand the way in which most of the life of the neighbours of the late seventeenth century and the first half of the eighteenth century was spent. It is important to emphasise that the social position and wealth of the owners directly conditioned the location, typology and belongings in their houses. As the author (Hernández, 2016) rightly states: “the house in the Ancien Régime is not a static, closed and immovable entity, but is in permanent construction and interconnected with the world around it”.
The image is a plan of a house in Lezuza (Albacete) of around 107m2 on the ground floor, but most of it is used to house the stables, the hayloft and the courtyard, with just a quarter of the total space reserved for the home and the living quarters in a single body. The separation between the bedrooms and the kitchen consists of an opening, covered only on some occasions with a screen or a door to divide the rooms. The upper floor is left with a space of approximately 27 m2 for the chamber, which used to occupy the upper part of the houses, especially the living area as it is presented here.

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Presence of chocolatiers in Burgos households during the 18th century

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:29:20 +0000

During the 18th century, the consumption of chocolate was increasingly present in the material culture and in the diet of a large part of the population, and chocolate was found in Castilian households on a regular basis, but it did not reach everyone equally. According to the professions and income levels, chocolate could be found to a greater or lesser extent in homes, as we will see below.
As far as the presence of chocolate makers is concerned, a steady increase can be seen in 18th century Burgos households, which points to a growing consumption of this product with the tools to prepare it already in place in the homes. It is not just a question of the mere ingestion of chocolate, but of trends that affect the material culture of the eighteenth century in a contrasting way.
The use of chocolate pots and their introduction and enjoyment in the different social classes shows great contrasts, with the most privileged showing a clear fever for eating chocolate – reaching 100% of households – while the humblest families, with fewer possibilities of acquiring foods considered exotic, did so in a more sustained way. Clergymen were the most likely to incorporate these foods into their diet, rising from 60% of households between 1700 and 1730 to no less than 94.7% by the end of the century.

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Typology and value of the pieces in the domestic interiors of Cigales (1749-1758)

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:29:07 +0000

Thanks to research into the interior of the Castilian home in rural areas, it is possible to examine the qualitative values of this information, both in terms of the use of space with the arrangement of the different objects and the personal relationships established between the different inhabitants of the house, their degree of sociability and intimacy.
An analysis of the Ensenada Cadastre shows that in the town of Cigales in the mid-18th century, the houses were characterised by being distributed in two-storey buildings with well-defined outbuildings, and the precise data on the interior of the houses, their outbuildings and the valuation and description of the objects they contained can be documented through the bodies of property and inventories of available goods.
As can be seen in the table, the furnishings are essentially functional, such as benches, chairs, tables, beds, etc. These records are varied in their typology and size, but show a high degree of multifunctionality in the different rooms of the house. There are also pieces intended to provide light and warmth, such as candelabras, candlesticks, candlesticks and candlesticks. However, the main source of heat was provided by the fire in the kitchen, which was distributed throughout the rest of the rooms by means of braziers and heaters for the beds.

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