Estratificación social - History Lab

Percentage of households with servants in Galicia (1752)

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

The evolution of family economies during the Modern Age was closely linked to the existence of servants. Local elites relied on this type of labour force, either for domestic help or for agricultural or livestock work. The most disadvantaged and dispossessed in the social stratification of the Ancien Régime tended to be the servants; thus, there were relations of master-servant dependency based on labour power and trust. The resource shows the territorial distribution of households with servants in Galicia in the mid-18th century. The author identifies the two areas with a notable presence of servants: inland Galicia, where 22.5% of households had at least one servant, and northern Galicia, with 17%. In inland Galicia, urban centres had more households with servants: near Monforte de Lesmos, the parishes of Santa María Sabadelle, Santa María de Baamorto and Santa María de Tuiriz had 29%, 30% and 31% respectively. The labour needs of the pazos hidalgos, of the clergy lands and of the rectories explain the differences in the demand in the labour market for servants, although there were equally important factors, such as ecological, economic and land ownership.

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Average value of arms in Burgos households, 18th century

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

The possession of weapons in the city of Burgos during the 18th century reveals that, although they were in the minority, they were stored in those households with the greatest social preeminence. The author provides us with a resource based on the average value of firearms and bladed weapons. There is no surprise when it comes to establishing the relationship between the socio-professional categories of households and the price of the artefacts they owned: from the spinners of Burgos to the nobility, passing through farmers, artisans, merchants, public services, bureaucrats and clerics, the price is shown to be ascending in the social stratification. Special mention should be made of the military who, because of their profession, had expensive equipment far removed from ordinary weapons. If we follow this ascending process as a whole, we observe divergences in terms of the basic armament category: the highest price of court weapons predominates in the artisan, merchant and militia groups, while firearms predominate in the nobility, clerics, bureaucrats, public services and farmers, although the latter account for a very insignificant percentage of the sample. The price of the weaponry reveals its quality: poor, functional but frugal shotguns for the humblest strata compared to the luxurious weapons of the wealthy classes, either in terms of their material quality or their ornamentation. In short, the post-mortem inventories reveal shotguns, pistols, blunderbusses, swords, rapiers and sabres well differentiated in quantity, quality and effectiveness, distributed in a hierarchical manner.

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Level of wealth of the bourgeoisie of León, 18th-19th centuries

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:29:13 +0000

During the 18th century and the first half of the 19th century, different bourgeoisies developed in the city of León according to their professional specialisation: the commercial, financial, administrative and liberal professions bourgeoisie. The average wealth of all of them was 504,000 reals; 464,000 liquid if we discount debts and liabilities. However, there were large differences between sectors. The 3 families of the financial bourgeoisie, with an average of 893,883 reais, had 8 times more wealth than the bourgeoisie associated with the liberal professions: 116,489 reais on average for 9 families. The margins are completed with an average of 463,980 and 216,669 reais for the commercial and administrative bourgeoisie, respectively. In comparative methodology, the León bourgeoisie had lower values than those of Valencia, Cadiz or Vitoria, due to a less powerful domestic market than the port market.

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Economic reproduction of bourgeois families in León, 18th-19th centuries

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:29:13 +0000

One of the most effective reproduction strategies of social groups was marriage. A good marriage could mean consolidation within a group, or promotion. The bourgeois families of the city of León were no strangers to the reality of their time. The resource shows the different average contribution of the spouses according to the sector to which they belonged within the bourgeoisie: commercial, financial, administrative or liberal professions. Overall, the average contribution of the spouses exceeded 200,000 reals, reaching 1,462,001 in the case of the financiers. The spouses brought most of their assets to the marriage, except in the case of liberal professionals. These well-matched couples saw their wealth increase not only with the marriage itself, but also with the commercial performance of their businesses. In fact, contributions to the marriage represented an average of 25.8% of their total wealth. Did second marriages follow the same trends? In this case, imbalances were observed in favour of the husband (if the wife was a widow or younger than the husband) or the wife (if the widow had younger children and owned a business).

The post Economic reproduction of bourgeois families in León, 18th-19th centuries first appeared on History Lab.

Transmission of the patrimonial assets of the León bourgeoisie, 18th and 19th centuries

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:29:13 +0000

Marriage contributions and the transmission of wealth through inheritance were the two main methods of perpetuating the family in the social group and promoting its promotion if conditions were favourable. This resource deals with the latter aspect: the transmission of the patrimonial assets of bourgeois families in the city of León between the 18th century and the first half of the 19th century. The bourgeoisies that the authors deal with are the commercial, administrative and liberal professionals. Together, the distribution of inheritances followed the Castilian system of inheritance; egalitarian. The liberal professional sector reproduced it in this way. However, within the Castilian framework, there was also the possibility of empowering an heir through the tercio de mejora and the quinto de libre disposición. Thus, the administrative bourgeoisie opted for the joint improvement of the third and fifth to one of the scions, leaving the total of the legitimate inheritance at 92.1%. The merchants followed the same trend, but with more attenuated values (95.6% of legitimate shares). In short, the distributions were fairly equitable in quantitative terms, but not in terms of the quality of the inheritance, because although the value tended to be the same, the business and the house went to a single first-born male.

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Social distribution of exploited land in northern Spain (18th century)

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:29:13 +0000

Land ownership was one of the factors that made the Ancien Régime an unequal system, a reflection of the estates’ society. In the mid-18th century, northern Spain was no stranger to these issues. The resource addresses the differences in land tenure according to whether they were coastal or inland areas, in an exercise in comparative methodology. The author identifies two distinct models of social stratification in the coastal provinces: the first is based on a smallholding society where average holdings are between one and one and a half hectares, meaning that 60% of the peasants did not reach the minimum subsistence level, while the top 15% of holdings controlled between 40 and 50% of the land. The second coastal model was the one located in the transition zone between the coast and the interior, where the degree of smallholdings was greater but, again, insufficient, and where secondary economic activities had to be carried out for subsistence: livestock farming.

The post Social distribution of exploited land in northern Spain (18th century) first appeared on History Lab.

Typology of the goods brought to the marriage. Jerez de la Frontera, 18th century

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

The dowry, a form in which the contracting parties contributed movable and immovable property to the marriage in order to have a patrimonial base, was one of the strategies used by families to make their members attractive and thus be able to position them in the best social esteem. The resource shows the typology of the dowry property, according to the sex that provided it, in Jerez de la Frontera during the 18th century. The diversity and composition of the dowry reflects the main roles of each sex: men most frequently provided housing (36%), money (28%), shops (12%), livestock (44%), land (40%), agricultural products (20%) and work equipment (36%); while women offered clothing (47%), jewellery (24%) and land (24%). The man-woman, work-home dichotomy in the patrimonial contribution served as a social cushion for the family. While the contribution of land and cultivation provided the new household with economic consolidation, with work opportunities for future offspring and the acquisition of its own resources, the clothes, money and furniture brought by the woman created the physical home itself. As the author points out, the study of dowry also reflects the socio-professional composition of the municipality. In this case, the large amount of land, although brought to the marriage in small tracts of maximum 2 hectares, shows the clear agricultural orientation of the locality.

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Shaping the Demographic Parameters of the Differentiated Household in a North Atlantic Model (1584-1670)

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

Rural society in south-western Galicia, in the Bajo Miño region, was part of the North Atlantic demographic system. The study of the parish of San Martín de Caldelas, between 1584 and 1670, shows us the configuration of households according to their economic, material and status level within society: upper, middle and lower families. A first analysis reveals the predominance in number of the lower, more humble families. In these families, the average number of children per family was lower than in the middle and upper families, being 5.79, 7.67 and 6.6 respectively. Another significant difference is the age of entry into marriage, both for women and men, with the poorer families showing a tendency to delay entry due to a late exit from the family, while the upper families had a younger age of marriage for the male than the others. This age difference had an impact on the years of actual fertility, being higher in the more privileged families. The wide variety of information provided by the author helps us to understand the demographic dynamics of families; a structural issue for the analysis and explanation of the society of the Ancien Régime.

The post Shaping the Demographic Parameters of the Differentiated Household in a North Atlantic Model (1584-1670) first appeared on History Lab.

Family strategies of social groups. The case of Caldelas, Galicia (17th century)

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

The resource presents marriage strategies and social mobility in the Bajo Miño de Calderas region (Galicia) at the end of the 17th century. The author categorises family dynamics according to the social group to which the contracting members belonged. In this way, the families of the local elite show the most common techniques: marriage alliances linked to consanguinity, strong reproductive capacity and social success. Of the 23 elite families studied, 47% continued to maintain middle or higher status, although a significant number of offspring descended to lower families, 43%, reflecting downward social mobility. For their part, middle families followed the same trends as the upper families, albeit mitigating the impact of upward social destination. These two groups of the affluent fed off each other in social endogamy. Upward mobility was achieved by linking into middle-upper alliances; however, middle-lower marriages were a constant half of social reproduction. Lower families tended to maintain their stratum through social inbreeding relationships, with few but existing examples of upward mobility.

The post Family strategies of social groups. The case of Caldelas, Galicia (17th century) first appeared on History Lab.

Transcription of the Floridablanca Census of 1787

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:28:33 +0000

The Floridablanca Census, carried out during the reign of Charles III in 1787, is one of the first censuses carried out using modern accounting techniques. Its aim was to establish the number of the population and to see what trades they carried out. Its data, collected from all the inhabitants of each municipality, are divided by sex, age, profession and marital status. On a collective level they collect data related to the number of hospitals, houses of religion, prisons, etc. 10,268,110 inhabitants were counted in Spain, with varying population densities (the average was 22.7 ahb/Km2). The linked INE wen offers the 6 volumes that correspond to the census and which are divided by geographical areas.

The post Transcription of the Floridablanca Census of 1787 first appeared on History Lab.