Grupos sociales - History Lab

Miscegenation in American society (I)

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:30:33 +0000

This work, entitled “De chino cambujo e india, loba” (“Of Chinese Cambujo and Indian, Wolf”), depicts a family group consisting of a father, a mother and a son, identified by inscriptions that refer to their degree of miscegenation from indigenous, European and African ethnic origins. These representations are characteristic of a pictorial genre that developed in the Viceroyalty of New Spain throughout the 18th century. It is known as “caste painting” and is organised on the basis of series generally consisting of sixteen paintings in which the most common unions are arranged. As shown in this canvas, which belongs to a set dispersed among various collections, the clothing and adornment of the figures, the activity they perform and the setting in which the action takes place, act as fundamental elements in identifying the social status of those depicted. Miguel Cabrera, the author of this group, who signed and dated the last of the canvases in 1763, is the painter most widely recognised by his contemporaries and had a large number of disciples and followers who were often inspired by the master’s own models.

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Miscegenation in American society (II)

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:30:33 +0000

This work, entitled “De español y mestiza, castiza” (“Of Spaniard and Mestiza, Caste”), is a representation of mixed-race or caste painting, and is one of the main sources of information on everyday life in the Viceroyalty of New Spain in the 18th century. These representations are characteristic of a pictorial genre that developed during this century, known as “caste painting”. This genre was usually organised in series of 16 scenes depicting family groups made up of different ethnic groups, in response to the Enlightenment’s desire to order and classify the social structure and to show a self-image of the socio-cultural diversity of New Spain. It is likely that these works were intended for a foreign audience. This particular canvas was painted by Miguel Cabrera in 1763, the painter most recognised by his contemporaries. It depicts a family of high social rank, as can be deduced from the clothing and ornaments worn by the figures, who are standing in front of a shoe shop.

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Meeting of beggars

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:30:14 +0000

This scene shows in different shots a social gathering of beggars on the outskirts of what could presumably be understood as a liturgical space where they would seek, through the charity of Christian parishioners, to obtain some coin for their sustenance. In the centre of the composition is one of them, dressed as best he can, teaching the word of God as he appears with a crucifix hanging around his neck, which he holds in his right hand before the attention of a small group of five beggars and the attentive gaze of one of them in the foreground. The image allows us to reconstruct the practices of begging in the Modern Age and the daily life of this unprivileged social group, traditionally absent from scholarly historical texts.

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View of Granada (1572)

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

The resource shows a panoramic view of the city of Granada around 1572. It shows some of the most emblematic and representative places in the city, such as the Albaicín, Sierra Nevada, the Royal Hospital, the Alhambra and the Generalife. It is an image that also allows us to work on questions of the social, political and cultural life of the time. In the lower part of the image, the clothing worn by the figures depicted shows the different social groups that lived together in the city at that time: the Old Christians and the Moors. Four Moorish women are depicted wearing the almalafa, the large tunic that covers the head and face. It should be noted that from the beginning of the 16th century, decrees and provisions were issued listing Moorish practices that were to be eradicated. However, resistance was strong and by 1560 the situation was very tense. The policy of acculturation did not produce the expected results and the vast majority of the Moors, especially the women, continued to speak Arabic and wore forbidden clothes, as shown in these engravings from the Civitates orbis terrarum series, which date from precisely these years. The political and social tension finally led to the uprising of the Moors in the kingdom of Granada on Christmas Eve 1568, under the command of the Moorish nobleman Fernando de Córdoba y Valor, also known as Abén Humeya.

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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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Distribution of land ownership in the Sierra de Alcaraz (1753). Cultivated land.

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:29:31 +0000

In mountain areas such as the Sierra de Alcaraz, land ownership was conditioned by the orography of the territory. In 1753, 28.3% of the land in this mountain range was under cultivation. Of this figure, almost 50% of the cultivation belonged to only 2% of the owners. Likewise, almost half of the total landowners owned only 2% of the arable land. The marked imbalance of ownership translated into different economic benefits: the concentration of land in a few hands meant that 17% of landowners owned more than 1,000 reals of gross produce, a figure that rose to more than 40,000 for the few individuals who owned the most; again, conversely, more than 70% of landowners owned less than 500 reals of produce. The rest of the uncultivated land, 71.7%, could belong to the Council, which was also controlled by the local elites. Livestock farming, like agriculture, showed the same tendency towards concentration in the hands of a few individuals. The survival and future of the less well-off depended on the leasing of land, either for cultivation or as pasture for livestock. These data are but one concrete example of the inequalities that existed in the Ancien Régime and which were perpetuated throughout southern Spain.

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The post Distribution of land ownership in the Sierra de Alcaraz (1753). Cultivated land. first appeared on History Lab.

Distribution of the population according to social groups in Navahermosa (Toledo) in 1752

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:28:52 +0000

Navahermosa formed part (1243-1837) of the Montes y Propios de Toledo, a lordship in the hands of the city, which appointed the authorities and administered justice through the Fiel Juzgado. Its population experienced a notable quantitative growth in the little more than one hundred years between 1752 and 1877. From the 1,874 inhabitants recorded in the Ensenada Cadastre, it grew to 3,217 in the 1877 census. The growth, which must have been vegetative in the first instance, was due to the arrival of immigrants, whose presence is common in the parish registers from the second decade of the 19th century. The existence of the social division of labour within a society meant that, on occasions, certain members of a family were involved in different productive processes. Each family unit occupied a place in the social division of labour determined by the head of the family, even if some of its members had a different activity. In functionalist terms, we assume that the social position of a family was primarily determined by the socially ascribed valuation and the social role played by the head of the family. The category of farmers is the result of an aggregation of neighbours to whom the Cadastre of 1752 gives various designations. In its conformation, everything indicates that, in the majority of cases, the day labourers cultivated their own land, alternating this work with the work they carried out as wage labourers. These circumstances placed them in a somewhat precarious position. The day labourers were able to find relief from their situation thanks to the exploitation rights of the inhabitants of the villages in the mountains and in the city of Toledo. The group of craftsmen was made up of potters, wheelwrights, tailors, masons, shoemakers and weavers, among others; under the term “professionals” we have gathered together eight residents who worked as doctors, surgeons, apothecaries, surveyors, notaries, teachers of the first letters, sacristans and sacristans. Within the group of the poor, widows without property were added to those classified as the solemnly poor.

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Nobility and bourgeoisie in the 18th century

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:28:06 +0000

In this multimedia resource, the main theme addressed by Professor of Modern History Luis Antonio Ribot García is the relationship between the Enlightenment, as a cultural movement, and the bourgeoisie as a protagonist of renovation that carries out its definitive consolidation as a social group that harbours great expectations of prominence in the political and economic spheres. Likewise, emphasis is placed on the social ascent of the bourgeoisie, who gradually aspired to form part of the privileged group of the nobility, their objective being, in short, to achieve social triumph.

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The history of women in the Prado Museum. Educational guide

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:27:41 +0000

According to the presentation made by the Museo del Prado itself, the Didactic Guide is based on the need to promote the association of museums and educational institutions to create joint strategies to overcome gender inequalities through a critical approach to the history and theories of art. The project is part of “Didactics 2.0 Museums in Feminine”, a project that is the result of joint work between a team from the Feminist Research Institute of the Complutense University of Madrid, the e-Women Association and the teams from the Museums participating in the project: Museo del Prado, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Museo Arqueológico Nacional, Museo del Traje and Museo Nacional de Cerámica González Martí. The itineraries prepared by Antonia Fernández Valencia, Marián López Fernández Cao and Asunción Bernárdez Rodal address two basic themes: Women and power and Women’s jobs. According to these authors, although they are clearly related to each other, we can say that they have a profoundly complementary character from a social point of view, since the first one basically includes the works and biographies of women from royal and noble houses, while the second one, even including some examples of women from these groups due to their political activity, focuses essentially on the works of women from the middle and working classes. Both itineraries choose different works that put us in contact with different aspects of women in history and can lead us in turn to different themes of the History of Spain in the Modern Age. They are divided into several blocks: Discourse on motherhood, devotion, power and women’s knowledge; Queens and regents in Hapsburg Spain; Our daily work; Family portraits; and Women with their own name. With a clear methodology in terms of objectives and content, as well as the keys to analysis that are of most interest, in each section there is a section of proposed activities and complementary activities for students. And at the end, a series of appendices are added which deal with aspects related to the portraits, questioning the social situation or abounding in lines of conceptual work which can be expanded on later by resorting to other primary sources or historiography.

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Women’s lives through ceramics and sumptuary arts

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:27:41 +0000

Didactic guide that aims to provide work material for teachers and students interested in opening up new avenues of reflection based on active participation and critical questioning of the history and theories of art with the inclusion of the gender perspective. From the collections of the Museo Nacional de Cerámica Gonzalez Martí, which houses a series of objects that refer us to different spheres of artistic reflection and cultural production, the aim is to raise questions about gender equality. Objects that speak to us from the power of accumulation and wealth to different forms of reproduction of everyday life and care, from the most intimate spheres to the presence of the public sphere. The itinerary proposed by the authors – Asunción Bernardez Rodal, Antonia Fernández Valencia and Marián López Fernández Cao – responds to the need to give greater visibility to women’s work and their participation in both material and symbolic life throughout history. The itinerary we propose has two lines of development: on the one hand, it aims to highlight the importance of women in artistic creation in general and in ceramics in particular, questioning above all the traditional role of women in art, which has been above all that of being models for artists. Secondly, the analysis of social space as significant places where gender relations are expressed. Although the chronological approach of the guide is long-term, the Modern Age has an important presence. The project is part of “Didactics 2.0 Museums in Feminine”, a project that is the result of joint work between a team from the Feminist Research Institute of the Complutense University of Madrid, the e-Women Association and the teams from the museums participating in the project: Museo del Prado, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Museo Arqueológico Nacional, Museo del Traje and Museo Nacional de Cerámica González Martí

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