Hogares - History Lab

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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Encomienda of women abducted or manifested by marriage in the Diocese of Zaragoza (1700-1810)

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

At the beginning of modernity, and after the Council of Trent (1545-1563), the Church considered that Catholic marriages were based on the freedom of choice of the contracting parties. In effect, the marriage union was to be ratified by the man and the woman without coercion and under their own motivation. However, acceptance could be, and often was, conditioned by the family environment. The promulgation of the canon law of freedom of marriage was accompanied by legal remedies which, under ecclesiastical protection, made it possible for a woman engaged to a man to run away from home in order to marry against the wishes of her parents: this was “kidnapping”. This resource was used in Spain to extract the bride and groom safely. For this purpose, while waiting for the union under the altar, the woman was taken to another place for the protection of her decision. The resource shows the encomiendas of women “abducted”, or manifested by word of marriage, in the Diocese of Saragossa between 1700 and 1810. The main place to which they turned was to households of equal honour and social status to the abductee’s natural family (61% of cases); followed by the protection of local authorities (26%), religious institutions or the home of “honourable widows” (3% in both cases), or other relatives (3%). what did the parents do about the abduction? Of the 233 cases analysed, 3% were resolved by forced return to the parental home, 2% by infra-judicial arrangements and a remarkable 95% by marriage consolidation of the abducted maiden.

The post Encomienda of women abducted or manifested by marriage in the Diocese of Zaragoza (1700-1810) first appeared on History Lab.

Female widowhood in the Kingdom of Granada in 1787 according to the Floridablanca Census. Data in %

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

This map shows the percentages of female widowhood in the kingdom of Granada at the end of the 18th century using as a basis the information from the Floridablanca Census (1787). This census is considered to be one of the most complete of the Enlightenment, as the information it collects is structured on the basis of knowledge of the population by means of the following questions: according to type of accommodation and sex; classification by marital status, age and sex; classification by occupation; number of charitable and health centres; and religious communities. As can be seen from the map, the differences between the different regions stand out, where the figure barely exceeds 8% in towns belonging to Almeria, while values close to 15% are reached in areas of Malaga. Thus, the data shown indicate the greater weight of widowed women in the Malaga region. Undoubtedly, there are several factors that influence this issue, among them the greater or lesser access to remarriage, as well as the incidence of high male immigration caused mainly by the enrolment at sea.

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The post Female widowhood in the Kingdom of Granada in 1787 according to the Floridablanca Census. Data in % first appeared on History Lab.

Age of children in the household in Albacete (1787)

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

The number of children in the household varies with their age. Unsurprisingly, those under 18 dominate the data with a total of 2,431: 8 out of 10. Between the ages of 18 and 35 the figure drops sharply to 630 (2 out of 10). Finally, those over 35 account for 1% of the total (37 children). The data confirm the age-split structures that are configured with the life cycle of individuals. The greater the economic and legal dependency, the higher the rate of residence in the family home; on the contrary, when a marital bond is created, people leave home to form a new residential nucleus. Within these dynamics, variables can be differentiated according to the sex of the child. Thus, while men leave home more frequently, female guardianship was framed first under paternal parental authority and then with the husband. Consequently, the higher rate of celibacy among women meant that they were slower to leave the family home. If this happens at an advanced age, we find the contrast in the younger age of women, whose marriage age is lower than that of men (in proportion, they married less, but they married earlier), favouring the departure of women from the home.

The post Age of children in the household in Albacete (1787) first appeared on History Lab.

Relatives to whom inheritance improvements are given. Albacete, 1760s.

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

The sample shown refers to the testamentary mandates that determined the inheritance of individuals. Despite the supposedly egalitarian inheritance, characteristic of the Castilian area, six out of every ten deeds contained an imbalance that broke with equality by improving certain family members. Of these, 31% were destined for sons and daughters, and of these, there is a greater predominance of males than females. With 17%, it was the servants who obtained an improvement, a significant fact as it reveals bonds of solidarity beyond the mercantile contract between master and servant. At the other end of the scale, only 4% of those who bequeathed more to their siblings were clerics, subject to celibacy, who bequeathed their possessions to siblings and nephews; and parents, with 9%. In the latter case, it was usually the children who died prematurely, without offspring, who improved their parents’ estates. It should be noted that improvements in inheritances were not produced as a means of ostensibly improving a child or relative, but as a type of compensation based on affection, work carried out or esteem. In short, despite the existence of improvements, they do not have a value that decisively breaks the egalitarian inheritance.

The post Relatives to whom inheritance improvements are given. Albacete, 1760s. first appeared on History Lab.

Life cycle and peasantry in the Sierra de Alcaraz (1753)

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

One of the most characteristic groups due to their mobility and social reproduction during the Modern Age were the labour and livestock labourers. The large number of this profession, together with that of labourer and farm labourer, marked the labour activities for young people up to 35 years of age in the Sierra de Alcaraz, a study area in central-southern Spain. Why did it increase so much up to that age? These activities were a good way to enter the world of work. Of the three dominant professional groups, from the age of 35 onwards, it was the young men who abandoned their work the most to seek another livelihood, normally sponsored by the clientele networks they had acquired in their old trade, while the day labourers and farm labourers remained relatively stable until the age of 45. This structure is influenced by the life cycles of the protagonists; the departure from the family nucleus, where many of the young men’s own tasks were carried out, led them to seek another form of independent life.

The post Life cycle and peasantry in the Sierra de Alcaraz (1753) first appeared on History Lab.

Inheritance systems in Modern Spain

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

According to the authors of the resource, “the inheritance systems sought the joint stability of men and women, mixing collective solidarity and particularised benefits” in search of succession strategies. In contrast to the traditional simplification of inheritance transmission models, the authors show us the more complex reality of the systems in their distribution throughout the national geography. The systems of sole heirs are subdivided according to the testator’s intention to promote a male or without defined priority. Within the former, Catalonia and the north of Aragon stand out, while in the latter, the areas of Navarre and Vizcaya stand out. For the Castilian egalitarian system, two variants have also been identified according to family motivations: favouring one heir with the third of improvement and the fifth of free disposition, leaving 2/3 of the inheritance for the rest destined to the offspring, or relatives in the absence of the former. This ensured the predominance of one heir over the others, but safeguarded a part for the overall distribution. Guipúzcoa, Asturias, the mountains of Santander and the province of Lugo (the latter already in the 18th century) reproduced this system. In the rest of the Crown of Castile, equal distribution between men and women, elders and minors predominated, except in cases where, out of affection or help in the testator’s old age, the testator tended to improve the inheritance of the person who assisted him. However, in order to avoid excessive patrimonial atomisation, wills could establish a patronage, chaplaincy or entailed estate in order to fix the endowed assets and provide the successors with constant assets that could not be alienated; another formula was to use part of the patrimony as a matrimonial dowry to ensure the social and biological reproduction of the family.

The post Inheritance systems in Modern Spain first appeared on History Lab.

Typology of the family in the province of León in the middle of the 18th century

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

The author gives us the structure of the family in the province of León according to the Catastro de la Ensenada (1752-1754). By areas, the rural world, represented by the counties linked to agrarian models, the nuclear family was hegemonic, with values far higher than in the urban world. These values are attenuated in mountain areas for the nuclear model, in contrast with the growth of the solitary household, reaching levels of 22.7%. In the rest of the province, the number of single people was between 15% and 13%, with Cea-Campos standing out for its low number of single people: 6.7%. The extended household, made up of direct family additions to the nuclear household, was the third most widespread typology, but with more modest values. It stood out in the counties and villages with the lowest percentage of nuclear families; similarly, the multiple household, almost absent, had a greater impact in mountainous areas: Ancares (3.3%) and Montaña (6.4%), and was the protagonist of the rural elites as a compensatory family strategy in the distribution of inheritance.

The post Typology of the family in the province of León in the middle of the 18th century first appeared on History Lab.

Firearms and bladed weapons in domestic interiors in Burgos, 18th century

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

The resource shows the presence of firearms and bladed weapons in the homes of eighteenth-century Burgos. The author, through post-mortem inventories, systematises the number and valuation of these artefacts according to professional categories. Thus, we can see that the households of the bureaucrats and the noble rentiers had the greatest number of firearms, with 77 and 57 respectively, with a total price of 4,878 and 5,941 in reales de vellón. The figures are equally higher in these groups for bladed weapons (119 and 50). In a comparative methodology between firearms and bladed weapons, we observe differences: of all the weapons, the farmers had 80% firearms and 20% bladed weapons. Although they were, in sum, a tiny number (5 weapons), the trend also stood out in another professional category that was widely equipped with firearms: the militia (66.7% compared to 33.3%). In the city as a whole, of the 236 households analysed, the majority had more accessible bladed weapons (54.9%), while firearms accounted for 45.1%.

The post Firearms and bladed weapons in domestic interiors in Burgos, 18th century first appeared on History Lab.

Age groups, sex and marital status of heads of household in Jorquera and Casas Ibáñez (Albacete, 1753)

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

The marital status of the heads of household, regardless of their sex, is directly associated with the stage of the life cycle. In 1753, according to the Ensenada Cadastre, in the towns of Jorquera and Casas Ibáñez in Albacete, the majority of married people were between 25 and 34 years of age, with men and women entering marriage at an age close to the lower end of the range. Among the single heads of household, there is a majority female presence among young women under 25, while men stand out in the 25-34 age range. On the other hand, the highest number of widowers is found in the 55-64 age bracket, and decreases in the over 65 age bracket (due to remarriage); widows stand out in the same age bracket as men, however, there is a significantly higher figure in the 45-54 age bracket with 32.14% compared to 17.78% for men. In this way we can follow the life cycle of these municipalities of La Manchuela: within the group of young bachelors, men married a few years later than women, women were widowed earlier and tended to be single, while men tended to remarry from the age of 55 onwards.

The post Age groups, sex and marital status of heads of household in Jorquera and Casas Ibáñez (Albacete, 1753) first appeared on History Lab.