Movilidad social - History Lab

Socio-professional distribution by heads of household according to age groups. Lorca, 1797

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

With this resource, the authors highlight the social mobility of the peasantry at the end of the Ancien Régime in the municipality of Lorca (Murcia). The relationship between day labourers, tenant farmers and tenant farmers shows a decrease in the number of day labourers over the course of their life cycle, while the group of farm labourers remains stable. The change of occupation among day labourers, who account for more than 50% of the heads of household aged between 20 and 25, becomes more pronounced from the age of 50 onwards.

The post Socio-professional distribution by heads of household according to age groups. Lorca, 1797 first appeared on History Lab.

Distribution by head of household of day labourers without property according to age group. Lorca, 1797

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

Social mobility within the group of day labourers without property is determined by the moment in the life cycle in which they find themselves and by the space in which the day labourer’s activity is carried out. The graph shows that in the city the level of social mobility is lower than in the countryside and, above all, than in the huerta. The municipality of Lorca (Murcia) is at an intermediate level due to its characteristics as an agro-city. In short, neighbourhood relations, familiarity, solidarity and proximity are closely related to this phenomenon, which is also linked to the economic conditions of the areas of activity.

The post Distribution by head of household of day labourers without property according to age group. Lorca, 1797 first appeared on History Lab.

From outsider to mayor: the network of Don Martín Villaranda García in Bermellar (18th century)

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

The resource analyses the social impact of Martín Villaranda García as an example of clientelist, family and social reproduction networks. The author investigates Martín’s trajectory since he settled in the municipality of Bermellar (bishopric of Ciudad Rodrigo). There he married María Bogajo and they had 11 children, 8 of whom survived. Of all of them, María’s socially well-positioned father was the godfather of 5; Martín thus reinforced the ties with his father-in-law as a means of penetration and consolidation within society. With the death of Pedro in 1759, Martín saw his possessions increase as he was one of the main heirs. Six years later, in 1764, his wife died and he remarried Rosenda Sánchez Pastor, with whom he had five more children. Martín’s family networks were part of a larger strategy of social reproduction that also included ties of compadrazgo and spiritual ties that helped to underpin his social status (Martín was godfather to 13 children between 1737 and 1762, obtained hidalguía between 1752 and 1757, and was mayor ordinario in 1762 and 1767)

The post From outsider to mayor: the network of Don Martín Villaranda García in Bermellar (18th century) first appeared on History Lab.

Demographic wight and femininity of servants in French cities of the ancient regime

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

Gender studies have burst onto the scene to make up for years of women’s relative absence from historical analysis. Social gender studies allow us to trace patterns of behaviour that influence the genders in their performance in history. In this case, we see the enormous weight of women in French serfdom during the ancien régime. This is mainly due to the fact that women, unlike men, did not tend to be as mobile as men. To this must be added the fact that the burden of children was often left to the mother, who often had to raise them alone due to the high mortality rate among men. The need to maintain the family economy created these networks of dependency, which mainly affected women from the lowest social stratum. In this way, we could also make a class analysis of which spectrum of women was susceptible to servitude. In this case, those who belonged to the privileged social groups tended to have incomes which, in the case of widowhood, allowed them to support themselves.

The post Demographic wight and femininity of servants in French cities of the ancient regime first appeared on History Lab.

Legitimacy and parental status

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

The city of Cadiz underwent an economic transformation during the modern age that turned it into one of the most important cities in Europe. The crossroads of trade routes from the Indies, Africa and Asia turned this great city not only into a commercial emporium, but also into a place marked by the presence of allochthonous people who were integrated into servitude and slavery. The study of the profile of the slave is a task that has been undertaken by social history. This type of study has never ceased to be of interest in order to gain a closer understanding of the networks that operated in the transatlantic empires. In this case, the legal status of the parents of these slaves is shown. This type of testimony is made possible by the scrupulousness with which ecclesiastical documents were used to classify individuals and to obtain information about their life trajectory, a documentation that was promoted above all after the Council of Trent. The testimonies describe the situation of the baptised slave in a city as important as Cadiz. Informal links between the progenitors prevailed, as it was not common for the masters to approve of the union between slaves. When this happened, or when another slave became pregnant, they were usually separated so that they could not meet again. This explains why the descendants often did not know who their father was.

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Typology of testamentary beneficiaries according to the groups of the Chapter of the Cathedral of Murcia (1743-1820)

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

All the clergy did not have the same concerns or strategies of social reproduction. The resource shows us the differences in the wills of the cathedral chapter of Murcia between 1743 and 1820. Although there were common tendencies, such as favouring the family lineage through patrimony against the moralistic treatises of the Church, the strength with which these policies of inheritance transmission were perpetuated differed according to the ecclesiastical grade. The most family-conscious group in the chapter was the Dignities. The author identifies the trajectories of each of the members and reveals that, in contrast to the traditional idea of belonging to the nobiliary estate, and thus being imbued with the idea of lineage, the members were made up of families who had recently joined the local oligarchies in a process of social ascent. Their arrival in the upper strata gave rise to the need to consolidate their position there, so that nurturing the family through patrimony was one of their concerns. The rest of the groups, both canons and racioneros, also underwent this process. Many of these family estates led to the entry of another generation into the clerical estate, a fundamental issue within the strategies of social reproduction and perpetuation of the lineage.

The post Typology of testamentary beneficiaries according to the groups of the Chapter of the Cathedral of Murcia (1743-1820) 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.

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Activities of French immigrants in Saragossa (17th-18th centuries)

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

Immigration to Spain is not a current phenomenon. During the Ancien Régime, numerous people of other nationalities emigrated to Spain in search of new opportunities and social advancement. The specific case of this resource refers to the trades that the French settled in Saragossa in the 17th and 18th centuries. According to the marriage records, 104 French settlers were counted in Saragossa. Of these, 84 worked as “employees”; 16 as “self-employed”; and 4 in an unknown employment situation. Of the 84 contracted, 21 were bakers, a much higher number than any other trade, followed by 8 labourers, 6 weavers and 5 servants. But the high disposition in the baker’s trade was not accompanied by a promotion in this sector, as only 1 was a master baker. Finally, there may have been cases in which immigrants sought shortcuts to social advancement outside the law, as in the case of Juan Sarto, a Frenchman who forged documents from the University of Zaragoza and parish books to pass himself off as Aragonese.

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Number of merchants detected in several Castilian cities between the second half of the 15th century and the beginning of the 16th century

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:28:27 +0000

The economy experienced growth in the Crown of Castile during the transition from the Middle Ages to the Modern Age. The statistics and merchant trajectories of its four main cities (Burgos, Valladolid, Toledo and Seville) reflect this. Burgos, despite having a population of 10,000 inhabitants, its geopolitical and economic power meant that its merchants were the most powerful in the whole of Castile. These merchant families perpetuated themselves in the trade and predominated in finance and business. They took advantage of their influence to assert themselves in the organs of local power and became part of the dominant oligarchy. They also developed marriage policies to reproduce themselves socially and maintain their privileges. The merchants of other cities such as Toledo or Seville followed similar dynamics to gain access to the local oligarchies, although on most occasions they found themselves unable to gain access to power and were left in a situation of subordination. Another causality in the actions of the merchants can be found in Valladolid. Although it had a population of 30,000 and considerable economic activity, its merchants were not able to gain access to local power so easily, as the oligarchy was more determined to avoid the interference of external agents who could displace them, directing their influence to other parts of the Peninsula.

The post Number of merchants detected in several Castilian cities between the second half of the 15th century and the beginning of the 16th century first appeared on History Lab.