Patrimonios - 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.

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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.

The post Level of wealth of the bourgeoisie of León, 18th-19th centuries first appeared on History Lab.

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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Beneficiaries of the wills of the Murcian prebendaries (1743-1820)

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

The resource deals with the inheritance strategy of the prebendados of the cathedral of Murcia between 1743 and 1820. Despite what the ecclesiastical literature proposed (that the clergy’s assets should be destined to the Church and the poor), the high clergy of Murcia returned the benefits they obtained to their families. In fact, of the 46 wills studied, 52% (24 cases) had the clergyman’s family as the main beneficiary; 24% (11 cases) the Church; and another 24% the family-Church binomial. Overall, the burden of family obligations was the main motivation for making a will. The possible inheritance received and the patrimony to be ordained clergy subject to celibacy dispersed the family assets among the offspring; the return of the assets to the family meant, once again, the concentration of patrimony. However, the author warns, the tendency to put the family as the main beneficiary decreased by 9% compared to the period from 1591 to 1746.

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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.

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Amount and distribution of the mandas to the Church of the prebendados of the cathedral of Murcia (1743-1820)

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

The concerns of the transmission of the patrimony for the members of the cathedral chapter of Murcia were their own families. Between 1743 and 1820, 52% of the main beneficiaries of the testamentary mandates of the chapter testify to this. However, the moralist treatises and the doctrine of the Church tried to ensure that the distribution favoured the ecclesiastical institution itself and the poor. How was the distribution and amount of the mandates for these items? As a minority with respect to the total inheritance, the main beneficiary was the cathedral factory with 37,700 reales. The hospital of San Juan de Dios also benefited with 13,220 reales and the Casa de la Misericordia with 9,870 reales. All these institutions had in common the assistance to the poor. Below 9,000 reales, we find ecclesiastical entities: convents, parishes or confraternities, the latter with the lowest contribution: 528.

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Appointment of guardians and curators in wills. Valladolid, 18th century

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

During the Modern Age, testamentary mandates emerged as strategies of social reproduction aimed at improving the family lineage. Sometimes, the deceased testator bequeathed to his children, minors, the movable and immovable property that he had in his power and administration. However, these assets were placed under the guardianship of an adult, usually close to the family, to administer them until the offspring reached maturity. The choice of the administrators of the inheritance was not a minor matter, but was a major concern of the testator in view of the possible perversion of the person chosen. In Valladolid, 77.8% of those appointed guardians were the spouses of the deceased, followed at a great distance by other relatives (9.3%), siblings (2.9%), children and parents (both with 2.3%), and “others” (5.4%), a concept which brings together numerous categories of individuals related to the family through neighbourhood or spiritual kinship. The city of Valladolid marked the general trend more sharply; in contrast, the nuances of the rural world attenuated the divergent criteria. Differentiated by sex, women chose other relatives (35.8%) rather than their husbands (21.1%) to be the administrators of their children’s inheritance.

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Inheritance distribution in the province of León in the 18th century

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

The distribution of inheritance was one of the main concerns of the testators. During the 18th century in the province of León there was a direct relationship between the socio-economic structural framework and the choice of the inheritance model. The egalitarian distribution in the agrarian areas of Cea-Campos, the Vega del Esla and the Páramo stands out. However, despite having a similar agrarian model, the mountain area had some differences with respect to the rest of the province of León: there was a tendency towards the improvement of the third and fifth (between 36.5% and 42.8%) and the testamentary mandates (30.5%-38.5%) which favoured a first-born son in contrast to the rest of the offspring. The limited arable land in these territories marked the family strategy aimed at guaranteeing the biological reproduction of at least one member of the family, without social descent. Indeed, the possible disintegration of the patrimony would condition the marital choice to lower strata; a downward social mobility that the families wanted to avoid.

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Type of landholding and age of the head of the family in the Sierra de Alcaraz (Albacete) in 1753

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

In the Sierra del Alcaraz area of the 18th century, property was unequally distributed among the number of owners. The inequality between large and small landowners was also affected by another factor: age. Ownership and the life cycle of the individual are intimately linked in the family environment: while the parents acquire land, the children work on it as helpers. When they reach the age of 35 to 55, the stage of greatest accumulation of property takes place; their parents, already in the final years of their lives, give them the land so that they can perpetuate themselves in the family. However, until the time of their death, those over 55 years of age will continue to concentrate their wealth. Of the owners over this age, 25.7% are counted as medium-sized owners, compared with 23.4% who had no real estate, a not insignificant figure, which only increases from the age of 65 onwards with 35.5%. This trend in medium-sized property ownership contrasts with the dynamics of small and large estates. Thus, among small property owners, those between 35 and 44 years of age stand out most, and large property owners between 45 and 54 years of age.

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