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JOSE ANTONIO MATEOS ROYO University of Zaragoza

Faculty of Economic and Business Sciences Department of Economic History and Structure and Public Economy

Gran Vía, 2 ZARAGOZA –50005- E-mail: jmateos@unizar.es

MUNICIPAL POLICY, FOOD SUPPLY AND URBAN MARKETS IN THE KINGDOM OF

ARAGON DURING THE 16TH AND 17TH CENTURIES (*)

SUMMARY: This article analyses municipal policy regarding food supplies in the

kingdom of Aragon during the 16th and 17th centuries. Based on a self-centred concept of economic growth, maximum public intervention and the management of a social consensus regarding the public market, the government expanded the supply of basic foods and tried to contain price increases, in order to support growth of demand, promote savings and investment, and moderate salary increases - thus energizing productive and business activities. Nevertheless, the restructuring stemming from the demographic and economic recession of the 17th century created a more proactive model, directing the interests of the elite towards the export of raw materials, and breaking the social consensus regarding the market. Significant municipal debt made it necessary for negotiations among the local elite, creditors and other social groups to raise municipal revenues. These were paid by the adoption of direct taxes, in small villages with a strong communal tradition, and indirect taxes in the cities better adapted to the interests of the elite, with particular impact on basic foods. The opposition of both privileged and less-privileged groups to these charges, as well as the municipal debt, reduced public intervention in the market to the benefit of private initiatives, whose greater efficiency failed to counter the decline in consumption. The increased price of food exacerbated the effects of the economic recession. Demand fell even more and savings were reduced, resulting in salary increases for day-workers and higher prices for manufactured goods. This discouraged investment and strengthened the competitiveness of foreign merchandise. This process especially affected the cities as centres of production, commerce and consumption.

1. Introduction.

Unfortunately, an essential element in the understanding of the economic and social history of Europe, and especially in its urban development during the Early Modern Age, which is the policy of basic food supply developed by public institutions, has stagnated within Spanish historiography. After counting on precedents of interest and developing strongly during the decades of 1970 and 1980 through the influence of French School of Annales1, it received scant attention by economic researchers within Medieval and Early Modern History, who concentrated more on political, social and cultural analyses. In addition, the massive concentration of work by economists in the period following 1850 has caused this area of study in the last fifteen years2 to be subjected to such an isolated and scant treatment as to have prevented the closing of gaps, the broadening of perspectives and the undertaking of more extensive analysis.

Together with these tendencies of Spanish historiography, abandonment of this topic has had practical motivations. The obligatory development of local studies, whose general value is arguable, the lack of proven and precise sources, and the non-existence of a research

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methodology which allowed the homogenisation of results, the contrast of hypotheses and the development of solid syntheses3, discouraged such research efforts, or restricted in large measure their temporary field of study to the detriment of a balanced evaluation in the long term. As the studies of grain supplies show4, periods during which accessible documentation indicated an expansion of public control of the market in the Spain of the Ancien Régime (as in the kingdom of Philip II in the 16th century or the government of Charles III in the 18th century) received preferential treatment over those that required more complex reflection to explain the profound restructuring of the agrarian market and public intervention, as happened in the 17th century. Applied to large cities, with a greater representation of port enclaves - as opposed to interior cities - the analyses of municipal policies regarding food production have lacked continuity and perspective. An added obstacle was the insufficient link between observed economic processes and the political, social and cultural transformations that occurred in the local environment in Spain during the Early Modern Age. This, in turn, reduced the depth and clarity of the research.

As a result of this inattention, the evolution of public control over the local market during the Ancien Régime has not been clearly delineated. This is due largely to the scant study of municipal management characterized as corrupt, often without providing sufficient proof, the incidence of public control over the basic food supply, and its repercussions for different economic activities, which have been ignored. The Historiography has thus consolidated a static and inefficient account of municipal intervention and the pre-industrial market during the Early Modern Age, which excludes all possible adaptation to the political, economic and social transformations taking place. The desire to incorporate the legacy of the Ancien Régime into debates over Spain’s economic evolution, applied to the 19th and 20th centuries, supports this opinion5. Described by a more orderly and precise documentation, historians connect the changes from the final stage with the processes occurring in the Modern Age, but they neglect to explore the links to evolutionary phenomena in earlier epochs.

Taking these considerations into account, the current work re-interprets the municipal policy of food supply, established in the kingdom of Aragon during the 16th and 17th centuries, from a more integrated perspective. First, it links its evolution to a broad economic process such as the transition from an inwardly-focused model to that of a more outward-looking model on the part of the Aragonese economy6. Second, it analyses the policy of food supply developed by the town councils, together with the composition and management of their funds, to reveal their mutual influences. Third, after defending the importance of the intervention of the municipality as the main local public institution, not only in cities, but also in smaller towns, it exposes the profound economic and social consequences of this policy of supply and the changes recorded during those two centuries. Finally, after defining the different interests of social groups regarding the supply of basic foods to villages and cities, it reveals the creation of consensus or conflict, around local markets, between the town council and the rate-payers who determined the reach of this policy of supply and the public control of the market. Marked by the survival of an institutional and legal framework of its own, the regional perspective adopted facilitates an understanding of the complex relationship among all these variables, to indicate solutions and perspectives adaptable to the analysis of other territories.

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2. The 16th century.

Indisputably, the economic and demographic expansion that took place in Aragon during the 16th century generated a greater demand for food, which caused substantial changes in its production and marketing. We emphasize, first, the demographic and urban expansion7, a result not only of normal growth, but also of the presence of a significant flow of migrants from the southwest of France -Bearn, Bigorre and Gascony- that took place from the middle of the century and reached its peak between 1580 and 1635. Second, different economic factors stimulated commercial exchanges, such as improved communications, the consolidation of a native mercantile bourgeoisie8, the development of markets and trade fairs (especially the ones held in Huesca, Barbastro, Daroca and Sariñena (this latter specializing in livestock9), and greater monetary stability after the adoption, in 1519 and 1528, of the Castilian standard of weights and measures in the silver and gold coinage minted in Aragon,10 which facilitated the use of Castilian currency in transactions. The response to this demand not only encouraged the ploughing of new fields in the search for greater production, but also increased and improved irrigation systems in a clear effort to increase productivity11. As a result of these initiatives, grain production grew and spread, vineyards expanded in many villages, as well as olive groves in areas climatically suited, such as Zaragoza, and the Low Aragon and the Matarraña valley in the east of the kingdom12. The strong growth of herds, as recorded in the livestock association of Zaragoza13, estimated to be 80% between 1516 and 1599, encouraged livestock use in order to further increase the numbers of livestock in the kingdom.

In addition to supplying the Aragonese towns with food, the growth in agricultural production promoted expansion through other means. Except for Zaragoza, the only city in Aragon as capital of the kingdom, these towns were all characterised by their modest population size, while having clear urban functions14. Wealthy merchants, noblemen and clergy benefited directly from the collection of tithes, first fruits of the harvest, and feudal rents paid by the peasants, channelled towards the towns by different factors. Many Aragonese nobles left the countryside during the 16th century to settle in Zaragoza, and developed there their expensive way of life. A large number of the clergy established themselves in cathedrals, parishes and convents in the urban environment. Economic activity and political power settled on merchants and other liberal professionals – lawyers, notaries, jurists, doctors... Citizens and lesser nobles were the social groups who controlled municipal power; they monopolised the agrarian trade and benefited the most from it, especially with the growth in exports of raw materials such as wheat and wool. The greater consumption of goods in rural areas, generated by the growth in agricultural production, provided an incentive for the spread of craftsmen’s workshops in towns and cities, and supported the consolidation of the textile industry. Together with students who came to study at the Universities of Huesca and Zaragoza, or at grammar schools in other towns and cities, the broad rural surroundings provided a labour force through a constant stream of young immigrants who settled in the urban environment to work as apprentices or servants.

Cognizant of their importance, the Aragonese public institutions themselves stimulated these economic transformations. The increase in and improvement of systems of irrigation and supply of drinking water to towns and villages had important municipal participation15. Different organizations promoted transactions from the middle of the 16th century, with special emphasis on grain. The Diputación, which acted as a standing committee of the Parliament that governed Aragon and protected the kingdom’s rights, used customs revenues to finance municipal repairs of the network of bridges and roads, especially

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those that led to France and formed the main commercial route of the kingdom16. In 1553, Parliament established the conversion of local systems of weights and measures to that of Zaragoza, making it the official Aragonese standard17. This measure was only adopted by some town councils to promote exchange. The growing municipal intervention in the food supply market was evidenced by the construction or purchase of grist-mills (and of olive oil presses, in areas of olive groves) by many town councils, especially between the middle of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th centuries, to control the milling process18.

In addition to regulating the local market, the municipal administration influenced agricultural production and its distribution19 through interventions in the market conditioned by the structure of public funding and the concept of its management. The limited demographic weight of town councils, and the inheritance of the Late Medieval Ages, imposed a simplicity on local treasuries that was only gradually abandoned during the 16th century. It was then that the assumption of new duties caused the creation of administrations subsidiary to the central treasury, frequently linked to the policy of food supply. This structure limited the increase of income and expenditures to the point where the latter only strongly expanded in the second half of the century, due to the census indebtedness after the growth of credit offerings by the guiding elites.

The composition of municipal income reflected multiple variations. The sum of taxes on water use and the grazing of pastures varied according to the irrigated area and municipal districts. The monopolies and commissions paid on the retail sale of basic foods - meat, bacon, fish, bread, wine, oil – constituted the essential nucleus of the central treasury during the 16th century20. As a probable result of the existence of border customs, regulated by the Diputación, the commissions on remaining merchandise and road and bridge tolls did not generate significant returns. Income derived from lands, houses, or other buildings belonging to the town council stagnated during the 1500s, yielding to a modest fixed payment which also granted individuals the temporary right to enjoy the fruits of certain communal lands. Very small sums were reported by the collection of fines or judicial rights.

On this structure, as shown in Graphic 1, fiscal pressure by the municipal government remained low in Aragon during the 16th century. A certain inertia in management, with respect to its medieval conception, prevented bringing taxes up-to- date, or introducing new ones on products of increased cultivation like that of wine. The collection of “sisas” or extraordinary taxes – commonly levied on wheat and meat – without prior approval from the Parliament was forbidden from 1398 by the laws “De prohibitione sisarum”21. The reduction of these pronouncements, under the reign of Philip II (1555-98), deprived the free councils and those pertaining to lay noblemen or the church, of their ability to collect taxes for three years after having collected for another three years, the taxes to defray the services paid to the king, since this had to be voted in Parliament22. In the end, conditioned by their interest in protecting the consumer and promoting economic activity, the municipalities reduced the income tied to commissions and monopolies on basic foods.

This municipal policy is evidenced by the supply of meat and fish. With the exception of supply of fish in the capital, controlled by various commissions on the wholesale exchanges of fresh and salted species – eels, hake, haddock and sardines – brought from the coast, local management was carried out in Aragonese towns and cities through the monopoly on retail sales. A growing population led to increased consumption of meat, bacon and fish. Income from these monopolies was administered by the council or delivered in rent to individuals. The income stabilized as the focus turned to bids for lower prices offered to the public23. This behaviour becomes important if we consider that these monopolies not only

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permitted the free sale of fish or meat in the wholesale market by individuals, but also the ability to sell a limited amount of species raised or captured by citizens. This occurred, especially, in small villages more inclined to supply themselves with trout, barbel, or eels caught in rivers, deer or wild boar hunted, or the traditional pig that each family fattened and slaughtered for San Martín. In livestock areas like the town of Albarracín or the Matarraña valley, citizens could even sell one or two head of cattle in the local market, after paying a modest fee to the lessor of the butcher shop24.

These monopolies were leased in the main towns and cities by citizens and lesser nobles25, and also by well-to-do farmers in modest towns and villages. Although their links to the municipal oligarchy might earn them favourable treatment at the auctions of their rentals, the presence at these bidding events of representative craftsmen and farmers, interested in watching out for the consumer, limited these actions26. The restriction on income moderated the price increase of these products, especially faced with the increased demand in the second half of the 16th century. The fixed monopoly on meat in Zaragoza, which produced significant income, was thus only occasionally leased by the larger merchants residing in the capital. As a result of this financial sacrifice, in spite of being able to count on great demand, the sale price of mutton in the butcher shops rose more slowly in Zaragoza than in Barbastro and Daroca in the first two thirds of the 16th century, and only slightly surpassed the price in force in Barbastro, Calatayud and Daroca in the last quarter of the century. However, rising indebtedness obliged the councils to increase the revenue from basic food supplies at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th centuries. From this period onwards, the councils frequently had to assume the management of these basic food supplies after halting the bids for their lease since individuals feared that the risk of losses from growing price increases was excessive.

This municipal management was supported by the creation of subsidiary administrations linked to the policy of food supply. The emblematic institution was the Granary, adopted by many villages, towns and cities in Aragon27. Municipal authorities were interested in providing the consumers´ protection usually applied in European economic policy since the Middle Ages28. This goal was strengthened by the fear of disturbances in the order and social conflicts that caused the scarcity of grain in the society of the Ancien Régime29. Thus, some granaries arose after serious shortages legitimized their establishment. The governing elites added their interest as producers or distributors of grain by expanding the local public grain market and supporting domestic demand (a very difficult process in pre-industrial economies30). This explains the spread of granaries in Aragon to agricultural centres in grain-producing areas with less need for a regular supply of wheat than the large cities. The development of mechanisms to restrain price inflation, which occurred with greater force in agricultural products, not only favoured the consumption of grain but also the purchasing power of the population. In exchange for a lower market price, the producer benefited from a greater regularity of demand. What was achieved was the voluntary integration of the farmer in the public market31, by giving him an incentive to grow grain. The more abundant and regular supply by the granary, generated greater confidence and dynamism in an expanding market.

This confluence of interest between the guiding elite and other social groups around the public grain market entailed the formation of granaries at times determined the social background of their managers32. If the administrator was connected in the main towns and cities – Zaragoza, Huesca, Barbastro, Calatayud – to the guiding elite of citizens and lesser nobles33, with a strong predominance of merchants, their designation in centres of greater agricultural character and communal sentiment led to a forging of agreements between social

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groups that assured collaboration in the policy of local food supplies34. In the village of Alcañiz, under the lordship of the Military Order of Calatrava, a mixed system governed in the second half of the 16th century: the purchase of grain was entrusted to an administrator elected by reliable craftsmen and farmers, and the money management to an administrator and several designated councilmen among the municipal elite. In the free town of Daroca, a craftsman or farmer served as administrator of the granary, along with four deputies elected equally by the oligarchy and the two strata of commoners represented in the town council: two citizens, a craftsman and a farmer. In the small free town of Albarracín, the Ordinances of 1567 and 1580 stipulated that the sale price of wheat in the granary should be fixed by the four town counsellors and the twelve local deputies, elected half by the citizens and half by the popular sectors.

Settled by consensus, the council’s intervention in the market grew according to the increase of stock in the granaries and the sale of wheat to the population, especially from the middle of the 16th century in the main towns and villages, after the imposition of the partial consumption of this grain on the bakeries as municipal monopolies35. The sale price was set very close to the market price in normal years, to maintain demand, and lowered, taking losses, when faced with lean years to combat speculation and alleviate the shortage. Thus, the financial survival of the granaries depended on the fluctuation of the price of wheat. As Graphic 2 shows through the evolution of the price of wheat in Aragon, this system of supply was sustained in the middle decades of the 16th century by the spacing out of scarce years, and a stable price progression resulted from the cooperative actions taken by the granaries with regard to the grain market36. Probably due to decreasing yields from the harvests, serious shortages in the last three decades of the century (1570-72, 1576-80, 1584-85, 1591-94) caused abrupt price fluctuations in the market. The considerable stocks of grain had to be sold at a much lower price than that of their purchase, which led to serious losses. In spite of resorting to credit, this management was too costly and a more profitable administration was put in place in the 17th century.

Extending the policy of food supply to wine and oil, as it applied to grain, was more problematic. First, few councils had monopolies of sale of these products, which made intervention difficult. Second, the regulation of their sale in the market incorporated a more deeply-rooted protection for the producer than for those of grain or meat. For both of these reasons, the foundation of organizations dedicated to price restraints had less social consensus and was belated and difficult. It usually affected areas lacking in these crops due to climate, or where the producer’s interests were not strong. The councils’ reluctance to increase fiscal pressure, and the local perception of reduced need, limited their establishment, especially if the vineyards and olive groves expanded in the immediate area, or there were other priorities for increased municipal spending, such as Public Works, irrigation systems, or civic and religious festivals.

Strengthened due to the significant expansion of vineyards during the 16th century, protection for the producer conditioned public regulation of wine supplies37. Although many councils managed a monopoly of retail sales, which could buy wine from abroad, municipal legislation itself limited the impact as it reserved the local market for the surpluses of the rate-payers and created preferred areas of production and consumption among the towns and their surrounding small villages. Only if the town centre lacked wine, or if the price increased excessively, did the council permit the retail sale of wine from outside or assume its purchase to supply the population. In that case, the monopolies and commissions on wine were moderated by the councils, in order to favour consumption. In spite of this measure, growing demand - along with reduced competition in the local market - raised the price of wine in the

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second half of the century and generated problems of supply in Zaragoza, Daroca and Barbastro at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th centuries, causing them to constantly resort to wine from the outside38. Greater demand and its own insufficient production were seen in the Aragonese capital from the middle of the 16th century and dictated an earlier increase in its price.

More nuanced by fewer olive groves in the kingdom, protection of the producer conditioned regulation of the market for olive oil39. In centres with surpluses, its offering by individuals was imposed at times without taking into account the monopoly of sale or specific commissions, as occurred in Zaragoza. Although many councils often monopolised its sale, centres incapable of supplying themselves with olive oil depended on wholesale merchants. Less frequently, and later than the granaries, the oil boards arose from these monopolies of sale in cities like Huesca, Daroca or Calatayud40, but they managed less money and assumed fewer losses in years of shortages. In addition to financial difficulties, this more modest intervention reveals less social consensus, linked to pressure from lesser nobles and resident producers in centres with surpluses. The fixed market price at the beginning of the 16th century in Zaragoza, which permitted the introduction of outside oil to compete with that produced locally, was tripled by the council in the second half of the century to the disservice of the consumer41. By contrast, the oil boards of Calatayud and Daroca, at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th centuries, provided a remarkable supply and better restrained the impact of shortages than in Zaragoza. Although their founding in some centres did not involve the expectation of an increase in local production of oil due to climatic factors, the restructuring of agricultural production in the 17th century validated the expansion of olive groves in other areas – Calatayud, Huesca - where the demand for oil really had been sustained by these boards.

As a final assessment, it must be understood that the municipal policy of supply in Aragon, during the 16th century, introduced a more ambitious philosophy linked to a self-centred economic model oriented towards promoting a stable supply, in order to moderate price inflation and strengthen demand in the domestic market. The reach of this policy was uneven, depending on the population centres involved, not just because of geographic or climatic factors, or commercial networks, but also the financial solvency of the municipalities or the social cohesion of the market, linked to the interests of the social groups affected. In general, the councils were more successful in sustaining the demand for wheat, meat and fish. Wheat being an essential element of consumption in pre-industrial societies, the actions of the granaries transcended local or regional boundaries and affected the entire Aragonese economy. Although the protection of the producer diminished the results for wine or oil, the infrequent updating of local taxes on all basic foods to their market value, in light of growing demand, benefited the consumer throughout the century.

Impossible to measure, due to their joint impact with other factors, the consequences of this supply policy were positive for the kingdom’s economy. The municipal effort to improve food supply, in terms of quality and price, limited speculation to years of very serious shortages, oriented transactions towards the local public market, and strengthened price restraints. This policy not only raised the purchasing power and expanded the consumption of the population, especially among more modest social sectors, but also diversified the demand coming from privileged estates and more well-to-do groups. Although it could not contain the bankruptcy of the great nobility42, this policy strengthened the capacity for savings and investment by wealthy groups (the bourgeoisie, the lesser nobility, the clergy, and wealthy farmers). This benefited the commercial practices developed by the

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native merchant bourgeoisie settled in Zaragoza, as much as did the credit activities43, in large part linked to the gradual shaping of a profitable ideal among these social sectors.

Satisfying a growing population’s broader and more stable demand for food supplies influenced different economic activities. Agricultural production was given more of an incentive, as evidenced by numerous efforts undertaken in all of Aragon to increase areas under cultivation and improve irrigation, to overcome the scarcity and irregularity of water channels typical of a Mediterranean economy44. The partial price restraint on food, articles of inflexible demand, promoted the consumption of manufactured items by the population, which benefited an expanding local production, as evidenced by the rise of the textile industry in Zaragoza and other areas of the kingdom45. In order to avoid the guilds´ damage to the quality and price of manufactured goods by their excessive control of the market, the councils would appoint supervisors to oversee local production, attract outside craftsmen to increase competition or even temporarily suppress the regulations of the guilds until they raised the level of their production46. Strong demand in Zaragoza - the kingdom’s main commercial centre of consumption - even forced the council to fix the price of products and raw materials (leather, fur, hemp, wood) linked to craftwork, in order to contain price rises during the second half of the 16th century47.

In addition, price restraints on basic foods diminished demands for salary increases by agricultural day labourers and construction craftsmen, who were disadvantaged due to the greater availability of labour resulting from demographic growth. Zaragoza was the exception, since strong demand for agricultural day labourers obliged the council to regulate their salary, from the middle of the 16th century, to benefit the land-owners. Councils in the remaining Aragonese towns (Huesca, Barbastro, Daroca) only considered similar actions later, towards the end of the 16th or the beginning of the 17th century48. This moderation of salary increases not only favoured agricultural development, but also construction. The councils thus undertook a vast program of Public Works, which, together with the construction of civic buildings (like Town Halls49), attended to rate-payers’ basic necessities such as improving the systems of water supply to villages, towns and cities50. In general, together with the expansion of domestic demand, reduction in production costs stemming from the moderation of salaries favoured company profits, and gave incentives to investment in different economic activities by the bourgeoisie, the lesser nobility, and well-to-do farmers and craftsmen, especially in urban centres and their surrounding areas.

3. The 17th century.

In contrast to the 16th century, the dominant element in the following century was a measurable economic decline in Aragon. Already, at the end of the 16th century, clear symptoms of stagnation were perceived, caused by the extensive agricultural growth that brought about the exhaustion of the land and the beginning of decreasing yields. The expulsion of the Moorish converts or the moriscos, in 1610, added a population drain and a serious blow to the system by which nobles were paid rent for the privilege of cultivating the land. This had repercussions throughout the economy and especially damaged the financial system51. The continuing decline experienced by industrial and home-made production, which became especially serious during the second half of the century, was precipitated by the bankruptcy of Aragonese commercial capital at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th centuries52. Control over commerce in the kingdom was exercised by Genoese merchants from 1580 to 1620, and subsequently by the French. The recovery of the Aragonese merchant bourgeoisie in the second half of the century did not exclude the presence of French merchants, and included less commercial-oriented and more conservative economic

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activities53. As the example of Daroca54 shows in Graphic 3, the major fairs held in Aragon during the 16th century lost their ability to attract people, at the same time that many small towns and villages obtained the royal privilege of holding their own fair in the second half of the 17th century. These privileges were enacted either in Parliament (1645-46, 1677-78), or through the Council of Aragon, an administrative and judicial institution that helped the monarchy to govern the main territories of the Crown of Aragon (Valencia, Catalonia, Aragon, the Balearic Islands)55. The existence of monetary disruptions arising from the invasion of false, defective or less valuable foreign coinage56, although it speeded up transactions by offering the market a currency better adapted to the real value of silver, generated problems of monetary conversion and favoured, in certain periods, price inflation of manufactured goods and food. The greatest fiscal pressure deployed by the monarchy57, which reached special force in 1628-52, and by other Aragonese public institutions during this century, diminished the purchasing power of the population and reorganized public intervention in the markets.

Together with these factors, although recent studies have moderated the global losses58, the demographic stagnation in Aragon in the 17th century is unquestionable. Having reached the height of its growth at the end of the 16th century, its decline was precipitated by the expulsion of the Moorish converts or moriscos by order of Philip III in 1610. The exiling of the moriscos affected some 14,000 families, or 18.85% of the Aragonese population59, and some 127 towns and villages whose demographic and economic recuperation was slow and partial during the entire 17th century. In spite of this drain, if a survey of the kingdom in 1495 indicated 51,540 taxpaying households, another estimate done between 1647 and 1650 still raised the number to 70,729 households, of which 11,510 corresponded to the towns, 24,959 to population centres that had more than one hundred contributing homes, and 34,260 households to places that had fewer than 100 fiscal units60. Nevertheless, following the spread of the bubonic plague of 1651-54, the Diputación lowered this number, in 1670, to only 60,000 households in the entire kingdom61. After clearly strengthening its recovery only in the last two decades of the 17th century, Aragon had 76,613 households in 1711.

This population stagnation caused a contraction of domestic demand for agricultural products - noticeable in their price decreases - from the middle of the 17th century (see graphics 2 and 5), which led to a restructuring of the kingdom’s economy. After declining in the first half of the century, with special emphasis on grains, agricultural production grew and underwent a reorganisation in the second half of the century62. In spite of the municipal protection of local surpluses, regional specialization in easily-marketed items, such as wine – Cariñena, Calatayud - or oil –Low Aragon, Matarraña valley– already detected at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th centuries, grew in the second half of the 1600s until market prices became a reference point for nearby cities, including Zaragoza, in years of shortages63. The restructuring increased existing livestock use in areas suited to it, such as the south of Aragon -Albarracín, Teruel, Daroca and Alcañiz-, above all in centres that lacked competitive agricultural production64. This process, which saved labour, even included the conversion of less fertile cultivated lands to grazing lands, and the creation of new pastures and associations of livestock farmers, especially from the middle of the century65. The possibility of exporting wool to the Low Countries and France, together with that of commercialising the sale of meat in Catalonia, Valencia and Zaragoza, made livestock ownership all the more attractive for the merchant bourgeoisie in the Aragonese capital during the second half of the century, due to the serious recession in the native textile industry66.

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This productive restructuring not only stemmed from the strengthening of comparative advantages after domestic demand was reduced, but also from the greater outward vision of the Aragonese economy. Favoured by the explosion of foreign merchant capital and growing foreign demand for raw materials, agricultural production was drawn to export67. Together with the continuous demand for wheat and meat by Valencia, or of wool and oil by France, from Aragon, in the 17th century68, Catalonia increased its consumption of Aragonese raw materials even before initiating its own manufacturing and commercial expansion at the end of the century69. Its own supply of grain, meat and oil to the royal army, located in Aragon between 1640 and 1652 as a result of the Catalan war of secession, and later quartered in Catalonia, during the consecutive wars between Spain and France (1635-59, 1667-68, 1674-78, 1683-84, 1689-97), consolidated this tendency all the more, since this supply was exempt from the payment of customs duties in Castile, Aragon and Catalonia70. As the support for exportation of raw materials coming from the main public Aragonese institutions –the Parliament, the Diputación- shows71, this outward-looking economic model solidified the interests of local elites to the point of having an impact on the policy of municipal food supplies.

Facing this crisis and consequent restructuring of the economic model, local public intervention was determined by the financial decline of town councils72. The inability to raise revenues to tackle the growing expenditures in the second half of the 17th century, worsened in the following century until the perpetual recourse to contract credit became insufficient. At the same time that citizens and lesser nobility were transferring the property of these credits to the clergy by means of sales or donations, the councils came to an agreement, at the end of the 16th century, with their creditors, to delay payment or reduce interest fees in order to deal with their debts. This option grew in Aragon at the beginning of the 17th century and was precipitated in 1610 in many villages pertaining to lay noblemen by the expulsion of the moriscos73. Confronted by the financial decline of the town councils, Parliament of Aragon in 1626 and again in 1646 reduced to 5% and to 4.54% the rate of interest charged on their loans74. Through the Council of Aragon, agreements established between town councils and creditors were subject to ratification by the king during the 17th century. The review of these agreements granted the management of the treasuries to conservators, designated by creditors, after guaranteeing that the councils would maintain their own and communal political and judicial administration. Oriented towards assuring the cancellation of credit or the payment of interest, this administration did not reorganize the local treasuries, but favoured constant lawsuits between councils and boards of creditors –with strong predominance of the clergy – over the management of possessions, communal rights or public regulation of the market75.

In addition to this plan, the growing indebtedness of many town councils at the beginning of the 17th century required the introduction of temporary judgements76, many of which were consolidated as permanent income. They consisted of monopolies on manufactured products such as ice, tobacco, playing cards, liquor, soap, iron and coal. Justified, in some cases, by their superfluous or damaging character, the impact of others on daily consumption was noticeable. Revenue shared among residents grew in order to finance urban reforms or to pay for a local resident doctor in Aragon from the second quarter of the 17th century onwards, a practice which, at times, faced opposition from the well-to-do estates77.

As an expression of this financial decline, new taxes were introduced to pay the interest on loans or to cancel these credits. One option was direct taxes78. This occurred from the end of the 16th century in places under lay or ecclesiastical control, after the nobles granted their creditors the right to levy taxes on their vassals, and consisted of the annual

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delivery of a part of the main agricultural production. The tax imposed by the municipal authorities of Caspe in 1615 involved the 15th part of the harvests of grain, wine, wool and oil, plus taxes on home-made production and commissions on silk and saffron. As the council of Molinos acted in 1644 in coming to an agreement with the creditors, the more modest councils could introduce taxes according to their individual treasuries, to pay credit interest or cancel loans, rejected by the wealthiest sectors of the area. Quotas on the harvest affected landowners or renters of lands in benefit of other professional or profit groups. In both cases, the exemption of privileged estates and the difficulties in calculating the tax base among rate-payers, led to stress and delays. As the rapid abandonment of the collection of the 11th part of the production of grain, wine and oil applied to the rate-payers by the council of Barbastro shows, in order to wipe out loans during the first half of the 17th century, these problems reduced both profitability and the continuity of the above mentioned charges.

The second possibility was indirect taxes, in the form of overcharges, or taxes on consumption, of basic foods such as wheat, meat or wine. Easiest to collect, the overcharges were traditionally linked to the suffrage of services to the king and works of common interest: town councils affected by the bubonic plague between 1648 and 1654 - Jaca, Huesca, Zaragoza, Borja - introduced local charges, applicable to all social strata, to recoup the costs of social services arising from the epidemic79. Over all, although Calatayud and Daroca adopted overcharges, from the beginning of the 17th century, in order to cancel loans, their continuity was restrained by the heavy royal tax collection between 1628 and 1652, and the necessity of obtaining temporary permission from the king or the Pope. As seen in Graphic 1, their constant enforcement in Daroca during the 17th century, and their adoption by Jaca and Zaragoza to reduce their debts in the second half of the century, the overcharges took root in the cities80. There, their indirect character aroused the interest of the municipal oligarchy, but generated opposition from the nobility and the clergy. The latter groups conditioned their support on obtaining Papal licences for their tax exemption as privileged estates, especially the clergy. The impact of overcharges on consumption caused an identical rejection among the humblest groups. As a reflection of these opposing interests81, upon handing over their possessions at the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th centuries, certain citizen elites agreed with the creditors to adopt annual overcharges to wipe out loans, while representatives of farmers and craftsmen opposed extension after their license had expired, and defended substitution by direct taxes.

Getting away from selling communal lands, a practice adopted by the town councils as they came closer to bankruptcy82, the necessity for revenues imposed more taxes on commissions and sales monopolies over food from the end of the 16th century. According to what was confirmed in different towns - Barbastro, Daroca, Zaragoza, Fraga, Albarracín -, except for the most severe shortages of grain (1605-06, 1614-15, 1630-31, 1651-52) that obliged them to increase supply and renounce all benefit, because of fiscal pressure they drained money from the granaries, the oil board and the butcher shops to the central treasury, in order to slow down the growth of their permanent deficit83. Although these transfers did not save town councils from bankruptcy, they were obliged to abandon the support of demand and the price restraints on foods practiced in the 16th century84. The stock sold by granaries, oil boards and butcher shops was cut back, above all due to the falling demand in the second half of the century, arising from demographic and economic decline. If this process was slower in Zaragoza due to its greater demand, fewer sales from the granaries – seen in graphic 4 and table 1 – were accompanied by loans and sales of wheat on credit to solvent residents for return or payment after the harvest, in order to supply the population in scarce years, facilitate the sowing season or replenish the stock in these granaries85. Given the need to

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maintain certain stock to ease possible shortages, as happened in the Matarraña valley, some oil boards also adopted these loans during the second half of the 17th century86.

The need for greater revenues and price inflation forced many town councils at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th centuries to substitute rent of the main food supplies with their own administration of these supplies. This practice gained special force between 1620 and 1650, until the return to rent was consolidated in the second half of the century, following the decline in prices of agricultural products87. Local management of the granary and the butcher shops facilitated the collection of overcharges to pay the heavy fiscal demands of the monarchy from 1628 to 1652. In all, the greatest tax burden applied to grain and meat continued to some extent during the second half of the century, to benefit the municipal treasury after it ceased services to the king and levies and turned to the system of rent. Fixed on meat, grain, wine and oil as a temporary royal tax in 1628-52, overcharges and commissions were taken up again to defray small donations or services to the king and were sometimes consolidated as revenue of the town council88. Administration of commissions and monopolies permitted the council oligarchy to introduce taxes without resorting to negotiation with their superiors, creditors or other social groups.

As much as through former commissions and sales monopolies as through new taxes, the fiscal pressure applied by each council on food supplies related to its control of the market, the economic interests of the elites, and citizen pressure. As the case of the Matarraña valley shows89, the small villages contemplated direct taxes to the treasury, or partial forfeiture of the principal harvests proportionate to wealth. On the contrary, the local elites in towns and cities adopted taxes on basic foods for their indirect character, easy collection and better adaptation to the commercialisation of agricultural products90. The greater potential to export grain and meat thus intensified from the middle of the 17th century the greater fiscal pressure already applied to these products. This process is clearly shown in municipal accounting. Benefits generated by the butcher shops of Daroca between 1651 and 1670 grew 479.40%, compared to the same decade in the previous century. In an extreme case, these benefits increased in Zaragoza between 1651 and 1695 by 1215.84%, compared to those achieved in 1550 to 1594. Only the presence of strong livestock interests in small cities like Albarracín kept taxes on meat low, at the cost of aggravating the municipal debt. In contrast, conditioned by the necessity to provide fish to the population - to accommodate the fasting prescribed during Lent (and other times of the year) by the Catholic Church - fixed taxes on fish in monopolies and commissions received more subdued increases: 77.58% in Daroca and only 31.12% in Zaragoza during the same periods studied in the case of meat91.

As less traditional municipal income, taxes on oil and wine were lighter and more intermittent than on grain and meat during the 17th century. Either to favour supply or facilitate sales of local wines in the market and limit competition from outside products, in loss-making areas or those with poor quality production, this fiscal pressure was moderated to the point that it sometimes generated less revenue than in the prior century. Commissions fixed on wine in Daroca from 1651 to 1672 earned only 37% of the benefits obtained between 1550 and 157092. In producing areas, this restraint aimed to avoid residents’ attempts to fix taxes in proportion to the harvest and guarantee to the elite local consumption of surpluses, with less of an outlet to external markets after the drop in domestic demand, especially during the second half of the century. Thus, in Zaragoza, oil had little significance in the local overcharges and did not generate a sales monopoly until 1669, which applied a very slight fiscal pressure at the end of the 17th century93.

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This generalized increase of fiscal pressure involved a rupture in the social consensus concerning the market. This was at a time when the main charges of the town council were reserved for a more exclusive elite by means of demanding greater levels of wealth to assume them. In addition, the supervision of local management carried out in the past by parish representatives, farmers and craftsmen was restricted94. The lessees of the main food supplies, as well as the administrators of granaries, butcher shops and oil boards, showed greater links to the guiding elite in order to thus guarantee the receipt of the greatest benefits95. Little integrated in municipal government, less protected from its actions, and more subject to outdated fiscal pressure (contrary to the local law in a period of economic decline) rate-payers felt it was legitimate to defraud the council and promote agreements outside the public market.

Together with the rate-payers, after accusing the council of introducing hidden taxes on the price of food without their consent, the privileged groups demanded their exemption, and rejected these charges, with special vigour in cities – Huesca, Barbastro, Zaragoza, Daroca – where significant sums of money were generated96. Of great importance was the negative reaction of the clergy, who joined their economic power and social influence to the privileged jurisdiction of churches and convents, erected in centres of fraud. The legal struggle, begun in the middle of the 17th century by the church council of Zaragoza, in confronting strong municipal fiscal pressure, ended in victory in 1722-24: licences to install its own butcher shops, for the consumption of the urban clergy, were issued to the council by Philip V. The existence of private ovens in towns and cities from the Middle Ages, as much as the donation and sale of ovens and bakeries by king Philip IV (1621-65) to the nobles, citizens and ecclesiastical institutions, also fostered cheating and limited municipal control over the bread market in the 17th century, especially in Zaragoza97.

Apart from permitting more moderate consumption, the cheating of residents altered the regulation of the market, and municipal fiscal pressure, to the point of producing an impact on the official sale prices of foods, as shown in Graphic 5. The few opportunities rate-payers had to supply themselves, and the partial participation of the livestock association in the meat monopoly in Zaragoza, caused a slight reduction in demand at the butcher shops, which maintained a very high sale price and generated great benefits for the town council to the detriment of the more humble sectors98. In Daroca and Barbastro, towns more involved in an agrarian economy, more effective community fraud favoured greater official price decreases and forced the reduction of taxes99. For this reason, the creation of butchers for the clergy in Zaragoza in 1722-24 sank the strong fiscal pressure over the meat supply constructed by the town council during the 17th century to help their treasury and thus benefited the consumers.

Given the fluctuations in the local population, and the fraud that existed, it is very difficult to measure the evolution of consumption per capita of basic foods in the Aragonese cities during the 16th and 17th centuries. The principal data comes from public accounts kept by fishmongers and butchers, through the efforts of the council when it assumed their management – see tables 2, 3, 4 and 5. Although discontinuous, data regarding sales in the public butcher shops of Barbastro, Zaragoza and Daroca show that fiscal pressure reduced the consumption of meat in the context of a demand already reduced by demographic and economic decline, especially in the second half of the 17th century100. This fall was especially sudden from 1652 - not only due to the reduced population after the bubonic plague between 1651 and 1654, but also to the departure of the Court and the royal army from Aragon, after the end of the Catalan war of secession (1640-52). The reduction of demand especially affected the Aragonese towns and villages where troops had been quartered (Zaragoza,

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Barbastro, Fraga). In spite of suffering a more slight fiscal pressure than meat, the consumption of fish clearly dropped in Barbastro and Daroca during the last quarter of the 17th century.

The effects of fiscal pressure on the quality of food supply are also evident101. Lower consumption of mutton and veal was compensated for by greater demand for less expensive species, like goat, by more modest social groups, especially in Zaragoza. In towns and cities where there was a greater increase of taxes on meat (Zaragoza, Barbastro) consumption of lamb was reduced, while it grew in other urban centres of more moderate increases (Daroca, Albarracín) to compensate for the fall of mutton. Therefore, it was evident that fraud only partially accounted for the decline in public sales. The same process applied to the supply of sea fish, whose fraudulent introduction was more problematic than that of meat, due to the distance from the coast. According to table 5, higher-quality and higher-priced species, like eel, disappeared from the fishmongers in Daroca, while more common –and cheaper- species, like haddock, were bought, but in lesser amounts.

Faced with a decreased ability to supply and control the market, the town councils handed over initiatives in the supply market to individuals under their supervision. Thus they permitted, in greater measure, bakers and bread makers to buy wheat on their own in the marketplace, either through commissioners who bought wheat in the surrounding areas, or through the offerings of merchants and carriers. In the last quarter of the 17th century, the Zaragoza city council granted permission to their inhabitants to sell wheat from their homes and barns at a somewhat lower price than that in force in the public grain market. Particularly from the middle of the century, the reduced activity of the granaries increased municipal interest– Fraga, Barbastro, Daroca, Albarracín - by regulating or taxing private transactions in this market102. In the same way, without repealing their monopoly, the councils permitted the retail sale of fresh or salted fish by merchants or rate-payers, as the public supply became scarce, and increased the degree of self-supply of meat permitted to the population, especially in livestock-raising areas103. Despite the municipal defence of local surpluses of wine and oil, the decreased purchasing power of the population led to a more competitive market. In short, diminished public control of the market encouraged private business, agricultural specialization and a somewhat more efficient functioning of the regional market, which, nevertheless, was not enough to head off the economic and social effects of the most serious shortages and the general deterioration of the public system of food supply.

Thus, municipal taxation on basic foodstuffs increased during the 17th century because of the inelastic demand of these products, easy collection of taxes and their better adaptation to the commercial interests of the municipal oligarchies. In spite of the final effects moderating in the second half of the 17th century, due to the fall in food prices, this growing fiscal pressure clearly reduced consumption by the poorest social groups, particularly in urban centres. The impact, during a time of measurable economic and population decline, limited consumption and reduced the standard of living and the meagre savings capacity of a large part of the population, thus intensifying polarization and inter-dependence among social groups, especially in the second half of the 17th century. Alleviated by the ample offering of land and the scarcity of labour, population growth in the 18th century maximized this structural change by generating a broad sector of agricultural day labourers and journeymen artisans who lived in dreadful conditions, especially in the main town and cities104.

The restructuring of food supply policy had an impact on different productive activities. The voluntary incorporation into the market of the peasant class failed to happen, not only because of the declining municipal support of local demand, but also because of their

15

debt and lack of the means of production. This imposed a greater submission to local elites in towns and villages and excluded peasants from the benefits of transactions in the presence of greater pressure by owners, merchants and lenders105. Since the increase of lordly charges became problematic, due to the demographic and economic decline in the kingdom and to the increase in royal and municipal taxes, accumulation of capital separate from these charges was sought, by those at the peak of society, by strengthening ways of extracting income from peasant surpluses. Limited by financial bankruptcies, the high nobility looked to the support of the monarchy to reduce the interest on its loan debt and to gain titles and public offices106. In the second half of the 17th century, without scorning access to the state or regional administration, a wide sector of lesser nobility and citizens showed their adaptation to the restructuring of the economy by acquiring lands from councils or indebted individuals, a process facilitated by their integration to municipal power107. The Church’s growing social influence, together with its increased possessions through the purchase or donation of lands and loans, made it a presence in this market. It exercised its influence through its strong control of credit, especially in the case of the regular clergy, as the demand for grain and land increased in Aragon towards the middle of the 18th century108.

The reform of food supply policy generated other unfavourable consequences for economic activity. Prompted by the scarcity of labour, particularly between 1625 and 1675, agricultural day-labourers demanded salary increases that the councils only partially contained by taxing wages and limiting their labour mobility109. In the presence of the fall of domestic demand for manufactured goods, stemming from the economic and demographic recession, and intensified by the increase in royal and municipal taxes, craftsmen in the middle decades of the 17th century raised the price of their production, citing the increased cost of raw materials, and especially of basic foods110. Adopted with special force in town and cities with a strong fiscal pressure on food supplies, like Zaragoza, this strategy had a negative effect on the consumer, as it coincided with the decline in home-production. Quality decreased as master craftsmen restricted access to the guild, in order to benefit their sons, and to attempt to slow the arrival of foreign manufactured goods, especially from France, whose competitiveness dominated the market in the presence of weaker purchasing power of the population111. The councils, led by Zaragoza, were aware of this reality and supported the protectionist legislation for industry voted by Parliament in 1626, 1645-46 and 1677-78, finally abandoned in 1684-86112. Despite this support, they often moderated the quotas of examination and other guild requirements, and allowed outside craftsmen to work in order to improve the local supply. This process was made easier in many smaller centres by the imperfect control of the market and deficient organisation of the guilds113. By fixing the prices of manufactured goods, the councils not only considered the cost of raw materials, but also the market price of grain, to ensure the craftsmen of their subsistence. The shrinkage of demand, as much as the increase in the costs of production promoted by fiscal pressure on supplies, removed the incentive for agricultural and industrial investment, and encouraged the profit motive in Aragon, just as it depressed the cities as productive, commercial centres of service, giving them a more marked agrarian character.

4. Conclusions.

In summary, the municipal policy of food supply carried out in Aragon during the 16th century strengthened agricultural production. Its commercialisation had already been promoted by the structure of a self-centred model of economic growth, initiated during the Early Middle Ages. Moderation of income derived from monopolies and commissions on

16

principal foods, as much as the creation of new administrations oriented towards regulating the markets, favoured supply, supported domestic demand and attempted to reduce price inflation to revitalize economic life. This intervention was most effective with products like wheat, meat and fish, but less so for wine and oil, since it was hindered by the interests of producers - to the point of generating distribution problems in various cities at the end of the century. Over all, this policy had several favourable effects on the economy: it directed transactions towards the public market-place, it increased the purchasing power of the population, and it encouraged savings and investment, especially in those social groups linked to the productive sectors. The support of a constant demand for food encouraged agricultural production at a time when partial restraint on prices increased the consumption of manufactured goods. This, in turn, benefited industry and handicrafts, as well as moderating the pressure to raise the salaries of those day-labourers and craftsmen involved in construction for agriculture and public works.

Within this context, the restructuring of the 17th century gave rise to a more outward-looking economic model, oriented towards the import of manufactured goods and the export of raw materials, whose supply was enhanced by the reorganization and partial specialization of agricultural production, strengthened in spite of protection of the local producer. As consumption contracted due to demographic and economic recession, the economic interests of the elites distanced themselves from promoting local demand for basic food in favour of their export, especially to Catalonia. Heavy municipal debt forced the negotiation of new charges between town councils and creditors, and among the municipal elite, privileged groups and communal sectors that paid off the debt with the adoption of direct taxes in small villages with a greater communal tradition, and indirect taxes in towns and cities. Commissions and monopolies of sale of foods were more heavily taxed, a process defended by the urban elites for its indirect character, ease of collection and adaptation to the commercialisation of agricultural products. After breaking the social consensus on food supplies, the opposition of privileged groups and humble sectors changed, according to their degree of success in controlling the market and municipal fiscal pressure, which was also conditioned by consumption. As this debt entailed less of a public presence in the local market, the private sector advanced and was frequently tolerated - and supervised - by the same municipality. Despite generating a greater efficiency in the supply of agricultural products, these initiatives were incapable of avoiding the impact of greater shortages, or the general decline in consumption.

Increasingly expensive food supplies generated wide-ranging consequences. Happening at a time of economic and demographic decline, this greater fiscal pressure limited consumption, reduced the standard of living and the low capacity to save for a large part of the population, and thus intensified the polarization and dependence among social groups, a process made more acute in the second half of the century, and achieving greater force in urban centres. After the councils abandoned their support of domestic demand for agricultural products, the voluntary integration of the peasant in the public market declined, to the benefit of a greater coercion undertaken by landowners and merchants. Simultaneously, the clergy, citizens and the lesser nobility increased their land holdings. Especially in the main cities, the greater cost of food gave an incentive to demands for salary hikes among agricultural day-labourers and construction craftsmen. This was due as much to the shortage of labour as to the increase in price of native handicraft production (more deficient than foreign manufactured goods) that strengthened their competitiveness in the market when faced with the shrinkage in demand and purchasing power. The decline in demand, as well as the increase in costs of production resulting from this policy of food supply, discouraged agricultural and industrial

17

investment and fostered the profit motive, especially depressing the cities as centres of commerce, production and services, giving them a more marked agrarian character.

(*)This work is included in the project HUM2004-00537, entitled “Absolutism and market. The policy of the State, 17th and 18th centuries” and financed by the Ministry of Science and Technology.

1 Bartolomé Bennassar, Valladolid en el Siglo de Oro. Una ciudad de Castilla y su entorno agrario en el siglo XVI, (Valladolid: Ayuntamiento, 1983); Adriano Gutiérrez Alonso, Estudio sobre la decadencia de Castilla. La ciudad de Valladolid en el siglo XVII, (Valladolid: Universidad, 1989); Francisco Chacón, Murcia en la centuria del Quinientos, (Murcia: Universidad, 1979); David R. Ringrose, Madrid y la economía española, 1560-1850, (Madrid: Alianza, 1980); Enrique Jiménez López, Alicante en el siglo XVIII. Economía de una ciudad portuaria en el Antiguo Régimen, (Valencia: Institución Alfonso el Magnánimo, 1981); Carmen María Cremades, Alimentación y consumo en la ciudad de Murcia durante el siglo XVIII (1701-1766), (Murcia: Universidad, 1984); David Bernabé, Hacienda y mercado urbano en la Orihuela foral moderna, (Alicante: Instituto Juan Gil Albert, 1989); José Ubaldo Bernardos, Trigo castellano y abasto madrileño. Los arrieros y comerciantes segovianos en la Edad Moderna, (Salamanca: Junta de Castilla y León, 2003) y José Ignacio Martínez Ruiz, Finanzas municipales y crédito público en la España Moderna. La hacienda de la ciudad de Sevilla, 1528-1768, (Sevilla: Ayuntamiento, 1992) y “El mercado internacional de cereales y harina y el abastecimiento de la periferia española en el siglo XVIII: Cádiz, entre la regulación y el mercado”, Investigaciones de Historia Económica, 1, (2005), 45-79.

2 Eloy Fernández, “La historia económica de España en los últimos veinte años (1975-1995). Crónica de una escisión anunciada”, Jerónimo Zurita, 71, (1997), 59-94.

3 All these methodological problems are shown in the synthesis about the Castilian municipal treasuries developed by Adriano Gutiérrez Alonso, “Ciudades y monarquía. Las finanzas de los municipios castellanos en los siglos XVI y XVII”, in Luis A. Ribot and Luigi De Rosa, eds, Ciudad y mundo urbano en la Época Moderna, (Madrid, Actas, 1997), 187-211.

4 See note 1 and Concepción de Castro, El pan de Madrid. El abasto de las ciudades españolas del Antiguo Régimen, (Madrid: Alianza, 1987), 47-113.

5 Enrique Llopis, ed., El legado económico del Antiguo Régimen en España, (Barcelona: Crítica, 2004). 6 Jaime Torras, “La economía aragonesa en la transición al capitalismo. Un ensayo”, in Tres estudios de

Historia económica de Aragon, (Zaragoza: Universidad, 1982), 9-32. 7 José Antonio Salas, “La evolución demográfica aragonesa en los siglos XVI y XVII”, in Jordi Nadal ed., La

evolución demográfica bajo los Austrias, (Alicante: Instituto Juan Gil Albert, 1991), 169-79 and “La inmigración francesa en Aragon en la Edad Moderna”, Estudios, 85-86, (1985), 51-77.

8 José Ignacio Gómez Zorraquino, La burguesía mercantil en Aragon de los siglos XVI y XVII (1516-1652), (Zaragoza: Diputación general de Aragon, 1987).

9 The influence that notification of these fairs had among the craftsmen of Zaragoza is shown in Ángel San Vicente, Instrumentos para una historia social y económica del trbajo en Zaragoza durante los siglos XV al XVIII (Zaragoza: Real Sociedad Económica Aragonesa de Amigos del País, 1988), volume I, 306, 391-92.

10 Pío Beltrán, Obras Completas, (Zaragoza: Universidad, 1972), volume II, pp.448-56, Felipe Mateu, “El sistema monetario en Aragon. Síntesis histórica”, in La moneda aragonesa, (Zaragoza: Institución Fernando el Católico, 1983), 113-15.

11 Gregorio Colas, “Las transformaciones de la superficie agraria aragonesa en el siglo XVI: los regadíos. Aproximación a su estudio”, in Congreso de historia rural (siglos XV-XIX), (Madrid: Universidad Complutense, 1984), 523-34.

12 José Manuel Latorre, “La producción agraria en el obispado de Huesca (siglos XVI-XVII)”, in Jerónimo Zurita, 59-60, (1991), 131-32, 145; Antonio Peiró, Especialización olivarera y crecimiento económico. Caspe en el siglo XVIII, (Caspe, Centro de Estudios Caspolinos, 2000), 14-26 and José Antonio Mateos, Auge y decadencia de un municipio aragonés: el concejo de Daroca en los siglos XVI y XVII, (Daroca, Centro de Estudios Darocenses, 1997), 342 and “Economía y poder local en el valle del Matarraña (siglos XVI y XVII)”, in Historia de la comarca del Matarraña. Edad Moderna (forthcoming).

13 Daniel Gracia La ganadería zaragozana durante el siglo XVI: la cofradía de San Simón o San Judas o Casa de Ganaderos de Zaragoza, (unpublished graduate dissertation, University of Zaragoza, 1998).

14 The population count done in 1647-50 attributed 5588 taxpaying households to Zaragoza, 1194 to Huesca, 1060 to Calatayud, 875 to Alcañiz, 798 to Tarazona, 736 households to Barbastro. Caspe totaled 648 fiscal units, Borja 618, Daroca 521 and Teruel 503 households. Another 28 towns and villages exceeded 200 households. More than 1,500 remaining registered towns were below this number. See Library of the Royal Academy of History, Nasarre Collection, Manuscript 11-1-1, folio 547r-562v. Historians and demographers estimate between

18

4 and 5 inhabitants on average for each household in the counts done for fiscal purposes in Spain during the Middle and Modern Ages.

15 Colas, “Las transformaciones...” and José Antonio Mateos, “The making of a new landscape: town councils and water in the kingdom of Aragon during the sixteenth century”, Rural History, 9, 2, (1998), 123-39.

16 Gregorio Colas and José Antonio Salas, Aragon en el siglo XVI. Alteraciones sociales y conflictos políticos, (Zaragoza: Universidad, 1982), 42-46.

17 Pascual Savall and Santiago Penen, Fueros, observancias y actos de corte del reino de Aragon, (Zaragoza: Castro and Bosque´s printing house, 1866), volume I, 364.

18Gregorio Colas, La bailía de Caspe en los siglos XVI y XVII, (Zaragoza: Institución Fernando el Católico, 1978), 121-122; José Antonio Salas, La población de Barbastro en los siglos XVI y XVII, (Zaragoza: Institución Fernando el Católico, 1981) 105-106; José Antonio Mateos, Auge..., 268-69 and “Economía y poder local en el valle del Matarraña (siglos XVI y XVII)”, in Historia de la comarca del Matarraña. Edad Moderna, (forthcoming)

19 José Antonio Salas, “Las haciendas concejiles aragonesas en los siglos XVI y XVII. De la euforia a la quiebra”, in Poder político e instituciones en la España Moderna, (Alicante: Instituto Juan Gil Albert, 1992), 11-66 and José Antonio Mateos, “Propios, arbitrios y comunales: la hacienda municipal en el reino de Aragon durante los siglos XVI y XVII”, Revista de Historia Económica, XXI, 1, (2003), 51-77.

20 Ibid. 21 Bernardino de Monsoriu, Summa de todos los fueros y observancias del reyno de Aragon y

determinaciones de micer Miguel del Molino, (Zaragoza: Colegio de abogados, 1982, facsimile of the original printed in Zaragoza in 1589), folio 156r-157r.

22 On the same topic, Mateos “Propios, arbitrios...”, 57. 23 José Antonio Mateos, Auge..., 461-62, 467 and “Municipio y mercado en el Aragon moderno: el abasto de

carne en Zaragoza (siglos XVI y XVII)”, Espacio, Tiempo y Forma, IV, 16, (2003), 189 and “Municipio y mercado en el Aragon moderno: el abasto de pescado en Zaragoza (siglos XVI y XVII)”, Espacio, Tiempo y Forma, IV, 17, (2004), 18.

24 José Antonio Mateos, “Municipio y mercado en el Aragon moderno: el abasto de carne en Albarracín durante la segunda mitad del Seiscientos”, Espacio, Tiempo y Forma, (forthcoming) and “Economía y poder local…” (forthcoming).

25 Salas, La población... 94-95; Félix Otero, La Vila de Fraga al segle XVII, (Calaceite: Institut d´Estudis del Baix Cinca, 1994), 148; and J. Ángel Urzay, Antonio Sangüesa e Isabel Ibarra, Calatayud a finales del siglo XVI y principios del XVII (1570-1610), (Calatayud: Centro de Estudios Bilbilitanos, 2001),142-43 and Mateos, Auge... pp. 315-18, 326-30, “Municipio y mercado en el Aragon moderno: el abasto de carne en Zaragoza…”, 187-88 and “Municipio y mercado en el Aragon moderno: el abasto de pescado en Zaragoza…”, 20.

26 On the composition of the Aragonese municipal oligarchies during the 16th and 17th centuries, José Ignacio Gómez Zorraquino, “Del concejo foral al ayuntamiento borbónico. La mudanza en el poder municipal”, in El municipio en Aragon. 25 siglos de Historia, (Zaragoza, Diputación, 2004), 119-27.

27 José Antonio Mateos, “Control público, mercado y sociedad preindustrial; las cámaras de trigo en el reino de Aragon durante los siglos XVI y XVII”, Historia Agraria, 34, (2004), 15-18.

28 M.M. Postan, E.E, Rich. and Edward Miller, Organización y Política Económica en la Edad Media, en Historia económica de Europa, (Madrid: Aguilar, 1972), volume 3, 507-47.

29 These protests reveal the existence of a “moral economy of the crowd”, demanding that the public authorities provide a suitable supply of essential foods, especially grain. See Edward P. Thompson, Tradición, revuelta y conciencia de clase, (Barcelona: Crítica, 1984), 62-134.

30 Jean de Vries La economía de Europa en un período de crisis, 1600-1750, (Madrid: Alianza, 1987), 181-86.

31 Maurice Aymard, “Autoconsommation et marchés: Chayanov, Labrousse ou Le Roy Ladurie?”, Annales, Economies, Societés, Civilisations, 38/6, (1983), 1392-1410.

32 This consensus reflects the common interests among social groups and their expectation of better results from joining forces described by David Gauthier, La moral por acuerdo, (Barcelona: Gedisa, 1994) and Karl Polanyi, La gran transformación. Los orígenes políticos y económicos de nuestro tiempo, (México, Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1992).

33 José Antonio Mateos, “Municipio y mercado en el Aragon moderno: el abasto de trigo en Zaragoza (siglos XVI y XVII)”, Espacio, Tiempo y Forma, IV, 15, (2002), 37-39; Urzay, Sangüesa and Ibarra, Calatayud..,, 137-45. For Huesca, University Library of Zaragoza, H-10-54, folio 83-87.

34 Ángel San Vicente, Colección de fuentes de derecho municipal del Bajo Renacimiento, (Zaragoza: Imprenta Octavio and Félez, 1970) 292-93, 299, 307, 545-46; Mateos, Auge…, 280-82, 352-53 and “Municipio y mercado en Aragon durante el siglo XVII: la Cámara del trigo de Albarracín (1650-1710)”, Teruel, 90, 2, (2003-2005), 63.

19

35 Mateos, “Control público...”, 15-22. 36 Having a different impact depending on food products and regions, the municipal policy of food supplies

helps to explain the moderate price revolution in Spain between 1550 and 1625 expressed in Pablo Martín Aceña, “Los precios en Europa durante los siglos XVI y XVII: estudio comparativo”, Revista de Historia Económica, X, 3, (1992), 368-70.

37 San Vicente, Colección… 79-80, 472-73; Salas, La población..., 108-116; Mateos, Auge..., 339-51 and Biblioteca Universitaria de Zaragoza, D-21-75, folio 30-53.

38 Salas, La población..., 114; Mateos, Auge..., 342, 500-01 and Municipal Archive of Zaragoza, Municipal Records, 1549, October 16, 1574, November 6, 1577, September 18, 1590, January 16, 1605, March 22, 1614, September 13 and Public Announcement Records, number 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 13 and 14.

39 San Vicente, Colección..., 73; Salas, La población... 116-19 and University Library of Zaragoza, D-21-75, folio 54-84.

40Jesús Inglada Estudio de la estructura socio-económica de Huesca y su comarca en el siglo XVII, (unpublished graduate dissertation, University of Zaragoza, 1987), 60; Mateos, Auge..., 351-65 and Urzay, Sangüesa and Ibarra, Calatayud..,, 144-45.

41 University Library of Zaragoza, D-21-75, folio 53-68. 42 Alejandro Abadia, La enajenación de rentas señoriales en el reino de Aragon, (Zaragoza: Institución

Fernando el Católico, 1998), 138-301. 43 Gómez Zorraquino, La burguesía mercantil…56-138. 44 Colas “Las transformaciones…” y Carlos Blázquez and Severino Pallaruelo, Maestros del agua,

(Zaragoza: Diputación General de Aragon, 1999), volume II, 380, 402-05,481. 45 Pablo Desportes, La industria textil en Zaragoza durante el siglo XVI (Zaragoza: Institución Fernando el

Católico, 1999). 46 José Antonio Mateos, “Municipal politics and corporate protectionism: town councils and guilds in the

kingdom of Aragon during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries”, in Bruno Blondé, Eric Vanhauté and Michéle Galand, eds., Labour and labour markets between town and countryside (Middle Ages-nineteenth century), (Turnhout: Brepols, 2001), 186-88.

47 Angel San Vicente, Documentos…, volume I, 255, 266, 279, 347. 48 Antonio Peiró, Jornaleros y mancebos, (Crítica, Barcelona, 2002), 72-78. 49 Concepción Lomba, La Casa Consistorial en Aragon. Siglos XVI y XVII, (Zaragoza: University, 1989). 50 Mateos, “The making…” and Blázquez and Pallaruelo, Maestros…, volume II, 423-55. 51 Salas, “La evolución demográfica...”, 169-79. On the impact of the expulsion of the moriscos on the

feudal treasury in the Early Modern Age, Abadia, La enajenación…303-449. 52 Guillermo Redondo, Las corporaciones de artesanos de Zaragoza en el siglo XVII, (Zaragoza: Institución

Fernando el Católico, 1982) and Antonio Peiró, “Comercio de trigo y desindustrialización: las relaciones económicas entre Aragon y Cataluña”, in Las relaciones económicas entre Aragon y Cataluña (siglos XVIII-XX), (Huesca: Instituto de Estudios Altoaragoneses, 1990), 41-51.

53 José Ignacio Gómez Zorraquino, La burguesía mercantil... and Zaragoza y el capital comercial. La burguesía mercantil en el Aragon de la segunda mitad del siglo XVII, (Zaragoza: Ayuntamiento, 1987). Sample of a more land-lease orientation, the acquisition of lands from indebted nobles, the purchase and lease of property and loans to the monarchy gained ground among the activities of the mercantile bourgeoisie in the second half of the 17th century.

54 Mateos, Auge…, p.496, 507-509. The graphic measures the revenue obtained by the Junta of Aguaducho, which regulated the supply of potable water to Daroca, in the three fairs held in this town (Nuestra Señora de Agosto, San Mateo, San Andrés) by means of taxes on articles of basic consumption.

55 Archive of the Crown of Aragon, Council of Aragon, legajos 99, 106, 168, 172, 175. On the composition and function of the Council of Aragon, Jon Arrieta, El Consejo Supremo de la Corona de Aragón (1494-1707), (Zaragoza: Institución Fernando el Católico, 1995).

56 José Antonio Mateos, “Ideario mercantilista y reformas monetarias en Aragon (1674-1702)”, Cuadernos aragoneses de economía, 16, 1, (2006), 261-79.

57 On the royal tax system in Aragon during the 17th century, Enrique Solano, Poder monárquico y Estado pactista (1626-1652). Los aragoneses ante la Unión de Armas, (Zaragoza: Institución Fernando el Católico, 1987) and Porfirio Sanz, Política, hacienda y milicia en el Aragon de los últimos Austrias entre 1640 y 1680, (Zaragoza: Institución Fernando el Católico, 1997).

58 José Antonio Salas “La población aragonesa a comienzos del siglo XVIII”, in José Antonio Ferrer, dir., El conde de Aranda y su tiempo, (Zaragoza: Institución Fernando el Católico, 2000), volume 1, 355-72.

59 Henry Lapeyre, Geografía de la España morisca, (Valencia: Diputación provincial, 1986). 60 Diego José Dormer,, Discursos histórico-políticos, (Zaragoza: l’ Astral, 1989, facsimile of the original

printed in Zaragoza in 1684), 129-31. Recalling that there were estimated to be between 4 and 5 inhabitants per

20

“fireplace” or taxpaying household to arrive at a global population from the counts done for fiscal purposes in Spain during the Middle and Early Modern Ages.

61 Biblioteca de la Real Academia de Historia, Colección Nasarre, Manuscript 11-1-1, folio 547r-562v. 62 José Manuel Latorre, “La producción agraria...”, 131-46 and “La producción agraria en el sur de Aragon

(1660-1827)”, Historia Agraria, 41, (2007), 10-21 and Antonio Moreno, “Población y producción agrícola en el Norte aragonés (1598-1820)”, in Congreso de historia rural (siglos XV-XIX), (Madrid: Universidad Complutense, 1984), 490.

63 Peiró, Especialización..., 14-33; Mateos, Auge... 347, 358 and “Economía y poder local…”, (forthcoming).

64 A possible reduction in livestock would explain the increase of this use of land in the south of Aragon during the 17th century and the decrease in the seasonal migration of livestock to the kingdom of Valencia in the latter two thirds, according to José Luis Castán, Pastores turolenses (Zaragoza, Centro de Estudios para la Despoblación y el Desarrollo de Áreas Rurales, 2002), 353-64.

65José Antonio Mateos, Auge... 423-24 and “La hacienda municipal de Albarracín en el siglo XVII: crisis, endeudamiento y negociación”, Teruel, 88-89, 2, (2000-2002), 184-85 and Roberto Ceamanos and José Antonio Mateos, Calanda en la Edad Moderna y Contemporánea, (Teruel: Instituto de Estudios Turolenses, 2005), 99-101.

66 Gómez Zorraquino, Zaragoza... 85-86, 161-62. 67 Guillermo Redondo, “Las relaciones comerciales Aragon-Francia en la Edad Moderna: datos para su

estudio en el siglo XVII”, Estudios, 85-86, (1985), 123-54; Peiró, “Comercio de trigo...” and Jaime Torras, “La economía aragonesa...”, 9-32 and “Relaciones económicas entre Aragon y Cataluña antes del ferrocarril”, in Las relaciones económicas entre Aragon y Cataluña (siglos XVIII-XX), (Huesca: Instituto de Estudios Altoaragoneses, 1990), 17-31.

68 Redondo, “Las relaciones comerciales...” and James Casey, El reino de Valencia en el siglo XVII, (Madrid, Siglo XXI, 1983), 81-103.

69 Pierre Vilar, Cataluña en la España Moderna, (Barcelona: Crítica, 1978), volume 1, 430-52. 70 Archive of the Crown of Aragon, Council of Aragon, files 57-60. 71 Peiró, “Comercio de trigo…”, 40-42. 72 Salas, “Las haciendas...”, 11-66 and Mateos, “Propios, arbitrios...”, 51-77. 73 Abadia, La enajenación..., 56-58, 195-98, 249-56, 282-83, 294. 74 Savall and Penen, Fueros…, volume I, 469-72, 490. 75 Mateos, “Propios, arbitrios...”, 70-72. 76 Inglada, Estudio..., 246-48, 257; Mateos, Auge..., 130-33 and “La hacienda municipal…”, 208. 77 Otero, La Vila... volume 1, 113-14; Mateos, Auge...,151-53, 470. 78 Colas, La bailía…,139-40, 209-13; Porfirio Sanz “La crisis de la hacienda municipal en la villa de

Molinos”, Teruel, (Teruel), 82, 2, (1991), 69-85; Salas, “De la euforia...”, 31, 49-50. 79 Jesús Maiso La peste aragonesa de 1648 a 1654, (Zaragoza: University, 1982),176-180 80 Porfirio Sanz, Política..., 180-82, 292; Mateos, Auge..., 140-44 and “Municipio y mercado en el Aragon

moderno: el abasto de carne en Zaragoza…”, 212 and Urzay, Sangüesa and Ibarra, Calatayud..., 150. 81 Mateos, Auge..., 141-44 and “Propios, arbitrios…”, 59. 82 Mateos, Auge…, 428-31; Jesús Inglada, “Propiedad comunal y prácticas comunitarias: garantía del

bienestar económico y de la paz social en la Huesca de la modernidad” in Carmen Frías, ed., Tierra y campesinado. Huesca (siglos XI-XX), Huesca: Instituto de Estudios Altoaragoneses, 1996), 105-07 and Emilio Benedicto, “La guerra de Sucesión en el corregimiento de Daroca”, Xiloca, 23, (1999), 40-43, 54.

83 Salas, La población..., 82-85; Otero, La Vila…, volume I, p.153, Mateos, Auge... 183-86, 293-99, 313-23, “Municipio y mercado en el Aragon moderno: el abasto de trigo en Zaragoza…”, 44-45, “Municipio y mercado en el Aragon moderno: el abasto de carne en Zaragoza…”, 189, 199 and “La hacienda municipal de Albarracín…”, 188-90 and “Municipio y mercado en Aragon durante el siglo XVII: la Cámara del Trigo de Albarracín (1650-1710)”, Teruel, (Teruel), 90, 2 (2003-2005), 68-70.

84 Mateos, Auge... pp. 295-99, 360-64, “Municipio y mercado en el Aragon moderno: el abasto de trigo en Zaragoza…”, 46-49; “Municipio y mercado en el Aragon moderno: el abasto de carne en Zaragoza…”, 200-01, 212-13 and “Control público, mercado...”, 27-31.

85 Mateos, “Control público…”, 31-32. 86 Mateos, “Economía y poder local…” (forthcoming). 87 See note 83 and Gregorio Colas and José Antonio Salas, “Repercusiones económicas y sociales en

Zaragoza del pago de la sisa de 1626”, Estudios, 78, (1978), 151-68. 88 Sanz, Política..., 131, 182, 293-96. 89 Mateos, “Economía y poder local…” (forthcoming). 90 See notes 79, 80, 81, 83.

21

91 Own development from the data expressed in Mateos, Auge…, 461; “Municipio y mercado en el Aragon

moderno: el abasto de carne en Zaragoza”, 189, 206; “La hacienda municipal…”, 181 and “Municipio y mercado en el Aragon moderno: el abasto de pescado en Zaragoza...”, 18, 24.

92 Own development from the data expressed in Mateos, Auge…, 467-68. 93 Municipal Archive of Zaragoza, Municipal Records, 1668, August 5, 1669, June 26, 1672, November 4

and 9 and Municipal Accounting, (777-782). 94 Guillermo Redondo, “Cargos municipales y participación artesana en el concejo zaragozano (1584-1706)”,

Estudios, 76, (1976), 159-90 and Mateos, Auge…, 100-18. 95 Mateos, Auge…, 282, 318-19, 336, “Municipio y mercado en el Aragon moderno: el abasto de carne en

Zaragoza”, 194-95, 206-07 and “Municipio y mercado en Aragon durante el siglo XVII: la Cámara…”, 65-66. 96 Salas, La población…, 84-85; Inglada, Estudio..., 186-90; Mateos, Auge..., 322-23, “Municipio y mercado

en el Aragon moderno: el abasto de trigo en Zaragoza...”, 55-56 and “Municipio y mercado en el Aragon moderno: el abasto de carne en Zaragoza...”, 189, 206, 209-12.

97 Mateos, “Control público…”, 30-31. 98 Mateos, “Municipio y mercado en el Aragon moderno: el abasto de carne en Zaragoza…”, 208-13. 99 Salas, La población..., 84-85 and Mateos, Auge..., 320-23. 100 Salas, La población... 85, 123; Otero, La Vila... volume 1, 148; Mateos, Auge..., 321-22, 337, “Municipio

y mercado en el Aragon moderno: el abasto de carne en Zaragoza…”, 201-02, 213-14 and “Municipio y mercado en el Aragon moderno: el abasto de carne en Albarracín…” (forthcoming).

101Ibid. 102 Otero, La Vila…, volume 1, 35-36, Salas, La población…, 97, 102-03 and Mateos, Auge…, 297;

“Municipio y mercado en el Aragon moderno: el abasto de trigo en Zaragoza...”, 49 and “Municipio y mercado en Aragon durante el siglo XVII: la Cámara…”, 87-88.

103 Mateos, Auge…, 330-32; “Municipio y mercado en el Aragon moderno: el abasto de carne en Albarracín…” (forthcoming) and “Economía y poder local…” (forthcoming)

104 Peiró, Jornaleros…, 42-51. 105 Gómez Zorraquino, La burguesía mercantil…, 59-64 and Zaragoza…, 86-88 and Mateos, Auge…, 290-

310 and “Municipio y mercado en el Aragon moderno: el abasto de trigo en Zaragoza...”, 41-43. 106 Xavier Gil, “La integración de Aragon en la monarquía hispánica a través de la administración pública”,

Estudios, 78, (1978), 239-65. 107 See note 82. 108 Angela Atienza, Propiedad y señorío en Aragon. El clero regular, entre la expansión y la crisis,

(Zaragoza: Institución Fernando el Católico, 1993), 71-89. 109 Peiró, Jornaleros…, 77-79. As examples, Salas, La población…, 304-06; Mateos, Auge…, 373-74. 110 Redondo, Las corporaciones…, San Vicente, Instrumentos…, volume II, and Mateos, Auge…, 410-18. 111 Ibid. and Mateos, “Municipal politics…”, 189-192. 112 A detailed analysis of Aragonese commercial legislation during the 17th century, in Redondo, “Las

relaciones…”, 127-49. 113 San Vicente, Instrumentos…, volume II and Mateos, “Municipal politics…”192-95.

22

GRAPHIC 1.

Evolution of income of the municipal treasury of Daroca (1518-1672) –in sueldos–

0

10000

20000

30000

40000

50000

60000

70000

80000

1518 1528 1538 1548 1558 1568 1578 1588 1598 1608 1618 1628 1638 1648 1658 1668

SISAS COM.ON WINE MONOP. ON MEAT MONOP. ON FISH

Sources: Mateos, Auge... 461-62, 467-68. Note: com. = comission, monop= sale monopoly “Sueldo” was one of the official silver coins minted in the kingdom of Aragon

during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that was also used as money of account. After the adoption of Castilian standards of weights and measures in Aragonese silver coins in 1519 and 1528, one sueldo equalled half a Castilian real.

23

GRAPHIC 2.

Evolution of the price of wheat in Zaragoza, Daroca, Barbastro and Fraga (1500-1707) –in sueldos per cahíz–

0

50

100

150

200

250

1500 1515 1530 1545 1560 1575 1590 1605 1620 1635 1650 1665 1680 1695

Daroca Barbastro Fraga Zaragoza

Sources: Mateos, “Hacienda municipal, control público y mercado agrario en el reino de Aragon durante los siglos XVI y XVII”, Hispania, LXVI, 223, (2006), 557, 578-80.

Note: The cahíz in Aragon equals 140 kilos or 179.36 litres.

24

GRAPHIC 3.

Evolution of perceived income during the fairs of Daroca by the Junta of Aguaducho (1612-1675) –in sueldos-

0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

7000

8000

9000

10000

1612 1617 1622 1627 1632 1637 1642 1647 1652 1657 1662 1667 1672

Sources: José Antonio Mateos, Auge…, 396, 507-509.

25

GRAPHIC 4.

Grain sales by the granaries of Barbastro and Daroca (1518-1707) -in cahíces-

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

4000

4500

1518 1533 1548 1563 1578 1593 1608 1623 1638 1653 1668 1683 1698

Daroca Barbastro

Sources: Salas, La población…, 348 y Mateos, Auge…, 487-89.

26

GRAPHIC 5. Evolution of the sale price of mutton in the butcher shops of Barbastro, Daroca and Zaragoza

(1523-1702) –in dineros per libra–

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

1523 1538 1553 1568 1583 1598 1613 1628 1643 1658 1673 1688

Daroca Zaragoza Barbastro

Sources: Salas, La población..., 92 y Mateos, Auge..., 498 y “Municipio y mercado en el Aragon

moderno: el abasto de carne en Zaragoza...”, 97. Note: Measure of weight, the Aragonese butcher’s libra (pound) equals 1052.5 grams. Also employed as money of account, the “dinero” was the official bullion coin minted in the kingdom of Aragon during the medieval and early modern period. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, one sueldo equalled twelfth dineros.

27

TABLE 1.

Supply to bakeries by the granary of Zaragoza (17th century) –in cahíces-

Period Quantity Period Quantity June 1631-May 1632 21,830c June 1652-May 1653 13,766c June 1632-May 1633 15,649c February 1675-February 1676 10,098c June 1635-May 1636 13,045c February 1677-February 1678 13,057c June 1636-May 1637 15,641c April 1692-March 1693 7,243c June 1639-May 1640 17,478c April 1693-March 1694 8,143c June 1643-May 1644 24,631c April 1695-March 1696 6,337c June 1647-May 1648 18,303c April 1696-March 1697 6,650c June 1648-May 1649 14,534c April 1697-March 1698 8,263c June 1649-May 1650 9,645c April 1698-March 1699 10,168c June 1650-May 1651 15,143c April 1699-March 1700 10,870c ____________________________________________________________________________

Sources: Mateos, “Municipio y mercado en el Aragon moderno: el abasto de trigo en Zaragoza.., 48

TABLE 2 Supply carried out by the administration of meat of Daroca (1568-1682)

-in units of animals slaughtered and sold- Period mutton goat lamb August 1568-August 1569 3,102 307 842 August 1590-August 1591 3,025 374 787 August 1612-August 1613 3,021 428 786 January 1678-December 1678 1,633 481 947 January 1680-December 1680 2,024 703 1,129 August 1681-August 1682 1,501 489 1,232 ________________________________________________________________________

Source: Mateos, Auge…, 321. Note: The goats that were slaughtered were only the males. Females being reserved for milk and breeding.

28

TABLE 3 Supply carried out by the administration of meat of Barbastro (1574-1692)

-in units of animals slaughtered and sold- Period mutton sheep goat lamb 1574 1,586 630 62 1,050 1585 3,031 722 94 856 1627 2,169 813 275 532 1648 2,860 948 397 286 1652 1,321 387 270 922 1666 1,453 555 338 949 1674 1,252 158 400 465 1681 1,901 345 636 224 1692 1,371 44 394 121 ________________________________________________________________________

Source: Salas, La población…, 78.

TABLE 4 Supply carried out by the administration of meat of Zaragoza (1634-1698)

-in units of animals slaughtered and sold- Period mutton veal goat beef April 1634-March 1635 56,024 918 1,052 321 April 1642-March 1643 65,944 794 821 717 April 1646-December 1646 64,301 332 1,019 853 May 1689-April 1690 34,231 216 3,517 ? May 1691-April 1692 36,030 385 2,964 496 May 1694-April 1695 39,506 299 3,521 430 May 1697-April 1698 31,895 261 3,172 512 ______________________________________________________________________________

Sources: Mateos, “Municipio y mercado en el Aragon moderno: El abasto de carne en Zaragoza…”, 201, 213.

29

TABLE 5 Supply carried out by the administration of fish of Daroca (1624-1685)

-in arrobas- Period haddock eel November 1623- November 1624 1,673 156 November 1624- November 1625 858 84 May 1640-May 1641 1,605 24 January 1678- January 1679 509 3 January 1680- January 1681 515 0 January 1683- January 1684 349 0 January 1684- January 1685 381 0 January 1685- January 1686 408 0 ________________________________________________________________________

Sources: Mateos, Auge…, 334.

Note: Measure of weight, the Aragonese arroba is equivalent to 12.6 kilograms.

30