Townsmen as herdsmen: The citizen herders of medieval Zaragoza and Teruel, 1118-1348
In this study I compare and contrast the origins, development, and consequences of large-scale herding in two Aragonese towns: Zaragoza and Teruel. Together, the two towns dominated herding in medieval Aragon. Unlike the Castilian pattern of herding, the Aragonese pattern was municipal and decentral...
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| Format: | Dissertation |
| Language: | English |
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ProQuest Dissertations & Theses
01-01-1991
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| Online Access: | Get full text |
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| Summary: | In this study I compare and contrast the origins, development, and consequences of large-scale herding in two Aragonese towns: Zaragoza and Teruel. Together, the two towns dominated herding in medieval Aragon. Unlike the Castilian pattern of herding, the Aragonese pattern was municipal and decentralized, and was, as a result, decidedly less successful and less profitable to the Crown. Two factors in particular shaped the Aragonese pattern of herding: the weakness of the kings of Aragon, and the overwhelmingly negative impact of the reconquest on the development of towns not only in Aragon but throughout inland Spain. In the first chapter, I outline some of the circumstances that shaped urban life in medieval Spain, and relate these, in turn, to the failure of the Spanish economy to develop to its full potential during the early modern period. I then examine some of the special political circumstances that gave rise to the citizen herders of Zaragoza and Teruel. Their herding organizations, the cattlemen's association in Zaragoza, and the ligallo, or league, in the community of Teruel, are the subject of the third chapter. There is then a brief discussion of their employees, the shepherds, in the fourth chapter. In the fifth chapter, I examine how the Crown's failed fiscal policies benefitted not the kings but their opponents in the aristocracy. The agrarian consequences of this process are the subject of the sixth chapter, and also figure in the conclusion itself. |
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| ISBN: | 9798207811970 |