Preliminary Programme

The improvement of the consumption capacity of the rural populations of the kingdom of Aragon during the late medieval period was threatened by the rise of state taxation and by the demands of the lords. In order to face these institutional difficulties, the communities reacted by using the possibility of borrowing collectively by means of long-term credits (censales). Once they had embarked on the path of indebtedness, they used the money for various purposes: to buy franchises or become part of the royal patrimony; to fight the lords in the judicial arena; or to satisfy the monarchy's direct fiscal demands made on the communities through the subsidies agreed at the parliamentary assemblies. Circumstances varied, but the general tendency was to increase public debt and increase dependence on the merchants who lent the money. The 15th century is part of a longer cycle, beginning around 1340 and concluding at the end of the 16th century. In this sense, it is likely that the growth of the late fifteenth century and the subsequent inflation (the 'price revolution') helped to avoid the worst consequences of widespread indebtedness of rural communities. (Show less)

The society and economy of the lands of the south of the kingdom of Valencia were constituted and defined with an own particularity and traits during the last medieval centuries. This space roughly framed in the Iberian southeast, was a territory annexed by the Crown of Castile by means of a protectorate in 1243 -based on the Treaty of Alcaraz- and effectively from 1266 but after the clashes between both crowns, the Castilian and the Catalan-Aragonese at the end of the 13th century, became part of the southern geographical area of the kingdom of Valencia forming the southern border of this kingdom and, therefore, of the Crown of Aragon. A territory administratively constituted since then, first as “Procuración” then as “Gobernación” of Orihuela. In this talk, more specifically, we will set the objective in the south of this area, in the capital’s term of this territory, the late medieval “villa” of Orihuela.
In this talk, will be examine the presence and role played by the peasantry or the socalled "llauradors" in the occupation of the lands of the village of Orihuela at the beginning of the Christian conquest, as well as the social and economic features that defined this social group during the late medieval centuries. Their degree of action in the mechanisms of possession and transfer of natural resources such as land, or in rural markets, will be taken into account. In this observation, the border character of this territory will be taken on board too, an issue which had effects on the social, economic and political evolution of this area and affected the definition of social groups such as the peasantry or the citizen oligarchy who owned properties and assets in rural space. Elements that show singularities and resemblances to respect to the rest of the Catalan-
Aragonese territories. (Show less)

The communities of villages appeared during the XIIIth century in the Aragonese Iberian mountain ranges and evolved into a clear example of the collective peasant agency institutionalization. These political entities comprised almost a hundred rural settlements that achieved a wide fiscal, economical and jurisdictional autonomy against the cities in southern Aragon, as well as a seat in Aragonese parliamentary sessions.
The main goal of our paper will be the analysis of the participation of the villages of Teruel in the Cortes of Aragon in the Late Middle Ages, through the study of the parliamentary proceedings. We intend to observe the use of the political discourse, the objectives and negotiating strategies adopted by the representatives of the villagers in these events. In order to increase the amount of information needed for this work, we will dig in the Community’s own archives, where some documents relating the election of the representatives and the communication between them and the officials of the villages are attested.
The presence of the Community of Teruel in Cortes was steady and implied the practice of a popular kind of speeches and objectives in contrast with some of the other attendants, as well as an expert deployment of the then current political theories and language.
They denounced some specially harmful situations even to the Aragonese kings and their officials. Among their main requests were the fight against fiscal injustice and the search of royal protection against territorial economic rivals. The Cortes were a privileged scenario of the jurisdictional conflict between the villages and Teruel city council. Must be said that the Community strongly supported the extraordinary fundings of royal enterprises in the XIVth and XVth centuries, which explains the many favors the kings granted the villages opposite Teruel.
Without any doubts, the presence of an institution like the Community of Teruel in the Cortes is a perfect observatory of the important development of the Aragonese peasants’ political agency, as well as the integration of rural sectors in the Aragonese state’s institutions. (Show less)