Recent Literature on Spanish Economic History

Abstract

A HISTORIAN dipping into some of the major works in the bibliography that follows this survey-for example, Guichard on Muslim Spain (84), 1 Ladero on the royal finances of the fifteenth century (ioi), Perez or Gutierrez Nieto on the Comunidades (I42, 86), Anes on the eighteenth-century agrarian scene (i i), and Fontana or Tortella on the complexities of nineteenthcentury capitalism and government policies (6o-I, I 9o) -would surely conclude that the study of the economic and social history of Spain is in a healthy state. He would not be entirely wrong, and it is the purpose of this article to give some account of studies, in languages other than English, which have appeared in recent years. The survey, of course, is selective: for example, it does not attempt to cover the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it excludes the history of economic thought, and in the case of some particular areas of study, such as that of the desamortizaciones, the reader is referred to recent review articles for further information. The fundamental introduction to the demographic history of Spain is the short study by Nadal (I30). Although it covers only the modern period, the book is a masterpiece of succinct analysis, the main themes of which are provided by contrasts: the Spanish experience is compared to a European model, and an ancien regime cycle is contrasted with the new demographic cycle of growth which, while lagging behind the European model, began in the eighteenth century. Within this framework Nadal also manages to include much data on related themes, such as diseases, epidemics, the regional distribution of population, migrations, and expulsions. It is against the background of Nadal's book that comments on recent studies must be set. Is there an area of medieval Europe which presents so many problems for the history of demography as Spain? Firstly, there are the variables of documentation. The fogatges and libros defuegos of late medieval Catalonia and Navarre, for example, have to be set against an almost complete absence of similar evidence for the kingdoms of Castile and Granada. Secondly, there is the intractable problem posed by the moving frontier. What were the different patterns of repopulation during the various stages of the Muslim conquest and Christian reconquest? How many settlers were attracted to reconquered lands and how many of the enemy were expelled or assimilated? The difficulties can perhaps be best illustrated by looking at thirteenth-century Castile in terms of the Malthusian scissors. Even if we knew the rate of population growth, we would still be left with the problem that the kingdom of Castile doubled in size during the thirteenth-century reconquest and that many of the Muslims who were at first assimilated were later expelled. In terms of Castile and the Malthusian scissors,