M39 - Assessing Social Mobility

Author(s)

Joe Chick (University of Warwick)

Keywords

Officeholding, Oligarchy, Networks

Abstract

This paper looks at social mobility in terms of access to members of the civic elite. Fifteenth- and sixteenth-century urban politics is often discussed in terms of a rise of oligarchy and the notion of a cursus honorum. Existing studies overwhelmingly rely on evidence from major cities with high levels of political autonomy. This paper contrasts this by examining the medium-sized town of Reading which had minimal autonomy in the medieval era but gained a great deal a generation after the dissolution of its monastic lord in 1539. Following this event, the civic elite increasingly emphasised its elevated status to present an image of a legitimate body of government. This change in the political culture alone gives an impression of increased oligarchy and reduced social mobility.

Quantitative evidence paints a dramatically different portrait. This study differs from traditional scholarship in its use of social network analysis to explore oligarchy. Historians frequently refer to ‘networks’ but it is less common for these comments to be supported by the statistical tools that social scientists have created for analysing networks. Instead, the presence of elite individuals in one another’s wills is sometimes commented on to ‘show’ the existence of closely-knit oligarchies. In the absence of statistical procedures, the low-status individuals in the very same wills often go unnoticed.

Through the application of formal social network analysis calculations, this view of oligarchy can be challenged. This paper applies the method to a dataset of 293 surviving Reading wills from the years 1350-1600. A tool known as ‘join-count’ finds a high level of interaction between members of the civic elite and middling-status inhabitants. It indicates that the post-Dissolution changes in Reading’s political culture did not translate into greater exclusion in other aspects of urban life. On the contrary, exclusionary practices in politics existed alongside inclusionary ones in social life, with the networks indicating that top-level officeholders had not become distant figures.

Author(s)

Hillel Eyal (Holon Institute of Technology)

Keywords

Migration, Spain, Mobility

Abstract

Spanish cities before the era of industrialization attracted internal migrants in search of social mobility, from all of rural Spain, and particularly from the north. These migrants were inserted into a highly unequal urban society, where economic inequality was largely congruent with regional origins, ranging from poor Galician daily laborers to wealthy Basque and Navarrese merchants. This presentation investigates the origins of social mobility: Was it a product of the social origins of regional groups, or of the networks they created and opportunities they had in the destination city? Migrants serve as an important indication for the determinants of overall urban mobility, as we can discern between the impact of human capital (literacy and numeracy) brought over from home, and social capital in the form of paisano communities/networks in the destination city. This study focuses on Madrid and Cadiz, two of the largest cities in eighteenth-century Spain, which enables a two-layered comparison – between cities and across regional migration flows. To address these questions systematically, we employ various serial datasets, based on marriage information records and notarial records from both cities, as well as notarial records and censuses for several sending regions, drawn from provincial archives in northern Spain. Additional GIS analysis grounded in the datasets sheds light on the relation between rural homes and urban residence.

Author(s)

José Antonio Mateos Royo (University of Zaragoza)

Keywords

French Merchants, Migratory Policy, Crown of Aragon

Abstract

This paper explores the public policies applied to French merchants in the hispanic territories of the Crown of Aragon (Aragon, Catalonia, Valencia) during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and their results on professional, political and social mobility of these merchants. Preliminary remarks will discuss the methodological approach here applied, the critique of previous ideas coming from historical studies about this subject and the main features of these migratory flows in this space and time period.

These regions are located in the north-east of Spain and received significant migratory flows coming from the south of France during these centuries. As these territories had retained their own laws and institutions, regional institutions could oppose the migratory measures coming from the Spanish state and to create their own policy and legislation concerning French immigrants, both temporary and permanents. Although the merchant colony was just a minority between all French immigrants living in the Crown of Aragon, their numbers and economic relevance did growth during the seventeenth century, especially after 1650. French merchants became the main target of the Spanish State, that did fight five wars with France in this century and were increasingly criticised by urban artisans and merchants, as considered responsible of regional economic weakness.

Although urban French merchants had room to integrate on the civic life and public administration, this unfavourable context promoted the reaction from governing elites. This paper explores changes of regional and local laws which tried to prevent upward mobility of French merchants and their degree of support by social groups. It also studies strategies of these merchants to gain or retain social and political positions inside urban society. Particular political and economic junctures did modify their possibilities for higher integration or discrimination. This study concludes that the main points regarding social mobility and political integration of French merchants did follow a common pattern in the Crown of Aragon during the seventeenth century. However, final results show some contrasts between these regions in accordance with the different control exercised by the hispanic monarchy and diverging interests of native ruling elites regarding this matter.

Author(s)

Luana Salvarani (Università di Parma)

Keywords

Reformation Education, Social Mobility, Sozialdisziplinierung

Abstract

Did the urban culture of the early Reformation actually foster social mobility? The problem can be investigated on multiple plans and with different approaches. In this paper, the role of educational thought and practice will be put into focus, studying the most relevant texts by Luther, Melanchthon and Bugenhagen and some of the document produced by the Bauernkrieg pressure groups, on the background of actual 16th-century Schulordnungen. The cultural-religious discourse, represented both by the texts of the official and radical Reformers, puts great emphasis on the role of the city as seedbed of the renewal, and therefore depicts the perspective of general education and base literacy for peasant/poor citizens, to be acquired in the city, and able to promote the shift to honorable teaching or office positions in its moralized, “Christian” administration. On the other side, the practical, down-to-earth discourse of the documents organizing schools in the towns highlights that such social mobility was totally internal to the middle class, and that Reformed general schooling functioned most as a means of organizing the social space of the city. The urban dimension was preferred and cherished by the Reformers not for the possibilities of freedom and intersections it guarantees, but as a “controlled space” in which it was easier to enforce reciprocal control: the alliance between the ruling class and the hard-working Bürger was instrumental not only to the promotion of morals and pious life but also to the promotion of a new economy, thus harnessing the slow decline of feudalism in new structures.

Author(s)

Esther Tello Hernández (University of Valencia)

Keywords

Upward Mobility, Methodology, Ecclesiastical Careers

Abstract

As is well known, the Apostolic Chamber was the main fiscal and financial organ of the pontifical administration. Although its origin dates back to the 12th century, it was during the papacy of Avignon (1309-1419) that its influence was consolidated in Christian territories through an extensive network of pontifical collectors and subcollectors. These ecclesiastics operated as representatives of the pontiff's authority and their main task was to receive a great many taxes that served to support the papal finances. One of the best-known taxes was the tenth pontifical tax which, during the central years of the 14th century and until the beginning of the 15th century, was collected almost every year in a large part of the Christian territories. In particular, each time a tenth was enacted, an administrative structure was implemented at the head of which was a group of ecclesiastics, divided into collectors and subcollectors, responsible for collecting and managing the tax.

In this context and taking the Crown of Aragon as a reference, our objective is to analyse the process of ascent and social mobility of the main ecclesiastics who were in charge of collecting the tenths. Following the prosopographic method, we will individualize the collectors and subcollectors of the tax and we will indicate their main characteristics, as well as their singular trajectories. On the one hand, the main collectors of the tenth were usually bishops appointed by the pope who, although they played a rather honorary role, were guaranteed by a trajectory linked to ecclesiastical and public finances. On the other hand, the subcollectors were appointed by the main collectors and they were the ones who really carried out the collection of the tax in the bishoprics assigned to them. Most of these sub-collectors knew both the territory and the procedure for collecting the tax well, and many of them ended up as (main) collectors later. Ultimately, we believe that being appointed collector or sub-collector of the tenth was also a step forward in occupying other positions related to ecclesiastical, royal or even pontifical administration.

Author(s)

Irene Velasco Marta (University of Zaragoza)

Keywords

Social Mobility, Municipal Oligarchy, Crown of Aragon

Abstract

Throughout the late Middle Ages, the urban world acted as an important focus of demographic attraction due to the multiple possibilities of social mobility that cities offered. These possibilities are reflected in the trajectory of numerous families and individuals who managed to reach advantageous positions or, on the contrary, see their social status considerably diminished. Even inside the municipal elites themselves. For this reason, the purpose of this communication is to approach the study of the municipal oligarchy and its social and relational dynamics under the reign of Juan II of Aragon. Prosopography will be applied to the analysis of royal, notarial and municipal sources in order to identify some familiar trajectories of upward mobility, but the fall of certain individuals and lineages will also be taken into account. All of this will contribute to understanding the composition of these elites (social, economic and, above all, political) and their possibilities of agency within the city, as well as their links with other relevant spaces in the Crown of Aragon. Spaces like the Royal Court, that were essential to ensure the position of very specific individuals at the local council and guarantee the increase of their families and their promotion to ecclesiastical, municipal and supralocal institutions. Lastly, attention will also be paid to another fundamental aspect within the study of these elites. This aspect is none other than the hierarchy existing within this group. In this sense, it is important to bear in mind that not all members of the municipal oligarchy had the same capacity for political action or the same weight in the city. For this reason, this last section would help us to contemplate some of the aspects that promoted these inequalities and contributed to certain citizen lineages being at the forefront of the main urban magistracies for generations while many other individuals who, even if theoretically they had the same opportunities (or, at least, the same political-legal status), weren’t able to entry into the local council or to maintain themselves inside it for a long period of time.

Author(s)

Catarina Rosa (NOVA University in Lisbon)

Keywords

Municipal Rents, Late Middle Ages, Portugal

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to study the tax-farming of municipal rents and taxes in two Portuguese towns, Porto and Loulé, between the end of the 14th century and the beginning of the 16th century.

Specifically, we intend to determine the socioeconomic profile of the tax farmers, understand whether they formed a homogeneous and stable group, if this was a profitable business, and to what extent. Ultimately, we are looking to identify dynamics of upward and downward mobility linked to the participation in this business, and in doing so, we might be able to verify if tax farming was a platform for social advancement, as it allowed tax farmers to gain wealth and, in due course, integrate the urban elites (as happened in the Castilian city of Burgos, for example). On the contrary, we might verify that participating in this business was not a condition, but rather a consequence of belonging to the political elite that controlled the municipal power (as was the case for the city of Valencia, for instance).

Thus, it is necessary to collect data from the available accounting records and city council minutes and build biographical sheets for the tax-farmers identified in those records, while singling out various elements, such as their social status, their main occupation, their address, their kinship, and their functions under the service of the municipality (if they had any). By applying a prosopographical analysis, it will be possible to establish their socioeconomic profile and, whenever possible, trace their personal trajectory over several years and, therefore, identify the before mentioned dynamics of upward and downward mobility.

This study will also have a comparative approach, as we will be analyzing this issue in two different Portuguese towns: Porto, a medium-sized city of great political, social, and commercial importance, where municipal rents and taxes were much more profitable, and therefore, auctioned at a much higher value; and Loulé, a rather small-sized town of limited significance, where local rents were much sparser.