Late Middle Ages Christian Kingdoms: Demographic, Economic, and Political Crisis
The Christian Kingdoms in the Late Middle Ages: Crisis
Demographic Crisis
Poor harvests, food shortages, and land abandonment emerged in the early 14th century. This was exacerbated by the Black Death (1348-1351) which entered the Peninsula from Asia. Population decline in some areas ranged from 20% to 40%, with Navarre and the Crown of Aragon most affected, while Castile experienced less decline. Farmers abandoned their land for cities, where wages rose due to labor shortages, leading to increased food prices.
Economic Crisis
The demographic crisis severely impacted agriculture, which lacked technological advancements. Depopulation reduced cultivated land, and labor shortages further decreased production and raised food prices, impacting landowners’ income. Several consequences arose:
- Abandoned marginal lands increased productivity, lowering prices for some products like wheat and enabling urban growth.
- Labor shortages and uncultivated land provided grazing opportunities, leading to transhumant cattle and sheep farming in Castile, with increased privileges for the Mesta (founded 1273).
- Craft production, previously dispersed and consumption-oriented, organized around guilds, declined due to reduced demand.
- Castilian trade, based on wool exports and manufactured/luxury goods imports (primarily to Flanders), continued to grow. Catalan Mediterranean trade (textiles, silks, spices) persisted in the 14th century but declined in the 15th.
Major commercial developments included:
- Fairs: Granted to cities twice yearly with tax concessions to promote trade (e.g., Medina del Campo, 1421).
- Catalan Consulates: A sales network across the Mediterranean and Atlantic, exporting textiles and importing silks and spices. Shipbuilding in Barcelona highlighted this trade’s importance.
- Banking Techniques: Croatian currency gained prestige. Banks emerged, developing credit, bills of exchange, and limited partnerships.
Social Crisis
The nobility, facing declining revenues, intensified peasant exploitation, imposed new manorial rights, seized Crown lands, controlled cities, and sought royal privileges. Peasant reactions included uprisings:
- Irmandiño Wars (Galicia): Peasants and burghers revolted against the nobility.
- Remensa Peasants (Catalonia): Suffered abusive duties, including the remensa payment to leave the land. Protests culminated in the Remensa Wars, supported by King Alfonso V. The conflict continued under John II and ended with Ferdinand’s Sentence of Guadalupe (1486).
Other conflicts arose:
- Urban social conflicts (e.g., Biga and Busca in 15th-century Barcelona).
- Resurgent anti-Semitism led to pogroms (Toledo and Cuenca, 1391) and discriminatory laws (Ayllón, 1412) against Jewish communities. Many Jews converted to Christianity, becoming conversos or New Christians.
Political Crisis
The crisis was also widespread political expression. The main source of conflict was the struggle between monarchs and privileged groups, nobility and clergy, political hegemony. In Castile there were several extremely serious conflicts:The civil war between Pedro I and Enrique de Trastámara late fourteenth century brought the throne to a new dynasty, the Trastámara, and was the short-term victory of the nobility to which the Crown granted land rents and (mercedes enriqueñas). Reigns John II (Alvaro de Luna) and Henry IV (sham of Avila) in the fifteenth century were marked by many conflicts. In Aragon broke out civil war in the face of King Juan II with the nobility and clergy Catalans (1462-1472) . The confluence of this civil war with the conflict of remensa in the field and the Search and Biga in Barcelona left the principality of Catalonia destroyed, but the surrender of Catalonia did not prevent the king’s undertaking to respect institutions laws and Catalan.