Participació del consell municipal en laprovisionament cerealer de la ciutat de Barcelona (1301-1430), La

Resumen

"The participation of the town council on the grain supply of Barcelona (1301-1430)", by Juanjo Càceres Nevot. TEXT: This thesis propose an analysis and some explanations about the evolution and typical features of the intervention developed by the town council of Barcelona over the system of cereal supply in the XIVth and the XVTh centuries. As a result, we had mad a contribution to the knowledge about the supply systems in the Middle Age and the famines and food difficult that stroke Mediterranean cities. The food crisis of the late Middle Ages are caused by a new demographical and economical cycles that started in Occident in the XIIth century. This cycle is well-known in rural and urban context and it supposed the main stimulation for the sustained growth of population. The Mediterranean cities had to adapt their commercial structures to this process and, although they attained some efficient strategies in the XIIIth, they were not enough to avoid the great famines the next century. However, from the consequences of this crisis were created new patterns of management and control of the urban supply. We have studied the role of the town council between 1301 and 1430, in order to explore the process of immersion in a long sequence of difficult years and the beginning of a steady phase. There are three main subjects that have been deeply analyzed. First, the existence of signs in the municipal sources of scarcity and famines, which were caused by the lack of grain. Second, the role of the council in the cereal supply. This supposes to determine what dispositions were taken by the council in order to establish regulations on the operations of the urban market of the grain, and the role of the municipality like institutional agent responsible for the management and the arrangement of the economic subjects. And finally, the identification of functions acquired by the council as an economic agent that operates directly or indirectly on the cereal market. "