Control público, mercado y sociedad preindustrial: las cámaras de trigo en el reino de Aragón durante los siglos XVI y XVII

This paper studies public control and social agreements concerning grain markets in the kingdom of Aragón during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Economic prosperity during the sixteenth century made possible the formation of communal granaries by town councils to supply the population, reduce price inflation and support local grain demand. As a result, some kind of social pacts helped to focus cereal transactions on public markets and economic activity increased. However, the kingdom's decline and raising municipal indebtedness during the seventeenth century led to the breaking of these agreements as far as town councils reduced commoners' protection and their political representation. Decline of grain regional demand and increasing possibilities for grain exports favoured the decay of municipal support to communal granaries. In compensation for the decline of public control, private Iinks increased their importance in economy and society. Peasants' indebtedness and the growing power of the Church, lesser nobility and citizens, defined the participation of these social groups in the grain market. These changes in local markets during the seventeenth century ruled the political incorporation of the kingdom of Aragon to Spain and the integration of this regional market during the eighteenth century, firmly established at the end of the Ancien Régime.