Aragón y Valencia en el siglo XV: vínculos económicos entre espacios políticos fronterizos

Abstract

This paper examines the economic ties between southern Aragon and northern Valencia in the fifteenth century, thanks to the mutual influence that emerged in the zone between these neighbouring kingdoms of the Crown of Aragon.Exchange was free-flowing and intense, and it helped to shape a territory overlapped by fueros (local laws), the extension of seigniorial estates and a shared nobility; benefiting from geographical proximity and similar landscape, but also from high population mobility and the constant periodic migrations associated with the search for a labor market or the obligations imposed by livestock transhumance within a shared economic region. This interaction ultimately affected cultural, artistic and religious matters as well.This permanent economic convergence was brought about by the continuous movement of people and goods that has been verified through the analysis of various fiscal tables derived from the collection of the tax of the General (a tax on the manufacture and movement of goods) on both sides of the border. In this respect, the village of Barracas was very important as a key tax collection point in both the Aragonese and Valencian administrative systems in the mid-fifteenth century. It was one of the many customs posts that the Generalidad of the kingdom of Aragon had, and a border taula (tollbooth) of the kingdom of Valencia. This documentation has been contrasted with other types of contemporary sources –notarial, municipal, judicial, royal, foral [related to the fueros]–, with the aim of demonstrating the characteristics and importance of the prevailing short- and medium-range domestic trade from the second half of the fifteenth century onwards.