7
The only information I have on the evolution of Lopera in the eighteenth century comes from the available censuses. These are of varying reliability, but they all concur in showing that the population grew steadily after the end of the War of the Spanish Succession. Furthermore, the rate of growth was increasing (Table 12.15). In 1786 the reported population was 1,407,[27] by 1826 it was 2,016.
The list of occupations in the 1786 census does not shed light on the evolution of the economy. It shows a small but reasonable growth in the number of labradores, artisans, and male servants.[28] A figure of 83 jornaleros where there had been 135 in 1751 is clearly a miscount: the total number listed for all occupations is 95 less than the male population over twenty-four. On the other hand, only 10 hidalgos are reported (there had been 12 "caballeros hijosdalgo" in the catastro), 4 priests (there had been 7), and 1 cleric in minor orders (there had been 9). If accurate, the figures show that notables and clergy were declining in numbers, especially the latter. The falling off of clerical vocations, so marked in Spain after 1800, may already have begun, spurred on here by the insignificance of the capellanías combined with economic well-being. Another suggestive item is that the Inquisition no longer had an agent in Lopera in 1786.
The officials of Lopera did not respond rapidly to the royal orders of
[27] For the 1786 census of Lopera, see Appendix N, Table N.6.
[28] Labradores, 15; artesanos, 18; criados, 49.
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1798 to disentail the property of ecclesiastical endowments. Not until September 1800 were the first sales concluded. They began with the property of the wealthiest local confraternity, the Cofradía de San Bartolomé. Sales continued into 1801, then slowed down. There were fifteen sales in all, and they disposed of land belonging only to local confraternities and obras pías. Every one of them lost some property, although far from all they had. As in Baños, the clergy avoided the sale of any of the endowments of the capellanías, and neither of the two outside ecclesiastical institutions that came under the royal orders was touched.[29] By comparison with the other towns studied, Lopera had little property disentailed. The sales covered only 1.2 percent of the arable and 1.5 percent of the olive groves. Since the church owned rela-
[29] The sales are recorded in AHPJ, Protocolos, libro 3979 (1800), ff. 175–203 passim; libro 3980 (1801), ff. 11r–12v, 207r–208v; libro 3982 (1804), ff. 150r–152v; libro 3983 (1806), ff. 191r–194v; and in AHPJ, Contaduría, libro 4465, ff. 350–389 passim.
Figure 12.4.
Lopera, Population Structure, 1786
NOTE : Since there is no limit to the top age group, a
span of seventeen years is used for convenience only.
tively little here, however, its loss was not inconsequential: about 10 percent of all ecclesiastical property in town, 16 percent of the holdings of the local church.[30]
When church properties first went on sale the demand was lively, but it rapidly weakened. In mid-1800 a vecino chose to bid on an olive grove, thus forcing the authorities to offer it at auction. The assessors measured it and declared its value to be 13,000 reales. Bidding forced the price up to 13,899 reales, at which the original bidder got it.[31] An-
[30] The identification of the properties sold shows that since the catastro a new obra pía had been founded by don Francisco Feliz de Aguilera, a landowning hidalgo of 1751. For lack of other information, I assume that the property of the obra pía that was disentailed was all he had endowed it with, 25 percent of all the property disentailed in Lopera, and that this was all the property that the church had acquired in the town since 1751. The other disentailed properties can be identified in the catastro as belonging to the church at that time.
[31] Buyer don Alonso de Rus y García, AHPJ, Protocolos, libro 3979 (29 Nov. 1800), ff. 209r–210v.
other vecino, wanting to make sure that he got a grain field of five fanegas, assessed at 315 reales per celemín, offered 400 reales per celemín, which took it. He paid in specie (en metálico ), giving two-thirds the agreed price, as permitted. (Vales were then worth barely one-third their face value in hard currency.)[32] At the end of the year, however, an olive grove went at its assessed value in vales reales, "there having been no other bidder," the notary observed, perhaps in surprise.[33] From then on almost all sales were paid for either in vales reales (meaning that no one had raised the bid by offering specie) or at two-thirds the assessed value in specie, the lowest the law allowed. Only two small sales in 1801 and 1804 give evidence of competition among buyers.[34] In Lopera land could always be found on the open market, and at the prices set by the assessors church properties were not bargains. One purchaser, for instance, who paid 5,010 reales for a grove of seventy-four olive trees in 1800 got another with sixty-eight trees for 2,256 reales by private sale in 1803.[35] Unlike the villages of Salamanca, where land seldom changed hands, in these towns of Jaén there was an active real estate market, and the hunger for church properties was less acute.
Because Lopera had such a market, one cannot assume that the distribution of property was the same when disentail began as at the time of the catastro, and therefore one cannot know the distribution after disentail. As in the case of Baños, one can only show how the sales compared with known holdings in 1751 (Table 12.16). Outside lay owners gained slightly, adding less than 1 percent of their holdings in 1751, an olive grove and a grain field bought by a resident of Córdoba. Vecinos gained more, both relatively and absolutely, 3.5 percent of their holdings in 1751. These changes would hardly be perceived in the town economy. The processions and other activities of the confraternities might be somewhat curtailed when the crown stopped paying interest on the resulting debt to these funds, but in no way could the disentail be seen as a shock to the social or economic order.
Yet the disentail has much to tell us about that order. Twelve persons made purchases, and almost all of them turn up in the records of the
[32] Buyer Pedro Moreno el menor, ibid. (23 Sept. 1800), ff. 175r–176v.
[33] Buyer don Cristóbal de Ventas, ibid. (29 Nov. 1800), ff. 203r–204v (AHPM, C3000).
[34] Buyer Rus y García paid 2,360 reales for property assessed at 2,145 (AHPJ, Protocolos, libro 3980 (14 Nov. 1801), ff. 141r–142v); Miguel de Alcalá paid 2,340 in efectivo, the minimum allowed bid was 2,023 (ibid., libro 3982 (15 Aug. 1804), ff. 150r–152v (C36741).
[35] Don Cristóbal de Ventas, n. 33 above and AHPJ, Contaduría, libro 4465 (11 Nov. 1803), f. 385v.
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notaries and the property register in other transactions during these years (Table 12.17). What kind of person decided to buy church lands?
Don Juan Nepomuceno Morales, a lieutenant colonel in the royal army, resident in Córdoba, was the individual who spent the most money. He bought one of the finest properties in Lopera, an olive grove of 462 trees on first-quality land and also eight fanegas of grainland, both acquired in 1803.[36] Why did he choose Lopera for his investment? He made his purchases through an agent, Antonio de Balenzuela, vecino of Lopera. In 1802 Balenzuela rented a mill and other property in Córdoba belonging to the alcalde of Lopera and his wife, doña María Antonia Morales (sister perhaps of don Juan Nepomuceno Morales). Doña María Antonia guaranteed her part of the contract with an olive grove of 516 trees in Porcuna (adjoining Lopera).[37] One can conceive of don Juan Nepomuceno as coming out of a modest notable local family (in 1751 the last name Morales belonged to the poorest widow addressed as doña and to a cleric in minor orders with no land of his own).
[36] AHPJ, Protocolos, libro 3981 (15 Mar. 1803), ff. 34r–54v, ff. 55r–82v (both C34544).
[37] Ibid., Contaduría, libro 4465 (4 Aug. 1802) f. 381r.
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He may have met Balenzuela through his sister and brother-in-law, hearing about property coming on the market in Lopera, close upon his sister's olive grove, and engaged Balenzuela to get him a share of the bonanza. The disentail introduced a new landowner made wealthy by military service in recent wars against France and Portugal.
Balenzuela is an interesting figure in his own right. A commoner, he made his way by serving the town's elite. Dealings with the outside world were his specialty. In 1802 the alcalde of Lopera commissioned him to go to Córdoba to arrange for the rental of the olive groves and mill owned in Lopera by the convent of Santa Clara in Córdoba. The convent's holdings recorded in the catastro were impressive; this was a major lease.[38] When a resident of Jaén wanted to take out a censo (lien) on some houses he owned in Lopera, Balenzuela was the lender. At the same time Balenzuela bought from this man an olive grove in Lopera with twenty-two trees.[39] Although he never purchased any disentailed property, he also acquired a corral from a private owner during these years.[40] Clearly an upwardly mobile spirit.
The largest purchaser was the army officer Morales. The largest single sale, however, an olive grove of 773 trees, went jointly to three sisters, doña Margarita, doña Inés, and doña María Josefa Montilla y Zevallos, vecinas of Lopera, all "de estado honesto over twenty-five years of age, who rule and govern their personal property without care of any tutor or guardian whatsoever."[41] But they did use an agent for their purchase, our friend Antonio de Balenzuela. One may recall that don Ignacio Montilla was the wealthiest hidalgo in 1751. He had three minor daughters. Are these the same three sisters, now in their sixties and seventies, or are they daughters of one of his five sons? Since the catastro does not give their names or the surname of their mother, one cannot know. In either case, they were condemned to spinsterhood, like so many women of hidalgo families, but they had money and knew how to use it. No sooner had they bought the olive grove than they put it up as collateral to rent a holding of 205 fanegas from the Condesa de Isla Fernández, an outsider. The contract ran for six years, and the rent was 3,250 reales per year.[42] Whatever their age, these ladies were aggressively engaged in agricultural business.
[38] Lopera, maest. ecles., no. 29; AHPJ, Protocolos, libro 3980 (20 Feb. 1802), ff. 19r–20r.
[39] AHPJ, Contaduría, libro 4465 (20 June 1802), f. 380r–v.
[40] Ibid. (26 Dec. 1799), ff. 361r–362v.
[41] AHPJ, Protocolos, libro 3983 (27 Apr. 1806), ff. 47r–84v (C59224).
[42] AHPJ, Contaduría, libro 4465 (30 Sept. 1807), ff. 352v–353r.
Who should appear as the next purchaser but one don Miguel de Montilla y Padilla, undoubtedly another descendant of don Ignacio Montilla, a cousin or nephew of the three sisters. He bought two grain fields of high quality, 7 fanegas in all, almost a third of the arable to be disentailed.[43] His interests were broad and varied. To start with, he owned one of the hereditary offices of regidor in Lopera. Not content with this office, he was trying to establish a claim to an option (tanteo ) on the other one. He had taken the case to the Council of Castile, offering to pay the owner 6,000 reales or whatever the council decided was a just price, and he had hired a lawyer in Madrid to represent him.[44] He had extensive properties. In Lopera he enjoyed a mayorazgo described by one notary as "a vast entailed fortune" ("grueso caudal vinculado").[45] In addition he owned several houses and lots in town,[46] and in Martos, the cabeza de partido, a cortijo with a house with tile roof and 221 fanegas of land, which he rented for 3,300 reales per year.[47] Dealing in property came naturally to him. One finds him, besides making purchases from the disentail, buying an olive grove in 1799 with 136 trees for 12,132 reales and two large olive groves and a major house in Lopera in 1800 for 71,168 reales (three times what he paid for his church lands) and selling a building lot in 1801 and several houses in 1804.[48] He lends money against a censo in 1802 and owes the local encomienda a censo that he backs with his mayorazgo; he hires a fellow vecino with connections in Madrid to collect debts due him.[49]
The most interesting information that one acquires about Montilla, however, is that his brother-in-law is don Manuel Francisco de Zevallos Guerra, Conde de Villafuertes, a caballero of the Order of Calatrava, gentleman of the royal chamber and colonel in the royal armies, a vecino of the north coast port of Santander. It is he who sells Montilla the handsome olive groves in 1800. He had inherited them from don Francisco Xavier de Zevallos, the absentee regidor of 1751, also of the
[43] AHPJ, Protocolos, libro 3979 (4 Sept. 1800), ff. 167r–168v (A6800); (12 Nov. 1800), ff. 199r–200v (C3001).
[44] Ibid., (26 Jan. 1801), ff. 3–4; libro 3980 (4 Aug. 1801), ff. 86r–87r.
[45] Ibid., libro 3979 (26 Jan. 1801, bound incorrectly in 1800), ff. 3r–4v; also see libro 3980 (3 Jan. 1802), ff. 3r–4v.
[46] AHPJ, Contaduría, libro 4465 (12 Aug. 1801), ff. 375v–376r; (16 Nov. 1804), f. 340r.
[47] AHPJ, Protocolos, libro 3980 (12 Sept. 1801), ff. 99r–102r.
[48] AHPJ, Contaduría, libro 4465 (14 Dec. 1799), f. 361v; (16 Nov. 1804), f. 340r; AHPJ, Protocolos, libro 3979 (11 Dec. 1799), f. 231; (7 Aug. 1800), ff. 157r–160v; libro 3980 (12 Aug. 1801), ff. 88r–91v; libro 3982 (13 Nov. 1804), ff. 204r–207v.
[49] Ibid., libro 3980 (3 Jan. 1802), ff. 3r–4v; (21 July 1802), ff. 82r–v; libro 3979 (27 Feb. 1800), ff. 13–14.
Order of Calatrava.[50] Surely he had also inherited the regidor's office, and Montilla had bought it from him, as he is now trying to buy that of the other hereditary regidor. The family connections do not stop there, for the three enterprising sisters, besides being Montillas on their father's side, are Zevallos on their mother's. A small world, but it reaches to Córdoba, Madrid, and Santander and embraces a count with access to the royal court.
In the mid-eighteenth century don Ignacio Montilla had wealth and hidalguía, but public office had escaped him. At that time no other head of household in Lopera shared his name. Half a century later his descendants have enhanced the family fortune and social standing and have penetrated the town council. The alcalde's office still escapes them—don Antonio de Berdejo y Piedrola occupies it, a descendant of don Bernardo Berdejo, caballero hijodalgo and "young bachelor" ("mozo soltero") in 1751. Since the death of don Pedro Josef de Lara, the eighty-one-year-old alcalde of the catastro, the Lara family, then predominant in the town, has disappeared from the official scene, and the Montillas are rapidly taking their place, the new and expansive poderosos of Lopera.
To collect his debts, Montilla hired don Alonso de Rus y García. The next one down the list of buyers, Rus y García is almost as fascinating as Montilla. One of the earliest buyers, between September 1800 and November 1801 he acquired a medium-sized olive grove (148 trees) and two small but excellent plots of land.[51] A native of Lopera, he had made a career in the army, rising to be a mariscal mayor in the Reales Guardias de Corps and a vecino of Madrid.[52] There was no family named Rus in Lopera in 1751, but the Ruiz were prominent: the labrador called don, two widows called doña, and the priest with the largest personal estate. Rus's name was a corruption of Ruiz; in fact the notarized documents call him variously de Rus, de Ruz, and de Ruiz. With him this family too had prospered.
We can picture don Alonso de Rus returning to his native town with his wife about the time the disentail was proclaimed (in 1799 he is called a resident, by 1801 a vecino).[53] One of his first acts is to donate a new altar in the parish church dedicated to the image of Holy Mary of Tribu-
[50] For the property of F. X. Zevallos, Lopera, maest. segl., ff. 458–78.
[51] AHPJ, Protocolos, libro 3979 (25 Sept. 1800), ff. 141r–142v (C621) (haza); (29 Nov. 1800), ff. 209r–210v (C2999) (olivar); libro 3980 (14 Nov. 1801), ff. 141r–142v (C21524) (pieza de tierra).
[52] See ibid., libro 3979 (23 Nov. 1799), ff. 225r–226v; (27 Feb. 1800), ff. 13–14 (where he is called a vecino of Madrid).
[53] See ibid., libro 3980 (29 June 1801), f. 62r–63v.
lations, endowing it with a censo for eleven hundred reales against houses that he owns in the town.[54] Having made this display of his religious and civic spirit, he enters forcefully into the local economic life. In 1800 Montilla hires him to collect his debts. By 1801 he is the administrator of the properties of the Conde de Lainez of Madrid. Among these are two notarial offices (escribanías públicas ) in Porcuna, Lopera's larger neighbor to the south, which Rus rents to the notary of Lopera (notaries too could be active in more than one town).[55] The notary's surname is García; so is Rus's wife's and Rus's mother's. In the same year he and his wife act as guarantors (fiadores), pledging his purchases from the disentail, for the contract of his brother to farm the royal revenues of Marmolejo (the next town to the north) and for that of his brother-in-law to farm the royal revenues and tobacco monopoly of Lopera.[56] (Tax farming can become a family affair that embraces more than one community.) Finally in 1805 Rus himself gets the administration of the revenues of a capellanía in Lopera.[57] We lose sight of him here, army officer wise to the world of Madrid returned in glory to his modest Andalusian town, where he can exploit his family connections and discover a gift for business and public relations.
For the town doctor, the royal decree came at an inconvenient time. Don Juan Alejo Pérez was engaged in a legal tangle in Jaén in 1799—he had to hire two advocates attached to the episcopal court to handle his problems, both civil and ecclesiastical.[58] This litigation left him short of cash, for the next year, when he bought a handsome mule for 1,500 reales, he had to give a note to guarantee future payment.[59] But he was not destitute, since he owned a fine house on the corner of the town square. In 1801 he could not resist acquiring a one-fanega plot of church land that no one was bidding for, but his funds were still scarce. He paid one-quarter of the price down (a mere 1,001 reales) and the rest in two annual installments, plus 3 percent interest, putting up his house as security, one of the few buyers who took advantage of this method of payment.[60] By 1806 his finances had recovered enough to permit him a second purchase of church land, a small olive grove.[61] A doctor was a
[54] Ibid., libro 3979 (23 Nov. 1799), ff. 225r–226v.
[55] Ibid., libro 3980 (29 June 1801), ff. 62r–63v.
[56] Ibid., libro 3980 (29 Sept. 1801), ff. 103r–106v; (26 Sept. 1801), ff. 107r–110v (also in AHPJ, Contaduría, libro 4465, ff. 376r–v).
[57] AHPJ, Contaduría, libro 4465 (4 Aug. 1805), ff. 342r–v.
[58] AHPJ, Protocolos, libro 3979 (4 July 1799), ff. 166r–v.
[59] Ibid. (5 May 1300), f. 121r–v.
[60] Ibid., libro 3980 (19 Jan. 1801), ff. 11r–12v.
[61] Ibid., libro 3983 (18 Dec. 1806), ff. 191r–194v (C51397).
respected figure in society with an emolument from the town council, but his profession did not place him economically in the top level of the notables any more than it had in 1751.
Two other vecinos whom the notaries called don made relatively small purchases. Don Juan Luis Rivilla turns up nowhere else in the notarial records of this period.[62] Don Cristóbal de Ventas was the buyer of an olive grove of seventy-four trees at the outset of the sales and another of sixty-eight trees by private purchase in 1803.[63] The enterprising veteran don Alonso de Rus gave him power of attorney in 1802.[64] He was a part of the elite, even if a small part, both by title and by connections.
Only three men who bought ecclesiastical properties were not entitled to the appellation don. All appear elsewhere in the notarial records of these years, although one, Miguel de Alcalá, only fleetingly. His was the smallest purchase, a small field of medium quality. He paid 2,340 reales in specie for it in 1804, over 300 reales above the minimum, having fought off other interested parties.[65] Two years later he bought a mule from a dealer in Granada for 2,100 reales (almost as much as his field). Lacking cash, he gave the dealer a note with his house as collateral.[66] A labrador?
Francisco de Paula Peralta y Gutiérrez may have been another labrador; he was much more enterprising. From the disentail he acquired a field of almost four fanegas of low quality, which he got for the minimum price, 5,303 reales in specie.[67] Earlier he had bought an olive grove of fifty-three trees from the second hereditary regidor for 3,700 reales.[68] In 1799 he lent another vecino 3,000 reales in specie for six weeks, and in 1806 he obtained the administration of the properties of a capellanía, putting up several houses as collateral.[69]
The third commoner was more active, Pedro Moreno the younger ("el menor"), identified in a contract as master farrier and veterinarian.[70] At the outset of the sales he bought five fanegas of top-quality
[62] Ibid., libro 3979 (12 Nov. 1800), ff. 195r–196v (C1824).
[63] Ibid. (29 Nov. 1800), ff. 203r–204v (C3000); AHPJ, Contaduría, libro 4465 (11 Nov. 1803), f. 385v.
[64] AHPJ, Protocolos, libro 3980 (4 Oct. 1802), f. 172r–v.
[65] Ibid., libro 3982 (15 Aug. 1804), ff. 150r–152v (C36741). The field was assessed at 233 reales per celemín (1/12 fanega). Assessments ran from 145 to 315 reales per celemín for plowed land.
[66] AHPJ, Contaduría, libro 4465 (14 Apr. 1806), ff. 346r–v.
[67] AHPJ, Protocolos, libro 3980 (31 Dec. 1802), ff. 207r–208v (C21523).
[68] Ibid. (7 May 1802), ff. 38r–39v.
[69] Ibid., libro 3979 (6 June 1799), f. 158r–v; AHPJ, Contaduría, libro 4465 (20 Mar. 1806), f. 345v.
[70] Maestro de herrador y albeitar.
ruedo land, which he obtained by bidding 27 percent above the assessed value.[71] A year later he bought twenty-nine fanegas of arable from the Marquesa de Monte Olivar, a nonresident, a purchase that made him one of the largest owners in Lopera.[72] He did not let these lands lie idle; by 1807, when he used them to back a contract, they were already planted with young olive trees.[73] He was equally into other businesses. He bought three mules from dealers in Granada, every time giving notes specifying future payment.[74] He probably was reselling them and others for which he paid cash and of which we have no evidence. He also was available as a fiador, for a price, of course. In 1800 he put up bond for a prisoner in the town jail and in 1803 acted as guarantor for an hidalgo who farmed the income of a religious endowment. As his guarantee, he put up several houses and an olive grove.[75] Finally, in October 1807, just before we lose sight of the town, he obtained the administration of the tavern belonging to the municipal council.[76] Unlike the wealthy hidalgos, who had connections outside Lopera to enhance their position, these three commoners operated within the confines of the town. Moreno, the most active, used his position as veterinarian to rise to the status of landowner and tavernkeeper. The purchase of church properties represented one rung in his career.
Although the acquisition of church land did not alter profoundly the position of anyone in Lopera, in almost every case it marked the purchaser, whether commoner or noble, as a driving, ambitious member of the community. Nine of the twelve belong in the top socioeconomic category (Level 7 in Table 12.14), the other three in the middle range (Level 4). The bottom three levels, 60 percent of the households in 1751, did not have a look in. It is striking how many business and family connections related this small group of buyers to each other. Of course, they worked with other people as well, but these men and women formed the core of the active sector of the community.
No doubt such people had always been present, yet the last half century seems to have encouraged them. The catastro gives evidence of an elite that resembles a corporate body with connections reaching outside
[71] AHPJ, Protocolos, libro 3979 (23 Sept. 1800), ff. 175r–176v (C620). Assessed 315 reales per celemín, bid 400, paid 2/3 of bid in specie.
[72] Ibid., libro 3980 (16 Oct. 1801), f. 179r–182v. The price is not given.
[73] AHPJ, Contaduría, libro 4465 (1 Oct. 1807), f. 353r.
[74] Ibid. (15 July 1799), ff. 358v–359r; (26 Mar. 1803), ff. 383v–384r; AHPJ, Protocolos, libro 3979 (6 May 1800), f. 123r–v.
[75] AHPJ, Contaduría, libro 4465 (25 May 1800), ff. 371v–372r; (31 Dec. 1803), f. 386r.
[76] Ibid. (1 Oct. 1807), f. 353r.
the town. The activities of the buyers of church property add new dimensions to this picture. Here, in a relatively insignificant town in the upper Andalusian valley, the driving figures of the community had interests that spread to the neighboring towns, where they had land and offices and relatives in leading places. Family and business tied them to Córdoba, much more their metropolis than Jaén, and to Madrid, where one buyer had made his career as an officer in the royal guards and another was a plaintiff before the Council of Castile and could boast of a titled brother-in-law who knew the king.
The regional network of hidalgo families linked the town notables into a greater society than that bounded by their geographic término. They could count on support from outside, as guarantors and as marriage partners. When a local family disappeared for lack of heirs, others in the region were ready to step in and take over their interests, either by a direct move or through their proxies. A poor member of the notability might consider a wedding with a commoner, but at the socioeconomic summit, any vacuum was filled with peers from elsewhere. The agricultural laborers flowed from town to town like water between connecting vessels; far above them so did the members of the hidalgo society, maintaining intact the film that they spread atop the rural world. Even more clearly than at the time of the catastro, they formed an integrated regional elite, one with national connections. The foundation of nineteenth-century oligarchic constitutional politics was emerging.