Tenencia, transmisión y formas de explotación de la tierra en un entorno protoindustrial. La comarca de Alcoi (ss. XVI-XVIII)

Abstract

The protoindustrialization theories presuppose, as a cause or as a consequence, that in the proto-industrial areas there was a strong concentration of land ownership. The article addresses this issue in the environment of the cloth-leading producer at the end of the Old Regime, the Valencian town of Alcoi. The work confirms this concentration, accentuated over the time and greater depending on the size of the population. The land market is studied, with special attention to the impact of the expulsion of the Moriscos and hypotheses are raised about the influence of transmission and inheritance mechanisms. Likewise, the relations of production and the importance of wage labour in agriculture are considered. Despite the concentration of ownership, the extent of indirect management through leases and sharecropping, and a suspicion of an important salarization in agricultural activities, the English model does not seem to be reproduced by apparent absence of capitalist tenant farmers.