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This volume deals with the social implications of land transactions, especially with the role of personal and institutional networks in a precapitalist society. The four authors discuss different aspects of the relationship between three monasteries (two Cistercians, Montederramo and Oseira, and one Benedictine nunnery, Ramiranes) and the peasant communities around them in thirteenth-Century Galicia. They use a Data Base to register 2500 'foros', the typical Galician land contract and more than 8000 people and their goods.
The thesis of the authors is that monasteries did not exert their authority upon powerless peasants, but constraint by preexisting networks of local people. Most of the peasants involved in the transactions turned out to be members of 'middle groups' like knights, squires or upper peasants. The book is especially important for all those interested in social perspectives as a means to understand the medieval economy.
About the author
Reyna Pastor, Ph.D. (1979) in Mediaeval History, Universidad de Buenos Aires and Complutense (Madrid), is Professor at the National Research Centre (CSIC). She has published extensively on peasant community and the feudal society including
Resistencias y Luchas campesinas (Madrid, Siglo XXI, 1980).
Esther Pascua, Ph.D. (1993) in Mediaeval History, Universidad Complutense (Madrid) is Lecturer at the University of St. Andrews (Scotland). She has published a book on the feudal monarchies (
Guerra y Pacto en el Siglo XII, Madrid, 1996) and several articles in English (
Journal of Medieval History, 2000).
Ana Rodríguez-Lopez, Ph.D. (1992) in Mediaeval History, Universidad Complutense (Madrid) is a Researcher at the Institute of History (CSIC, Madrid). She has published on thirteenth-century Castile including
La consolidación territorial de la monarquía feudal castellana (Madrid, 1994).
Pablo Sánchez-León, Ph.D. (1993) in History, Universidad Autónoma (Madrid), is Researcher at the same university. He has published on social conflicts and identities in Spanish and European History, including
Absolutismo y Comunidad. Los Orígenes sociales de la guerra de los comuneros de Castilla (Madrid, Siglo XXI, 1998).
