RCCHU Medieval History International Seminars: Series IV

Social mobility in Valencian rural communities during the Middle Ages. Revisiting rural elites

Frederic Aparisi (Universitat de València)

The imaginary of feudalism was over all that, an imaginary. The division of society into three orders, if it came to exist, was very short in time. Even before the year 1000, signs of inequality within the peasant community were already detected in various regions of Europe. The process of enrichment in the ranks of rural society become more evident and more pronounced during the later Middle Ages. This is due not only to a greater preservation of documentary sources but also to a more market-oriented and integrated economy. This change is evident in consumption patterns and living standards, as witnessed by the inventories of goods of those individuals who end up configuring what historiography has come to term the rural elites. This talk will focus, particularly, on the strategies of consumption and emulation of the Valencian rural elites in the Middle Ages and how the adoption of new patterns of consumption were a testimony of the social promotion of these families.

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Organized by:  Pablo Sanahuja Ferrer (RCCHU Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of History at Harvard University)

Speaker: Frederic Aparisi (Universitat de València)

Sponsors: RCCHU; Universitat de València