This article examines land ownership among Valencian peasants as a means of addressing internal wealth inequalities. Using a sample of 191 probate inventories from 1283 to 1400, we provide evidence of the number of plots owned by peasants, the size of their holdings, and the crops they grew. This provides a unique opportunity to explore inequalities in a period for which no tax records have survived. The study argues that before the Black Death there were significant inequalities among Valencian peasants across the kingdom, which appear to have increased in the fifty years after the plague in terms of land ownership.
Complutense University of Madrid, Spain - ORCID: 0000-0003-1417-8523
Chapter Title
Wealth inequality and land ownership before and after the Black Death. A quantitative analysis of peasant probate inventories from the Kingdom of Valencia (1283-1400)
Authors
Luis Almenar Fernández
Language
English
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0705-8.09
Peer Reviewed
Publication Year
2025
Copyright Information
© 2025 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Book Title
Socio-Economic Inequalities during the Conjuncture of the Fourteenth Century
Book Subtitle
Sources and Methods, Dynamics and Representations (Italy and Europe, c. 1270 - c. 1350)
Editors
Davide Cristoferi
Peer Reviewed
Number of Pages
458
Publication Year
2025
Copyright Information
© 2025 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Publisher Name
Firenze University Press
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0705-8
ISBN Print
979-12-215-0699-0
eISBN (pdf)
979-12-215-0705-8
eISBN (xml)
979-12-215-0707-2
Series Title
Reti Medievali E-Book
Series ISSN
2704-6362
Series E-ISSN
2704-6079