David R. Ringrose

The Impact of a New Capital City: Madrid, Toledo, and New Castile, 1560-1660

The economic development and decline of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Castile has been the subject of considerable research in the last few years, and it has long been assumed that the rise of Madrid played an important role in dislocating the economy of the region. Yet little direct attention has been paid to the actual processes whereby a distinctive type of urban growth, the development of a political capital, undermined the relationship between town and country which was the basis of the economic activity of sixteenth-century Castile. The rapid growth of Madrid, in fact, coincides with the equally spectacular decline of Toledo, the largest urban center in the region until 1600. The interaction between the two cities, and between the urban sector and the countryside, during the period of prolonged economic stress at the close of the sixteenth century, helps to explain the severity of the crisis which Spain experienced in the seventeenth century.

Spain's Golden Fleece: Wool Production and the Wool Trade from the Middle Ages to the Nineteenth Century@@@Mesta, transhumancia y lana en la Espana modern

The study of Spains early modern economic history has often been dominated by interest in her New World empire - by images of galleons returning home laden with gold, silver, and precious stones. But wealth generated from the New World accounted for only a small percentage of total income for the crown and private citizens alike. The vast majority derived from Spains agrarian economy, of which wool production formed an important part. Large-scale herding supported tens of thousands of families at all social levels and allowed a profitable use of land that was unsuited to agriculture. For centuries, wool production and trade arguably generated more foreign income than any other component of the economy. Even after the development of Spains New World empire, the wool trade remained a crucial source of foreign exchange. This text offers a history of Spains vital wool industry. It shows how wool was crucial both to Spains domestic income and to the flourishing European textile industries that depended on the incomparable wool of Spanish Merino sheep. The authors offer a broad and long-term look at the growth, dominance and decline of the herding economy. They explain the components of wool production, from herding to shearing to preparing the wool for market. They also examine the evolution of the woollen textile industry in Spain and the export trade in raw wool.