Urban Space and Society in Late Medieval Oviedo: A Method Proposal (SP)

Abstract

The aim of our paper is to offer a methodological model for the study of the relation between space and society in late medieval Spanish towns, a model framed within the elaborations of the so-called ‘Social Topography’, concerned with the social distribution of urban space, or, in other words, the study of spatial patterns as a reflection and stimulus for the social, political and economic relations that are established in the town; in short, a reciprocal conditioning between urban fabric and social structure, between “the town of stone and the town of men”. Drawing on the case of Oviedo as an example, the use of certain analytical categories has helped us identify both the settlement patterns of the different social groups and the social features of the town’s main streets and neighbourhoods. In addition, the evidence showed that in some cases local elites left their physical imprint within the town by locating their family estates in certain specific streets, with the aim of communicating through the buildings their privileged status among the local society. The best example of such ‘display of power’, sought after by the urban patriciate of Oviedo, is the Rua Palace.