Land and the man in the ‘Tierra de Campos’ in the Valladolid province in the middle of the XVIII century

Abstract

In spite of the importance that throughout the history has had the region of the Tierra de Campos, the studies centered in this area for the XVIII century are very scarce. Therefore, in this work, and thanks to the Respuestas Generales of the Cadastre of the Ensenada, it has been analyzed what was the situation of the jurisdictional property and the population of the region, as well as the situation of its main economic activity agriculture. The work has focused on the region of the Tierra de Campos in the present province of Valladolid, territory that includes 82 localities. Thanks to the joint analysis of the 40 questions of the Cadastre Questionnaire for all these towns, it has been possible to determine those components that were common to the region and that to a great extent shaped it during this period, such as the type and volume of settlement, Land measures, crop distribution or land productivity. Thanks to all this, it has been possible to characterize in a much more homogeneous way the region of what had been done until now.