Redes de mar saladavínculos económicos, movilidad y transporte marítimo en los puertos del Cantábrico oriental con Valencia y el Mediterráneo occidental a finales de la Edad Media

Abstract

The presence of Basques and Cantabrians during the Late Middle Ages was a salient feature of maritime commerce in Mediterranean waters. This has been demonstrated by studies in the form of articles or book chapters. The aim of this thesis is to investigate their participation in trade and shipping and the difficulties they faced, such as piracy. To this end, a combined analysis was conducted of notarial documentation from Barcelona and Valencia, including several fiscal sources thereof, Castilian and Pisan documents. Additionally, the goal has been to characterise the activities of the natives of the present-day Basque Country and Cantabria in Valencia between 1475 and 1516, their internal organisation as a group, their models of naturalisation, their places of residence and socialisation, family relationships, their networks and strategies for social mobility, even the way they dealt with the death. Drawing on an extensive dataset consisting of thousands of documents, this study has demonstrated that Cantabrian presence during this period was a result of a process of expansion of trade routes connecting the Atlantic and the Mediterranean that spanned several centuries, and peaked at the end of the 15th century due to both the Mediterranean strategy of the Catholic Monarchs and the ability of Valencia to attract immigrants. Contrary to what was believed until recently, their presence in the Mediterranean extended well into the 16th century.