La Fi del censal: reducció de l'interès o vaga de pensions? (1750-1861)

Abstract

The reduction of interest rates from 5 % to 3 % in 1750 has been considered the beginning of the end of the Catalan mortgage loans called «censals». But this does not fit very well other facts: it was only the last of several previous reductions in the censal rate; the reductions had been very common in the kingdoms of England, France or Castilian, and the first symptoms of a general loan withdrawal from censal loans did not begin until the end of the 18th or the beginning of the 19th century. The article suggests an alternative explanation for the interest reductions as such, that helped to adjust the mortgage rates to the rising prices of land and the increase in its annual purchase value that diminished the profits on it. The failure of the mortgage system was triggered by the non-payment of the rates that started at the end of the century, together with the so called «tithe strike» and the non-payment of the land rents to the landlords by the peasants, when the agrarian growth of the 18th century came to an end.