L'Aprovisionament de carn a Barcelona durant els segles XIV i XV

Abstract

The aim of this thesis was analyze the whole process of meat trade in a great city of Late Middle Ages like Barcelona. To obtain this aim the whole documentation of the AHCB (Historical Archive of the City of Barcelona) has been analyzed in a systematic way.We chose the documentation of this archive because the Consell de Cent played an important role on the meat market. Along the research we verify that the butchers were monopolizing the whole commercial process of the meat, they bought the cattle in the fairs and cattle markets and they sold the meat in their stalls. The monopoly of the market by the butchers until ends of the 15th century has allowed us to delimit clearly the both principal actors in this trade: the butchers and the city ministers. This two actors had opposite or coincidental interests in the different moments of the mercantile process; so, they were coincidental in the defense of the tolls and pasture city privileges against the Catalonias feudal Lords, but they were absolutely divergent in the moment to fix the meat prices and taxes, or in the moment to create the hygiene legislation of the meat.