Among concords, ordinances and lawsuits. The water conflict in modern Castile

Abstract

The water as economic and human volumes source ―and therefore, political and economic power instrument― becomes dispute object and judicial controversy among its different owners for its possession and use. The shortage of available water resources and the lifted water demand that the agrarian and industrial uses raise at modern epoch cause the establishment of municipal concords and ordinances among its different possessors; a local common norm that allowed the integration of different or identical productive uses in a same hydric volume. In spite of it, the existence of these municipal concords and ordinances did not suppose the absence of conflicts among the signatory parts and the consequent exposition of judicial cause for breach of subscribed agreement. This circumstance also occurred with denominated «ordenanzas de junta» and the sentences of its alcaldes árbitros. The judicial documentation of the Royal Audience and Chancellery of Valladolid during the Modern Age has constituted the main documentary source of our research. In particular, the civil lawsuits that consider in the water litigation on the occasion of its property and advantage. The confirmation and observance of the municipal concords and ordinances on the part of the Crown will serve us to verify the main government directive of this one like institution: the general and particular interest convergence, a convergence policy that is also present in the municipal governing elite.