Settlements and depopulation in late medieval Extremadura: the “subaldeas”

Abstract

This article addresses the dialectic between the phenomena of settlement increase and depopulation in late-medieval Extremadura. It is based on case studies of seigniorial and royal jurisdictions. The data comes mainly from procedural and fiscal sources, as well as from bibliographical sources of the last twenty years. The results obtained show that from the mid-fourteenth century on the key element for the success or failure of these settlements was the ability of residents to manage the use of communal resources, as limitations to them would trigger demographic decline and even cause settlement abandonment.