Climatic drivers of the historical variations in cereal prices in the northeast of the Iberian peninsula in the 17th century

Cuadrat Prats, J.M. ; Alfaro Pérez F.J. (Universidad de Zaragoza) ; Vargas E.T. ; Barriendos M. ; Serrano-Notivoli R. ; Saz Sánchez M.Á. (Universidad de Zaragoza)

Resumen: The 17th century knew in Spain several periods of agricultural crisis producing shortages in staple foods and a rising in grain prices. The fluctuations of the prices of wheat, barley and rye are relatively well documented in several areas of the country, however, the knowledge about the influence of climatic and environmental factors on these variations is still limited. In this work, we present the historical records of grain prices of four cities of different geographical areas in northeastern Iberian Peninsula during period 1630-1660, and they are compared with drought indices, reconstructed from documentary and dendroclimatic proxies. We observed that prices variations coincide with regional anomalies in spring-summer drought. Direct correlations between them are low (0.435), however, if analysis is focused on extreme values, the climatic influence is higher: prices are high during dry periods and lower during wet periods. This correspondence is higher in previous and following years to the Guerra dels Segadors, showing that the exchange of goods and the coherence of data were controlled by sociopolitical and environmental factors, being the latter more influential in peacetime. ©2021 José M. Cuadrat, Francisco J. Alfaro Pérez, Ernesto Tejedor Vargas, Mariano Barriendos, Roberto Serrano-Notivoli, Miguel Á. Saz Sánchez

Idioma: Español

DOI: 10.14198/RHM2021.39.02

Año: 2021

Publicado en: Revista de Historia Moderna 39 (2021), 44-67
ISSN: 0212-5862

Factor impacto SCIMAGO: 0.134 - Religious Studies (Q2) - History (Q2)

Tipo y forma: Article (Published version)

Área (Departamento): Área Historia Moderna (Dpto. Historia)
Área (Departamento): Área Análisis Geográfico Regi. (Dpto. Geograf. Ordenac.Territ.)