Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 July 2013
This article examines the marketing and distribution of foreign fabric, predominantly English, in the northern sub-plateau of Spain at the beginning of the 18th century using information from a fiscal source. The official tax record used in this study was a specific and special tax levied on cloth imported from countries with which Spain was at war. The details of this tax shed more light on a hotly debated topic with respect to transport and networks in modern Spain and make it possible to analyze and quantify the physical volume as well as the value and the destination of textiles.
En este trabajo se analiza la comercialización y distribución de tejidos extranjeros en la sub-meseta norte de España a comienzos del setecientos a través de una fuente fiscal que nos permite matizar ciertos aspectos relacionados con la demanda de textiles. La fuente utilizada en este trabajo es un impuesto que se cobraba sobre los textiles importados en tiempos de guerra y que recoge quien enviaba la mercancía, el receptor de la misma, el transportista, el tipo de tejido, su valor fiscal, la cantidad así como el impuesto extraordinario pagado que iba a la tesorería real. Los resultados de este estudio permiten analizar en profundidad por lo tanto las redes de distribución y el tipo de tejidos ingleses que se demandaban.
This work was co-financed by MICINN HAR 2008-04978/His and HAR 2012-35965/His and the Basque Government (Gobierno Vasco/Eusko Jaurlaritza, Grupo de Investigación consolidado IT337-10). A preliminary version was presented at the Pasold Research Fund and Chord Joint Conference (Session: Distribution networks for textiles and dress, c. 1700-1945) at the University of Wolverhampton in September 2010. The authors are grateful to all the participants for their suggestions and comments. They would also like to thank Fernando Esteve, Ernesto López Losa, Santiago López, Patricio Sáiz and Philipp Sykas as well as the referees of this journal. Any errors remaining in the text are our responsibility.