Transhumance and livestock farming between Navarre and Guipuscoa during the Low Middle Ages and the beginning of the Early Modern Ages

Abstract

During the 12th and the 15th centuries big Navarre ecclesial institutions, such as the royal church of Roncesvalles and the cathedral of Pamplona, owners of big cattle herds, set up a large network of meadowlands, which put together winter meadows of Guipuzcoa, Labourd, Low Navarre, Soule or Béarn and the summer ones of Pyrenees and North-West of Navarre. The aim of this research is, firstly, to analyse the evolution of the use and property of the meadows and grasslands owned by the aforementioned institutions in Guipuzcoa, between the 12th and the 15th centuries, where their cattle herds moved to during the winter. Although they went leaving these customs, they exceptionally kept them in some cases beyond the 16th century. Secondly, this essay would try to analyse the conflicts arisen as a result of the movements of herds between countries in order to graze and fatten cattle and pigs.