The peoples of the Cantabrian sea in Valencia at the end of the Middle Ages: networks, mobility and permanence

Abstract

This article examines the presence and networks established by the people from the Cantabrian Sea town ports in Valencia between the 15th and 16th centuries. The origins of their arrival to the city by ship date back to the 14th century, but it became even more intense during the late decades of the Middle Ages. These biscahinos from the North of the Crown of Castile were a group composed of Biscayan, Guipuzcoan but also Cantabrian, and the people from Alava. The enormous notarial documentation from Valencia, such as the Jaume Salvador’s notarial protocols from the Archive of the Kingdom of Valencia, added to some other sources like the denizenship books (Avehinaments) provide us, through the approach of prosopography, the base to analyze the reasons behind their mobility to Valencia and their settlement, the definition of the group, their institutional organization and internal cohesion and their life in the city.