Entre servidumbre y trabajo asalariado: la historiografía castellana sobre las relaciones de arrendamiento en el mundo concejil bajomedieval.

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to carry out a critical analysis of the historiography of the last decades referring to the land lease relations in the Castilian councils of the late Middle Ages. Such contracts link the large landowners of the councils with the peasants of the villages. The thesis on the feudal character of the oligarchies is presented, from which the alleged servile character of the forms of exploitation of labor would be derived. Then, different alternative approaches to leases are exposed, ranging from their supposed character of free contracts to the interpretation that assimilates them to wage relations. The purpose of the analysis is to show that leases are essentially forms of mobilization of the peasant workforce. Therefore, they obey a specific rationality of control of producers by land owners, whose specific modalities must be studied in more depth.