How to Ensure Food Supply to the Population of the Medieval Village of Loulé (1384-1488)

Located in the centre of the Algarve, in the South of Portugal, the ancient village of Loulé has its origins in a Muslim medieval medina (8th Century). After the Christian Conquest of the South and namely of the Loulé territory in 1249, the Christian Administration, based on the city councils meetings, composed of good men, will have to reconcile the social and religious dynamics of the populations who stayed in the territory, formed by Jews, Muslims and Christians. Besides this social, cultural and religious scenario, local administration will also assure the management of production, distribution and sale of food needed to ensure the survival and the settlement of the populations in the territory. Part of that distribution included cereals, olive oil, wine, meat and fish, all of them representing the Mediterranean food basis of the populations from the South of the Iberian Peninsula. It is about this daily concern with food distribution and consumption, in a religious and culturally tripartite society that we intend to present this article, focusing the analysis on three types of food: cereals (“bread”), meat and fish. We intend to demonstrate how the medieval council of Loulé managed the production of the food and how the population was fed, using the Councillor Minutes of the Loulé City Council in the medieval Christian period. Since the documentation allows us to propose an interpretation for the consecrated trilogy of bread, olive oil and wine, we choose to underline three fundamental areas of the economy of the Algarve region: cattle raising and the supply of meat to the populations, the shortage of cereals with which the “bread” supply was ensured and the commercialization of fish. The provision of meat, cereals and fish ensured that the population was well fed, but the most interesting is that, the way the food distribution was made, allows us to understand the capacity to accept a tripartite society between “Christians”, “Moors” and “Jews”.