Accounting for the commons: bookkeeping and the stewardship of natural resources in northern Spain (sixteenth to twentieth centuries)

ABSTRACT The accountability, which both monitors and other officials have to users, is an important condition for long-lasting common pool resources. This study examines the historical use of accounting techniques as an ingredient of common property regimes, emphasising stewardship theory. The use of accounting by peasant communities, at least from the sixteenth century, is demonstrated through two case studies: a small irrigation community (Regadío de Arbanta) and a large intercommon forest (Sierra de Lóquiz), both in the Spanish province of Navarre. Although other hierarchical institutions, such as royal officers, religious entities and lords, made use of calculation at the time, the peculiarity of peasant accounting is that it was embedded in an egalitarian culture and served to ensure intergenerational reciprocity. Small size and low levels of inequality favoured accountability in a horizontal scheme. The article concludes that those rural communities made use of the calculation technologies available during the Renaissance mainly due to endogenous motivation. The use of accounting served the needs of local communities’ financial control, and reinforced community links, thereby favouring the sustainability of both the communities themselves and their resources.