PhD thesis defence by Aina Palarea
The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries have been generally recognized as a turning point for Europe’s history. The Black Death and the subsequent epidemic outbreaks drastically reduced the European population, concentrating wealth into fewer hands which, in turn, paved the road for a consumption-led growth. Unfortunately, the new patterns and levels of consumption have not been the subject of much empirical nor quantitative research. Moreover, the economic consequences of this new consumer behavior had been a highly debatable matter. On this basis, the present thesis has had a double purpose. On the one hand, it has aimed to chart the main consumer changes that occurred in Catalonia during the first half of the fifteenth century, and on the other hand, it has also aimed to identify some of the long-term effects that the emerging new consumption patterns had on the Catalan economy.
Based on the evidence provided by 377 post-mortem inventories, the present dissertation has identified five crucial consumer changes: (1) the diversification of the material culture of the table, both in terms of forms and materials, (2) the proliferation of religious and artistic goods in domestic interiors, (3) the substitution of wool with silk as Europe’s newest luxury fabric, (4) the expansion of lighter-weight woolen fabrics and linen shirts, and (5) the adoption of new female clothing. Most of these consumer changes stimulated a more intense specialization in high value-added production in Catalonia. In doing so, the demand for new consumer goods fostered a more complex economic system and established the foundations for future economic growth.