Movilidad y herencia de los masovers catalanes. La familia Culubret, siglos XVII-XIX

The genealogical reconstruction of families is a useful method tostudy those groups of peasants who have generated little direct documentation, such as the Catalan masovers (tenant farmers). Based on parish sources, population censuses and notarial records, a tenant farming family between the 17th and the 19th centuries has been reconstructed. This allows us to understand the logic behind the hereditary systems, the population movements, the degree of endogamy in the group, its limited possibilities for social promotion and the role of the credit market. The article concludes that the universal and indivisible inheritance and the intergenerational co-residence practiced by the tenant farmers –most of them landless– was not the result of a simple imitation of the land-owning class, but rather of their own needs and interests, ownership structure and social relations, and was strengthened by land owners; that the mobility of the tenant farmers was limited and related to the hereditary system; and that the credit market connected the land and labour markets.