THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEIGHT STANDARDS TO PORTUGUESE CITIES AND TOWNS IN THE EARLY 16TH CENTURY: ADMINISTRATIVE, DEMOGRAPHIC AND ECONOMIC FACTORS

Abstract

In a letter of May 1503, little known until now, but of great importance for the history of the reform of weights in Portugal, king Manuel I announced the delivery of the new standards to the municipalities and scheduled the entry into force of the new system for January 1504. It is known that the manueline weight piles were already being delivered in July 1503 and that the new system did come into force in 1504. In the following decades, as the documentation shows, the manueline rules remained in force and the regional authorities sought to ensure their application. It is also known that many municipalities have been given exemptions from having the standards, considering their smallness, poverty or lack of trade. Crosschecking the recently elaborated inventory of manueline weight piles with data from the 1527-1532 administrative and demographic survey of the whole kingdom allows for a more substantial analysis of how this process unfolded. More than the global population and size of a municipality, it was the population and importance of its chief urban center that mainly influenced on the decision of acquiring a manueline pile. Of all manueline piles with identified origin, 97% come from cities or towns, 92% come from municipalities with more than 150 households, 80% come from municipalities whose chief urban centers had more than 100 households and 75% come from municipalities with defensive buildings. The province of Entre-Douro-e-Minho, the most densely populated, but where dispersed settlement prevailed, stands out due to the low density of referenced manueline piles. The number of municipalities with manueline piles may have approached two hundred, of which more than 120 are referenced.