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Life in the city
The count,
the nobility and the church held the government and the control of the city, under
a feudal regime, from the conquest to the mid 13th century. But the existence of
a group of elders who advised the count was the antecedent and the genesis of an
institution with municipal power that the count of Urgell legalised in 1311, the
Paeria (Town Council), with broad autonomy and the faculty to dictate basic rules
of their own, which, from then on, would rule city life and that would take shape
with the Llibre de Bans i Ordinacions (Book of Edicts and Orders).
As in the majority of the cities of the Principality, in Balaguer there was a minority
Jewish community that was governed by its own social and juridical structure, the
Aljama. We have abundant documentation on this from 1333 onwards, when the Jewish
quarter was constituted outside the main town. In spite of being a strong economic
group, with their own privileges such as the holding of a market on Wednesdays, the
Jews were obliged to bear an identifying sign. The Jewish quarter had a synagogue,
hospital, cemetery, butchers, baths and bakery, which they did not share with the
Christian community for cultural and religious reasons.
Agriculture was the basic activity and both dryland farming (vines, olives, fodder,
cereals or saffron) and garden cultivation (all kinds of vegetables, hemp and linen)
were exploited, with important derived activity such as oil or flour mills. Like
the majority of the cities of the lower middle ages, craftsmen's activity had an
important role in the economy of the town. We know of 32 activities that were gathered
in guilds in order to regulate and control production, quality and the prices of
the products. On one hand, agrarian production, and on the other crafts, consolidated
the fairs and markets as exponents of an important commercial activity that was accompanied
by the privilege to mint coins. Balaguer had two fairs and the very old privilege
(1211) of holding markets on Saturdays. |
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