Chronicle of an early demise,surname extinction in the fifteenth and the seventeenth centuries

It has been amply demonstrated that individuals' reproductive capability is the key explanatory phenomenon for understanding onomastic disappearance during the early modern period. This article analyzes the evolution and consequences of surname extinction in a specific population: Catalonia in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In this article two aspects are examined. First, the observed disappearance of surnames is estimated through historical data collected in the Llibres d'Esposalles (Marriage Books) from 1481 to 1600 at Barcelona Cathedral. Second, the estimated natural extinction of those surnames registered in 1481 is forecast by applying a statistical branching process.     

Culture-led urban regeneration policies in the Ibero-American space

ABSTRACT

This article examines cultural policy strategies supporting urban regeneration, focusing on its particular characteristics in the Ibero-American context. We start by developing a systematic contrast between the different circumstances that have led to the emergence of these strategies in the Ibero-American sphere and in other parts of the world. Our examination of the Ibero-American regenerative experience also includes a consideration of the paradigmatic cases that arose initially in the Iberian Peninsula and the typological analysis of subsequent Latin American experiences. The consideration of all these different elements ends up providing a global vision of the specificity of the phenomenon in its Ibero-American context.     

Polyphasic hydrothermal and meteoric fluid regimes during the growth of a segmented fault involving crystalline and carbonate rocks (Barcelona Plain,NE Spain)

A polyphasic tectonic‐fluid system of a fault that involves crystalline and carbonate rocks (Hospital fault, Barcelona Plain) has been inferred from regional to thin section scale observations combined with geochemical analyses. Cathodoluminescence, microprobe analyses and stable isotopy in fracture‐related cements record the circulation of successive alternations of hydrothermal and low‐temperature meteoric fluids linked with three main regional tectonic events. The first event corresponds to the Mesozoic extension, which had two rifting stages, and it is characterized by the independent tectonic activity of two fault segments, namely southern and northern Hospital fault segments. During the Late Permian‐Middle Jurassic rifting, these segments controlled the thickness and distribution of the Triassic sediments. Also, dolomitization was produced in an early stage by Triassic seawater at shallow conditions. During increasing burial, formation of fractures and their dolomite‐related cements took place. Fault activity during the Middle Jurassic–Late Cretaceous rifting was localized in the southern segment, and it was characterized by hydrothermal brines, with temperatures over 180°C, which ascended through this fault segment precipitating quartz, chlorite, and calcite. The second event corresponds to the Paleogene compression (Chattian), which produced exhumation, folding and erosion, favouring the percolation of low‐temperature meteoric fluids which produced the calcitization of the dolostones and of the dolomite cements. The third event is linked with the Neogene extension, where three stages have been identified. During the syn‐rift stage, the southern segment of the Hospital fault grew by tip propagation. In the relay zone, hydrothermal brines with temperature around 140°C upflowed. During the late postrift, the Hospital fault acted as a unique segment and deformation occurred at shallow conditions and under a low‐temperature meteoric regime. Finally, and possibly during the Messinian compression, NW‐SE strike‐slip faults offset the Hospital fault to its current configuration.     

Merchants' attitudes to work in the Barcelona of the later Middle Ages: organisation of working space,distribution of time and scope of investments

The debate concerning the attitude to work of medieval and renaissance merchants has been one of the most intense in twentieth-century historiography. Arising from the publication of the classic works of the sociologist Max Weber, the debate entered the field of historiography proper after the appearance of articles by Werner Sombart and Henri Pirenne. In the 1950s and 1960s, the works of Yves Renouard and Armando Sapori centred discussion on the development of a specifically mercantile culture in the Italy of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. In this historiographic context, the article below is an attempt to approach, through original sources, the figure of the merchant in late medieval Barcelona. These sources are inventories, wills, and marriage contracts, through which is offered a three-dimensional analysis of the professional culture of such a merchant; the concept of professional space; the organisation of time; and the bearings of his commercial and patrimonial investments. The result of this analysis is an attempt to reinterpret the decadence of Barcelona at the end of the fifteenth century through the notion of work entertained by those involved in commerce, attempting by this means to merge the consideration of economic and cultural matters. It is also a proposal for a model of analysis of professional categories, which on so many occasions have been left to one side because of the preponderance of more traditional questions such as those concerning society, economics or politics.     

Snow Fences: Then and Now

Snow fences are an increasingly widespread cultural feature in the great east-west “snow belt” of the northern hemisphere. They are there not only to protect railroads, highways and buildings from the hazards of blowing snow, but also whole towns subject to the ravages of avalanches. Although their origin is unknown, their construction and use have been advanced and improved greatly by many experimenters of more than a dozen nationalities since the middle of the 19th century.

A modern example of snow fence use is analyzed for a locally named section of Interstate 80 between Laramie and Rawlins in southern Wyoming known as the “Sno Chi Minh Trail.” Here big systems of mostly 12 feet high snow fences line more than half of the western side of the highway for 50 miles. They have reduced accidents and plowing costs by significantly improving visibility in “ground blizzards” of fast-blowing snow.     

Barcelona as imagined community: Pasqual Maragall's spaces of engagement

This paper looks at how cities can function in much the same way as nations in the construction of political projects. Taking Pasqual Maragall's mobilization of Barcelona during his period as mayor of the city (1982–97) as an example, it explores how locally dependent politicians attempt to exploit 'spaces of engagement' (Cox 1998) to escape from the territorial and scalar limitations which city councils have to operate within. It argues that mayors can embody cities, and explores how Maragall located himself within a set of performatively, discursively and institutionally constructed visions of Barcelona embedded in wider economic, political and cultural spaces.     

Servicing Customers in Revolutionary Times: The Experience of the Collectivized Barcelona Water Company during the Spanish Civil War

Debates on the total or partial privatization of water usually follow the rationale that efficient and rational management is best left to the private sphere. In this paper and using a historical example, we attempt to assess critically this assumption arguing that efficiency and rationality in resource management are and have been an asset of collective management as well. We present the case of the Barcelona Water Company, run by its workers during the Spanish Civil War, to illustrate how in certain cases, gains in economic efficiency and rational management that had been impossible to accomplish under standard private management, were achieved by collective action. Workers management during this period not only improved efficiency and rationality but to a large extent did so also procuring equity and fairness in the provision of water to the citizens of Barcelona despite the harsh conditions brought about by the war.     

Photography as Geographical Fieldwork

Photography has a long history in geographical fieldwork. This paper reports on a student project that recovers this history and uses photography and commentary to represent the city of Barcelona. The place of the project within the broader (second-year undergraduate) fieldcourse and curriculum is described. The paper concludes with considerations of the way that photography lends itself to raise issues of representation evident in contemporary human geography. Since it is accessible to students, and offers practical examples, photography is a good way to approach and introduce more complex questions of method, epistemology and representation.     

‘Like man and wife’: clerics’ concubines in the diocese of Barcelona

Clerical concubinage was a persistent problem throughout the Middle Ages, but scholars have largely ignored the historical experience of the women involved. Parish visitation records from the early fourteenth-century diocese of Barcelona reveal a wealth of information about these women. Although their lives were in part circumscribed by an inherently gendered legal category, their day-to-day lives and interactions with other members of their communities depended on more than their legal status, and were in fact as diverse as those of women in legitimate marital unions.     

Dealing with the past and planning the future: the urban renewal of Rome and Barcelona through the Olympic Games

Is there a link between Rome and Barcelona's past and their Olympic legacies? This article sheds further light on the two cities' urban renewals through the Olympics on the basis of a historical and comparative analysis, as well as through the lenses of regime theory. It argues that Rome's modest outcome and Barcelona's success can be linked to their capacity to deal with their controversial past. The article shows that this capacity played a major role in shaping the composition and equilibrium of the two cities' informal networks of local elected officials, bureaucrats and entrepreneurs who planned and implemented the Games (‘growth regimes’). The difficulties of Rome in coping with the Fascist experience resulted in a growth regime in which weak and divided public actors – split along the Fascist/anti-Fascist and Communist/anti-Communist lines – were unable to counterbalance private agents' interests. In contrast, Barcelona's ability to reconcile itself with the past – facilitated by the Spanish entry in the European Economic Community and by the end of the Cold War – eased the Francoist/anti-Francoist and the centralist/Catalan divides, hence allowing the public actors to promote a coalition around a project of ‘democratic restoration’ of the city which involved planners, local businessmen and citizens.