Nobleza media y transmisión del patrimonio familiar en la Navarra moderna

Abstract

Throughout the Middle Ages, middle-level nobility in Navarre, composed of cabo de armería palace lords, saw the need to maintain its patrimony undivided, as their own survival and socio-economie prestige depended greatly on that patrimony. With the purpose of avoiding its dispersal, a considerable part of that nobility adopted the mayorazgo, in its diverse modalities, as a system of patrimonial transmission, especially in the 15th and 17th centuries. On one hand, that institution provided the solution for a material need related with that nobility's survival, and on the other hand it satisfied the wish to exist throughout time last that has animated nobility throughout its existence. The mayorazgo, which allowed for maintaining economic bases intact while avoiding their dispersal in successive generational distributions, coexisted with another form of undivided transmission of inheritances, which was the single-heir system, which was solidly installed in the middle and northern part of Navarre. This system had the same purpose as the mayorazgo, although it did have certain differences. The adoption of the mentioned undivided patrimony transmission systems, in which patrimony is inherited by only one of the children, exerted a strong influence on family structure and organisation, and brought about various strategies directed towards providing means of living for the rest of the children without affecting the properties that constituted the economic bases of family and lineage.