Alimentación, carestías y crisis de mortalidad en la España cantábrica (1680-1860)

Abstract

This article examines the food consumption patterns, the evolution of catastrophic mortality and the role of famines in the appearance of mortality crises on the Cantabrian coast from the late seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth century, before the start of the industrial era. Family budgets, burials and wheat prices are used here to measure how important the shortages were in the appearance of adult mortality crises. Though the population was generally well nourished, the main finding of this analysis is that on the rare occasions in which famines did occur, they were mainly a combination of local crop failures, a break down in the usual marketing channels or wars that caused situations of extreme food scarcity over the course of two or more years.