Crisis agrarias en la Asturias del siglo XVII. Una aproximación a su estudio

The supply of bread was very important for the survival of people of the Ancien Regime. It involved, for municipal politicians of that age, a great effort to prevent that the agrarian crisises could lead to demographical crisises, which could reduce the number of people in the city, and it would cause social disturbances. In this article, we make an outline of the most important agrarian crisises (that there were in Asturias) in the 17th century, although we centre on the city of Oviedo. These crisises were mainly bad weather, which ocasionaly was very rainy or very dry, so that municipal politicians had to buy cereals outside Asturias to provide bread to the city. In spite of, some years were good and there was not shortage of cereals in the Asturias at that time which could sell outside.