La construcción del mercado local del vino de Jerez de la Frontera a finales de la Edad Media: normativa y espacios

Abstract

The aim of this article is to study the local wine market of Jerez during the period of the foundations of its international expansion, the 15th century and the early 16th century. There are hardly any specific studies about this theme in that period. This work is part of a line of research whose main objective is the study of wine-growing landscapes and vine products in Western Andalusia in the Late Middle Ages. Its documentary basis is the Official Acts of the Jerez Council, as well as the Affidavits that are preserved between 1392 and 1505. A thorough study of these two valuable sources has been carried out in order to extract from them all the information related to wine. Subsequently, a database was designed to make their analysis feasible and assign them to different thematic categories. We have enriched and contrasted them with specialized bibliographic contributions. All this has allowed us to identify the policy of the Jerez Council to prevent shortages in the local market and try to end fraudulent activities that reduced the quality of the wine. We have also verified the importance of wine in the morphological conformation of the urban space, with the genesis of infrastructures dedicated to its consumption and delight.