Entre la beneficencia y la «familiaritas»: la contratación del «victum et vestitum» en los monasterios catalanes durante los siglos XI-XII. Una respuesta institucional alternativa ante el hambre como problema social

Abstract

Since the end of the eleventh century, the great monastic institutions, including the majority of chapters of regular canons in Catalonia, have distributed alms as a daily food ratio to small groups of laypeople, who, not among the poor, were tied to these monasteries through the donation of allods or personal donation. The objective of this article is to demonstrate the relation which existed between this new type of contractual charity and the difficulties of a part of the society duringtimes of famine, as well as to show how these principal monastic institutions, as important lords, played a role in mitigating the effects of these famines on the dependent population between the end of the eleventh century and the first decennaries of the thirteenth century.