The problem of wool supply for the Castilian cloth manufacture at the end of the Middle Ages

Abstract

Study of the conflicts that took place in the Crown of Castile at the end of the fifteenth century and at the beginning of the sixteenth century between wool exporters and local cloth manufacturers. The author identifies the factors that favoured the exports of wool from the transhumant sheeps, while the Castilian cloth manufacturers specialized themselves in the manufacture of inferior quality cloths, made with wool from the non-transhumant sheeps. Special attention is paid to the study of the role of credit in wool trade, in order to determine in which way it favoured that the Castilian fine wool was in preference exported.