Villas fracasadas en el desarrollo urbano medieval del País Vasco

Abstract

During the Middle Ages, there were established 69 small towns in the territories of the Basque Country: 25 in Guipúzcoa, 21 in Biscay and 23 in Álava. But, although they were created with the same initial conditions (charts of liberties, some economic benefits, specific rural areas around, permission to build walls), not all of them fulfilled the expectations. Many of them became, finally, little villages, not real towns. This work presents a full research about these foundations that never became real towns. In the first part, the study analyses physical, legal and economic aspects of this process in the whole territory of the Basque Country. In the second part, they are analysed those small towns that never developed their potentialities (in every territory and related with the general process). Finally, in the conclusions, this work makes a wide reflection about the causes involved in this process.