El pecado y la penitencia del Diccionario de Madozla utilización obligada de la población de la Matrícula Catastral y las alternativas a sus ocultaciones
ISSN: 2696-4325
Year of publication: 2020
Volume: 38
Issue: 2
Pages: 107-134
Type: Article
More publications in: Revista de Demografía Histórica-Journal of Iberoamerican Population Studies
Abstract
The entries in Madoz’s Dictionary for different towns and villages in Spain employ erroneous demographic data taken from the flawed 1842 Matrícula Catastral, for which local officials had systematically under-reported population figures in order to avoid potential rises in taxation or conscription. Aware of these problems, Madoz not only denounced practices which he regarded as characteristic of the Ancien Régime, but also employed his expertise in statistics to alleviate the problem at the provincial level with realistic estimates. However, given the impossibility of conducting an exhaustive census at municipal level, something that only the State itself could have realistically undertaken, he saw no alternative but to use the systematic underestimates from 1842.
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