El diseño de almazaras como aportación a la cultura olivarera

Abstract

The oil monopoly in the Manor of Baena (18th century): a technical - historical study applied to the Mill of the Duke. Olive cultivation is and has been an important engine of the economy and society in the south of the province of Cordoba, as in other areas of Andalusia. It has been part of the landscape of our land since many centuries ago. History has had a direct influence on its transcendence and on the conformation of the agricultural landscape that we know today. This doctoral thesis deepens in the oil monopoly that existed in Baena, as well as in the realization of a study of the Ducal Mill with the preindustrial technology of this town. Since Pedro Fernández Carrillo was granted with the dominion of Baena in the early fifteenth century, he was given the right over the only oil mill that existed in that city, as it was prohibited both the construction of new mills and the grinding in any other which was not the Duke´s one. For this reason the neighbours were forced to use these properties and, in addition, they had to pay the established rate. All this generated a great controversy, which supposed that all the population pleited against the Duke with the purpose of extinguishing that right. Both economically and socially, the consequences of that kind of rights on oil mills and the cultivation of olive trees have been investigated, as well as the increase in the number of olive groves and mills where the olives could be ground and extracted the precious oil, after the fatigue and long struggle. In addition, there is a great interest to known the agroindustrial heritage that existed in our land. This may be to provide valuable information, which may be usefull, for the marketing of olive oil as well as being exploited by growing oleotourism.