The financing of the purchases of royal heritage assets: the acquisitions of the Marqueses de Priego

Abstract

Recently, our knowledge of the royal heritage sales has advanced
substantially. However, we still find little-known aspects such as the formulas and
means used by buyers to pay for the goods acquired, a fundamental question to interpret
the phenomenon in all its dimensions. This paper addresses the analysis of the financing
of the aforementioned operations, based on the study of the acquisitions carried out by
the successive Marquises of Priego, ones of the main buyers of assets alienated from the
crown in the kingdom of Córdoba. Likewise, it shows how they paid for their purchases
by imposing numerous censuses on their entailed states, a fact that led them to a chronic
indebtedness that would deeply weigh down their economy during much of the modern
age.