Elites urbanas y sistemas concejiles: una propuesta teórico-metodológica para el análisis de los subsistemas de poder en los concejos castellanos de la Baja Edad Media

Abstract

This paper deals with one of the elements that forms the urban political system, the urban power subsystem, and with new analytical strategies for its study. Starting with the understanding of the urban world from a systemic point of view, the article questions both the notion of power and the terms and mechanisms of social classification more generally used in urban research (dominant and leading class, aristocracy, patriciate, oligarchy...). It introduces a set of new social categories, deriving from an structuralist analytical model (elites of power and of participation), and a theoretical and methodological framework for the study of urban power subsystems. This framework stresses the understanding of power in terms of resources, and the extensive use of methodologies such as prosopography and social networks.