[94] Wittfogel's hydraulic theory links large-scale irrigation, centralized administration, and corvée labor. In medieval Valencia, as noted earlier, irrigation administration was cellular (one açutcequia complex was the basic unit) and decentralized. Whether the irrigation community was municipally or autonomously controlled the degree of irrigator control over administration varied little, and it was considerable in both cases. Consensual authority underlay both administrative forms.

Nevertheless, a study of the financial requirements of these extensive irrigation works might be expected to show some dependence upon the possession of necessary wealth for the mounting of large-scale works by higher corporate authorities. Of course the medieval Valencians had not made the initial investment: the systems they operated were largely inherited intact from the Muslims, and most capital invested in irrigation in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries was applied only to maintenance and repair. Massive new plans were considered in the Middle Ages (the subject of Chapter V) but were not carried out. These plans compared in magnitude with the building of the Tibi Reservoir in Alicante in the sixteenth century and the extension of the Royal Canal of the Júcar in the eighteenth, but the medieval approach to irrigation financing was probably the major factor inhibiting the execution of the more grandiose plans. In those times expenses for both day-to-day maintenance and large-scale works were divided among the interested parties on a pro rata basis according to the amount of land held. In the Júcar diversion project discussed below the [95] cost was to be shared among all the villages and lordly domains that stood to benefit from it: a democratic approach, but not one designed to get a canal built quickly and efficiently. All the energy was spent in endless parlements among the interested parties (some of whom were, in actuality, notably less than interested). Medieval Valencians, owing to the fragmentation of economic as well as political power, were able to devise, but not to execute, large-scale irrigation projects.

On the other hand, the system as it was inherited from the Arabs did not decline at all. In fact, it thrived and was extended. The extensions were continuous and relatively small in scale, and they resulted in a considerable enlargement of many Arab irrigated huertas. The medieval Valencians may not have been able to build large-scale projects, but was it necessary for them to do so?

In this chapter the role of the city and, to a lesser extent, that of the Church and the king in the direction of regional water policy is examined. It is my view that while this direction was real, vital, and basic to the functioning of Valencian irrigation in its broadest sense, it was not predicated on capital input. The direction of the higher authorities was largely political. They did not generally make large investments in irrigation development, but even when they did they did not seek centralized controls. They functioned as an adjunct to, not a replacement of, traditional, cellular irrigation authority.
 
 

Towns invested in irrigation projects only when their citizens could not afford the cost. Even so, the capabilities of local initiative were often impressive. Sometime in the first quarter of the fifteenth century a group of landowners and others grouped and formed a company to build an irrigation canal in Benidorm. ⁽¹⁾ Fourteen partners in all made an initial investment of 1450 florins (in eleven shares of 100 florins each, two double shares, and one half-share). Most held land in Benidorm, although the partners included Garcia Mezquita, the Valencian leveler, his [96] son Anthoni, and the vicar of the neighboring village of Polop. Mezquita, who was also assigned a salary in his capacity of master of the works, was not involved on the same basis as the others; but they were enjoined to deal fairly with his share of the investment as if he, too, had been a landholder. Mezquita was to receive six sous in daily wage -- an average salary for a skilled leveler -- and his sons five (three for the elder, two for the younger). Another partner, Guillem Ramon Çaportella, was named chief mason at a salary of two sous, and a lump sum of three hundred thirty sous was assigned to Johan de Vilanova the Younger for his salary as account-keeper and treasurer. Fifteen florins per share were to be put in the "first sack of money" so that the work could begin. The company was governed by a board of elected deputies consisting of Mezquita, Çaportella, Vilanova, Jacme Gomiz, and the nobleman who held a double share, Johan de Luna.

Extraordinary expenses of single canals were usually met in the same way as ordinary ones -- by apportionment among all the members of the community, in the manner of the cequiatge. In a dispute of 1414, for example, the governor's court upheld the general rule that the repair of diversion dams was to be accomplished at the expense of the irrigators and mill-owners, or all those using the water of the main canal. ⁽²⁾

In 1436 Luis Eximenis, owner of a mill on the Axera branch of the Rascanya Canal, agreed to contribute to the expense of changing the course of the canal (by moving Rascanya's diversion dam higher up the Guadalaviar in order to capture more water). Indeed, as a millowner he was obliged to contribute. Subsequent to his initial consent at a general meeting, the deputies of the community decided upon an alternate route, and Eximenis now refused to pay on the grounds that he had not been consulted. His argument was baseless by the very terms of the original agreement of 1436, which concluded with a declaration that all those with a legitimate interest in the canal had to pay a share of the expenses, whether present at the general meeting or not. ⁽³⁾

Frequently circumstances required additional monies for maintenance expenses beyond the assessed rate of cequiatge. In  [97] Castellón in particular, where the cleaning of the canal was let out to contractors, the cequiatge was often unrealistically low. Once, because of a temporary diversion in The Cequiol to conduct water for building the cathedral, more silt than was normal accumulated in the main channel. As a result, the men who had contracted in advance to clean the canal were now unwilling to finish the job unless more money than the seven diners per fanecate paid by the hereters as cequiatge could be found. Thus several irrigators asked if the council "might wish to make some aid, so that the contractors would have more inclination to clean the said canal." The council, accordingly, "with concern that the town might benefit from the water of The Cequiol," granted eleven sous for the purpose requested for the current year, 1410, and for each succeeding year so long as work on the cathedral should continue. ⁽⁴⁾

The major cleaning was always done in March or April, but the men were often hired long in advance. Money often had to be raised, therefore, in anticipation of cequiatge receipts, as was done by the syndic of the commons of Na Rovella in 1351. He had borrowed "quantities of money, not only from Jewish usurers, but from Christians as well, for the necessities of said canal, on the strength of which loan a collection was made among all the hereters of the canal." The two collectors were to hand over the money to Simon Çestrens, who was to pay all the debts contracted by the syndic. ⁽⁵⁾

Since the normal financial needs of irrigation were met by the cequiatge of each canal system, a city's direct financing of irrigation works was centered upon large projects in areas beyond the bounds of the traditional huerta or on hydraulic enterprises within the city walls themselves.

The entire effort to divert water from the Júcar River to the Guadalaviar (described in Chapter V) was directed by the city of Valencia. Had the project ever materialized, it would have been the city's responsibility to raise an estimated thirty-five to forty thousand pounds, although it was never the city's intent to put up the entire sum. The council agreed to seek a royal grant and then to negotiate an agreement between the city, the bishop, [98] and the lords, villages, and individual landholders through whose property the proposed canal would pass, allocating the expenses among all according to the interest of each. There can be no doubt that the success of the project depended upon the willingness and ability of the important magnates to raise money, and its failure can be attributed to their unwillingness (or that of their vassals) to participate in such an expensive and daring project.

The same elements were present in a similar but more modest venture. The council of Valencia had been asked by the treasurer of the Order of Montesa in April 1404 to bring water from the Júcar through a siphon, benefiting the municipal districts of Alcira and Valencia alike. The Valencians were willing to cooperate but only if the project did not "tie up the city with great and fruitless expenses"; if the proposed canal could be brought up to the place surveyed, the city treasury would pay half the cost as long as the city had the right to half the water. ⁽⁶⁾

Several months later the jurates of the city wrote to Mossen Joifre of Tous reminding him that the city would pay half the expense and that the other half was to be borne by the hereters, of whom Mossen Joifre was "one, and the greatest." Specifically, according to the "accounting of jovates it falls your share to pay in the said work 66 pounds 15d.," Joifre was told.⁽⁷⁾ The allocation -- just like that of the cequiatge -- was made according to the amount of land held. These plans did in fact come to fruition and the Cequia del Canó was inaugurated in December 1404. ⁽⁸⁾
 

The principal hydraulic problem in the Marjals was that the Valencians -- as Antonio Cavanilles pointed out -- did not know how to build lasting channels in areas with high water tables. On the contrary, they built channels so susceptible to seepage that in several areas they paradoxically increased the swamp acreage while intending to bring the area under intensive irrigation cultivation. ⁽⁹⁾ The problem was practically insoluble; the [99] channels inevitably broke down unless almost constant maintenance was provided. Since the area was demographically unstable, due to hydraulic difficulties no less than to the related problems of sanitation and disease, the city itself finally had to take over direction of the area in order for it not, literally, to go under.

The most important of the Marjal canals in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was the En Fluvia. Following the same course as that occupied since the nineteenth century by the Turia Canal (also called the Acequia del Oro), it took water from the Guadalaviar at a point which in the Middle Ages was called the Punta d'En Silvestre and ran from there into the Albufera. ⁽¹⁰⁾ The En Fluvia Canal dates at least from the second quarter of the fourteenth century, when it was recorded that one Guillermo de Fluvia "had made, and does not cease to make continually, new canals" in the Marjals, in an attempt to improve the land and bring it under cultivation. ⁽¹¹⁾ Other canals, such as the Cequia del Cavaller and the Cequia de Castelló d'En Arrufat were even older. ⁽¹²⁾ These three, together with the Cequia del Vail, ⁽¹³⁾ the Cequia del Bisbe, and Cequia Morisca, were the Marjal canals most frequently mentioned in the documents. The course of each would be hard to trace, as they were all interlocking and connected by "transverse" branches and drainage ditches. ⁽¹⁴⁾

This network of constantly deteriorating canals was the object of an extensive development project planned in the 1380's and executed in the 1390's. After long negotiation an agreement on the work to be done was made between the city and the Church, probably in 1386. The circumstances prompting their joint action were admirably summarized in the preamble to their agreement:

In the name of the Holy Trinity.

Since in the huerta or district of the city of Valencia a great area below the places of Russafa and Alfafar and others has become marshy and barren, especially because of the ruin of the canals, branch canals, and drainage ditches, which be [100] cause of lack of people who have been reduced in number and in strength by reason of wars, disease, and other past adversities, have not been cleaned or kept in repair as they should and as they were accustomed of old.

And this is in great harm to the public weal, not only because of the crops which thus have been lost and are lost, but also due to the infection which ensues, the more so for the great extent of the said marshy region which is more than a league long and a half -- or at least a third -- wide.

To redress this harm and to procure benefit it has been decided by the below-signed parties that the said region . . .be reduced to agriculture. This cannot be done without great work and expenses, according to what was seen and studied personally by some men of each group who were sent to the said region for that reason. . . .

Therefore the things contained in the following chapters were agreed upon . . . by the reverend lord bishop and honorable chapter of the Church of Valencia, on their own behalf as well as on that of the Almshouse of En Conesa of which they were the administrators, on the one hand, and on the other, the honorable jurates and some leading citizens, in the name of and with full power for, the whole council and citizenry of the city of Valencia. ⁽¹⁵⁾

The jurates, for their part, promised that the city would undertake the initial overhauling ("the first repair") of the principal canals and the bridges and roads of the Marjals. They would also repair all the secondary channels and drainage ditches on which city land fronted, and they would keep all such channels [101] perpetually in repair. They would be responsible for the maintenance of any bridge that had been erected by the city in the first place. None of the land in question was to be alienable or subject to financial burdens for any reason. No vineyards were to be allowed in the Marjais, nor rice plantations, but the fields were to be for wheat or any other crop except the above. Anyone settling in the Marjals would be obliged to plant poplars or willows on the borders of his field, and within the field itself fruit trees could be planted. The city would supply a cequier to administer the Marjals canals who, along with two inspectors, would have full jurisdiction. ⁽¹⁶⁾

The actual work began on February 8, 1390, under direction of the Sotsobrer de Murs, Lois Menargues, and continued through August 19, 1393, often with twenty or thirty men working each day, with salaries as high as three sous and more for skilled laborers. When all the work had been completed, Menargues reported that he had expended by reason of the work of the Marjals, "not only in salaries of diggers and gleaners, in limestone, sand, bricks, rubble, baskets, but also for many other things [the sum of] 78,634 sous 9 diners." ⁽¹⁷⁾ Of the total amount, Menargues added, he had spent only 406 sous 3 diners more than what he had actually received from the city treasury.

Residents having property along the Marjals canals were obliged, as was customary in the whole huerta, to contribute cequiatge for the upkeep and general maintenance of the canals. But in many parts of the Marjals in the 1390's and later there were stretches of canal with no frontalers, in which case the city filled in with a yearly grant of one hundred pounds from the General Fund. ⁽¹⁸⁾ Still, in 1396 several residents complained that this annual authorized amount was not being made available easily and promptly enough to the cequier of the Marjals, with the result that the bridges were not being kept in repair and the canals were being broken down by the passage of cattle. ⁽¹⁹⁾

Throughout the fifteenth century the city continued to pay frequent sums from the General Fund for further works in this perpetually vexing and financially demanding area. The Manuals de Consell are dotted with these expenditures, large and small [102] but mostly large: 600 gold florins of Aragon in 1406 for a new canal to drain En Fluvia; 90 sous in 1441 to Berthomeu Casesnoves, the surveyor, for the work he had done in leveling the waters of the Marjals; 43,000 sous from the city treasury in 1445 for the New Canal joining the Castelló and En Fluvia canals and 60 pounds to Petro Veixo for surveying this canal; 165 sous 9 diners to the cequier for cleaning a new canal called La Traversa, in 1448. ⁽²⁰⁾

When new channels were excavated the city exercised the right to expropriate land in the path of construction, provided that remuneration was made to the owners; the land was carefully assessed and due restitution made. Thus, for the Cequia Traversa "first, there was taken from the estate of Berthomeu Guerau, one fanecate and a quarter, and eleven cubits, quit, at the rate of twenty pounds per cafizate; it was appraised at four pounds." ⁽²¹⁾ Indemnity was also paid, in addition to land actually taken, for land bordering this new canal which still belonged to the original owner but which he was not allowed to plant. ⁽²²⁾ The total amount spent in these expropriations was 105 pounds 155 sous 49 diners. ⁽²³⁾
 

Within the walls of the city, the town fathers had an active interest in hydraulic affairs which was expressed financially in a variety of endeavors. Most urban hydraulic problems either were in the realm of public health or directly involved the economic life of the city. The main canal of Na Rovella actually ran through the city -- covered in some places, uncovered in others -- and its water was used not only for industrial purposes but also for flushing the city sewers. ⁽²⁴⁾ The main canals of Favara and Mislata ran near the city outside the walls, but their water did flow within the walls in some minor arteries. Dyers, tanners, cloth finishers, and other tradesmen had workshops on all three of these canals, not to mention the mills that used their water for power. ⁽²⁵⁾

[103] The urban canals were a constant preoccupation because they were particularly likely to be contaminated by industrial waste and city sewage and consequently to give off offensive odors or occasion fear of disease. A proposal of 1419 expressed concern for the plight of the prisoners in the city jail because of the fetid water flowing in an adjacent fillola. This water came from the "canal which is near the meatmarket of the Moors," near the Rovella Canal. The matter was investigated by "masters expert in leveling," who recommended that stagnation in the prison's channel could be relieved by drawing water from Na Rovella at a cost of 1400 florins to be paid from the General Fund. ⁽²⁶⁾ The council authorized construction of a watering trough within the city walls so that the townsmen would not have to take their animals outside in time of war. The trough was to be put "in the square in front of the mill of Na Rovella" (and to use the water of that canal, one assumes), and payment was authorized from tolls taken on the city's bridges and roads. ⁽²⁷⁾

On occasion the city encouraged the building of mills within its walls. In 1363 Johan Dolit and Domingo Borraç petitioned the council for license to build a flour mill of four or five millstones within the walls. The city officials granted the request, first because of shortage of mills and abundance of people in Valencia at the time; second because honor and fame accrued to a city with water mills within its walls; and last -- and most important -- because they anticipated a siege by the armies of Castile. The mill was to be built at the petitioners' own expense, but the city lent its help by granting free use of "all the stones of the Jewish cemetery of Valencia," to the end of making the diversion dam so strong that neither the river nor the enemy might be able to destroy it without great difficulty. Finally, all the land which had to be appropriated for the building of the mill and its canal were to be paid for by the city. ⁽²⁸⁾

Similar preoccupation with the grain supply in 1445 provoked the council to hire the leveler Petro Veixo to survey the Moncada Canal "to find out how much water could flow there to mill the flour on account of the drought." ⁽²⁹⁾ The significance [104] here is that the council, not the Moncada community, paid for this service. Except when specifically petitioned, the city rarely intervened in local water matters. It intervened only when forced by matters of overriding and general interest.

An accounting of the total municipal expenditures for water affairs would not be complete without including the frequent public processions of prayer, such as that to the church of St. Mary Magdalene "for health and rain" in 1448. These processions were organized and financed by the council. ⁽³⁰⁾

The city of Valencia did not use corvée labor on irrigation projects, preferring hired hands even on mammoth works such as the Marjals reclamation. ⁽³¹⁾ In Castellón, however, where irrigation administration was centralized, the municipal authorities seemed more disposed to use the corvée available to it. ⁽³²⁾ For purposes of defense as well as labor the population of Castellón was divided into groups of fifty (cinquantenes) and ten (deenes). ⁽³³⁾ The deenes were used to solve several hydraulic problems. In April 1406 the diversion dam was destroyed by a flood and no water was entering the main canal of the town. Pere de Reus, the syndic and treasurer of the town, asked the council for money in order "to hire men with beasts to carry stone and wood for the rebuilding of the diversion dam." The council charged the jurates with attending to the repair of the dam, either by paying wages or by sending "three men as deenes." ⁽³⁴⁾

In July 1422 the jurates asked the council whether the mouth (gola) of the main canal, which had been "greatly ruined," ought to be cleaned out by hired men (homens a lloguer) or by the "deenes of the town." The council ruled that the work should be done with the corvée. ⁽³⁵⁾ Later the same month Johan Vilaroia, who in the past had contracted to clean the main canal, was offered a hundred men of the deenes to help in cleaning the canal, the banks of which were in such poor condition that not enough water could flow through it. ⁽³⁶⁾

Castellón, therefore, was more willing than Valencia to resort [105] to corvée labor in times of emergency instead of using town funds; but in the above cases the use of corvée labor rather than hired hands was an extraordinary measure and not basic to the normal functioning of the irrigation system.

1. ARV, Varia, 126, fols. 80r-82v. See Appendix 4 for translation of the document. The manuscript is not dated, but Garcia Mezquita was working on other irrigation projects in the Valencian region in the second and third decades of the fifteenth century (see Glick, "Levels and Levelers," p. 179).

2. ARV, Gobernación, 2206, fol. 38r (Oct. 22, 1414): "Item dien que si en quant es a los adobar los açuts dessus dits allo es a carech e despeses de les terres regants e dels senyors dels molins poblats en les dites cequies mares."

3. ARV, Gobernación, 2262, 1^st hand, fol. 40 (Mar 8, 1438): "Den Luis Eximenez contra lo sindich de la cequia de Rascanya." A charter included in the evidence documents the general meeting in 1436 of the "deputies, cequier, inspectors, and hereters of the Rascanya Canal, and the owners of the mills" on the main canal and the Axera branch.

4. AMC, Libres de Consell, 17, Mar. 15 and Apr. 9. 1410. On Sept. 30 the council paid 230s. in order to extend the Cequiol to the town square to facilitate work on the church. See also ibid., 22, Mar. 13, 1417, regarding apportioning the cequiatge.

5. ARV, Protocolos, 3253 (Sept. 26, 1351):

On com lo dit en Ramon del Mas per vigor de la dita procuracio e sindicat haia pres e reebut diverses quantitats de diners axi de juheus usurers comsimplament de xpians per a obs e necessari de la dita cequia per vigor de la qual manleuta fou feta collecta per tots los hereters de la dita cequia la qual dita collecta colliren e reeberen en Pere Moragues e en Pere Ffrancolli los quals devien de liurar la dita collecta e moneda la qua! ells colliren de aquella an Simon Çestrens lo qua! dit en Simon degues pagar tots los deutes los quals eren feyts per lo dit en Ramon.

6. AMV, Manuals de Consell, 22, fol. 288v (Apr. 24, 1404):

Del ensaig e cost de la cequia del canyo . . . lo concell attes que la cosa si pot haure acabament es molt profitosa e deu esser ensajat ab poca messio per no enbolcar la ciutat a gran despeses e infructiferes si la cosa no havia manera, provei concordantment e hac per ho que ab cequia poca fos fet en saut si la dita aygua podia esser tirada e engravar tro al loch livellat e que de la peccunia de la ciutat fos pagada la meytat del cost del dit ensaig es vist la dita cequia poder e deure esser feta e per aquells la dita aygua poder esser tirada, en tal cas la meytat de la aygua de la dita faedora cequia haia e sia de la dita ciutat e tanta o tal part com muntara segons layrata de ço que la ciutat pagara en la faccio de la dita faedora cequia. See also AMV, Manuals de Consell, 22, fol. 268v (Nov. 24, 1403).

7. AMV, Cartas Misivas, 8, n.p., Oct. 14, 1404.

8. This is the origin of the Cequia del Canó discussed in Chap. II, fl. 62.

9. Antonio Joseph Cavanilles, Observaciones sobre la historia natural, geografía, agricultura, población y frutos del Reyno de Valencia, 2 vols. (Madrid, 1795--1797), I, 171. Cavanilles discusses the area surrounding the Albufera where the water table was so high that in "infinite fields" one had to dig only a foot or less to find water. The reason for the spread of swamps from their original bounds, he thought, was the diversion of water from its original course without previous preparation of canals solid enough to contain it. He did not doubt that the Royal Canal of Alcira was in itself responsible for most of the water in the Rio de los Ojos (the Riu dels Ulls of the medieval documents), owing to filtration. Those who built these old canals were interested only in making the channel capable of carrying water to certain places, but they never examined the nature of the land with regard to its water-holding capacities.

10. The Punta d'En Silvestre, now called simply La Punta, is located at the turn in the river below the city where today the Alicante highway, lined by barracas, leads southward. See description of the vineyard of Anthoni Benahull, llaurador, located at the Punta d'En Silvestre, whose bounds were the field of Pasqualet, the En Fluvia Canal, the La Conqua road, and "the road which is in the midst of the canebrakes" ("la dita vinya aifronta ab terra de Pasqualet, ah la cequia d'en Fluvia, e ab lo cami de la Conqua, e ab lo cami d'en mig dels canyars"); ACV, Actos Capitulares 1400-1411, sig. 3579, 4th bk., fol. nr, July 15, 1405. The end of the En Fluvia Canal seems to have been especially unstable; some documents indicate that it ran only as far as Massanassa, others that it had an extension leading into the Albufera. See AMV, Manuals de Consell, 22, fol 229v (Jan 12, 1403), "De la cequia de l'Albufera": the city provides that a canal be dug at its expense from the Canal of En Fluvia and "taken up to the Albufera, through which the water carried by the En Fluvia Canal might run and drain into the Albufera without harm to the Marjals" ("sia feta e treta una cequia de la cequia appellada den flavia e menada tro a la dita albufera per la qual laygua ques pendra de la dita cequia den fluvia descorrega e tir tro a la dita albufera e entre en aquella e aço sens dampnatge de les marjals") In 1406, in reference to the above provision of 1403, the council was asked to clean and finish the New Canal, which the city had built in the marshland (almarjal) to carry water from the En Fluvia Canal to the Albufera (AMV, Manuals de Consell, 23, fol. 51, July 27, 1406). In 1448 the En Fluvia Canal is described as follows: "la qual cequia comena a masanasa e termena en lo riu de godolaviar e en la punta denominada den siluestre, la qual cequia decorre de la marjal de la orta." In any case, the water flowing in En Fluvia was to have drained in the Albufera. Because of conditions of the Marjals, however, there were long periods when the exit to the Albufera was blocked. The Acequia del Oro, in the nineteenth century, was lined with rubble (mamposteria) to prevent filtration (Martinez Aloy, Provincia de Valencia, p. 289).

11. ACV, Pergamino 5597 (July 4, 1342): "Guillermo de Fluvia novellament ha feytes e no ces continuament de fer cequies per menar algunes aygues [in the Marjals.]" The expression for improving land was panificar to bring bread from the land.

12. These canals were functioning early in the fourteenth century; see ACV, Pergamino 7429 (May 31, 1316), a dispute about irrigation on the canals of Castelló and Cavalier, in Russafa. This was a typical upstream-downstream dispute about contributions for cleaning, the men of the tail claiming that the sobirans received more water and hence should pay more.

13. See Jaubert de Passa, Reglamentos y ordenanzas, p. 344.

14. A canal crossing En Fluvia ("la traversa de la cequia den fluvia") is mentioned in 1407 (AMV, Manuals de Consell, 23, fol. 231v, Aug. 13). In 1444 the almarjals below Russafa and Alfafar were said to be in great danger of infection because canals were "broken down, were not flowing, and the water was stagnating" ("les cequies son riblertes e no corren e les aygues stan embassades"). The peril could be overcome, it was suggested, if the water of the Cequia de Castelló could be made to flow into that of En Fluvia; AMV, Manuals de Consell, 32, 2nd bk., fols. 197r--198r (Apr. 22, 1444), and 201v (May 8. 1444). The canal was built the following year in the Marjals et Castelló d'En Arrufat, it started in the Cequia del Castelló, crossed the Cequias del Cavalier and del Bisbe and joined En Fluvia (AMV, Manuals de Consell, 33, fols. 92r--93r [Apr. 30, 1445]); this canal was evidently the same as the "cequia de la traversa de la cequia de Castelló" (AMV, Manuals de Consell, 34, fol. 102v [May 30, 1449]).

15. ACV, Notals de Bonanat Monar, libro 3518, fol. 1672r: "Contracte de la ferma dels capitols sobre lo fet dels marjals." The agreement was embodied in a royal privilege of Peter IV of Aragón dated Barcelona, Aug. 16, 1386. A Castilian translation was printed in pamphlet form in Valencia in 1766 and is found in Lop, Murs e valls, pp. 318--328.

16. ACV, Notals de Bonanat Monar, libro 3518, fols. 1672v-168v.

17. AMV, Libros de Sotsobreria de Muros, 2, fol. 340v.

18. AMV, Manuals de Consell, 20, fol. 134v (Nov. 7, 1393).

19. Ibid., fol. 296 (Apr. 1, 1396).

20. AMV, Manuals de Consell, 23, fol. 51 (July 27, 1406); 32, segon libre, fol. 18r (Sept. 18, 1441); 32, fols. 92r-93r, 96 (Apr. 30, May 14, 1445); 34, fol. 102v (May 30, 1448).

21. AMV, Manuals de Consell, 33, fol. 148r (Oct. 4, 1445): "Primo fou pres de la terra den berthomeu guerau una fanecada e hun quarto e onze braes franch a raho de vint lliures caffiçada fon tatxat iiii lliures."

22. Ibid., fol. 149r: "Item en bernat gomiç al aiqueria den seguer havia y quatrecentes vint quatre braces axi per la terra com per lo destrich de la canal que no ha pogut sembrar, y lliures."

23. Ibid. To cite some further examples of expropriation, when the Count of Cocentaina built a new canal to bring water from the Riu dels Ulls to Pardines, some landowners complained that the count's factors and agents "had broken up diverse lands and possessions where the canal passes and have done much harm to the neighbors and residents of the said town, which harm up till now has not been satisfied . . . but, what is worse yet, they changed the course of the canal in another direction and again cause more damage, breaking up the fields and cutting down trees and grain (blat) of the townsmen without paying them" (Archivo Municipal de Alcira, Llibres de Consell, 47, fol. 299v, Apr. 29, 1457). The privilege of John I granting the city of Valencia the right to take water from the Júcar at Tous and conduct it to the Guadalaviar was granted on the condition that the owners of the land be reimbursed: "sic tamen quod iiiis quorum fuerint possessiones per quas dicta aqua transitum fecerit, pro damnis eis in dictis possessionibus inferendis debita satisfactio tribuatur" (Branchat, Tratado, III, 209, Nov. 15, 1393).

24. For Rovella and sewage problems, see AMV, Manuals de Consell, 4, fol,. 457v--459r (Mar. 4, 1344), including a privilege of James II of Aragón, dated Apr. 15, 1311 (fol. 458v). By terms of James' privilege, the city had the right to use water from the Guadalaviar to flush the sewers from Saturday vespers to Sunday vespers. The privilege does not mention the canal of Na Roveila, but the identification is implicit. The council decreed that on the said days the water of that canal would run through the "sewers and main drains of the city . . . removing the filth and waste material" therein ("e lo dit consell . . . accorda ... que la aygua de la cequia apellada de na Revella [sic] que tro del riu de Godalaviar . . . decorrega per los valls e mares dels albellons de la ciutat, del disapte de hora de vespres a enant tro al seguent dia del diumenge en hora de vespres, a remoure les inmundicies e leges que en lo dit vall e albellons son e paran, per tal que les dite, inmundiciones no donen corrupcions ne malauties a les gents"). See also Nicolau Primitiu, "D'arqueologia," ACCV, 2 (1929), 162-163 n. 2, for disposition of council of Aug. 20, 1389. Below the city the Rovella Canal irrigated fields in Russafa and the Marjals; yet the irrigators living by the side of the canal seemed to suffer no ill effects, because the earth of the channel and fields acted as a filtration and leaching system. The farther downstream from the city the purer the Rovella water grew, until at the sea it was almost completely purified; Constantino Gomez Reig, "Las aguas de las cloacas empleadas para el riego en la huerta de Valencia," La crónica médica (Valencia), 3 (1879-1880), 322-326, 353-357).

25. The Na Rovella Canal was the industrial canal par excellence of the medieval kingdom. Along its banks were the shops of weavers (texidors), dyers (tintorers), tanners (blanquers), matmakers (estorers), and cloth finishers (perayres), among others. All depended on water and all trod a thin line between legal use and infraction of municipal ordinances against befouling it. See AMV, Manuals de Consell, 1, fol. 189r (Apr. 26, 1322): "no one . . . dare throw . . .into the canal of the Moorish quarter called Na Revella [sic], stones, waste, refuse from houses, nor empty the bellies of sheep, goats or other beasts, nor iron waste, nor leftovers from mats, nor fibres, nor waste material of dye-shops, under pain of five sous". The owners of workshops (dyers, matmakers, and tanners are specified) were obliged, like other water users, to clean their frontres on the canal. Weavers claimed to have the right to wash wool in the canal (ARV, Gobernación, 2208, 17th hand, fol. 36r, July 24, 1414).

26. AMV, Manuals de Consell, 27, fols. 100r, 144v (Mar. 9, Aug. 14, 1419). A more economical alternate plan, whereby water would be drawn from the Favara Canal, was also discussed.

27. AMV, Manuals de Consell, 13 (4th fasc.), fols. 41v--42r (Mar. 20, 1360).

28. AMV, Manuals de Consell, 14 (4th fasc.), fols. 7v--9r (June 8, 1363). The mill was to be built in the Plaça del, Preycadors (now the Plaza de Tetuan). Regarding the shortage of mills see fol. 8v: "considerada la gran necessitat e fretura de molins que es en Valencia a temps de present e lo gran poble que habita es reculi en la dita ciutat e la honor e fama ques crexeria de haure molins daygua dins los murs de la dita ciutat." The reference to the Castilian army concerns the war (1359-1363) between Peter IV of Aragon and Peter I the Cruel of Castile. In 1363 Peter the Cruel actually reached Valencia and took up residence in the Royal Palace outside the walls until the approach of the Aragonese army forced him to retire to Morvedre; H. J. Chaytor, A History of Aragon and Catalonia (London, 1933), p.185.

29. AMV, Manuals de Consell, 33, fol. 125r (July 24, 1445). The need for exact information concerning how much flour could be expected from the Moncada mills was crucial at this time. On July 6 the jurates had informed the townsmen that a bounty of 2s. per caffiz would he paid to anyone bringing flour from a distance of 3 leagues or more from Valencia, so great was the shortage of grain (ibid., fol. 123v: "Crida de la ajuda de les farines").

30. AMV, Manuals de Consell, 34, fol. 140: "Crida per sanitat e pluja a Santa Maria de Misericordia". On this church, a Dominican convent just beyond the southern wall of the city, see Burns, Crusader Kingdom, p. 232. In the accounting of the year's expenses. dated May 31, 1449 (Manuals de Consell, 34, fol. 196r), the expense of the procession is entered although no sum is specified: "Item la despesa feta en lo processio qui ana fora la ciutat per que nostre senyor den nos dona pluja."

31. The corvée was known in Valencia but seems to have been employed only as a final recourse in times of catastrophe. In 1407 the citizenry was grouped into tens and fifties to fight a plague of locusts in the fields of the huerta; Alvaro Santamaria Arandez, Aportación at estudio de la economia de Valencia durante el siglo XV (Valencia, 1966), p. 83.

32. Elche also resorted to corvée labor in times of disaster, as in the flood of February 1435 when the main canal was cleaned by six quadrelles of ten men each. The sobrecequier could also call out the quadrelles, in accord with an established turn, to clean the canal when the responsible hereters defaulted (Ibarra y Ruiz, Riego de Elche, p. 188).

33. José Sánchez Adeil, "Las murallas medievales de Castellón," BSCC, 28 (1952), 54-55. N.b. doc. 10 (p. 55 n. 2): on July 25, 1409, the council ordered that "the whole town be divided into tens (sie adeenada per deenes) in case they should have to go forth from the town." The city wall was divided into 6 equal parts, with a parish responsible for each. For work on the wall the men of the parish were grouped into cinquantenes and deenes.

34. AMC, Libres de Consell, 15, n.p.. Apr. 29, 1406: "que paguen tres diners [?] o pus vaien tres homens per deenes."

35. AMC, Libres de Consell, 27, July 22, 1422: "fon prouis que la dita gola fos scurada ab les deenes que ohs hic fosen no ab homens a lioguer."

36. Ibid., July 26, 1422: "sil dit en johan vilaroia se volia abstenir de tornar la dita cequia que la vila li fahes ajuda de cent homens de les deenes en ajuda de scurar lo dit enrrunament."