Mortalidad y crecimiento vegetativo en la provincia de Burgos, 1650-1865

The primary purpose of this article is to measure the mortality trajectory and to determine its role in the natural increment in the population of Burgos between 1650 and 1865, stage prior to the demographic transition process in inland Spain at the beginning of the 20th century. This paper used parish registers of baptisms and burials of 55 Burgos localities together with the Population and Housing Censuses of 1752, 1787, 1857, and 1860. The most important conclusions are: (i) there were significant variations in the mortality recorded in the Old Regime; (ii) the crude death-rate tended to decline from the first half of the 18th century, and (iii) this decline contributed the registration of a stronger and positive natural increase. These results contradict the traditional historiography, which argues that there was no remarkable changes in the trajectory in the mortality in Spain during the Early Modern Age and the Contemporary Age.