Expansión urbana y asociacionismo religioso en la Galicia de finales del Antiguo Régimencofradías, hermandades y órdenes terceras en la Real Villa de Ferrol

Zusammenfassung

As in many other areas that have already been studied, the burgeoning of El Ferrol as an urban area in the second half of the eighteenth century after it became a major naval base for the Spanish Fleet brought with it many variations in the world of religious associations.  The number of confraternities, brotherhoods and sodalities grew considerably. Moreover, those already in existence underwent deep changes both in their composition and in their financial basis.  In parallel, other forms of association arose in the new regional capital, more in accordance with the reformist principles of the age, in particular friendly societies.  An extensive range of documentation is used to study the principal characteristics of religious associations, their development over time, their changes during the eighteenth century and their crisis at the beginning of the nineteenth.