ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on Sources and Methodology. The study of consumer behaviour during the Ancien Regime period, through the analysis of probate inventories and dowries, in particular in the case of south-eastern Castile during the eighteenth century. Bearing in mind the challenges of this research, a comparison of probate inventories and dowries of south-eastern Castile from Murcia and Cartagena will be attempted, in order to examine the circulation of goods among different social groups. By presenting the major approaches of the historiography during the last few decades on the subject of consumption. The chapter explores this new historiographical perspective by detailing the scholarly debate, as well as offering an analysis of how the trade circuits of the Mediterranean area likely altered the demand-side of south-eastern Spain. The framework of family size in the western Mediterranean area, whether or not such societies were more or less industrialized.
