ABSTRACT
This chapter examines a 'socioeconomic portrait' of the city, including a 'social geography', which can be accomplished by coordinating wealth levels, occupation and urban topography. Manresa in the early fifteenth century was a city with a relatively high concentration of wealthy and almost-wealthy householders, bearing in mind that this core of wealth and almost-wealth amounted to some 200 households in total. The household as a unit lies at the intersection between the individual, the family, occupation and at least four important measures of personal status namely: judicial, economic, social and political. Manresan society at the turn of the fifteenth century was composed of more than 600 active households, representing a broad spectrum of wealth and occupational practices. A longstanding conception regarding social geography in medieval towns suggests that, in some cases at least, certain neighbourhoods might house a large concentration of householders professing this or that primary occupation.
