Legal relations on the island of Menorca in the 18th century

Mahón, September 30, 2026

Let us now examine the legal form of the social relations between the agrarian strata we are analyzing. First, given the predominantly Romanist character of traditional Menorcan legislation since its inception, we find no forms of personal seigneurial relations—save for the exceptional feudal vestiges of vassalage inherent to the *cavalleries* (knightly estates). Instead, the relations concern *rights in rem*—that is, rights over things rather than over persons.

For instance, contracts—whether written (such as *emphyteutic* leases) or verbal—entail mutual rights and obligations between the contracting parties based on an onerous cause: an annual fee or a wage. This appears to establish an egalitarian situation similar to the modern one—a notion that is unsettling. After all, if that were the case, how was dominance exercised over the weak—assuming such dominance existed? Or was it not exercised at all, making the place a sort of paradise, as certain highly biased historiography would have us believe?

We believe the reality is that the legal structure masks the true nature of these relations, presenting them as egalitarian when they are not; consequently, the key to understanding them must be sought elsewhere—for example, in the ideological structure.

NOTE: Text excerpted from *Meloussa 3*, the third issue of the scientific journal *Meloussa*, published by the History and Archaeology Section of the *Institut Menorquí d’Estudis* (IME). The author is José Luis Terrón Ponce, a historian specializing in the military history of Menorca.