Los espacios portuarios vizcaínos mutaciones y adaptaciones de los puertos vizcaínos, siglos XIV-XVI

Since the Middle Ages, the Bay of Biscay formed a natural route of trade between the Mediterranean-Atlantic axis and the Baltic Sea. Thus, the port facilities of the sea-port towns – Bermeo, Lequeitio, Ondárroa, Plencia, Portugalete –, and those located in the estuary of Bilbao, began to undergo major changes. They went from being natural harbours, with no or little infrastructure to serve their traffic needs, to being equipped with docks, shipyards, naval warehouses and subsidiary industries of all types and conditions. It was a physical transformation accompanied by the development of social and labour networks in line with new activities. However, all these construction works became much too costly because of their magnitude and the very location of the ports, settled in front of a turbulent and unpredictable sea, which was to destroy any manmade creation, time and time again; especially if we take into account that they were financed only by municipal funds. In the Late Middle Ages, these councils were autonomous financing institutions, depending on tax collection, almost always indirect, in charge of the maintenance of their territory: town and sea or, in other words, town and port. Nevertheless, despite the difficulties, the ports of Biscay rose to the demands of the situation, as they designed a port structure that allowed them, on the one hand, to redistribute the merchandises coming from South and North; and, on the other, to transform a natural landscape and to turn it into an industrial site open to trading, fishing and conservation, the naval business and other secondary industries. All this at the expense of the depleted municipal coffers