Unequal distribution of wealth is a matter of growing concern in contemporary society, but it is also one with deep roots in the past. Several authors have traced the origins of this inequality by reconstructing historical series and collecting and harmonising data from sources and records with uneven territorial and temporal cover (Milanovic et al. (2011), Alfani (2015) Piketty (2014 and 2020)). Few places in the world have data series that make it possible to reconstruct the patterns of socioeconomic inequality by drawing on a single source. Barcelona, including its hinterland, is one of these places. The Barcelona Historical Marriage Database, which was created under the auspices of the Advanced Grant project Five Centuries of Marriages headed by Professor Anna Cabré, has made it possible to analyse, over a period of five centuries, the distribution of wealth by studying the taxes levied on marriages held in the Diocese from 1451 to 1880. This number of Perspectives Demogràfiques offers an account of the evolution of inequality from the ancien régime through to the consolidation of industrialisation, the concentration of wealth, and the composition and replacement of economic elites in the Barcelona area.

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