El Mundo social de Isabel la Católica

El Mundo social de Isabel la Católica: La sociedad castellana a finales del siglo XV, ed. Miguel Angel Ladero Quesada (Madrid: Dykinson, 2004; pp. 322. N.p.). Isabelle la Catholique: Un modèle de chrétienté?, by Joseph Perez (Paris: Payot, 2004; pp. 203. Eur 19.50). On the anniversary of the death of Queen Isabella the Catholic, the doyen of Spanish historians of her reign has brought together sixteen contributors to assess the social history of her world in Spain. In this he follows the example set by J.A. Maravall's ‘El mundo social’ of ‘La Celestina’. This is an excellent idea. It brings into the light many dark places in Spanish social history. The book covers the kingdoms of the Crown of Aragon and Navarre as well as Castile. The Castilians predominate. They are judged to have numbered c. 4,300,000, against 850,000 for the people of the Crown of Aragon. The articles follow the well-known three-fold divisions of oratores, bellatores and laboratores, broken down into constituent parts. All the articles provide rich bibliographies, indeed the contribution of P. Porras Arboledas on letrados, graduates and intellectuals, more or less restricts itself to bibliography. In a study of the court itself, A. Fernández de Córdova Miralles uses the ordinacions of the Aragonese chancery to effect, and shows how the Aragonese secretaries were promoted and integrated between 1500 and 1504. In a study of the urban patriciate, Sánchez Saus demonstrates that with some 20 per cent of the total population it was only exceeded in number by the similar classes of Flanders and Italy. Moreover, Castilian nearness to the frontier in Andalusia accounted for the ‘nobilisation’ of its towns. Here Sánchez builds on the fine work of M.-C. Gerbert on Trujillo and Cáceres. In analysing medianos, i.e. merchants and artisans, B. Caunedo del Potro is able to use the archive of protocolos of the kingdoms of the Crown of Aragon. He emphasises the importance of linajes in the towns and assesses the result of tied and systematic regidores appointed by the Crown. In an interesting analysis of the tax-paying populace and community (much older than the regidores), M. Asenjo González gives a thorough account of urban organisation into cuadrillas, collaciones and parishes, and shows how it was influenced by military considerations. The importance of caballeros villanos, hombres buenos and jurados (one or two for each collación) is emphasised, and their growth charted at Toledo and Seville. The judicial independence of the jurados from the concejo left them subject only to the adelantado mayor, while the fact that the proctor of the community was elected by the hombres buenos and not by the jurados helps to explain how the urban population was seeking to control the government of the regidores. M. Borrero Fernández's piece on the peasants in rural society underlines the need for more studies in this area. He brings out the diversity of experiences in Galicia as compared with, say, Andalusia, where the lands of the Military Orders were so extensive, and arable and vineyards were both cultivated. Already day labourers had made their appearance not only in the Guadalquivir valley but also in Murcia. They made up 20 to 40 per cent of the peasantry. There were not only great and medium estates, but lands held by citizens of towns like Córdoba and Carmona and small peasant holdings. Demographic expansion naturally increased markets. M. Diago Hernando, in a study of shepherds, carters and muleteers, brings out the increasingly itinerant nature of the peasantry. The movement of sheep also, which was to reach its height in the eighteenth century, had already begun in the fifteenth. E. Aznar Vallejo, in his study of the fishing industry, examines the contracts of freighting and links up with the work of W.R. Childs. He concentrates on sailors and fishermen, but also shows how those aristocrats, the dukes of Arcos and the counts of Niebla, benefited from the tunny-fishing. I.M. Romero Camacho carefully charts the partial recovery of the Jews after the pogroms of 1391–1415, but also the increase in anti-Jewishness and of Messianic and apocalyptic ideas. She follows Kriegel in his view that there were two groups in the court, one more severe than the other in its attitude towards the Jews, and shows that the heart of the problem lay with the judaizers. With regard to the Moors and mudéjares, she notes how the resistance to the advances of the royal armies grew steadily after 1482 and notably at the siege of Malaga. The personality of Cisneros was central to the severe reaction to the revolt of the Albaicín at Granada. M. Rábade Obradó rightly devotes an article to the cristianos nuevos and observes how the attitude of the monarchs changed after their visit to Andalusia and the discovery of heresy in the Jeronimite monastery of La Sisla, Toledo. The prior was the brother of a leading letrado of the court. In many ways one of the most interesting contributions is that of R. Córdoba de la Llave. Following the interest shown by Mollat and Ladero in the poor and marginal groups in the middle ages, he surveys the whole field of those who found themselves on the margins of society or were actually criminals. He makes use of the Partidas, fueros and municipal ordinances, but is generally hampered by the lack of measurable evidence. Nevertheless, he deals with prostitutes, concubines, servant girls, abandoned children and criminals. The gypsies arrived in Aragon (1415) and Andalusia (1460). The sick were dealt with in many hospitals and the monarchs here made their own contributions at Santiago and Granada. The church sought to ransom prisoners from the Muslims through the Trinitarian and Mercedarian Orders. Montes de Piedad were founded in Burgos, La Rioja and Palencia, where goods could be pawned and loans obtained at reasonable rates. Attempts were made to prevent crime by forbidding the carrying of arms. Night-watches and curfews were maintained in towns. Wills in Barcelona show that the poor were sometimes remembered. Poverty in the countryside is naturally much harder to assess than in the towns

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