The Gypsies of Early Modern Spain, 1425-1783

The history of Spain's gypsies presents a significant challenge to the researcher. As a marginal and itinerant society they left no written records, and so Richard Pym has chosen to approach his subject largely from the perspective of the Habsburg and Bourbon governments. He has drawn on a wide range of official sources taken from the records of the Inquisition, the Cortes and the legal and military administration, as well as from the treatises, plays and novels of Spain's Golden Age. The result is an excellent book on how the Spanish governing authorities tried and failed to suppress the distinctiveness of a minority society that contravened the centralising objectives of the early modern state. Yet the author has also unearthed a substantial amount of material that provides a window into the world of the gypsies themselves. We come across a whole range of colourful and often tragic characters, such as Luis de Montoya, who set fire to his Christian images when he lost his money gambling, only to repent and throw himself on the mercy of the Inquisition (p. 112); or Sebastián de Maldonado, who sought refuge from persecution in the legal privileges that were accorded to soldiers (pp. 136–7); or Isabel Cortés, who was detained in December 1624 for allegedly attempting to use sorcery in the hope of blighting the future duke of Medina de las Torres with impotence (pp. 116–18)

Optimal distinctiveness theory · Persecution · Political science · State (computer science · Subject (documents · History · Law · Psychology · Romani and Gypsy Studies

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