Table Of ContentANONYMOUS NOBLEMEN
THE MEDIEVAL COUNTRYSIDE
Editorial Board under the auspices of Yale University
Paul Freedman, Chair, Yale University
Isabel Alfonso, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientifícas, Madrid
Sandro Carocci, Università di Roma ‘Tor Vergata’
Laurent Feller, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne
Piotr Górecki, University of California, Riverside
Sigrid Hirbodian, Universität Tübingen
Peter C. M. Hoppenbrouwers, Universiteit Leiden
Jeppe Netterstrøm, Aarhus Universitet
Phillipp Schofield, Aberystwyth University
Lluís To Figuera, Universitat de Girona
Previously published volumes in this series are listed at the back of this book
Volume 10
ANONYMOUS NOBLEMEN:
THE GENERALIZATION OF HIDALGO STATUS
IN THE BASQUE COUNTRY (1250–1525)
by
José Ramón Díaz de Durana
H
F
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Diaz de Durana, Jose Ramon.
Anonymous noblemen : the generalization of hidalgo status
in the Basque country (1250-1525). -- (The medieval
countryside ; v. 10)
1. Nobility--Spain--Pais Vasco--History--To 1500.
2. Nobility--Spain--Pais Vasco--Social conditions.
3. Pais Vasco (Spain)--History--To 1500. 4. Pais Vasco
(Spain)--Social conditions.
I. Title II. Series
305.5'22'09466-dc23
ISBN-13: 9782503532448
© 2011, Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the publisher.
D/2011/0095/119
ISBN: 978-2-503-53244-8
Printed on acid-free paper
CONTENTS
Prologue vii
Acknowledgements xi
List of Illustrations xiii
Introduction 1
Chapter 1: The Problem of Nobility 5
Chapter 2: Hidalguía in the Basque Lands 27
Chapter 3: Sources and Preliminary Presentation 41
Chapter 4: Legal Status of Hidalgos 47
Chapter 5: Social Conflicts in Basque Lands 71
Chapter 6: The Hidalgos and the Creation of the Provinces 119
Chapter 7: Fiscality versus Exemption 131
Chapter 8: Hidalgos of Álava 151
Chapter 9: Lawsuits over Tax Exemption 175
Chapter 10: Hidalgos and Commoners 189
Conclusions 201
Appendix 217
Source Material and Bibliography 227
Index 261
PROLOGUE
The expressive combination of title and subtitle of the book that the
author, an affectionate disciple, has asked me to prologue attempts to
describe the evolution, over a period of almost three centuries, of a social
group that we will attempt to briefly describe by reference to two apparently
contradictory characteristics. Generally speaking they were nobles whose sense of
honour was accompanied by a lack of fortune and who were portrayed by the
picaresque novelists of the sixteenth century some four hundred years before
historians turned their attention to them. The pages of José Ramón Díaz de
Durana’s book demonstrate that the time has arrived to learn more about a group
who unite the seemingly contradictory characteristics of nobility and anonymity.
Perhaps the explanation lies in the origin of the word hidalgo not being that of
‘son of something’ (hijo de algo) in the sense of material wealth but rather, as
Fernando Lázaro suggested and José María Lacarra seemed willing to accept, came
from fidaticum, in reference to vassallatic loyalty. Whatever the etymology, what
is of interest is that, with books like this one (or that recently published by Carlos
Estepa), the silent majority of one of the most important noble groups in Europe,
based in North-Western Spain between the North coast, the Duero and Pisuerga
rivers, and the mountains of the Sistema Ibérico, is beginning to acquire a voice.
And what that voice tells us is that same ambivalent image of the hidalgo that we
get from the author of El lazarillo de Tormes. Ultimately what we are confronted
with is one of the most complex problems in social history: the lack of corres-
pondence between two of the most important criteria of social hierarchization,
wealth, and legal status. This intrinsic complexity probably explains why the
problem has taken so long to be resolved.
viii Prologue
Gradually, and with the help of disciplines such as Sociology, and more
recently Anthropology, the broad spectrum of late medieval Spanish society is
coming into focus. The first step was to identify the groups at the extremes of the
social spectrum. The rich, land-owning Christian noble was the easiest to find.
More difficult because of the lack of data but conceptually equally straightforward
was the search for the poor Moor. Subsequently, in a series of studies of different
social groups at both ends of the spectrum, we have learnt about the urban
patricians, rich but not initially noble, and the poor Christian artisans. Then, in
further studies, it was the turn of the caballeros villanos, the merchants, and the
administrators to emerge from the shadows, and have their social and political
trajectories described, and their mutual struggles for control of local institutions
analysed. Finally, and only now, it is the turn of the rural hidalgos, whose role in
society Díaz de Durana has attempted to recreate.
This volume allows us to understand some of reasons for the relatively tardy
historiographical emergence of these lesser (?) historical protagonists. On the one
hand there has been the conceptual problem of which criteria to employ when
delimiting the group: wealth, family, honour, political power wielded at a variety
of levels, fiscal exemption or its absence, landowner or tenant, legal status,
relationship to the client networks of the more powerful nobles. But there has also
been the problem, ultimately even more significant, of identifying these hidalgos.
Many legal codes either ignore them or present distorted views, and it is only
through the large-scale use of source material that contains their direct
testimonies, that allows them to speak for themselves, that we can really learn
about them. Thus it has been the immersion of researchers, in this case of the
author, into the vastly rich and interesting contents of the Archive of the Royal
Chancery of Valladolid that has given us access to the lives and names of the
component members of this problematical social group. In this way, and thanks
to a common cultural policy decision agreed by the regional government itself in
the Basque Country and by the Fundación Marcelino Botín in Cantabria,
thousands upon thousands of manuscripts have been made available to
researchers. J. Ramón Díaz de Durana’s book is, in its own way, a gesture of
gratitude towards this policy. Perhaps the best possible.
In this volume, the author sets out three different approaches to the problem.
Initially, on a more general scale, we are presented with a thorough and suggestive
historiographical review of research into the medieval nobility in different parts
of Europe. Next comes the conceptual characterization of the hidalgos of Álava,
Guipúzcoa, and Vizcaya, and their historical contextualization within the
turbulent dynamics of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Finally, the focus
Prologue ix
is upon the individual lives of Alavese hidalgos and husbandmen, emerging from
anonymity, we observe their daily struggle to make ends meet and to control their
local institutions such as the hermandades, against the background of both the
political transformations taking place at both local and provincial levels, and of
the aristocratic lineages who offer access to power in exchange for loyalty.
The wealth of ideas and no less attention to analytical detail that J. Ramón
Díaz de Durana, following on from previous studies, displays in this book inspire
me to urge the author, having already secured such a sound base, to apply the same
analytical tools and his proven expertise to other parts of Northern Castile,
beyond the confines of the Basque Country. If he does so, he will surely be
successful, once again. In the meantime, I welcome a book which, fortunately like
many others, allows us to understand the past from a perspective of similarities,
in contrast to the differentiated future so often wished upon us by some.
On the saddest day in recent Spanish history (11 March 2004)
José Ángel García de Cortázar
University of Cantabria
