Synopsis
Most recent studies have revealed the existence of a huge social mobility in Spain in the 16th and 17th centuries, despite what had been believed according to the previous historiographical consensus. The archive research carried out by various specialists -and above all by Dr. Enrique Soria Mesa and his team- has been decisive in this discovery. Therefore, since the last two decades, the existence of a system based on great mobility has been established as a new historiographical paradigma. The newly discovered system, however, kept intact the appearance of eternity and statism that the current ideological order required to perpetuate itself. However, not all this social progression was aimed directly and quickly towards the achievement of the integration within the nobility. Quite often, under the mask of the aristocratic or noble appearances, impressive artisanal and mercantile activities were developed along extensive periods. Those activities were in fact closely related with the economic boost that for more than a century converted a large part of Spain -Andalusia among them- into a first-rate economic power. This book aims to rescue the history of a powerful intermediate category -formerly referred to as bourgeoisie-, that we have been detecting in our research in national and local archives for more than twenty years. Based on that evidence, we prefer to use here the term mesocracy since all these groups occupied intermediate spaces of power while they slowly tried to move upwards in the social ladder. A movement developed by resorting to long-term family strategies that created sagas of officials that ranged from middle municipal positions (jurados or jurors) to public notaries, also including merchants, artisans, doctors, and lawyers. In addition, in all these groups we noticed a very relevant presence of Jewish-converts -the conversos-, since it was there where the descendants of Hebrews settled professionally, thus achieving not only socioeconomic success but also definitive assimilation, despite the repressive effects of the Inquisition and the racist rejection of blood purity statutes. Therefore, the long term chronology, before and after the time under our scrutiny, in which we incardinate our study would be that: a fall from prominent power status in many cities of Castile in the 15th century for most of the Jews and conversos, followed by a slow recovery using a variety of means (such as institutional minor positions -like the jurors in the city councils-, professional associations -merchant guilds, for instance- or some relevant professions -doctors, notaries or prominent servants of the aristocracy-) in the 16th and 17th centuries, ending up in a period of blur and oblivion in the 18th century. We focus on the time corresponding to the Early Modern times, in which for many conversos the mesocratic stages seem to have performed as an acceptable, though discrete, solution. Nonetheless, we don't want to give nothing for granted, so when posisble we will check the importance of the converso condition within the groups under study. All seven contributions are based on a great variety of primary sources; all together allow us to speak of a massive number of documents as the solid basis for the book's claims.
About the Author
Enrique Soria Mesa s professor of Modern History at the University of Cordoba, he researches topics such as the nobility, Jewish converts and genealogy in Spain. He has supervised 19 doctoral theses and is author of books such as The Last Moriscos. Permanences of the population of Islamic origin in the kingdom of Granada (seventeenth and eighteenth centuries), 2014; The Jewish Origin of Gongora, Cordoba, 2015; The reality behind the mirror. Social Ascent and Blood Cleansing in the Spain of Philip II (2016). Luis Salas Almela studied Early Modern History in the Universidad Complutense of Madrid (Spain). After having published his first book in 2002, he went to the European University Institute (Italy), where he obtained his PhD in History and Civilization (October, 2006) with a work devoted to the study of the most powerful Castilian noble house, that of the dukes of Medina Sidonia in the Early Modern period (published as Medina Sidonia: el poder de la aristocracia, 1680-1670, Madrid, 2008). Then he went to the Centro de Historia de Alem-Mar, in Lisbon (Portugal), where he begun a new research line about the development of the Iberian ports during the expansion of the Atlantic trade with the Indies (16th Century). A line that he continued developing in the Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos (CSIC, Seville) between July 2009 and December 2011. Since January 2012 he started a Ramon y Cajal contract in the University of Cordoba andwas appointed professor in the same institution in 2021.
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