The intercessory role of churchmen trained in jurisprudence was constitutive of state formation. Using religion and legal prescriptives, bureaucrats advanced the monarchical state into a regulator of disorderly behaviors and patriarchal initiatives about inheritance. This elopement case reveals the improvisational nature of the Castilian legal system that allowed individuals to defend personal preferences and to contest diverse levels of authority, from parental directives to regal decisions. The elopement revealed a tension between the aristocracy and the ecclesiastical government, and it catalyzed several important changes in early modern Spain. As religious experts debated the nature of marriage, their arguments about the consensual basis of the sacrament crystallized canonical ideas that later became inscribed in Tridentine formulations. When the Council of Castile decided to uphold the validity of the elopement, it took the debate out of the family realm and brought it into that of the nation-state.
On the effects of the comunero civil wars, see Carlos Javier de Carlos Morales, “Las reformas de las casas reales en 1522-1525”, in La Corte de Carlos V, ed. José Martínez Millán, 5 vols. (Madrid, 2000), 1:226-33.
2.
For analysis of social conflict and the comunero revolt as an expression of such conflict, see Joseph Pérez, La revolutión de las Comunidades de Castilla, trans. Juan José Faci Lacasta (Madrid, 1998), 451-566; and Pablo Sánchez León, Absolutismo y comunidad: Los orígenes sociales de la guerra de los comuneros de Castilla (Mexico, 1998).
3.
Sánchez León, Absolutismo y comunidad, 240-241.
4.
For analysis of parental rights, male rule, conjugal duties, and inheritance privileges in the medieval legal tradition, see Charles J. Reid, Power over the Body, Equality in the Family: Rights and Domestic Relations in Medieval Canon Law (Grand Rapids, Mich., 2004). On Spanish traditions, see Manuel Ángel Bermejo Castrillo, Parentesco, matrimonio, propriedad y herencia en la Castilla altomedieval (Madrid, 1997); and Heath Dillard, La mujer en la reconquista, trans. Concepción Fernández (Madrid, 1993).
5.
For a German case study on the conflation and integration of church and state mechanisms and the battle between paternal rule and female empowerment, see Steve Ozment, The Bürgermeister's Daughter: Scandal in a Sixteenth-Century German Town (New York, 1997), 187-188.
6.
For analysis of Spanish inheritance law and the medieval transition prioritizing the integrity of the family estate, see Teofilo F. Ruiz, From Heaven to Earth: The Reordering of Castilian Society, 1150-1350 (Princeton, N.J., 2004), esp. ch. 2.
7.
For similar case studies of women as agents, relying on the legal system or exercising their freedom of choice, see Joanne M. Ferraro, Marriage Wars in Late Renaissance Venice (New York, 2001); and Daniela Lombardi, Matrimoni di antico regime (Bologna, 2001). For the humanist ideology of marriage as unions of mutual affection, see Anthony F. D'Elia, “Marriage, Sexual Pleasure, and Learned Brides in the Wedding Orations of Fifteenth-Century Italy”, Renaissance Quarterly 55 (2002): 379-433.
8.
According to Prudencio de Sandoval, Luisa was in the middle of a competition between males, which included Manrique, the marquis of Astorga, and the heir of the count of Benavente; see Prudencio de Sandoval, Historia del Emperador Carlos V, 3 vols. (Madrid, 1955), 2:357.
9.
On the problematic nature of “clandestine” marriages as weddings “improperly or illicitly undertaken”, see Shannon McSheffrey, “Place, Space, and Situation: Public and Private in the Making of Marriage in Late-Medieval London”, Speculum79, no. 4 (2004): 960-990, 961-961. On medieval survival of patriarchal initiatives, see P. Daudet, L'Etablissement de la competence de l'église en matière de divorce & de consanguinité, France Xème-XIIème siècles (Paris, 1941); and David D'Avray, Medieval Marriage: Symbolism and Society (Oxford, 2005), 91-99. For orientation, see C. N. L. Brooke, The Medieval Idea of Marriage (Oxford, 1989).
10.
For the claim that the Spanish used the king's justice to manipulate the relationship between law and sexual mores, see Abigail Dyer, “Seduction by Promise of Marriage: Law, Sex, and Culture in Seventeenth-Century Spain”, Sixteenth Century Journal34, no. 2 (2003): 439-455. She added that “Spain's royal and ecclesiastical justice system mitigated the tensions between behaviors and norms by acting as transformative agents, able to change shame into honor through acts of legal alchemy” (441).
11.
Aurelio Espinosa, “The Spanish Reformation: Institutional Reform, Taxation, and the Secularization of Ecclesiastical Properties under Charles V”, Sixteenth Century Journal37, no. 1 (2006): 3-24.
12.
On Philip's implementation order of Tridentine formulations, see Bernardino Llorca, “Participación de España en el concilio de Trento”, in Historia de la Iglesia en España,ed. Ricardo García-Villoslada, 5 vols. (Madrid, 1980), 494-500. For inquisitorial disciplining on the basis of Tridentine marriage standards, see Allyson M. Poska, “Gallegan Women and the Holy Office”, in Women in the Inquisition: Spain and the New World, ed. Mary E. Giles (Baltimore, 1998), 189-205. For orientation on Counter-Reformation politics and gender issues, see Kathryn Norberg, “The Counter-Reformation and Women: Religious and Lay”, in Catholicism in Early Modern History: A Guide to Research, ed. John O'Mally (St. Louis, Mo., 1988), 133-46.
13.
Sarah Hanley, “Engendering the State: Family Formation and State Building in Early Modern Europe”, French Historical Studies16, no. 1 (1989): 4-27.
14.
For theoretical analysis of the development of confessional states and their monopolization of religion, see Ulrike Strasser, Gender, Religion and Politics in an Early Modern Catholic State (Ann Arbor, Mich., 2004), 1-24. For analysis of the components of early modern state development, especially with respect to Italian jurisdictions, see Federico Chabod, “Los orígenes del estado moderno”, in Carlos V y su imperio (1956-1957; reprint, Madrid, 1992), 271-307. For theoretical orientation, see Wolfgang Reinhard, “Las elites del poder, los functionaries del estado, las classes gobernantes y el crecimiento del poder del estado”, in Las élites del poder y la construcción del Estado, ed. Wolfgang Reinhard, trans. Tomás Segovia (Madrid, 1996, 1997), 15-36.
15.
For family concepts of the Habsburg dynasty, see Bethany Aram, Juana the Mad: Sovereignty and Dynasty in Renaissance Europe (Baltimore, 2005), 112-116, 132-136. For theoretical analysis of late medieval families in Spain, see Bermejo Castrillo, Parentesco, matrimonio, propriedad, 26-38.
16.
Mónica Gómez-Salvago Sánchez, Fastos de una boda real en la Sevilla del quinientos: estudio y documentos (Seville, 1998); and Juan Antonio Vilar Sánchez, Boda y luna de miel del emperador Carlos V: la visita imperial a Andalucía y al reino de Granada (1526; reprint, Granada, Spain, 2000).
17.
For details on families as economic and social units, see Jack Goody, The Development of the Family and Marriage in Europe (New York, 1983).
18.
Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process: State Formation and Civilization, trans. Edmund Jephcott (Oxford, 1994), 314-334.
19.
For the dowry as a function of paternal care, see Donald E. Queller and Thomas F. Madden, “Father of the Bride: Fathers, Daughters, and Dowries in Late Medieval and Early Renaissance Venice”, Renaissance Quarterly46 (1993): 685-711. For a chronology of the dowry in Iberian colonial societies, see Muriel Nazzari, Disappearance of the Dowry: Women, Families, and Social Change in São Paulo, Brazil, 1600-1900 (Stanford, Calif., 1991).
20.
For the significance of family inheritance, see Thomas Kuehn, “Law Death, and Heirs in the Renaissance: Reputation of Inheritance in Florence”, Renaissance Quarterly45 (1992): 484-516. For analysis of marriage as patriarchal under the Habsburgs, see Martha C. Howell, The Marriage Exchange: Property, Social Place, and Gender in the Cities of the Low Countries, 1300-1550 (Chicago, 1998). For sixteenth-century marriage standards, especially Continental changes prior to the Council of Trent and in response to the evangelicals, see Joel F. Harrington, Reordering Marriage and Society in Reformation Society (New York, 1995).
21.
D'Avray, Medieval Marriage, 94-95.
22.
For discussion of Renaissance family ideals and practice, especially elite patricians and the importance of dowries, see Barbara B. Diefendorf, “Family Culture, Renaissance Culture”, Renaissance Quarterly40 (1987): 661-681.
23.
For the Spanish tradition regarding dowries and marriage, see Stephanie Fink De Backer, “Rebel with a Cause: The Marriage of María Pacheco and the Formation of Mendoza Identity”, in Power and Gender in Renaissance Spain: Eight Women of the Mendoza Family, 1450-1650, ed. Helen Nader (Urbana, Ill., 2004), 71-92. On Roman and Renaissance traditions of inheritance law, see Kuehn, “Law Death, and Heirs in the Renaissance”, 484-516.
24.
For comparative similarities regarding marriage as economic, as a transfer of wealth and construction of kin, see Diane O'Hara, Courtship and Constraint: Rethinking the Making of Marriage in Tudor England (Manchester, UK, 2000).
25.
Nazzari, Disappearance of the Dowry, 15-15.
26.
For recent analysis of the conflict between secular and ecclesiastical traditions, see Reinier Leushuis, “The Mimesis of Marriage: Dialogue and Intimacy in Erasmus’s Matrimonial Writings', Renaissance Quarterly57 (2004): 1278-1307.
27.
Bermejo Castrillo, Parentesco, matrimonio, propriedad, 147. For canonical traditions of marriage, see James A. Brundage, Law, Sex, and Christian. Society in Medieval Europe (Chicago, 1987), 260-78; D'Avray, Medieval Marriage, 91-108; and Tomás Rincón, El matrimonio, misterio y signo: siglos IX al XIII (Pamplona, Spain, 1971). Medieval popes recognized both the canonical (Gratian) and theological formulations (Lombard) of marriage. Alexander III acknowledged the Lombard marriage of promise as well as the Gratian concept of marriage as a process leading to its consummation, but not until the Fourth Lateran Council did church authorities ascertain that marriage should be an ecclesiastically sanctioned event with public declarations. The Fourth Lateran Council did not invalidate clandestine marriages, because the council fathers well defended the principle of consensual marriages.
28.
Norman P. Tanner, ed., Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 2 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1990), 2:755-756.
29.
Archivo General de Simancas, Simancas, Spain, Estado section (hereafter, AGS, Estado), leg. 16, fol. 501, Tavera to Charles, 1528.
30.
For comparison on self-interest as detrimental to the family, see Lawrence Stone, The Family, Sex, and Marriage in England, 1500-1800 (New York, 1977). For overview, see R. B. Outhwaite, ed., Marriage and Society: Studies in the Social History of Marriage (London, 1981). On the medieval Continental tradition, see G. Duby, Le Chevalier, la femme et le prêtre: le marriage das la France féodale (Paris, 1981). On England, see H. A. Kelly, Love and Marriage in the Age of Chaucer (Ithaca, N.Y., 1975).
31.
Honor, at least in Spain, was not a monolithic code because there were deviations, especially among the lower classes; and even in this aristocratic case, the honor of Aldonza, who was pregnant, was not disgraced when Manrique decided to leave her. On honor transgressions, see Allyson Poska, Regulating the People: The Catholic Reformation in Seventeenth-Century Spain (Boston, 1988).
32.
Tanner, Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 2:755-756; and Harrington, Reordering Marriage and Society in Reformation Society, 95-96.
33.
For critique, see Pierre Bourdieu, “Marriage Strategies as Strategies of Social Reproduction”, in Family and Society: Selections from the Annales, ed. R. Forster and O. Ranum (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976), 117-144. On colonial Mexico, see Ramón A. Gutiérrez, “Honor Ideology, Marriage Negotiation, and Class-Gender Domination in New Mexico, 1690-1846”, Latin American Perspectives 12, no. 1 (1985): 81-104.
34.
For comparative analysis, Italian examples also provide evidence for the intricate relationship between clerical mandates and patriarchal family norms; see Silvana Seidel Menchi and Diego Qualioni, eds., Matrimoni in dubbio: Unioni controverse e nozze clandestine in Italia dal XIV al XVIII secolo (Bologna, 2001).
35.
AGS, Cámara de Castilla, Libros de Cédulas, Libro 374, Madrid, October 1, 1530, 138, Empress Isabel to Micer May.
36.
On the lords of Belmont and the house of Manuel, see Luis de Salazar y Castro, Historia genealógica de la casa de Lara, 6 vols. (Bilbao, 1988), 2:189-90.
37.
The Manuel family also had acquired additional revenues from Philip I, which included the contaduría mayor and the fortress commands of Burgos, Segovia, Jaén, Plasencia, and Atienza; Alonso de Santa Cruz, Crónica de los Reyes Católicos, ed. Juan de Mata Carriazo, 2 vols. (Madrid, 1927), 2:56. The Manuel family was staunch supporters of the Burgundian dynasty since the marriage of Philip I and Juana.
38.
Santa Cruz, Crónica de los Reyes Católicos, 2:97.
39.
For the distinction of marriage styles, see Emlyn Eisenach, Husbands, Family and Social Order in Sixteenth-Century Verona (Kirksville, Mo., 2004), 39-39.
40.
Spanish aristocratic women were equally in control as, if not more so than, English female nobles. On English female agency, see Barbara J. Harris, English Aristocratic Women, 1450-1550: Marriage and Family, Property and Careers (New York, 2002).
41.
On the use of royal absolute power, see Salustiano de Dios, Gracia, merced y patronazgo real: la cámara de Castilla entre 1474-1530 (Madrid, 1993), 69-121. On the application of absolute power by the Habsburgs, see Jack B. Owens, “By My Absolute Royal Authority”: Justice and the Castilian Commonwealth at the Beginning of the First Global Age (Rochester, N.Y., 2005), 115-42.
42.
On this issue of bigamy and the Spanish legal system that addressed such matters, see the case study by Alexandra Parma and Noble David Cook, Good Faith and Truthful Ignorance: A Case of Transatlantic Bigamy (Durham, N.C., 1991).
43.
Sandoval, Historia del Emperador Carlos V, 2:357-357.
44.
Rosa María Montero Tejada, Nobleza y sociedad en Castilla: el linaje Manrique (Siglos XIV-XVI) (Madrid, 1996), 187-211.
45.
Hernando del Pulgar, Crónica de los Reyes Católicos (Madrid, 1953), 386-88, 457-67.
46.
Montero Tejada, Nobleza y sociedad en Castilla, 39-45.
47.
AGS, Simancas, Spain, Diversos de Castilla, leg. 39, sf, July 30, 1516, memorial de Antón Gallo.
AGS, Estado, leg. 9, fol. 108, cardinal of Tortosa to Charles, June 11, 1521.
52.
Manuel Danvila y Collado, Historia crítica y documentada de las comunidades de Castilla, 6 vols. (Madrid, 1897-1903), 401.
53.
AGS, Estado, leg. 11, fol. 39.
54.
On Don Manrique's appointment to the court, see AGS, Estado, leg. 11, fol. 139. Other incomes and offices, see Manuel de Foronda y Aguilera, Estancias y viajes del Emperador (Madrid, 1914), 247, 293.
55.
AGS, Casa y Sitios Reales, leg. 380, fols. 35-56.
56.
AGS, Estado, leg. 18, fol. 3. Sandoval erroneously noted that the duke was Juan Manrique; the duke at this time was Antonio Manrique (Sandoval, Historia del Emperador Carlos V, 2:359).
AGS, Estado, leg. 19, fol. 277, constable of Castile to Charles, Fuenterrabia, June 7 [1529].
59.
AGS, Estado, leg. 20, fol. 181, Tavera to Charles, Madrid, July 9 [1530].
60.
AGS, Guerra Marina section (hereafter AGS, Guerra Marina), leg. 2, fol. 73, archbishop of Toledo to Charles, Madrid, September 11, 1529.
61.
For the Pimentel house, see Alonso López de Haro, Nobiliario genealógico de los reyes y títulos de España, 2 vols. (Ollobarren, Spain, 1996), 1:128-39. For Osorio, see López de Haro, Nobiliario genealógico, 1:281-93. The marquis of Astorga, having failed to obtain papal permission to marry Luisa in 1526, married the sister of the heir of the Benavente mayorazgo, María Pimentel, the daughter of the count of Benavente. So the two suitors compromised by forging their own marriage alliance. For details, see López de Haro, Nobiliario genealógico, 1:289.
62.
AGS, Estado, leg. 16, fol. 498, Empress Isabel to Charles.
63.
AGS, Estado, leg. 16, fol. 494, Tavera to Charles.
64.
Salazar y Castro, Historia genealógica, 2:185-185.
65.
AGS, Patronato Real (hereafter, AGS, Patronato Real), leg. 26, fol. 26, Madrid, April 23, 1528. Charles also confirmed power of attorney to Empress Isabel to govern the Spanish state. See Patronato Real, leg. 26, fol. 11, Toledo, March 8, 1529; and Patronato Real, leg. 26, fol. 18.
66.
Sandoval, Historia del Emperador Carlos V, 2:357-357.
67.
Foronda y Aguilera, Estancias y Viajes, 374.
68.
For aristocratic factions, see Pedro Mexía, Historia del Emperador Carlos V, ed. Juan de Mata Carriazo (Madrid, 1945), 39-42.
69.
AGS, Estado, leg. 20, fol. 204, Tavera to Charles.
70.
AGS, Guerra Marina, leg. 2, fol. 191, Tavera to Charles.
71.
AGS, Guerra Marina, Libros de Registro del Consejo de la Guerra, libro 6, 149v-150, Empress Isabel to the archbishop of Seville, Madrid, May 3, 1530.
72.
AGS, Estado, leg. 16, fol. 498, Empress Isabel to Charles; and Estado, leg. 19, fols. 8-10, Tavera to Charles, Madrid, July 9, 1530.
73.
AGS, Estado, leg. 18, fol. 222.
74.
On the regency orders, see AGS, Patronato Real, leg. 26, fol. 18.
75.
AGS, Estado, leg. 20, fol. 95.
76.
AGS, Estado, leg. 16, fol. 469, Tavera to Cobos, Madrid, May 21, 1529(?).
77.
AGS, Estado, leg. 20, fol. 94, Tavera to Cobos, February 25, 1530.
78.
AGS, Estado, leg. 20, fol. 203, Tavera to Charles, Madrid, December 9, 1530.
79.
AGS, Estado, leg. 16, fol. 469, Tavera to Cobos, Madrid, May 21, 1529(?).
80.
Tarsicio de Azcona, Isabel la Católica: vida y reinado (Madrid: La Esfera de los Libros, 2002), 178-79.
81.
AGS, Estado, leg. 16, fol. 355, the marquis of Villena to Charles, Corrullón, May 4, 1530(?). The marquis of Villena was an important ambassador for the Catholic Monarchs, especially their attempt to form a bloc against France in their marriage settlement between their daughter, Juana, and the Burgundian prince, Philip I, son of Emperor Maximilian.
82.
On the national development of the ecclesiastical apparatus and as constitutive of the monarchical state, see Manuel Nieto Soria, Iglesia y génesis del estado moderno en Castilla, 1369-1480 (Madrid, 1993).
83.
AGS, Estado, leg. 20, fol. 181, Tavera to Charles; Estado, leg. 20, fol. 203, Tavera to Charles, December 19, 1530; and Estado, leg. 12, fol. 46, the Council of Castile to Empress Isabel.
84.
AGS, Estado, leg. 24, fol. 162, the Council of Castile to Charles.
85.
Sandoval, Historia del Emperador, 2:357-357.
86.
Ibid., 2:357.
87.
AGS, Estado, leg. 19, fols. 226-27, Empress Isabel to Charles, Madrid, February 25, 1530.
88.
AGS, Estado, leg. 21, fol. 272; Estado, leg. 16, fol. 498, Empress Isabel to Charles; Estado, leg. 16, fol. 494, Tavera to Charles; and Estado, leg. 16, fols. 468-69.
89.
AGS, Estado, leg. 24, fols. 187-88, Tavera to Charles, Medina del Campo, February 20, 1532(?).
90.
AGS, Estado, leg. 21, fol. 272, Charles to Empress Isabel.
91.
AGS, Estado, leg. 21, fol. 259, Charles to the duke of Nájera, Mantua, April 4, 1530.
92.
AGS, Estado, leg. 23, fols. 97-101, 1532(?); Estado, leg. 12, fol. 57; and Salazar y Castro, Historia genealógica de la casa de Lara, 2:178. On the price of the contaduría mayor de cuentas, see Ramón Thovar Carande, Carlos V sus banqueros, 3 vols. (Madrid, 1949), 2:56, citing a letter by Salinas on Cobos's “poder de San Pedro, a quien quiere absolver absuelve.”
93.
Joseph Pérez, La revolutión de las Comunidades de Castilla, trans. Juan José Faci Lacasta (Madrid, 1998), 642. The price was 18,666 ducats.
94.
Archivo General de Simancas, Simancas, Spain, Escribanía Mayor de Rentas, leg. 30, fol. 147, 1537.
95.
For post-Tridentine control over marriage by both state and church officials, who quite often accommodated women from the artisan class, see Daniela Hacke, Women, Sex and Marriage in Early Modern Venice (Aldershot, UK, 2004).
