The Limits of Royal Authority
Resistance and Obedience in Seventeenth-Century Castile

A study of the variety of resistance to royal commands in Castile in the 1630s and 1640s.

Ruth MacKay (Author)

9780521643436, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 6 May 1999

210 pages, 1 map
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm, 0.48 kg

'… excellent little study.' History

In what is sometimes called the age of absolutism, Castilian nobles and commoners, tribunes and towns, were to a considerable degree able to resist and shape royal commands. Whereas there was little open conflict, there was sometimes a surprising degree of autonomy, rights and reciprocity on the part of the king's vassals. This is a study of one such form of resistance: the opposition to military levies. This opposition took place during a period of crisis, during the 1630s and 1640s, when the Crown's need to raise an army came into conflict with a notion of kingship that was far from absolute. From the king's advisory councils to parliament, from city councils and seigneurial estates, to the most humble villages, Castilians had recourse to a wide range of political and juridictional means with which to dispute the king's claims and avoid conscription.

Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. Recruitment and royal authority
2. Making soldiers of townsmen
3. War, lords, and vassals
4. Common claims
Conclusion
Glossary
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: European history [HBJD]