Petitions, Justice, and Royal Authority in Late Medieval Castile

[摘要] In the fifteenth century, the Crown of Castile witnessed an unprecedented influx ofpetitions, as tens of thousands of Castilians traveled to royal courts to present petitions to theirmonarchs. This dissertation focuses on petitioning for royal justice as a perspective from whichto study the social and political life of late medieval Castile. Drawing on hundreds of unstudiedrecords, I analyze not only the content of Castilian petitions, but also the ways in which royalresponses to these petitions functioned on the local level of the town and village. By tracing thesocial lives of the so-called ;;letters of justice” that were granted in response to petitions ofgrievance, I analyze the ways in which Castilians employed these royal decrees in local conflicts.Also inquired are the local reactions to the presentations of these documents, includingexpressions of obedience, ;;obedience without compliance,” and violence. I demonstrate thatwhile many petitioners obtained royal decrees in order to exert pressure on opponents, thepresentations of these documents in Castilian localities had a substantial performative componentas public events intended for the eyes of the community. Furthermore, thousands of decreescirculating in public spaces provided the monarchy a mechanism for disseminating notions ofroyal authority. My research suggests that the royal institutions encouraged the proliferation ofdecrees by maintaining a high level of responsiveness and accessibility, thus renderingpetitioning a path of action suitable for generating swift interventions into local conflicts. In thisrespect, this dissertation draws attention to the consolidation of royal authority as a process ofintensifying communication between rulers and subjects, rather than a top-down assertion of power. It demonstrates that petitions of grievance became sites for the enactment, circulation,and negotiation of core ideas about the monarch, the subject, and the law. When they obtainedand presented royal decrees, thousands of Castilians turned themselves, in a sense, into agents ofroyal authority, asserting the monarch’s right to intervene in local jurisdictions. The proliferationof royal decrees in Castilian villages and towns intimately affected the political life of thesecommunities, marking new possibilities for political protest, negotiation, and participation.

[发布机构] University of Michigan

[效力级别] Medieval Spain

[关键词] Castile;Medieval Spain;Petitions;The Catholic Monarchs;History (General);Humanities;History