In the late Middle Ages, Castilians produced a variety of historical and literary texts that sought to malign political enemies or marginal groups like prostitutes, witches, and conversos, or tacitly admonished those in power for not pursuing the chivalric Virtues and seeking the end of the Reconquest. Some voices, however, combined these objectives to challenge the propaganda generated at court and, in so doing, revealed the deep cultural and political fissures that were dividing the people of Castile on the eve of the War of the Comunidades.

Castilian Satire and the Crime of “Læsæ Maiestatis”

The Trastámara dynasty was severely chastised by those who remembered that it had come to power through the assassination of Pedro I in 1369 by his bastard half-brother, Enrique II. Among its critics were not only loyalist supporters of the defeated monarch but also dissatisfied courtiers, including some of those who had benefited economically from the dynastic change.

By custom and law, the kingdoms inherited by the Trastámara were supposed to be their property, but the king only retained some lands (“tierras de realengo”; royal lands or demesne) for his own personal use. The rest, the “mercedes Enriqueñas” (Enriquean grants), was distributed to the nobility and Church as temporary fiefs in order to reward, buy off, or ensure the loyalty of supporters. Eventually, some of these nobles were given permission to entail these lands to their titles. Thereafter, any meddling of the king in territories held by them was usually met with resistance, because the grantors of the “mercedes” only had to be obeyed until an entailment occurred.

The murky origins of the dynasty and the economic weakness caused by these “mercedes” were not the only problems faced by the rulers of Castile. The Trastámara rise to power was followed by conflicted minorities, inept kings, competing pretenders, and two civil wars—the second of which enabled Isabel I to set aside Enrique IV's legitimate heir, Juana la Beltraneja, in favor of herself.