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Continuity or Change: A Comparative Study of the Composition of the Cabildos in Seville, Tenerife, and Lima

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Ellen Douglas Howell
Ellen Douglas Howell*
Affiliation:
University of Houston, Houston, Texas
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Extract

An affinity for urban living has frequently been cited as one of the peculiar characteristics or long standing traditions of the Spanish people. Whether one accepts the existence of medieval Iberian cities as a heritage from the Roman municipium or as a necessary defensive establishment against the attacks of the Moors, it is evident that town life was flourishing in the Middle Ages. Municipal governments were formed to administer the communities, and as new towns were captured or created, the old models of organization were carried with the expanding frontier. In Castile the local councils were called concejos or cabildos and until the fourteenth century were often elective, representative institutions with increasing influence and power. But from the reign of Alfonso XI (1312-1350) their strength began to wane as the Castilian kings attempted to control their domains by appointing local officials and dispatching royal agents to work with them. By the sixteenth century the success of the centralizing methods was evident, for the municipal councils had become virtually the tools of the Castilian Crown.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , July 1967 , pp. 33 - 45
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1967

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References

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8 There were originally sixty Spanish settlers in Lima. Of these, thirty came from Jauja and eighteen from the seaport of San Gallan, Markham, Clements R., A History of Peru (Chicago, 1892), p. 90.Google Scholar

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16 Ordenanzas, p. 8.

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19 Ordenanzas, p. 50.

20 April 22, 1513, Acuerdos, II, 191. The alcalde ordinario in smaller villages was often the presiding officer in the local cabildo.

21 Priestley, Herbert Ingram, “Spanish Colonial Municipalities,” California Law Review (September, 1919)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, reprinted in the Louisiana Historical Quarterly, V (April, 1922), 128.

22 Morgado, p. 61, stated that originally there were thirty-six regidores, but Alfonso XI reduced their number to twenty-four, hence their name. Subsequent figures are diverse. Montoto de Sedas, p. 62, said that in the mid-sixteenth century in Seville there were thirty-six regidores, and Pike, Ruth accepts his figures, “The Sevillian Nobility and Trade with the New World in the Sixteenth Century,” Business History Review, XXXIX (Winter, 1965), 441, n. 14Google Scholar; Altamira, Rafael y Crevea, , Historia de España y de la civilización española (4 vols.; 3rd ed. rev.; Barcelona, 1913-1914), III, 265 Google Scholar, placed their number at eighty-three, whereas Morgado, p. 61, wrote in 1587 that there were more than sixty regidores in the cabildo.

23 Pike, “Sevillian Nobility and Trade,” p. 441.

24 October 20, 1497, Acuerdos, I, 3.

25 Peraza de Ayala, p. 252, n. 53.

26 September 1, 1512, Acuerdos, II, 158.

27 November 9, 1513, Acuerdos, II, 211. Although King Ferdinand was serving as regent for his daughter, mentally deranged Juana of Castile, the Acuerdos speak of Queen Juana as naming the regidores.

28 December 2, 1513, Acuerdos, II, 213.

29 November 12, 1513, Acuerdos, II, 212.

30 Royal cédula of May 4, 1534, The Harkness Collection in the Library of Congress, Documents from Early Peru, 1531–1518 (Washington, D.C, 1936), p. 134.Google Scholar

31 The veedor and tesorero had royal grants entitling them to membership in the cabildo in Tumbes, which was thought to be the principal city and the residence of the governor. However, since Pizarro was residing in Lima, the officials thought their grants should apply to that city’s cabildo. Pizarro agreed to let them sit with the council until further orders could be received from the Crown, and within a year their positions as perpetual regidores were confirmed. Bernabé Cobo, pp. 296–298; March 11, 1535, January 3, 1536, Libros, I, 19, 81.

32 December 24, 1535, Libros, I, 65; Kirkpatrick, pp. 101–103.

33 December 29, 1536 (1537), December 9, 1538, Libros, I, 118, 258; January 17, 1550, Libros, III, 237.

34 Ordenanzas, pp. 13–15. See Pike, Ruth, “Seville in the Sixteenth Century,” Hispanic American Historical Review, XLI (February, 1961), 19 Google Scholar; Morgado, p. 60; Montoto de Sedas, pp. 56–57.

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36 September 29, 1535, May 11, 1537, Libros, I, 52, 146–147; January 21, 1549, Libros, III, 53.

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38 April 6, 1500, January 10, 1502, Acuerdos, I, 29, 43.

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41 September 29, 1535, Libros, I, 49–50; July 18, 1544, Libros, II, 89.

42 January 3, 1536, March 11, 1535, Libros, I, 81, 91.

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44 Ordenanzas, p. 30.

45 There is an example as early as 1512 of the purchase of the office of jurado, Pike, “Sevillian Nobility and Trade,” p. 458.

46 In 1552, they numbered fifty-six, ibid., p. 441, n. 14. Ordenanzas, pp. 15–17; Morgado, p. 61; Montoto de Sedas, pp. 63–64. For historical background of the jurado in Seville, see Carande, p. 325.

47 October 20, 1497, Acuerdos, I, 3.

48 September 17, 1508, September 18, 1508, August 17, 1509, Acuerdos, II, 14–15, 41.

49 July 7, 1544, Libros, II, 86.

50 August 17, 1509, Acuerdos, II, 41; Peraza de Ayala, p. 257.

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