Old regime towns and villages: consent and conflict in local castile

Abstract

Castilian towns and villages had a long development process in medieval times. Then, they were formed as political bodies to the prosecution of the common good. Despite town and village reciprocal relationships were part of the common political body they formed together, their relationships were hierarchical. Towns, as heads of jurisdictional districts, kept relations of domination on the villages. There, powerful local lineages tried to widen their authority and power. This traditional scheme, that explained town and village Old Regime relationships, was changing in the long-run perspective. Charles V initiated sales of town titles and privileges to increase royal incomes. This favored not only these last, but also higher degrees of jurisdictional local autonomy and, at the same time, it went in favor of local oligarchies aspirations of wider spheres of local self government