Entre el conflicto y la cooperación: la ciudad castellana y los corregidores: praxis de una relación política hasta la Monarquía Isabelina

Abstract

In the frame of the process of political centralization undertook by the Trastámaras, in special during the fifteenth century, scholars have traditionally regarded the institution of the «corregimiento» (the «corregidores» –keepers of the town– were royal agents appointed to oversee the government and, in general, administration of royal cities and towns) as one of the most perfect instruments highlighting the stages and intensity with which that aim was achieved. Historians have considered the imposition of the «corregimientos» over the towns as a defeat of the urban world, as a trait of weakness on the part of those towns especially predisposed to subject themselves to the political interference represented by these royal officials. Nevertheless, we know that towns were able to face the imposition of these agents with some degree of success. In some circumstances, they not only managed to avoid the appointment or even the effective inauguration into office of these officials but, in many cases, the «corregidor» inauguration constituted the last phase in a process of negotiation not necessarily conducted with the monarch but singularly with the royal agent. These negotiations helped to lubricate the relationship thus generated between both parties, redefining it in terms of political cooperation. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the way in which these royal agents were perceived in the frame of those processes of relationship –sometimes endowed with a conflictive nature, sometimes showing negotiating traits–, and the ability showed by cities and towns to develop an autonomous political action in the frame of the more global process of political centralization. The terminus ad quem of this paper is the Toledo of 1480, it implies the beginning of a different phase in the process of institutional consolidation of the «corregimiento».