[85] Barcelona's honored citizens occupied an ambiguous position within local society prior to the sixteenth century. This ambiguity was rooted in a fundamental contradiction--that between their firm control over substantial political and economic resources, and the uncertain social status born of their lack of a clear juridical standing. The Fernandine reforms--especially the decree of 1510 endowing this group with gentry privileges--not only lent the crucial impetus to the emergence of a single class of notables. A considerably simplified social structure also resulted from these measures. In characteristic fashion, Xaupí spelled out the long-term consequences of the citizens' elevation from an intermediate position between nobles and commoners to full integration into a unitary civic elite. "Is this not the same," he asked, "as saying that all men are either nobles or commoners, and that our honored citizens and burgesses should be counted among the ranks of the nobles?" (1)
Several special characteristics of the Catalan aristocracy contributed to the success of this amalgam. First, the local nobility comprised a well-defined social group whose membership was ascertained by a variety of legal prescriptions. Summons to the aristocratic house in parliament; inclusion in lists of candidates [86] for specifically noble offices such as the Diputat Militar; inscription (beginning in 1604) in the registry of the Noble Estate--all these provided clear, public tests of membership in the aristocracy. The hard-fought struggles for informal social recognition and the endless stream of appeals to the heraldic chamber of the royal chancery in Castile found little counterpart in Catalonia. In the Principality more precise juridical mechanisms replaced the vagaries of public repute as the leading determinants of nobilitas. In the absence of bitter disputes over the specific status of individual families, the boundaries separating the different ranks within the upper class could be more easily relaxed. As a result, the Catalan nobility developed as a more homogeneous social class than in many other realms.
The relatively undifferentiated character of the local aristocracy also fostered an integrated civic elite. The absence of a strong magnate group--small in number to begin with, and largely absentee by the seventeenth century--narrowed the distance between ranks within the estate. The cohesion born of a shared style of life differed sharply from the wide gap found among the privileged classes of neighboring lands. The Catalan nobility certainly did not lack its own indigent members. These poorer country squires, however, did not offer as stark a contrast with the higher ranks of the aristocracy as that between Castile's powerful grandees and often-impoverished hidalgos, or French peers and their hobereaux cousins. Once again, contemporaries did not fail to remark the difference. Xaupí noted that, unlike Catalonia, the fundamental division within the aristocracy of Castile was that "between the titled and untitled nobility." The cavaller barrister Josep de Amigant argued the same point in 1670. Citing the works of eminent local jurists like Fontanella, Bosch, and Acaci Ripoll, he proclaimed that "in Catalonia there are few distinctions separating nobles from gentlemen." (2)
The principal cause, however, of this successful integration [87] was the equally strong bargaining positions of the two contending sides. The unified ruling class of early modern Barcelona issued from a pact between the citizen oligarchy and the established aristocracy, each covetous of the resources monopolized by the other. Aristocrats increasingly hard-pressed by inflation and stagnant seigneurial income envied the honored citizens' control over local politics and government office. Conversely, urban oligarchs eager to obtain recognition of their claims to gentle rank realized that only the nobles could guarantee their acceptance as aristocrats. Admission of first gentlemen and later nobles to the municipal government of Barcelona and other Catalan cities found reciprocation in the acceptance of citizens as integral members of the second estate. The equal exchange between power and status found strikingly overt expression in the case of Barcelona and the neighboring town of Perpignan.
Ferdinand's restructuring of the Barcelona civic regime cleared the way for the social pact uniting the new ruling class. As we have seen, in 1498 he ordered the urban gentry admitted to citizen offices in the municipal government. He subsequently elevated honored citizens to noble status in 1510, thus "cementing," in the words of Xaupí, "the union of two rival groups of nobles. " (3) Citizens and cavallers soon formed a compact bloc of privilege against outside pressure. In 1547, for example, they stood firmly united in opposition to a proposal by the merchant and guild magistrates to add a sixth, permanent menestral Councillor. (4) Yet this condominium of power did not of itself achieve the full integration of citizens and nobles. The upper ranks of the aristocracy continued to be barred from posts in local administration: [88] hence the second estate's protest during the parliamentary session of 1599 against the ongoing exclusion of nobles from the governments of Barcelona and other cities--an exclusion Catalan aristocrats found especially irritating, given their liability to municipal taxation. The Noble Estate thus accompanied its petition with a veiled threat to refuse to pay civic assessments if its members were not admitted to local office. (5)
The aristocrats did not fulfill their ambitions until 1621. Following a brief flurry of opposition, they were accorded four places on the Council of the Hundred and inclusion in scrutinies for the leading Councillorships. The debate surrounding this reform affords an interesting glimpse into the relations between different strata of the urban elite. The episode began on January 25 with a joint proposal by the royal governor, D. Bernardino de Marimon, and the Noble Estate in parliament to allow aristocrats proper entry into the city government. Their petition argued that "in Catalonia militars and nobles are members of the same estate"--an eloquent testimony to the cohesion binding the different ranks of the upper class. (6) However, "unrest and dissension" on the part of unidentified members spurred the Council to appoint a committee of sixteen to discuss the proposal. Shortly thereafter several gentlemen serving on the Council presented a brief opposing the nobles' pretensions. The document expressed fear that the nobles, because of their overweening "arrogance, wealth, and ambition," would be unable to function effectively in a government which included commoners and even guildsmen. (7) On March 16 an indignant aristocratic Estate replied to this paper. It accused the latter's authors of inventing spurious objections in order to mask the fact that their opposition was motivated solely by the fear of losing their own places on the [89] Council to the newly admitted nobles. Thereafter, a small group of honored citizens submitted another brief. Defending their opposition to the aristocrats' entry, they argued that the new competition would cause many gaudint professionals to lose their positions. Nevertheless, on June 6 the ad hoc committee joined the city's legal staff in recommending the aristocrats' admission, provided that gentry representation within the noble category could be protected.
Three features in particular emerge from the discussions surrounding the reform. Foremost was the striking absence of opposition to the nobles' project on ideological grounds. The content of both the gentry and citizen briefs, as well as the accompanying pamphlet by the militar barrister Francesch Soler, bore out the Estate's contention that the protest was not grounded in ideological incompatibility with the upper ranks of the aristocracy. Rather, it drew upon the dominant group's fear of increased competition for the limited number of posts within the civic administration. That the underlying conflict was basically one of "ins" versus "outs" is suggested by another characteristic of the dispute--leadership of the reform party by new nobles seeking to recover posts recently lost through their passing from gentry to full aristocratic rank. Pujades identified the prime movers of the measure as "some youthful spirits and new nobles, such as D. Bernardino de Marimon, who until recently were content to be honored citizens." (8) His account depicted the two parties in the dispute as "factions" (bàndols], and attributed the enmity between them to personal rivalries and questions of punctilio. Finally, the Noble Estate's firm support of the reform clearly contributed to the ultimate success of the measure. The stance of this aristocratic institution--which, as we shall see, numbered honored citizens among its members--provides additional evidence for the absence of principled opposition to the new legislation on the part of the urban elite.
The reform of the municipal government of Perpignan from [90] 1599 to 1602 offers an even more explicit instance of the direct exchange of political power for social acceptance. (9) The fusion of the town's honored burgess oligarchy and aristocratic residents had in fact commenced some twenty-five years earlier. The urban gentry won access to municipal posts in 1572, thus reshaping the mà major--literally the "upper hand" in charge of the leading offices in local administration. In the following year, the noble confraternity of St. George, founded in 1562 in imitation of a similar brotherhood in Barcelona, obligingly began to admit honored burgesses as members. However, Philip II nullified these acts in 1580, and the town government reverted to the status quo ante. The next change came after the parliamentary session of 1599, when the new king, Philip III, conferred upon the burgesses all the privileges of nobility enjoyed by honored citizens of Barcelona. While this measure entitled burgesses to automatic membership in the confraternity of St. George, it did not resolve the problem of gentry participation in local government. The crown therefore issued a supplementary edict stipulating that the cavaller privileges of the burgesses did not prevent their occupying posts in the Perpignan administration. This measure cleared the way for the reinstatement of the original compromise of 1572-1573. The final decree of 1601 permitted the insaculation of both gentry and nobles in the mà major, in exchange for the permanent admission of burgesses to the noble confraternity.
The examples of Barcelona and Perpignan illustrate the extent to which, in the historian Antoni Capmany's words, the "privileges and supreme power of municipal government" equipped [91] the citizen oligarchy with a strong counter in negotiating its status with the traditional aristocracy. (10) In both cases the linkage between shared political power and the acceptance of citizens as nobles was evident to all concerned. Thus by the late 16205 one finds Bosch warmly commendind the "perfect brotherhood" uniting civic "patricians" and the "equestrian order." (11)Yet the fusion of the two strata into a single "class of power" dominating urban government did not by any means represent the sole embodiment of their new-found solidarity. Various formal and informal reminders pointed to growing cohesion within the second estate. Foremost among the institutional expressions of this new class identity was the Bras Militar, or Noble Estate of the Catalan parliament.
The Bras Militar first emerged as the permanent commission of lesser nobles in parliament. (12) In 1389 King John I empowered the Estate to draw up statutes to govern its meetings when parliament was not in session. Although its initial organization deliberately excluded barons, peers, and aristocrats proper, in 1481 Ferdinand joined the upper nobility to the body. There is little evidence of activity on the part of the Estate until the campaign for its reorganization launched at the beginning of the seventeenth century by a handful of Barcelona nobles under the leadership of D. Aleix de Alentorn. At its first meeting in 1602, the group appointed a committee of twelve to draft new statutes for its internal governance. The nobles' purpose in reviving the long-dormant institution was to assure the "preservation of the prerogatives, immunities, and privileges" specified in the original decree of 1389. (13)
At least two developments contributed to the reemergence of the Bras as a separate political organization at this moment. First, [92] one should note the influence of the aristocracy's prolonged dispute with the vice-regal government concerning a 1599 law forbidding nobles to bear firearms. This conflict encouraged the upper class to close ranks in a single, permanent "guild" whose principal task was to guard against similar encroachments upon aristocratic privilege. (14) The other issue concerned the shift within the aristocracy from the country to the city. The clear predominance of the urban nobility within the Bras reflected the desire of Barcelona's aristocrats to see their greater political activism rewarded by a like predominance within the two leading Catalan political institutions: parliament and the Generalitat. The reactivation of the Bras in the opening years of the seventeenth century not only represented a victory for those urging a permanent, more effective defense of noble privilege. It also confirmed the dominant voice of Barcelonans within the Catalan aristocracy as a whole.
One of the first acts of the newly founded corporation was to institute a matrícula, or formal membership list, along the lines of those already established for merchants, jurists, and honored citizens. (15) No one was to be inscribed in the register without the prior approval of at least three of the Estate's five elected officers. Membership in the Bras was construed as an official recognition of nobility; similarly, failure to obtain admission signified lack of aristocratic status. The initial functions of the body were thus twofold: to defend class privileges increasingly threatened by the central government, and to establish objective means of defining and thus controlling admission to the nobility. Active recourse to these instruments assured Barcelona's nobles an overwhelming predominance within the estate as a whole.
The subsequent history of the Bras and of its considerable involvement in local politics during the 1620's and 1630's need not concern us here. More relevant to the coalescence of ruling-class identity was the extent to which honored citizens won acceptance within this body. Citizen integration into the most prominent institution of the Catalan aristocracy can be examined from two perspectives. The first concerns their direct participation in the ongoing activities of the Estate, while the second involves the Bras's defense of citizens against challenges to their noble status.
A sample of attendance at assemblies of the Estate reveals substantial
citizen participation throughout the seventeenth century (Table IV-1).
Records of eleven meetings from 1624 to 1704 show that roughly one-fourth
(23 percent) of those present were honored citizens. This proportion compares
with a slightly higher average number of gentlemen (27 percent), and the
striking [94] predominance of the aristocracy proper with its 50
percent. (16) The table also reveals a
shift in the balance between ciutadans de matrícula and those
by royal creation. The gradual rise in importance of the latter closely
resembles the changing representation of the two groups in municipal Councillorships
during the same years. Yet the integration of the civic oligarchy into
the Bras was not limited to the numerous citizens in attendance.
While the aristocracy proper at no point ceased to dominate the Estate,
it is also true that citizens exercised the same voting rights as gentlemen
and nobles. The persistence of a clear internal hierarchy within
the Estate did not detract from the equality of rights enjoyed by citizen
members. To the contrary, the placing of citizens on a par with the highest
levels of the aristocracy bears eloquent testimony to their public recognition
as members of the nobility.
Table IV-1 Attendance at Meetings of the Noble Estate: A Sample
| Date | Honored citizens
% Matriculants |
Royal privilege | Gentry
% |
Nobles
% |
Total | ||||
| 1624 | 2 | (7) | 2 | 0 | 15 | (50) | 13 | (43) | 30 |
| 1629 | 2 | (7) | 2 | o | 7 | (26) | 18 | (67) | 27 |
| 1631 | !3 | (16) | 9 | 4 | 28 | (35) | 39 | (49) | 80 |
| 1637 | 9 | (23) | 8 | 1 | 12 | (30 | 18 | (46) | 39 |
| 1639 | 13 | (23) | 10 | 3 | 15 | (27) | 28 | (50) | 56 |
| 1660 | 23 | (28) | IO | 13 | 30 | (36) | 30 | (36) | 83 |
| 1672 | 1 1 | (35) | 4 | 7 | 4 | (13) | 16 | (52) | 31 |
| 1686 | 15 | (i5) | 7 | 8 | 20 | (20) | 65 | (65) | 100 |
| 1693 | !3 | (36) | 8 | 5 | 8 | (22) | 15 | (42) | 36 |
| 1699 | 20 | (32) | 7 | 13 | 9 | (15) | 33 | (53) | 62 |
| 1704 | 20 | (33) | 6 | 14 | 13 | (21) | 28 | (46) | 61 |
| TOTALS | 141 | (23) | 73 | 68 | 161 | (27) | 303 | (50) | 605 |
The Estate's unhesitating defense of the citizens' noble privileges completed their absorption into the urban elite. The campaign undertaken by the Bras during the late 1670s and 1680s to protect its members against attacks on their rights (especially exemption from taxation) by municipal and royal officials provided ample opportunities to come to the citizens' aid. Thus in 1677 the Bras agreed to subsidize the legal expenses of two honored citizens of Barcelona by royal creation who sought protection against town governments attempting to billet troops on their property in violation of Catalan constitutional practice. Equally illustrative of this solidarity was the Estate's decision in 1685 to support the cause of another citizen by royal privilege, whom a royal official had arrested without due regard for his immunity as a noble. These and other examples document the [95] extent to which citizens had won acceptance by local aristocrats as full members of the Catalan nobility. (17)
Another mechanism for the integration of honored citizens into the elite was the confraternity of St. George. Unlike the Bras Militar, this association was strictly ceremonial in character. As such it proved an equally if not more visible feature of urban life. King Peter IV founded the brotherhood in 1371 and charged it with regulating jousts and other aristocratic ceremonies. From its inception the association numbered among its members such leading noble families as the Sentmenat, Montcada, Rocabertí, and Erill. While the Diputat Militar served as the Prior of the confraternity, and its membership soon overlapped with that of the Bras, the two groups retained their individual autonomy throughout the sixteenth century. However, in 1610 the confraternity issued an ordinance forbidding election to its offices of any member not previously registered in the matrícula of the Estate. (18) While there is ample evidence of jousting in the Born, or market square near the Carrer de Monteada, during the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, the confraternity itself appears to have been inactive during this period. In the 1550s a campaign began to restore the association, on the grounds that the "decline" in the martial spirit of the Catalan aristocracy could be arrested only by renewed devotion to the display of arms in jousts and tourneys. Local nobles drew up new ordinances in 1565 and 1573. They once again commended the brotherhood to the protection of St. George, patron both of Aragon-Catalonia and of the most fervent sponsor of the association, the Generalitat. (19)
Honored citizens actively participated in the confraternity from the beginning of its revival in the mid-sixteenth century. The membership register created in 1565 included a number of citizens--a point of no small import, as this list served as the roll-book of the Catalan nobility prior to the inauguration of the matrícula of the Noble Estate in 1604. (20) While the upper ranks of the aristocracy--particularly the titled noble families--dominated its proceedings, the list of prizes awarded at the annual jousts bears witness to the citizens' enthusiasm for chivalric sports. Honored citizens garnered 41 of a total of 429 prizes conferred from 1556 to 1640, including 5 awards for the "most gallant" horsemen and 7 for the most interesting emblem (millor invenció). (21) Citizen participation in this body's activities not only lent visible expression to their acceptance by the traditional aristocracy. It also schooled them in the values of the higher nobility, and encouraged assimilation of distinctively aristocratic modes of comportment.
The admission of citizens to other institutions reserved to members of the nobility provides additional evidence for the public recognition of their aristocratic status. That citizenship was deemed sufficient proof for entry into the military orders of Santiago, Montesa, and St. John of Jerusalem lent weight to arguments for their nobilitas. Similarly, acceptance of sons and daughters of citizens by exclusively aristocratic monasteries and convents such as the local houses of the Benedictine order reinforced their claim to full noble standing. (22) However, proof of the citizens' nobility was not confined to strictly institutional settings. Numerous informal indicators underscored the new-found cohesion of the city's burgeoning upper class. Contemporary [97] census records, for example, confirmed the privileged standing of honored citizens. The royal officials who drew up the list of nobles residing in Barcelona in 1639 did not fail to include members of the oligarchy. Citizens also figured prominently in a 1649 registry of nobles living in the quarter of Santa Maria del Pi. (23)
Ample evidence documents the citizens' absorption of various features of aristocratic comportment. These ranged from forms of honorific address and the bearing of arms, to more general patterns of conspicuous consumption and display, public dress, and precedence in municipal ceremonies. A revealing embodiment of these shared norms of behavior is found in a published description of an aristocratic fête of 1637. (24) The pamphlet's author was one Miquel Cervera i de Armengol, the son of an upwardly mobile citizen and a noble mother. (25) The poem's central leitmotiv is the constant intertwining of the two ranks. D. Ramon de Saiba i de Cardona, a descendant of two of the leading Catalan aristocratic houses, penned a laudatory preface to the work. The text itself heaped fulsome praise upon citizens riding at the side of nobles in the colorful jousts. Hosting the spectacle was D. Pere Reguer, a shining exemplar of the country gentleman who had abandoned his rural estate for life in the city. Interestingly, Reguer's palace in the Plaça de Sta. Ana stood next door to that of D. Lluís de Paguera, one of the most famous Catalan jurisconsults and the first of many nobles to serve in the Audiencia.
One could pursue these inner connections endlessly. The [98] sociability
born of a shared style of life, both everyday and festive, was a significant
informal source of ruling-class cohesion. Yet it was not the only one.
The marriage strategies of citizen families also served as mechanisms of
entry into the local aristocracy. (26)
Of the 27 citizens appearing as grooms in the marriage contracts studied
above, 7 married daughters of nobles (3) or gentlemen (4). Fourteen,
or slightly more than one-half, married into the families of other citizens
(5), or of gaudints (9). In contrast, only 6 married beneath their
rank, to daughters of merchants (3), wealthy artistes (2), and a menestral.
Of the 34 daughters of citizens included in this sample, over one-third
married gentlemen (9) or aristocrats proper (4). A plurality of 16 wed
honored citizens (8) or gaudints (8). Only 5 married commoners,
including 4 merchants and a menestral.
Certain restrictions did of course limit the full integration of citizens into the established nobility. Most irksome was their exclusion from the Noble Estate when parliament was in session, and from the posts reserved to aristocrats in the Generalitat. Although the privilege of 1510 specified that these exclusions did not prejudice the citizens' juridical status as nobles, the two reservations nevertheless proved a source of embarrassment. Similarly, other, less institutional means also limited their absorption into the aristocracy. In 1604, the Duke of Sessa was quite content to watch the annual ceramics fair in the Born from the balcony of the honored citizen Rafel Cervera, father of the author of the 1637 fete pamphlet. However, some twenty years later his close relative the Duke of Cardona did not know the first name of 14 of the 25 citizens invited to his daughter's wedding. Furthermore, while members of the citizen oligarchy were allowed [99] to take part in the lavish masquerades organized by the Duke to entertain the visiting monarchs in 1632, only 3 of the 44 upper-class participants in the masques and mock battles were honored citizens. (27)
The consolidation of a unified ruling class in early modern Barcelona did not take place entirely without friction. The rising tensions during the late seventeenth century between public students and private pupils of the local Jesuit school may well have originated in the traditional rivalry between the Society and the Dominicans in charge of the University. Demographic factors may also have entered into play, as both institutions eagerly competed for students in the years following the plague of 1651-1652. Yet the diverse class origins of the two student bodies doubtless contributed to the quarrel. The University served as the leading vehicle for the upwardly mobile gaudints, whose presence in the municipal government was on the rise. The Jesuit collegium, to be sure, also numbered students of gaudint background among its pupils. Yet it functioned primarily as an instrument for the socialization of those already fully integrated into the elite. Achieved status thus confronted aspiration in the guise of student riots. On the surface, this hardly appeared a serious problem. Underneath, it suggests the presence of deep tensions in local society.
The limits to the full absorption of the civic oligarchy into the aristocracy confirm the persistence of a well-defined hierarchy within the noble estate. Conferral upon honored citizens of aristocratic privileges; enjoyment of personal nobility by doctors in law and medicine; equal representation of all ranks within the Estate's public institutions; association of citizens and aristocrats in less formal venues--all were accepted characteristics of Barcelonan society. That the willingness of the traditional nobility to share its prerogatives and privileges with the civic elite [100] did not erase certain other social distinctions should come as no surprise. (28) Our overriding emphasis, however, has been on those elements of authority--power, wealth, and prestige--which all members of the ruling class shared in common.
Traditional interpretations of early modern society have insisted upon
the crucial importance of conflict between "new" and "old" elites.
(29) Other studies have challenged this view by focusing instead
upon the successful recomposition of governing classes throughout Europe
during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In the case of early modern
France, many scholars now question the true extent of friction between
"robe" and "sword" nobilities, and place renewed emphasis on the interests
and identity binding the two strata together. (30)
As should be apparent, changes in the economic, social, and political structures
of early modern Barcelona bear closer resemblance to the latter interpretation.
I have tried to isolate the specific causes underlaying this crucial development
in the history of the Catalan ruling class. Still, one more point remains
to be made. The successful admixture of upwardly mobile citizens and gaudints
with the traditional aristocracy was fundamentally a product of an urban
setting. It was surely no accident that new and old experienced fullest
integration in the two institutions most closely identified with the city,
the Bras Militar and the confraternity of St. George. Conversely,
the institutions dominated by the rural aristocracy--parliament and its
inter-term representative, the Generalitat--were the only ones to
challenge the citizens' full exercise of noble privilege. The new, cohesive
upper class born of [101] the fusion of the citizen oligarchy and
feudal aristocracy thrived best amid the more expansive atmosphere of the
city. (31) The multiple forms of power
and, above all, the shared identity of the ruling class were overwhelmingly
urban in character. Outside the city walls lay a far less secure world--one
that challenged its proud certainties, and called into question its authority.
2. Ibid., 60; Amigant, Discurso, 3 and 7. 86
4. Cartas del Emperador Carlos V, 182.
5. Constitutions, 63. In 1626 the Noble Estate once again referred to its members' tax burdens while seeking the admission of nobles to town governments throughout the rest of Catalonia; A.H.M.B./Consell de Cent, XVI, Corts, vol. 82, no. 73.
6. A.H.M.B./Consell de Cent, II, Deliberations, vol. 130.
7. One of the members of this group--the barrister Francesch Soler--published a separate pamphlet opposing the nobles' project; see Soler, Discurs.
8. Pujades, Dietari, III, 25-26. The first Council to seat nobles included Marimon among the handful of aristocratic representatives; Dietari, X, 7 Dec. 1621.
9. Elliott, Revolt, 125-126; Torras Ribé, Municipis Catalans, 84-86; Palacio, "Contribución," 667-671; Bosch, Títols, 383-408; Xaupí, Recherches, 122-260. The royal writ of 1599 is in A.C.A./Can., reg. 4885, 248r-273r
10. Capmany, Memorias Históricas, I, 447.
12. Constitutions, 53-55; Salvador, "Real Cuerpo"; Vilaplana, Tractatus de Brachio Militari.
13. Ordinations y Statuts del Bras Militar.
15. The statutes and subsequent minutes of the Estate repeatedly employed the corporate idiom so characteristic a feature of early modern civic discourse. Hence the constant references to the Bras as a guild (gremi) or corporation (col.legi). The matrícula of the Estate--the famous Llibre Verd, or "Green Book"--is located in A.C.A./Gen., 6-225. The Estate's Dietari can be found in A.C.A./Gen., G-68 and G-69 (seven volumes).
16. There were approximately four hundred meetings of the plenary assembly of the Estate during these years. The original commission set up in 1602 to draft the Bras statutes included five ciutadans de matrícula, along with three gentlemen and four nobles: Ordinations, introduction.
17. A.C.A./Gen., G-69, III, 5 April 1677 and 12 Nov. 1685.
18. Salvador, "Real Cuerpo"; Xaupí, Recherches, 489.
19. Duran, "L'Estament Militar: Els Cavallers i la Cavalleria," in his Barcelona i la Seva Història, III, 171-259. For aristocratic confraternities elsewhere in Spain, see: Domínguez Ortiz, Clases Privilegiadas, 46-48; Ocerín, "Cofradías Nobles"; and Liehr, Sozialgeschichte Spanischer Adelskorpörationen, I.
20. A.H.M.B./Ms. B-64 covers the years 1565-1586; registers for 1596-1701 are found in A.C.A./Gen., 6-75. The matricules of local confraternities of St. George also served as roll books of nobles in Girona, Perpignan, and Tortosa. See, for example, Montoto, "Cofradía de San Jorge."
21. Duran, "Estament Militar," 223-235.
22. Xaupí, Recherches, 299-332; Pujades, Dietari, I, 366; Domínguez Ortiz, Clases Privilegiadas, 322.
23. A.C.A./Gen., caixa 26, varis; A.H.M.B./Fogatges XIX-20. Nobles and citizens also served together as captains in the Barcelona civic militia (see for example the list of cavallers y Ciutedans heading the levy of 1542 in the Dietari, IV, 110-116). This and other aspects of local military organization in early modern Catalonia merit further study
24. Cervera i de Armengol, A la Grave Ostentación, Al Admirable Recreo, que a lo Festivo del Tiempo Dedicó la Grandeza . . . (1637), in B.N./V.E. 0-538-14.
25. His father was Rafel Cervera, author of a 1616 Castilian translation of the famed medieval chronicle of Bernat Desclot.
26. For a discussion of the marriage patterns of the early modern Parisian elite, see Diefendorf, Paris City Councillors, III-IV.
27. Pujades, Dietari, I, 336; B.C./Ms. 979, 208r.-217r., Memoria de Todas las Casas de Caballeros que ay en Barcelona hecha con Ocasión de Dar Parte del Casamiento de la Hija del Duque de Cardona, undated; Parets, "Sucesos," vol. 20, 84-85.
28. The concept of mesalliance also defined the accepted relations between different ranks within the noble estate. As usual, Pujades' diary is an excellent source for this sort of scandal.
29. Mousnier, Institutions of France, 202-210; Hamscher, Parlement of Paris, Chapters 1-2; Coveney, France in Crisis, 16-20; Morrill, "French Absolutism," 969-971; Salmon, "Storm over the Noblesse."
30. Alatri, "Formazione della Élite"; Dewald, Formation of a Provincial Nobility; Diefendorf, Paris City Councillors, xxv. See also Berengo, Nobili e Mercanti, Chapter 4; and Vasoli, Cultura delle Corti, 75.