[1] Crime and politics are no strangers. Four hundred years ago they were uneasy partners in the city of Seville. A study of this city is essential to any investigation of the politics of crime in the early modern period, for Seville was the center of Hapsburg Spain, the greatest commercial empire of the sixteenth century. It was the seat of a permanent tribunal of the Inquisition, the scene of several demographic crises, and the site of the Casa de Contratación, a royal agency that administered trade and politics in the New World. With unique ties to the central monarchy, the fortunes of the city rose and fell with those of the Hapsburg rulers. Seville reveals in microcosm the relationship between city oligarchy and central monarchy and the tensions between political authority and those who defy it.

In 1503 the Crown of Castile decreed that all ships sailing between Europe and the New World should pass through Seville. This river port that became the capital of the Spanish commercial empire quickly developed into "the Great Babylon of Spain," as famous for crime as for trade. ⁽¹⁾ New people and wealth poured into the city: merchants, bankers, shippers, soldiers, but also beggars, prostitutes, thugs, and thieves. Here thrived a subculture [2] of street people, the "people of low life" who were usually identified with crime.

Crime at this time was defined by a ruling alliance of the Crown, aristocracy, and Church. Royal ordinances regulated many local activities, from selling food to carrying weapons. Through the city government, aristocrats decided who should be allowed to beg and how prostitution could be legally practiced. The Church censored public performances and preached a morality that condemned adultery, homosexuality, and abortion. Officials who enforced the laws and punished offenders were named by the Crown, aristocracy, or Inquisition.

Diversities within the ruling alliance compounded the problems of defining crime. Until the reign of Isabella and Ferdinand (1474-1516), the local aristocracy often split into "rivalries and antagonisms of powerful men, assisted by their friends and families" in "scandalous and bloody skirmishes." ⁽²⁾ To counteract these rivalries, Ferdinand and Isabella imposed the Santa Hermandad, an agency to enforce royal justice against the aristocracy. They also exploited these rivalries to justify increasing the power of the asistente, a Crown-appointed noble from outside Seville who directed the city's government. Throughout the early modern period, the Crown of Castile followed the practice of appointing outsiders as magistrates and heads of city governments. Directed to carry out royal policies on crime and order, these officers sometimes clashed with local traditions. Royal and city officials were best able to overcome their differences by uniting against a common enemy, such as people suspected of crime.

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Kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula. Prepared by Noël Diaz, Staff Cartographer, U.C.L.A.

By the mid-sixteenth century the Inquisition was as concerned with Protestant heretics as with false converts. One "furious crazy woman" in 1555 betrayed to the Inquisition in Seville more than three-hundred citizens suspected of Protestant heresies. ⁽⁴⁾ A secret Protestant sect was discovered in Seville, its members hiding in the Monastery of San Isidro and in the Convent of Santa Paula. Inquisition agents found copies of the New Testament printed in the Castillian language hidden in the home of Juan Ponce de León, son of the Count of Bailén. Constantino, a canon of the Cathedral in Seville, preached against the heresies of the Jesuits, but the Inquisition arrested him for Lutheran heresies. Although he died in prison, his bones were burned in 1560 by order of the Inquisition. According to one report, the prisons of the Inquisition processed more than 800 people during the prosecution of Protestant heretics in Seville from 1559 to 1560. ⁽⁵⁾ Later the Inquisition concentrated on prosecuting Alumbrados, [5] members of a religious sect that believed people could attain a mystical union with God without priestly intercession. Deviance was narrowly defined in this city, which had a strong institution for enforcing orthodoxy.

Religious orthodoxy was a bulwark of political authority as well as an article of faith. The Inquisition was theoretically independent of the Church and could even check the power of bishops. Ferdinand and Isabella had won for themselves and their successors the right to name Inquisitors, and they established a single Supreme Council of the Inquisition over both kingdoms of Castile and Aragon. The monarchy used the Inquisition as an agency to identify and prosecute deviance that would not be tolerated. In repressing heretics and false Christians, the Inquisition served to unify the diversity of the Iberian Peninsula into a social order favored by the Crown.

Demographic crises in Seville exposed power relations that remained invisible during periods of stability. The city's population more than doubled between 1520 and 1580, bringing it to at least ninety thousand. Seville was the largest city in Europe after Naples, Venice, and Paris. In the seventeenth century, population fell in the city as it did throughout most of the Iberian Peninsula. Emigration and military service contributed to the decline, as did seven major epidemics that struck Seville between 1520 and 1649. For this same period, nine famines or poor harvests were reported. ⁽⁶⁾ Bread riots in 1521 and 1652 became [6] political rebellions. A comparison of these two rebellions shows a marked change in the positions of Church, aristocracy, and monarchy. It also shows that criminals and misfits helped to preserve the existing order during the crises, propping it up even as they tried to exploit it.

Strategic geographic location intensified the Crown's interest in Seville. The city was close to Granada and the Alpujarras, a mountainous region on the slopes of the Sierra Nevada, where Moriscos rebelled against the Crown in 1499 and 1569. Seville was also near the southern coast that was repeatedly attacked by English marauders in the late sixteenth century. It was the largest city close to the Portuguese border. From the time that Philip II claimed the throne of Portugal in the 1580's, the Portuguese were rebellious subjects, finally overthrowing their Spanish masters some sixty years later. Seville served the Crown as a base for operations as it tried to retain its rule over restless Portuguese and Morisco subjects, and to defend its coastline against the English.

The rise and decline of Seville parallels that of the Hapsburg monarchy. The city began to grow in population and wealth as Charles I(1520-1556) inherited the lands of the Hapsburgs from his father, Philip of Burgundy, and the dual crowns of Aragon and Castile from his mother, Juana, who was the heir of Ferdinand and Isabella. Charles successfully put down the Comunero revolts that broke out against him in several cities of Castile in 1520 and 1521. He also won election as Holy Roman Emperor and became Charles V. When Protestant princes rebelled in central Europe, he used the silver shipments that came to Seville from the New World as collateral for loans to finance his armies.

Philip II (1556-1598) inherited only part of the Hapsburg empire when his father abdicated in 1556. Charles V split the empire between his brother, Ferdinand, and his son, Philip II. [7] As monarch of Spain, parts of Italy, the Netherlands, and the Atlantic empire, Philip II was able to assert Spain's position as a world power. He borrowed on the increasing silver shipments from the New World to carry out military campaigns against the rebellious Low Countries. Seville, continuing to grow in wealth and population, was able to raise the taxes and soldiers that he requested repeatedly. The Price Revolution, resulting from population growth and the increased amount of precious metals in circulation, raised prices in Seville before it affected other parts of Europe. It gave the appearance of growing prosperity. ⁽⁷⁾

By the beginning of the seventeenth century, both Seville and the Hapsburg monarchy were in decline. Philip III (1598-1621) sent a letter to the city government in 1599 complaining that city officials "and other powerful and influential people" were using city income for illegal loans, amounting to more than 400,000 ducats. ⁽⁸⁾ The "poor administration" that Philip blamed for a loss of city income also meant a loss for the royal treasury. By 1607 this problem had become so acute that the royal government had to declare another bankruptcy. Attempts to reduce royal debts through increased taxation and monetary devaluation added to the economic misery in Seville, where wages could not keep up with the increased prices of the Price Revolution.

Misfortunes continued for Seville and the Hapsburg monarchy during the reign of Philip IV (1621-1665). Merchants of the city protested to the king in 1635 that losses by the fleet to the New World combined with extractions by the royal treasury had brought the commerce of the city to a "deplorable state." ⁽⁹⁾ When the Crown requested more money from Seville in May of 1637, a member of the city council replied that the king should be told of the depopulation of the city "and the great number of citizens, who for the past six years, have gone to live in foreign [8] kingdoms, and others have gone to the Indies." He implied that these people had left Spain in order to escape royal taxes, and he declared that "today the necessity and discomfort of this Republic and places of its kingdom are at a state in which one feels powerless to continue meeting the desires that with such love it has served and serves its king and natural lord." ⁽¹⁰⁾ The Crown's response was to request more soldiers and money to put down rebellions in Portugal and Catalonia, for the empire was slipping away. The peace settlement that ended the long revolt of the Low Countries in 1648 established an independent Netherlands, and Portuguese troops defeated the Spanish at Villaviciosa in June of 1665, only months before the death of Philip IV.

The commercial empire that had supported both the Hapsburg monarchy and the city of Seville was dissolving by the end of the seventeenth century. The last of the Hapsburg monarchs, Carlos II (1675-1700), was a child at the time of his father's death, but even as an adult he was unable to reconstruct a crumbling empire. He was a man so weak that he could neither feed himself nor produce an heir for the throne. Seville had retired into quiet oblivion. The value of shipments from New Spain had fallen to less than 5 percent of its high point in 1595. ⁽¹¹⁾ Cadiz had gradually replaced Seville as the official port for trade with the New World. No longer did ships arrive in Seville laden with silver from the mines of Mexico and Peru. No longer did people flock to Seville, filling its streets with the colors and babbles of Babylon.
 

Many scholars have underestimated the importance of criminals in history. George Rude, a distinguished historian of social protest, dismissed them as a "submerged group of poor" who played "little or no part in political protest movements (except possibly in food riots)." Since very little is known about this group, he advised against speculation and concluded it was best "to leave them out of further consideration." ⁽¹²⁾

[9] Evidence about criminals is limited but available. Since underworld people seldom left written records, historians must look to other sources. Documents of the city government tell of concerns about lawlessness, the Royal Prison, and abandoned children. They also include ordinances on prostitution and lists of people who were licensed to beg. Chronicles describe charity, notable festivals, public executions, epidemics, bread riots, and autos de fé, ceremonies during which the Inquisition penanced its victims. Memoirs of prison chaplains and lawyers relate details about the Royal Prison and its inmates, while literature reveals attitudes about underworld people. Romances germanescas, traditional ballads that were passed on orally by vagabonds and street people, provide a basis for understanding their vocabulary and concerns. A detailed survey of the poor people of the city, which was made in 1667, explains how they lived and how they were identified. Paintings of the period suggest nuances in the relationship between rich and poor, weak and powerful. ⁽¹³⁾

This evidence reveals an underworld that was far more than a colorful fringe group. It shows that they participated in the commerce and military life of the city. It describes them as spectators and actors in the rituals of justice and popular entertainments. It suggests a complex relationship with the Church and shows how their presence affected the city's system of charity. It shows that the areas in which criminals and other citizens interacted were community activities that became vehicles for expanding the power of the Crown and city oligarchy.

The evidence reveals a paradoxical relationship between the underworld and political authority. On the one hand, they were antagonists. Underworld people challenged political authority, and government officials resolved to punish their defiance. On the other hand, they were partners. The underworld helped to legitimize the extension of political power. In misfits, prostitutes, criminals, and outcasts, political authority found a rationale for imposing more control on the diversity and violence tolerated in the city. The underworld was a visible symbol of [10] the opposite of respectability. It was a foil against which the rest of the community identified itself.

The political significance of the underworld directly affected the outcome of social protest movements. The underworld resisted political authority and sometimes defended local traditions against attempts to change them by imposing laws. Although they lacked a clearly stated political program, underworld people were not apolitical; their defiant gesture of thumbing the nose was as much a protest as passing out handbills. Criminals cannot be ignored simply because they do not fit into the usual categories of collective action. Their characteristic and unusual protest suggests another dimension in political power, and it raises another paradox: though underworld people added the strength of numbers to protest movements, they brought with them a fatal weakness. An underworld presence discredited protest movements and helped to consolidate opposition to them. Even as they defied political authority, the poor and the criminals helped to support it.

The following chapters, arranged chronologically, are organized around topics. They begin with a description of city fathers and a criminal subculture in the early sixteenth century. Commercial expansion quickly followed the opening of trade with the New World in 1503, and the next chapter describes the interaction of crime and respectability in commerce. Royal reforms in the 1550's affected both the city's system of justice and the Royal Prison, which are the subjects of Chapters 3 and 4. Because military urgencies became more frequent after 1580, the fifth chapter is concerned with the military and the underworld. By the end of the sixteenth century, the Protestant Reformation and the Counter Reformation had affected both the Church and popular entertainments, which are considered in Chapters 6 and 7. The seventeenth-century economic decline and depopulation of Seville are particularly evident in the city's system of charity and in the lives of the women and children of the streets, and the following three chapters discuss these topics. The last chapter describes epidemics and famines, since the relationship of city government and the underworld must be examined in times of [11] disaster as well as in more peaceful periods. A comparison of two bread riots that became political rebellions in 1521 and 1652 shows that even though the city had changed, the criminal subculture still worked to conserve the political order. City government and street people survived together, mutually distrustful but mutually dependent.

1. Luís de Góngora, quoted in Francisco Rodriguez Mann, Miscelánea de Andalucía (Madrid, 1927), p. 11. The text in Spanish is: "Fénix del orbe,/que debajo de sus alas/tantos hoy lemos rocoge;/Gran Babilonia de España,/mapa de todas naciones,/donde el flamenco a su Gante,/y el inglés halla a su Londres;/escala del Nuevo Mundo,/cuyos ricos escalones,/ enladrillados de plata,/son navios del alto borde."

2. See the royal complaint of May 25, 1466, quoted in Joaquin Guichot y Parody, Historia del excmo. ayuntamiento de la muy leal, muy heróica, é invicta ciudad de Sevilla (Sevilla, 1896), 1:371.

3. Henry Kamen, The Spanish Inquisition (New York, London, and Scarborough, Ont., 1965), pp. 44-46.

4. Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo, Historia de los heterodoxos españoles (Madrid, 1928), p. 112.

5. Ibid., pp. 97-102, 112. AMS, Efeménides, "Noticias y casos." Diego Ortiz de Zuñiga, Anales eclesiasticas y seculares de la muy noble y muy leal ciudad de Sevilla, 1677 (Madrid, 1795), 4:517.

6. Population estimates for Seville are available in Ramón Carande Thobar, Carlos V y sus banqueros; La vida económica en Castilla 1516-1556 (Madrid, 1943), pp. 38-39; Antonio Dominguez Ortiz, The Golden Age of Spain, 1516-1659 (London, 1971), pp. 134-136; Javier Ruiz Almansa, "La Población de España en el siglo XVI; Estudio sobre los recuentos de vecindario de 1594, llamados comúmente 'Censo de Tomás González," Revista Internacional de Sociología, 1 (1943), 136. Population for the Iberian Peninsula is discussed in Jorge Nadal, La Población española, siglos XVI a XX (Barcelona, 1966), pp. 37-90; and in John Elliott, Imperial Spain, 1469-1716 (New York, 1964), p. 13. Epidemics were reported for the years 1520-22, 1562-63, 1581, 1588, 1599-1600, 1626, and 1649 in Antonio Astrain, Historia de la Companía de Jesús en la asistencia de España (Madrid, 1912), 2:528-530; AMS, Efemérides, "Noticias y casos," No. 1; AMS, Siglo XVI, Sección 3, Escribanías de Cabildo, Tomo 7, Nos. 16, 17; Memorias eclesiásticas, 84-7-19; Diego Ignacio de Góngora, "Relación del contagio que padeció esta ciudad de Sevilla el año de 1649," Memorias de diferentes cosas, BC, 84-7-21. Famines and bread riots are discussed in Ortiz de Zuñiga, 4:504; AMS, Siglo XVI, Sección 3, Escribanías de Cabildo, Tomo 19, No. 19; AMS, Archivo General, Sección 1, Carpeta 27, No. 379; Memorias eclesiásticas, BC, 84-7-19; Guichot y Parody, 2:294.

7. A more complete discussion of the Price Revolution is in John Lynch, Spain under the Hapsburgs (New York, 1964), 1:124-127; and Elliott, p. 185.

8. Quoted in Guichot y Parody, 2:148-150.

9. Quoted ibid., p. 252.

10. Quoted ibid., pp. 232-235.

11. Huguette and Pierre Chaunu, Seville et l'Atlantique 1504-1650 (Paris, 1955-59), 2:464.

12. George Rude, Paris and London in the Eighteenth Century: Studies in Popular Protest (New York, 1970), p. 51.

13. For a more complete discussion of these sources, see below, pp. 262-270.