[109] In an earlier chapter reference was made to the establishment of Castile's six colegios mayores, but until now these institutions have only been considered in relation to letrado appointments. The mutual relationship which existed between the colleges and the letrado ministers has been described, and suggestions have been made about some of the possible effects of this relationship upon the royal administration. By definition, however, a mutual relationship is a reciprocal arrangement; changes in the status of one partner invariably affect the other; thus the colleges, in the face of changes within the royal administration and its criteria of appointment could not remain static. As a result the colleges followed a path far removed from that laid down by their founders.

The original constitutions of the colegios mayores obliged their students to conform to certain immutable conditions of age, education, geographical origin, poverty, and purity of blood. ⁽¹⁾In return each community, endowed with ecclesiastical rents, provided a set number of worthy but impoverished scholars with dress, food, lodgings, and expenses for a fixed length of time, enabling them to work toward the costly university degrees. In addition, most of the colegios mayores, on account of the supposed poverty of their members, obtained special privileges which allowed their scholars to graduate at reduced cost. ⁽²⁾

The aim of this program was to produce an academic elite. Only bachilleres, a group which was already a small minority within the university, were admitted. Each was elected after an open competition in which he was asked to demonstrate not only his academic skills but also his proofs of Old Christian blood, and the college he entered constituted a small, highly disciplined, almost monastic community. Inside, the way of life was designed to be wholly academic, consisting of long hours of practice and study along with daily readings and practice sessions designed to supplement the regular university curriculum. ⁽³⁾ Moreover, this routine was [110] coupled with a minimum of comfort in order to prevent extrascholastic attractions. ⁽⁴⁾The colleges also enjoyed a considerable degree of autonomy, selecting their own members and managing their financial affairs, yet they were never wholly independent of the universities of which they formed a small part. Colegiales attended university lectures, competed for university professorships, and remained subject to the jurisdiction of the university rector.

The College of San Ildefonso at the University of Alcalá de Henares stood apart from colegios mayores at Salamanca and Valladolid both in organization and design. Whereas the others formed semi-independent communities within the larger institution, Cardinal Cisneros intended this college to act as the head of the university which he created. ⁽⁵⁾The rector of the college, elected by his fellows, was automatically the rector of the university, and, together with a number of other colegiales, he administered the affairs of the entire institution. In contrast, the colegios mayores of Salamanca and Valladolid, grafted onto existing universities, constituted only a small segment of the academic community. They were subject to regulations made by the university council and in most cases colegiales were officially excluded from positions in university government.⁽⁶⁾

San Ildefonso differed also in its total dedication to the study of theology. Cisneros, concerned about the disregard for this subject among the Spanish clergy, barred jurists from his college, presumably to prepare its members for the purely spiritual needs of the church. The other five colleges admitted law students, canon and civil, as well as theologians, medical students, and others in the liberal arts; consequently, they allowed some of their members to prepare for more worldly careers.

The ultimate goals of the colegios mayores were rather vague. To a certain degree, they were simply charitable institutions intended to allow "poor" bachilleres who could not otherwise pursue advanced studies [111] to remain at university. Thus Pérez Bayer, writing in the eighteenth century, claimed that the colleges were "to help virtuous and diligent youths in their studies who, because of poverty, could not continue at the universities and the goal is that remaining at the universities and continuing their studies, the fruit of their talents will be put towards the benefit of Religion and the State." ⁽⁷⁾The colleges' founding statutes were somewhat more precise. Those of the Colegio Mayor del Arzobispo stated that its purpose was "the intellectual and moral formation of poor and ignorant clerics,"⁽⁸⁾while the original constitutions of the other colleges noted the need for "education" and "science," particularly in canon law and theology, with an eye toward raising the cultural level of the clergy. More specifically, the colleges were designed to produce trained officials; they were, after all, with the sole exception of San Bartolomé, established at the precise moment when the ruling hierarchies of Castile initiated demands for letrados with advanced degrees and, apparently, their founders had created them in order to produce just such men. This professional alignment is demonstrated in the colleges' initial bias toward the study of law and theology, the subjects leading to official appointment, instead of literature and philosophy, the subjects touted by the humanist authors of the line.

Such arrangements made certain that the colegios mayores, almost the time of their inception, were going to command special attention from those in charge of recruitment to ecclesiastical and governmental posts. In practice, the colleges quickly became schools for officialdom, and they themselves confessed that in spite of their dedication to scholarship, they had "another, and even more noble goal, which is that of the education and the political and moral training of their students for the wise management of the highest posts of the monarchy." ⁽⁹⁾ Students who entered the colleges looked forward to an office-holding career,⁽¹⁰⁾and nearly every scholar, upon completion of his university course, moved into ecclesiastical or secular post. A scholarship or beca in one of the colegios mayores was in fact tantamount to an office, with only time separating the two. The effects of this special relationship upon the nature and membership of these communities is the theme of this chapter.

[112] Colegiales and Colleges ⁽¹¹⁾

In an inquiry of this type the term college and colegial -- the Spanish is preferable to collegian -- will be used almost interchangeably. The history of the colegios mayores was in large part the history of the interrelationship between the institution and its students. To separate the two would be impossible.

Geographical Origins

The founders of the colegios mayores distributed becas on a fixed, well-balanced geographical basis. According to the original constitutions of each college, students from within the Crown of Castile were preferred, but not more than two colegiales from one diocese nor one colegial from any town were allowed in college at the same time. ⁽¹²⁾"Foreign" kingdoms such as Galicia, Asturias, Navarre, Vizcaya, Aragón, Catalonia, and Portugal were generally restricted to one student each.⁽¹³⁾Thus the colegios mayores were not to be monopolized by one specific region, but aimed at establishing an academic elite from all parts of Castile.

Once the founders had died, elections to becas passed to the colegiales, and the delicate geographical balance of each community broke down. This change was partly an attempt by the colleges to adapt to the general geographical distribution of students at their respective universities; the colleges, consequently, grew to reflect the regional biases of the institutions of which they were part. ⁽¹⁴⁾ But the breakdown in the geographical balance of these communities was also the result of the rise of regional factions or bandos among the colegiales, each of which supported candidates from their own area.⁽¹⁵⁾"Gallegos," "vizacainos," "manchegos," or some other bando struggled for mastery; the strongest were able to regulate college membership in their own favor and to manipulate the system through which the colegiales competed for university teaching positions. Luis Curiel, for instance, commented in 1714 that García de Haro y Abellaneda, later President of Castile and Count of Castrillo, lost his turn to compete for a university lectureship in the name of his Colegio Mayor de Cuenca because he belonged to a minority bando. ⁽¹⁶⁾ The problems related to the bando system within the colleges, however, are perhaps best summarized [113] in an anonymous report about Salamanca s colegios mayores in the mid-seventeenth century. It referred to "The passion of some 'nations' against others, each trying to elect persons of its own as often as possible to the offense, insult, and exclusion of the rest, and against the express intentions of their founders."⁽¹⁷⁾

Across the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the bando system distorted the geographical distribution of college places and allowed students from particular regions to dominate each community (Tables 6.1-6.4). In every college, becas became heavily weighted in favor of a few regions, often to the total exclusion of areas originally granted representation. At San Bartolomé, for example, the dioceses of Old Castile retained over one-third of all college becas after 1450, while other areas, notably León, steadily lost ground. San Bartolomé allowed this development to take place officially by passing a statute in 1534 which permitted three, rather than two, students from the same diocese to be in college at one time. ⁽¹⁸⁾ Navarre, originally classified as a "foreign" kingdom, was designated part of Castile in 1524 and allotted one college scholarship. lts representation, however, steadily increased until navarros accounted for nearly 20 per cent of the college's scholars.
 

Correspondingly, San Bartolomé, in a description not far from the truth, was noted for the following bandos: vizcainos, montañeses,and navarros. The other colleges earned their own regional reputations: Arzobispo was known to be controlled by manchegos, Cuenca by andaluces, Oviedo by campesinos although castellanos might have been more correct, Santa Cruz by riojanos, and San Ildefonso by toledanos, manchegos, and alcareños. ⁽¹⁹⁾

While each college acquired its own particular geographical coloring, the colegios mayores together favored scholars from the north of the peninsula. With the exception of San Ildefonso where New Castile enjoyed strong representation, students from Old Castile, particularly the region around Burgos and Calahorra, along with Navarre, accounted for the largest share of colegio mayor becas. This situation suggests that top letrado places in Castile, a majority of which were held by colegiales, went also to "northerners" to the detriment of graduates from other parts of the crown of Castile.

These tables also indicate the growing representation of the diocese of Toledo in the colegios mayores during the seventeenth century. This development can in large part be attributed to the increasing attraction which the colegios mayores held for the sons of ministers and noblemen [123] resident in Madrid as well as the growth of the capital as a center for wealthy letrado clans.

Age

Except for the Colegio Mayor de Santa Cruz at Valladolid, there is little exact or continuous information available about the ages of students entering the colegios mayores. By statute each college had a minimum age of [124] entrance. This varied between twenty and twenty-four.⁽²⁰⁾At Santa Cruz, for example, twenty-one was the youngest at which a student could be admitted, although, as Table 7 illustrates, the mean entrance age for students in this college stood well above the statutory minimum throughout the Habsburg era. The advanced age of the students at this and the other colegios mayores reflected the stiff entrance requirements these communities upheld; only mature scholars working at an advanced level qualified for college places, and this in turn helped to guarantee the colegios mayores an important place within their respective universities.
 

Table 7. Mean Entrance Age of Students: the Colegio Mayor de Santa Cruz (Based upon Ten-Year Averages)

Decade	Mean age (in years)
1510-19	32.0
1520-29	29.7
1530-39	29.9
1540-49	29.4
1550-59	29.3
1560-69	30.8
1570-79	30.5
1580-89	30.0
1590-99	29.6
1600-09	29.5
1610-19	29a
1620-29	28.5
1630-39	29.4
1640-49	28.6
1650-59	26.1
1660-69	26.8
1670-79	25.7
1680-89	25.5
1690-99	24.3

^aExcluding one beca awarded to an old official, aged fifty-four years, who was admitted solely for honorary reasons.

There was, however, an unmistakable drop in the age of the students admitted into Santa Cruz after the middle of the seventeenth century. This occurred less by design than as a result of a general decline in the age of university students in Castile, a situation which forced the colleges to admit younger students and to break statutes which had previously remained inviolate. ⁽²¹⁾ Yet it is also true that the youngest entrants into the colegios mayores almost invariably had close family ties with former colegiales or with influential government officials, considerations which became increasingly important for elections to college becas. The first [125] twenty-two-year-old elected to Santa Cruz, for example, was Rodrigo Vázquez, son of Martin Vázquez, a graduate of Santa Cruz serving as a member of the Royal Council of Castile.⁽²²⁾And in general it appears that age was always less of a consideration than family connections in the elections to college scholarships.

The drop in the age of entrance, however, had little effect upon the age at which students left the college. The increasing amount of time spent at university by a majority of colegiales more than compensated for their earlier start. ⁽²³⁾ Waiting their turn to compete for university lectureships, then teaching for a number of years, most students in the seventeenth century left the college between the ages of thirty-five and forty.

Family Ties

The lack of adequate genealogical records for the colegios mayores prevents any detailed analysis of their students' family backgrounds. This short section is based upon the limited biographical information supplied by the "admission books" of the various colleges and a few published sources, such as J. Roxas y Contreras, El Colegio Viejo de San Bartolomé(Madrid, 1766). ⁽²⁴⁾ The capsule biographies published in this volume have many shortcomings, since the work was itself a polemic intended to embellish the backgrounds and careers of San Bartolomé's members. Moreover, the admission books, available only in manuscript, are sketchy, and only a small proportion of the students are identifiable by more than place of birth and the names of their parents. If a student was related to an important official or a former colegial this was often, but not always, noted; consequently, there exist many more links among the colegiales themselves and between colegiales and court officials and important noblemen than a superficial inquiry by nomenclature alone could uncover.

In any case, the repetition of family names in replica and in varying combinations is immediately striking in the colleges' entrance lists. Though not especially common during the sixteenth century, after 1600 the recurrence of names increases to a point where blood ties between past colegiales and new entrants were no longer an exception but almost a fixed rule; sons, nephews, grandsons, brothers, and cousins of former members abound. San Bartolomé, for example, admitted in the seventeenth century alone four students from the Juaniz de Echalaz family, while three others with Echalaz as part of their surnames were probably members of the same [126] clan.⁽²⁵⁾ The Queipo de Llano, an important Asturian family, had three representatives in Santa Cruz, six in Oviedo, and another at San Bartolomé,⁽²⁶⁾but the one family who appeared most frequently in the colleges was the Santos de San Pedro. Miguel Santos de San Pedro, who entered Santa Cruz in 1615 only to die the following year, was apparently the first member of this Leonese family to enter a colegio mayor. He was followed by sixteen other Santos de San Pedro: one in Santa Cruz, six in Oviedo, five in San Ildefonso, and four in Arzobispo. ⁽²⁷⁾

A number of other families appeared almost as frequently in the colleges' rolls, and by the end of the century it is difficult to identify those who were not related in some fashion to a colegial of the past. Since the entrance books often fail to take note of blood ties among colegiales, let alone those of marriage, a simple matching of surnames is not sufficient to catch all of the various relationships. Nevertheless, it can be established that nearly one-fourth of the students who entered the college of Oviedo during the first half of the seventeenth century belonged to established "colegio mayor" families. At Santa Cruz relatives accounted for over 20 percent of the students (34 of 137) admitted between 1650 and 1699, and during this same period no less than 35 percent of San Bartolomé's students had similar ties. In actuality, however, the number of relatives was far higher than these figures would suggest, owing to the shortcomings of the colleges' entrance lists.

In some instances college scholarships virtually became a private, family preserve, as brother replaced brother. Thus when Bartolomé Sierra left the college of Santa Cruz in 1689, his brother, Lope de Sierra Ossorio, entered into his beca. Lope left the college ten years later to take up a canonry in Toledo, and his place was taken by his younger brother, Fernando.⁽²⁸⁾In much the same way a number of other colegiales assumed places left vacant by their siblings. ⁽²⁹⁾

Father-son successions within the colleges were even more frequent. An early example of such an occurrence is that of Martin de Vázquez, a member of Santa Cruz late in the fifteenth century, who placed two of his sons in his alma mater and a third in the Colegio Mayor del Arzobispo.⁽³⁰⁾Likewise, Fernando de Chumacero y Sotomayor, a colegial in San [127] Bartolomé, sent three sons to three different colegios mayores: Juan to San Bartolomé, Francisco to Arzobispo, and Antonio to Cuenca.⁽³¹⁾ Similar incidents abound. By the seventeenth century it is evident that the colegios mayores, acting more or less as a single unit, drew their members from a shrinking number of families with close ties to at least one of the six. More and more, family replaced academic expertise as the entrance key to these privileged colleges, and when Carlos and Francisco de Borja, both Sons of the Duke of Gandía, entered the college of San Ildefonso in 1679, the colegios mayores had gone as far as to ignore statutes which precluded the presence of more than one member of the same family in college at the same time.⁽³²⁾By the close of the Habsburg era and continuing into the eighteenth century, these academic institutions, originally intended to recruit students on the basis of scholarly merit, were primarily serving the interests of a relatively small number of families and clans.

These families, moreover, comprised the great letrado families who controlled senior offices in the ruling hierarchies. After the late sixteenth century, royal councillors, tribunal magistrates, prelates, and other important officials, colegial and noncolegial, sent their kin to the colegios mayores whenever possible. The result was the increased representation of sons of important letrado officials within the colleges, almost as if such parentage had guaranteed admission. For instance, no fewer than nine colegiales in San Bartolomé during the seventeenth century had a father who sat on the Royal Council of Castile. ⁽³³⁾ If other councils and tribunals and other family relationships are included, examples of influential connections among the members of San Bartolomé proliferate, and the same is true for the five other colleges.

Approximately 10 percent of the students admitted to the colegios mayores in the seventeenth century can positively be identified as relatives of royal councillors and of members of the royal households, but this figure is far too low owing to the shortcomings of the colleges' admission books. A thorough investigation of the families of the letrados who served on Castile's councils and tribunals would further demonstrate the close connections between these officials and the colegiales, but such an undertaking is beyond the scope of this book. It would not be an exaggeration, however, to state that the families who controlled the colleges controlled the royal councils as well, or as Pérez Bayer put it: "Rare are the present-day colegiales who do not have or had a father or uncle or close relative on the [Royal] Council, Cámara, or in other tribunals, a Bishop, Archbishop, or important dignity in one of the cathedrals; and rare, on the other hand, are the Camaristas, [128] Councillors, and Bishops who do not have in the colleges sons, nephews, or relatives."⁽³⁴⁾

In spite of the frequency with which the letrado clans made use of the colegios mayores, sons of grandees and títulos were not excluded, particularly during the seventeenth century when more and more of Castile's aristocracy sought to prepare their sons for office-holding careers. The Duke of Cardona, a grandee of Spain, sent three of his sons to the College of San Bartolomé, and no fewer than twenty-one other titled families of ancient lineage placed one or more of their off-spring into colegio mayor becas. ⁽³⁵⁾ Normally, it was the younger sons, but occasionally the eldest enrolled as well. Mateo Ibáñez de Mendoza y Segovia, for example, heir to the Marquisate of Mondejar, was a student in the Colegio Mayor de San Ildefonso.⁽³⁶⁾Never numerous, sons of old aristocratic families accounted for less than 5 percent of the colegiales, but they were joined by the sons of Castile's newly promoted letrado nobility, and together sons of the titled nobility represented at least 10 percent of the entrants to the colegios mayores in the seventeenth century.

In sum, colegiales with blood relations to other colegiales, living and dead, to the nobility, and to letrado officials constituted a minimum of one-half, and probably more, of the membership of the colegios mayores after 1650. These connections help to demonstrate the new role these communities had assumed. Formerly the preserve of the professional scholar, home of the university's academic elite, these colleges, serving as training grounds for important letrado offices, catered more and more for sons of Castile's ruling families who sought to follow office-holding careers. Important officials, using as a lever the patronage at their command, pushed their sons and relatives into becas which in time would give these youths a definite advantage in the race for public office. The colleges, on the other hand, eager to accommodate influential students whose family connections might benefit the community as a whole, altered or simply overlooked many of their original statutes regarding standards of admission in order to welcome these new members. Across several generations it is apparent that robe officials and noblemen, obtaining becas for their kinsmen again and again, practically forced the colleges to close their doors to students who lacked important family ties. In this manner the original academic elite lodged in the colegios mayores gave way to a new elite based on family and political connections as well as social rank. Meanwhile, the colleges exchanged their scholarly role for one that eventually bound them to the letrado families upon whom they depended for new members and for jobs.

[129] The End of Poverty

One of the first sacrifices made by the colleges in recognition of their changing role was the relaxation of their statutes on poverty. The founders of these communities had initially intended to aid poor students lacking the means to pursue the higher university degrees, and to implement this program they imposed restrictions on the personal income members of the college would be allowed. Depending on the individual college, this figure hovered between twenty and thirty ducats or forms a year.⁽³⁷⁾

These restrictions soon lapsed. In 1505 San Bartolomé received a papal bull allowing its members to alter college statutes as they saw fit, ⁽³⁸⁾ and subsequently, in 1534, the 1,500 mrs. limit on personal income was raised to 12,000 mrs.⁽³⁹⁾The other colleges followed suit. Arzobispo in 1552 raised its poverty limit from 30 to 50 ducats; Santa Cruz went from 25 to 50 forms; and Oviedo lifted its 6,000 mrs. restriction for one of 15,000 mrs.⁽⁴⁰⁾In the seventeenth century the official poverty line went even higher. Reformers of the colegios mayores in 1635 and 1641, referring to violations of existing poverty statutes, suggested that a limit of 300 ducats (112,500 mrs.) be maintained. ⁽⁴¹⁾But these new restrictions, like the earlier ones, were something of a joke. For years students with more than the permissible income had been admitted to the colleges. Oviedo, for instance, confessed a few years after its foundation when a 6,000 mrs. limit on income was still in effect that "already, by special pardon, those with 2,000 ducats (750,000 mrs.) and more have been admitted." ⁽⁴²⁾ And in 1580 this same college made reference to "meals paid for by the colegiales who have more money than that permitted in the constitutions."⁽⁴³⁾Indeed, the fact that the colleges of Arzobispo and Oviedo charged up to 800 reales (28,000 mrs.) and more as entrance fees is ample proof that these communities were no longer restricted to impoverished students.⁽⁴⁴⁾ By the opening of the seventeenth century the image of the "poor" colegial had faded, while the concept of the colegios mayores as charitable institutions had almost been forgotten.

To a limited extent the inflation plaguing the Castilian economy necessitated the redrawing of the poverty line, and in order to justify their altered statutes the colleges repeatedly invoked this argument.⁽⁴⁵⁾But their case is dubious if one considers seventeenth-century reports about the [130] nature of college life.⁽⁴⁶⁾Totally absent is the impression of impoverished scholars struggling for the barest necessities of life. They note, rather, an abundance of private servants, horses, coaches, sedan chairs, and hunting dogs, along with lavish furnishings and dress, luxuries which the original statutes of the colleges had expressly prohibited. Certainly, the problems of the national economy had contributed to the abrogation of the poverty statutes, but far more important was the steady rise in the wealth and the social position of the average colegial.

It should also be remembered that only bachilleres secured becas in the colegios mayores. This meant that students entering the colleges had already supported themselves for a number of years at the university, either independently or with the help of a clerical prebend or a scholarship in an undergraduate college. Aspirants to colegio mayor scholarships were also asked to cover the costs of the extensive limpieza de sangre investigations which were required for entrance. Such inquiries entailed numerous paid testimonials and journeys for the colegiales performing the task, and the total expenditure involved was substantial. In view of these initial expenses, few colegiales, even in the early sixteenth century, could have been truly classified as paupers. Moreover, in an inflationary era wealthy applicants, better able to meet the preliminary costs and entrance fees, enjoyed a considerable advantage over their poorer competitors. Thus the colleges, facing financial difficulties of their own and solicited by students whose incomes surpassed the limits laid down in the statutes, did not find it very difficult to relax their restrictions on poverty.

Yet the underlying reason for the end of poverty within the colegios mayores was their identification with the social and political elite of Castile. As long as becas constituted an important aid to office-holding as well as a mark of considerable prestige, the letrado dynasties, along with a few members of the old aristocracy, would continue to seek colegio mayor places for their sons. To make room for these wealthy and influential students the colleges loosened their restrictions on poverty, since colegiales with powerful court connections would bring patronage and prestige to the community as a whole. With this aim in mind, San Ildefonso in the seventeenth century admitted fee-paying pensioners (porcionistas) from notable families, among them Fernando Moscoso y Osorio, nephew of Baltasar Moscoso y Sandoval, Archbishop of Toledo (1646-65), Carlos and Francisco de Borja, sons of the Duke of Gandía, and Luis de Haro y Paz, son of the Viceroy of Naples, the Count of Castrillo. ⁽⁴⁷⁾The other five colleges, though officially excluding pensioners until later in the century, openly welcomed [131] the sons of the high nobility. And to make its own position clear, the Colegio Mayor de Cuenca in 1586 passed the following statute: "We order that, given parity between the competitors, he with the best lineage be elected [to the College] because Aristotle 'ex bestis bestiam et ex bonis bonum, putat generari'."⁽⁴⁸⁾

However eager the colleges were to admit sons of the aristocracy, the relaxation of their poverty statutes had less to do with the grandees than with the growing wealth and importance of the letrado families who dominated college scholarships. Letrado ministers, steeped in a legal tradition, sought becas for their sons and nephews. To meet this demand, the colleges altered their statutes in violation of their founders' charitable designs but in conformity with the educational demands of Castile's letrado elite. Simultaneously, the interests of the letrados and those of the colleges became one.

Careers

Changes in the family backgrounds of the colegiales mayores also found expression in the careers which these students elected to follow. In the early sixteenth century graduates of the colleges, with the exception of those from Arzobispo, tended to follow ecclesiastical careers rather than those in secular office. Colegiales who became churchmen included the famous Archbishop of Toledo, Juan Martínez Siliceo, a San Bartolomé graduate, notorious for his campaign against Spain'sconversos. But toward the end of this century colegiales displayed the beginning of a marked preference for secular careers, either in the letrado hierarchy or the Inquisition (Table 8), signaling a reorientation of their professional goals. ⁽⁴⁹⁾

Key: Let. A career in the letrado hierarchy.
Ecc. A church career.
Let.-Ecc. A career with positions in the letrado hierarchy and the church.
Inq. A career in the tribunals of the inquisition.
Inq.-Ecc. A career with positions in the church and the inquisition.
Med. A career as a physician.
Univ. A teaching career at a university.
Other Capa y espada positions at the royal court, an army career, a life outside government, etc.
Dead Student died before leaving the university.
? Career unknown because of insufficient data.

---

To explain the growing preference among the colegiales mayores for secular careers only in terms of their aspirations is insufficient. As important were changes in their family backgrounds. During the seventeenth century Castile acquired an "administrative nobility" as letrado families with a long tradition of service to the crown took control of key positions in royal government. In the meantime, graduates of the colegios mayores acquired a permanent, often dominant place in the letrado hierarchy. These two phenomena, loosely connected in the past, merged rapidly after 1600, marking the first era of mutual dependency between colegiales on the one hand and letrado officials on the other. The colegiales wanted professorships and jobs; the letrados -- becas. And this convergence of interests allowed the offspring of the letrado dynasties to enter the colleges on a regular basis. These students, eager for wealth, prestige, and titles of nobility, followed their fathers into the world of office and honor.

There were a few students, however, particularly those with influential family ties, who eschewed letrado careers for those of a more aristocratic bent. The increase at the end of the seventeenth century in the "other" category of Table 8 represents those colegiales who, despite their legal training, entered the military, acquired capa y espada charges at the royal court, or lived idly as rentiers. A number of these were younger sons of the aristocracy, such as Luis de Benavides y Aragón, son of the Count of Santisteban del Puerto, who left his college of San Bartolomé to become Gentleman of the Chamber to King Charles II and, subsequently, viceroy of Navarre. ⁽⁵⁰⁾ Others, like Manuel de Arce y Astete whose father was president of the Council of Finance, were sons of letrados. After earning his licentiate in law, Manuel left his college either to "inherit his house" or to contract a favorable marriage.⁽⁵¹⁾Similar temptations led other colegiales to abandon letrado careers. Therefore, it would appear that in spite of the prestige and importance that the study and profession of law had acquired in the two centuries [135] of Habsburg rule, the land and its titles remained the ultimate goals of the university graduate. A life as a letrado, an end in itself, was also an efficient means to achieve these higher aims.

With these exceptions the majority of colegiales prepared for careers in public office. Rare was the college student who, if he outlived his stay at university, did not assume an administrative post. In this sense, the colegios mayores remained true to the ideal of service to the state their founders had originally devised. Destined to harbor the academic elite of the universities to which they belonged, the colegios mayores were also to be the training schools for the university-trained officials of the Spanish crown.

Reallocation of the Becas

One result of the sustained interest in secular careers among the colegiales was the increase in the number of college students studying jurisprudence The popularity of this subject necessary for letrado offices as well as the inquisition and the church is another illustration of the close relationship of the colegios mayores with careers in the king's service.

The founders of the colleges had allocated a set number of becas to each of the higher university faculties: law (canon and civil), the arts, theology, and medicine but the balance between the faculties was short-lived.⁽⁵²⁾A redistribution of becas took place; theology and medicine were excluded, while canon law and in some colleges civil law came to the fore (Table 9), a change that was effected by the illegal transference of becas from one faculty to another Santa Cruz for example although permanently endowed with three places for medicos admitted its last student of medicine in 1578 and elected jurists to the places left vacant.⁽⁵³⁾The colleges del Arzobispo and Cuenca also had provisions for medical students, but they apparently filled these places with jurists from the start.⁽⁵⁴⁾

Royal visitations in the seventeenth century demanded that the colleges return to their original allocation of becas among the faculties, but projected reforms brought no results. ⁽⁵⁵⁾ In the case of Santa Cruz, where the proportion of theologians within the college fell from the mandatory one-third to approximately 15 percent in the later seventeenth century, the Royal Council in 1668, angered at the college's refusal to correct this imbalance, temporarily suspended that community's right to elect new members. ⁽⁵⁶⁾ Theologians in the other colleges were also in short supply; the popularity of [136] the study of jurisprudence had left the "science of sciences" only a minor, subsidiary place within the colegios mayores. ⁽⁵⁷⁾

The College of San Ildefonso offers a striking example of the growing importance of the law within these communities. Its original statutes barred the admittance of law students, and this regulation throughout the sixteenth century was treated with respect. ⁽⁵⁸⁾But on October 17, 1617 don Alvaro de Ayala, son of the Duke of Fuensalida and licentiate in canon law, became San Ildefonso's first colegial jurista.⁽⁵⁹⁾On the same day two other jurists were elected to becas, marking the start of a new era; by the reign of Charles II canon lawyers accounted for more than 40 percent of the students elected to the college.

The reallocation of the becas constituted a direct response to pressures placed on the colegios mayores from above and below. Confronted by a monarchy demanding jurists and influential families seeking law degrees for their sons, the colleges, eager to maintain their favored position on the Cámara's lists, needed to switch some becas to the law. At the same time students seeking admittance to the colleges were increasingly interested in office-holding careers and, consequently, in legal studies. Caught between the two, the colleges, not unwillingly, elected lawyers to places formerly reserved for students of theology and medicine.

The development of a juridical spirit among the colegios mayores was in this sense unavoidable. Catering both to students seeking office-holding careers and to the letrado officialdom, the colleges sacrificed the balance of the faculties in order to fulfill their social and bureaucratic obligations. Reform was virtually impossible, since a return to their original state demanded more than a rigid imposition of their founding statutes. It called for an alteration of the social classes and the institutions which the colleges had come to represent.

Insturctorships

Another manifestation of the colleges' adhesion to Castile's letrado elite was the rate at which colegiales became university lecturers and professors. As we already know, the colegios mayores, admitting only students with a first degree, were originally intended to provide a small number of promising scholars with the time and the facilities to study and to obtain advanced degrees. But the latter were expensive and their recipients relatively few. On the other hand, members of the colegios mayores, owing to their special graduation privileges, could obtain licenses [137] and doctorates at bargain rates. This, in turn, put them in an excellent position to become university instructors, since the majority of teaching positions were awarded only to scholars with advanced degrees.

Table 10 illustrates their success. At Salamanca between one-third and one-half of the students in the colegios mayores were regularly named to university instructorships and in Valladolid nearly all of the colegiales of Santa Cruz taught at the university. San Ildefonso's record at Alcalá was [138] probably similar to that at Santa Cruz, but, unfortunately, existing docu ments do not provide the information upon which its success in obtaining teaching posts for its members can be measured.

To a large extent scholarly excellence was responsible for this outstanding record. As graduate students enjoying financial support, colegiales could devote their lives to study, while weekly review and practice sessions within the colleges readied them for the public lectures and examinations they would have to face in order to win a chair. Few ordinary students enjoyed such opportunities, and this difference helps to explain the ability of the colegiales to win so many teaching posts. Yet study and academic achievement alone were not sufficient to assure the colegiales of continued success in the increasingly turbulent and corrupt elections in which university students named their instructors. So, in addition, the colleges employed a variety of special tactics designed to secure victories for their members and thus to enhance their own prestige.

Toward this end the college of Santa Cruz collected from each of its members an annual tax of one hundred reales for the express purpose of buying student votes. ⁽⁶⁰⁾ Depending on the chair in question, the sums distributed by this college among the students rose as high as 400 reales. ⁽⁶¹⁾ This practice, if employed on a regular basis, might help to explain this community's extraordinary record of success in the oposiciones, the open competitions for university chairs. Indeed, so formidable was the presence of Santa Cruz in these contests that the defeat of one of its candidates was considered a rare and unusual event. Fabio Nelli de Espinosa, writing on April 3, 1599, to the famous merchant of Medina de Campo, Simón Ruiz, commented on a recent miracle at the University of Valladolid: a "poor" student had taken a chair from a certain Docotor Soria, a colegial, in spite of "the great negotiations of the College and of Soria himself."⁽⁶²⁾

At Salamanca the four colegios mayores used equally unsavory methods to collect the necessary student votes. From the l550s until the king called a permanent halt to student elections in 1641 , the history of appointments to the chairs at this university is a never-ending tale of bribery, corruption, and violence. ⁽⁶³⁾ The Royal Council, backed by the king, repeatedly issued orders and threatened stiff fines to stop the abuses, but matters grew continually worse, reaching a climax in the l630s. The coiegios mayores, which together provided a steady stream of competitors, stood at the center of these events. Gifts, dinners, and money distributed by the wealthy [139] colegiales helped influence votes in their favor, even though colegiales were occasionally caught in the act, as in 1592 when Alvaro de Arellano, a student in Cuenca, and Alonso Yañez de Lugo, a student in Oviedo, were accused of buying votes.⁽⁶⁴⁾

As leaders of the various "nations" or regional groups among the university students, the colegios mayores had additional leverage upon the student elections. Through the bando system, each college identified itself with one of the university "nations," and a letter to the Royal Council written in 1636 confirmed that the colegios mayores were "the heart of the nations."⁽⁶⁵⁾Two years later, in a memorial to Philip IV, the colleges admitted their leadership over the regional groups within the university.⁽⁶⁶⁾ While student elections lasted, each "nation" supported its own candidate, and he was ordinarily a colegial mayor.⁽⁶⁷⁾

At Salamanca, there were also older graduates who made a regular business out of rounding up with certain promises penniless students from their own region and province and then selling them en masse as blocs of votes to prospective candidates for university chairs.⁽⁶⁸⁾As heads of the nations, the colegios mayores were intimately involved in such practices, and, exploiting their followers, they regularly provoked violence in the days leading up to the elections in order to intimidate voters to their side. So intense was the competition for instructorships that colegiales, as representatives of opposing nations, were even known to fight among themselves. In 1636 for instance a rivalry arose over the chair of Old Digest between Juan de Góngora, a colegial of Arzobispo, and Francisco de Vergara, colegial of San Bartolomé. Fighting broke out among the armed followers of both candidates, the gallegos representing Góngora, while the vizcainos took the part of the latter.⁽⁶⁹⁾Intercollegiate hostility, however, was infrequent; the four colegios mayores at Salamanca, conscious of their equal status and prestige, similar organization, and shared family lineages, did little to incite one another. On most questions they joined together against the university as a whole.⁽⁷⁰⁾

In 1641 the corregidor of Salamanca, Francisco de Vera, decried the Violence of student elections and the armed groups of students going in ' and out of the colegios mayores. He wrote: "The Colleges favor this practice because it perpetuates the success they desire and because they have no other alternative. We have put strict prohibitions on the possession of [140] pistols and guns but these are not enough." ⁽⁷¹⁾That same year the Royal Council, weary of student disorders and the "wars of the nations," which gave the kingdom's leading universities the appearance of armed camps, assumed the appointment of university instructors on a permanent basis. But this move, so far from weakening the position of the colegios mayores, in fact enhanced their opportunities in the competition for university chairs. The favor and the influence of family members and former colegiales on the Royal Council were much more helpful than the bribery, gifts, and intimidation of the past. Now nearly every colegial who desired a teaching post secured his reward, and later in the century what had become a recognized fact was institutionalized through an administrative device known as the turno. "The turnomeans that when a vacant chair is about to be filled, the [Council] recommends, for example, a member of the Colegio Mayor of San Bartolomé; for the next chair to vacate, one from Cuenca; for the next, one from Arzobispo; for the next, one from Oviedo; and for the last, a manteista graduate. Then it returns to nominate a colegial of San Bartolomé, and the turno begins again in the same way." ⁽⁷²⁾

That the proportion of colegiales securing teaching posts declined in the later seventeenth century is indicative of the job-security these students had come to possess (Table 10). With more and more colegiales belonging to important letrado and noble families, qualifications which alone were sufficient in the nepotistic world of Habsburg Spain to secure appointment to royal office, many found it unnecessary to compete for university chairs and relied upon their personal connections to obtain the desired posts. The career of Andrés de Medrano y Mendizaval, a member of San Bartolomé, exemplifies this new security. Son of García de Medrano, a former San Bartolomé student and a member of the Royal Council and Cámara of Castile, Andrés left the college four years after he had entered, and without any teaching experience whatsoever, to become Juez Mayor de Vizcaya in the chancillería at Valladolid.⁽⁷³⁾Other colegiales exploited family ties of their own, and, in the end, nepotism proved far more effective than corruption and violence as a means of acquiring both lectureships and chairs.

Time in College

One result of the competition for teaching posts and letrado offices among the colegiales was the lengthening of the average student's college career. These positions were relatively scarce, and the would-be competitors far too many. Thus waiting first for chairs, and then for offices, colegiales frequently remained at university fifteen or twenty years.

[141] The college beca, implying room, board, gown, and expenses, was originally intended to last only a limited period of time, after which the student was obliged to leave the community. Depending on the college, this period stretched from seven to nine years, sufficient time for a bachillerto earn one or more of the higher university degrees.⁽⁷⁴⁾

For the first three-quarters of the sixteenth century these statutes remained in force; students left the college when obliged to do so, although several colleges had received permission to extend the allotted stay by one or two years. ⁽⁷⁵⁾ But the following examples show that by the middle of the seventeenth century, colegiales remained within their communities well beyond the statutory limit.
 

Student	College	Years in College (76)
Jorge de Cárdenas y Valenzuela	Arzobispo	1674-95
Garcia Pérez de Araciel	Arzobispo	1667-88
Andrés Doriaga	Cuenca	1676-96
Juan Francisco de Hierro	Santa Cruz	1651-69

The matriculation books of the Universities of Salamanca and Valladolid record numerous examples of other college students with seventeen, eighteen, even nineteen years of residence in their colleges to remain in college beyond the expiration of one's beca was no longer an exception but the general rule.

An extrastatutory device known as the hospedería or lodging house made possible these extended college careers. Erected by each of the colleges in the course of the sixteenth century they received official recognition in a statute passed by the College of Cuenca in 1585:

After finishing their time in the college the colegiales may move into the rooms designated for huéspedes [lodgers] and remain there for the space of one year and this may be extended for a further year... but from now on no additional extensions shall be granted except for great and very urgent reasons upon which the colegiales must unanimously decide. Furthermore the huésped must pay to the College 40 ducats per annum for his sustenance.⁽⁷⁷⁾

The need for those lodging houses arose after the colleges instituted a seniority system which regulated the candidacies of their members for university teaching posts. The college of San Bartolomé was the first to develop such a system after it ruled late in the fifteenth century that not more than one of its members would compete for a vacant university chair. ⁽⁸⁰⁾ Soon this statute, and it was copied by the other colleges, came to mean that the college was to elect only one student -- the statute stipulated the one who was judged most capable -- to compete in the oposiciones in the community's name.⁽⁸¹⁾But as chairs became increasingly valuable for their salaries and prestige, more and more colegiales sought to compete. Problems arose when several qualified colegiales fought for the right to represent the college in the oposiciones; consequently, the colleges passed new statutes giving priority to the eldest colegial. ⁽⁸²⁾This rapidly developed into a seniority system whereby each student, according to the faculty in which he was enrolled and his time in the community, earned the right to enter the competition for chairs and to receive the full support of his college. But, as a 1552 statute in the college of Oviedo stipulated, "there cannot be an appointment of a new opositor until the one who has already been named pursues his oposiciones [successfully]";⁽⁸³⁾so if one colegial had difficulty in obtaining a chair, his juniors were obliged to wait for his appointment before they could begin to compete for posts in that faculty. Complications ensued, since so many of the colleges' students were registered in the faculties of law where competition for teaching positions was exceptionally [143] stiff. Appointments to these chairs often took years to obtain, therefore a waiting-list based upon year of entrance into the college had to be compiled and hospederías organized so that the colegiales could wait their turn to compete for a university chair.

But there is another reason for the growth of the hospederías and the long university careers of many colegiales. In 1714 Luis Curiel a former colegial and a member of the Royal Council of Castile explained the situation in these terms: "The reason for the long years spent by the colegiales in their communities is their belief that it is permissible to leave the beca only for the toga. ⁽⁸⁴⁾It offends their vanity only to imagine one of their members as a lawyer, a local judge, prebendary, or a parish priest; they say that they will burn the gown of a colegial who plans to enter one of these posts, and at various times, such a threat has been carried out."⁽⁸⁵⁾Although students had always been reluctant to leave their college without a secure position, a small number of colegiales before the late sixteenth century had been content to become lawyers, corregidores, or some other minor judicial officer. Santa Cruz, for example, produced at least eight students who left the college as lawyers before 1600, while another five became corregidores, and it is likely that these figures are much too low.⁽⁸⁶⁾ In the seventeenth century fewer colegiales left the security of the college for one of these lesser positions.⁽⁸⁷⁾ Instead they preferred to remain in the hospederías, preparing for oposiciones or merely waiting for an appointment as a cathedral canon or tribunal magistrate.

The students' reluctance to leave their colleges for anything but a prestige post is simply another manifestation of changes in their family backgrounds. The humble origins of many of the early colegiales was not incompatible with a career as a lawyer or parish priest but few of the seventeenth-century colegiales would have followed such "clerkly" careers. Furthermore, pampered by their friends and relatives on the councils, the colegiales possessed what contemporaries called a "security of promotion" with the knowledge that the sought-after offices would eventually be forthcoming. Under these conditions colegiales lived luxuriously in the hospederías, awaiting the offices that favoritism would eventually bring their way.

[144] Increase in Size

One final result of the colleges' position as training schools for the sons of important letrado and noble families destined for office-holding careers was an increase in size. As the colleges' reputation for excellence grew, numerous students, eager for the prestige and the patronage a beca would confer, clamored for admission. The colleges responded by increasing the number of college scholarships, nearly all of which were reserved for students in law.

The original constitutions of the six colegios mayores allowed for no more than a total of 141 becas. Each college had a limited number of places regulated by the size of its endowment and its founder's desires for a small community that would supposedly foster a spirit of fraternity among the colegiales. San Bartolomé was the smallest with fifteen becas and two places for chaplains; San Ildefonso was the largest with a total of thirty-three places. Santa Cruz, though officially endowed with twenty-seven places, never reached more than 20 or 21 because of financial difficulties. For similar reasons, the other colleges remained quite small, usually well short of their allotted number of places, although gifts of plate and money left to them in the wills of former students and the fees received from incoming students and pensioners enabled them to survive.

Gradually, the situation improved. After 1620, as Figure 2 illustrates, each of the colleges grew sharply in size. This expansion, beginning at a time when the economic situation can hardly have been very favorable to college rents, reflected the increased demand for becas, as well as the growing wealth of the average colegial. The private means of the students supplemented the colleges' income, while the increased acceptance of [145] fee-paying pensioners helped also to improve college revenues.⁽⁸⁸⁾So, in spite of their financial difficulties, the colleges were in a position to add new scholarships, while their students maintained an increasingly sumptuous style of life commensurate with their personal means and their aspirations to live as gentlemen. In 1714 Luis Curiel admitted that every colegial, upon entrance to the community, paid his college a certain sum to cover the costs of his "meat and bread."⁽⁸⁹⁾Apparently, the beca no longer carried with it full support, but the wealth of individual members had allowed the colleges to increase their numbers without having to tap their revenues for the necessary funds. In other words, the original intention of the college founders to use the beca as an instrument of charity was dismissed as the colleges adapted themselves to the service of the kingdom's ruling elite.

In the decade 1670-79 the six colegios mayores possessed a total of approximately 170 places, a figure which is roughly 21 percent above their original, statutory size and about two and one-half times larger than that of a century before. By the middle of the eighteenth century, the colleges were even larger; in 1740 they had close to two hundred becas. And it was during this period that the colleges, in order to accommodate these students, acquired new, more sumptuous buildings. Salamanca's elegant Palacio de Anaya, the eighteenth-century quarters of San Bartolomé, stands today as a reminder of the prosperity the colegios mayores enjoyed.

The Failure of Reforms

The colegios mayores' lack of respect for the constitutions and statutes their founders had originally established did not go unnoticed. Beginning with the reign of Philip II, gradually there emerged a movement aimed at collegiate reform, designed in the first instance to eliminate many of the extrastatutory practices that the colegiales had implemented. Castilians in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had a special reverence for tradition; constitutions, charters, and other legal documents were supposed to be fixed and immutable; to ignore or to alter what was duly set down in writing at some time in the past was a wrong that had to be set right, regardless of the merits or demerits of the change. Thus to reform the colleges meant to restore them to their "original lustre," to set back the clock of change, and the critics called for effective royal visitations to review the colleges' present situation and to recommend the corrections deemed essential.

The founders of the colegios mayores made allowances for annual "visits" by local clerics to ensure that the constitutions and statutes were [146] being properly observed. Little evidence survives to suggest that these inspections ever took place on a regular basis, ⁽⁹⁰⁾and by the reign of Philip II visitas to the colleges were rare. The colegiales, jealous of their autonomy, opposed interference in their affairs and extended their "purity of blood" regulations to the "visitors" in an effort to discourage such inspection tours. This ploy met with some success, since potential "visitors" were reluctant to risk an examination of their ancestors' lineage by colegiales bent on discovering traces of "tainted" blood. ⁽⁹¹⁾ Furthermore, when visitations did occur, they were often carried out by former graduates sympathetic to the colleges' position; ⁽⁹²⁾accordingly, the whole process degenerated into a farce.

The first call for truly effective visitations was presented to Philip II by an anonymous author in the l570s or early in the 1580s.⁽⁹³⁾Recognizing the importance of the colegios mayores as training schools for crown officials, he wanted university graduates who were not colegiales to "visit" these communities. They were to restore college life to its original, quasi-monastic tone and to make sure that the colleges' students were letrados in more than name alone. His call for thorough reform was followed in 1587 by another presented jointly by a Licentiate Mantilla and García de Loaysa, soon to be Archbishop of Toledo, both of whom agreed on the importance of effective visitations to the colleges.⁽⁹⁴⁾

These early schemes came to naught. For the most part, the colegios mayores were left on their own, except on those few occasions when a protest from a student wronged by the colleges evoked a royal decree designed to end a specific abuse. ⁽⁹⁵⁾ Such laxity ended, however, when Philip IV in 1623 created a Junta de Colegios entrusted with the supervision of college affairs. ⁽⁹⁶⁾Subsequent investigations revealed the thoroughly unconstitutional character of the colleges; the reallocation of the becas, the relaxation of poverty statutes, the bando system, the luxury of college life, and the improper maintenance of academic standards were ample proof of the colleges' deviation from their pristine state. The colleges, while admitting [147] to some minor faults, fought against a proposed royal visitation, using their representatives and agents in Madrid to head off any reforms which, as the College of San Bartolomé warned, have "such grave consequences for us all."⁽⁹⁷⁾ But the fever for reform ran high, and the Royal Council, ostensibly to preserve the reputation of the colleges, recommended a visita in 1634. The king, welcoming this suggestion, asked the council to advise him on a suitable "visitor" by secret vote. ⁽⁹⁸⁾The following year don Mendo de Benavides, Bishop of Segovia, royal councillor, and graduate of Santa Cruz, performed the first of a series of seventeenth-century visitations aimed at restoring the four colegios mayores at Salamanca to their original state. He presented the Royal Council with an extensive list of reforms, but his suggestions, debated in a council controlled by former colegiales, brought few results. ⁽⁹⁹⁾

In 1646 the Royal Council proposed the establishment of a permanent Junta de Colegios composed of six former colegiales chosen from among its own members. ⁽¹⁰⁰⁾ According to the president of the Royal Council, Juan Chumacero y Carrillo, the junta was to maintain high academic standards within the colleges in order to train subjects who are to serve Your Majesty as always." ⁽¹⁰¹⁾In operation by 1648 the junta immediately drew up a list of reforms similar to those of Benavides in 1635. These included everything from the prohibition of private servants and private dinner parties among the colegiales to an end to the bando system which, as one member of the junta had expressed, allowed "each nation to attempt to elect as many of their own students as they possibly can to the detriment and exclusion of the others."⁽¹⁰²⁾Five years later yet another visitation was begun, indicating that the proposals of 1648 had been frustrated.⁽¹⁰³⁾

The major stumbling-block to effective reform was the close relationship between the colegios mayores on the one hand and the Royal Council and the Junta de Colegios on the other The latter controlled by former colegiales displayed open sympathy toward their old colleges, and they no doubt listened to their sons' and nephews' arguments against unwarranted reforms. Moreover in spite of violations of college statutes and the visitors demands for change, the royal councillors continued to reward colegiales with important posts whereas their refusal to do so could have been used as an important spur toward reform. As long as the councillors needed the [148] colegiales to secure becas for their children, little headway could be made against corrupt college practices. Reform after reform was suggested, but these were never put into effect. Indeed, because of their common interests, it seems likely that the Royal Council and the Junta de Colegios gave tacit consent to the existing state of the colleges and blocked any attempts by outsiders to implement the projected reforms. The reallocation of the becas, for example, benefitted the councillors in that it enabled their sons to study jurisprudence in preparation for letrado careers. The lifting of the poverty statutes allowed the wealthy councillors' sons to enter the colleges, while the bando system permitted letrado officials, many of whom were from the Basque provinces, Navarre, and the northern parts of Old Castile, as well as Madrid, to acquire college scholarships for their offspring. Moreover, the luxurious life of the colleges was certainly more in accordance with the ostentation of court life and in line with the ambitions of "robe" families to live in the sumptuous, expensive fashion of the aristocracy. In short, the Royal Council, although hesitant about some aspects of college life, rarely enforced reforms, since the colegios mayores suited their personal ambitions and goals.

Under these circumstances the colleges, adapting to the requirements of the letrado hierarchy and its officials, moved further and further away from their original design. Their place within the university and in the society had altered; they recognized this, making the necessary changes along the way. Thus attempts to uphold the sanctity of the old constitutions and to return the colleges to their original states were largely unrealistic, and, consequently, fruitless. To deny the realities of the present, to set back the clock of change was impossible, and this tended to make the reforms suggested by the "visitors" nothing more than a waste of time.

In the early eighteenth century, Philip V, first of the Spanish Bourbons, attempted a major reform of the colegios mayores, but once again, the powerful allies of these communities at the royal court frustrated the intentions of the crown. ⁽¹⁰⁴⁾ The colleges, more prosperous and more influential than ever before, defended their position, emphasizing their unique contribution to the monarchy in terms of generations of archbishops, bishops, councillors, magistrates, and noblemen they had educated and trained.

In spite of this eloquent defense, their critics were not to be silenced, and in the l760s the need for a thorough overhaul was being seriously considered. This time the attack on the colleges included influential court figures such as the Count of Campomanes, fiscal of the Royal Council, Manuel de Roda, Minister of Grace and Justice, Francisco Pérez Bayer, ex-professor of Hebrew at Salamanca and tutor to the royal infantes, as [149] well as Felipe Beltrán, Bishop of Salamanca.⁽¹⁰⁵⁾As partisans of the ideas and principles of the Enlightenment, they hoped to sweep away the archaic institutions of the antiguo régimenwhich they saw as roadblocks to change, innovation, and prosperity in Spain. And in their eyes, the colegios mayores were no longer simple communities of scholars, but bastions of the privileged orders which stood in the way of effective reforms. Pérez Bayer led the assault, and in his famous polemic, Por La Libertad De La Literatura Española, he attributed the "general ruin of the universities" as well as many of the backward traditions of Spanish government and law to the "reign of the colleges."⁽¹⁰⁶⁾As might be expected, the colleges fought back, sending a stream of petitions and memorials to the monarch, while their supporters at court, among them the Marquis of Aliventos, composed lengthy histories of their almae matres to demonstrate the extent to which the colleges had aided the monarchy in the past. The debate continued for nearly a decade, but in accord with the "enlightened" spirit of Charles III's reign, the critics won out. In 1777 reforms were introduced which attempted to recast the colleges in their original mould, ending two centuries of statutory abuse. The colleges, though dealt a crippling blow, managed to survive; and their critics, still not content, called for abolition -- the only solution in their minds which could put an end to the many problems which the colleges were said to have spawned. Gaining the support of a monarchy interested in assuming control of the lands and revenues the colleges had come to possess, the reformers prevailed. The decisive act came during the reign of Charles IV. First, the Count of Floridablanca ordered an end to elections to becas, and by 1793, the colleges stood empty. Then, in 1798, the colleges were officially suppressed, and the revenues from their properties were put toward the amortization of the national debt.

The Coegios Mayores and the Universitites

The suppression of the colegios mayores was largely a political act, yet it was also a measure for educational reform. In a sense, it marked a day of liberation for the universities to which the colleges had belonged, universities which had been long awaiting the decree of 1798. This is so because the colleges, though housing only a tiny fraction of the students, housed those students who represented at first the academic and later the social elite of their respective institutions. And in both roles, the colleges, bolstered [150] by their friends and supporters at the royal court, had been able to set the tone of university life.

As Table 11 illustrates, colegiales throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were able to win continuing success in the competitions for university teaching posts. The combination of money, merit, and manipulation of the "nations," and, later, the favoritism of the Royal Council which has been already described, was largely responsible for this extraordinary achievement, but at the same time it created a situation in which a small body of colegiales occupied a disproportionate number of the universities' chairs, particularly those in the faculties of law. The imbalance between colegial and manteista professors at Salamanca was cited in 1714 in a complaint registered by that university to the crown. It claimed that ever since the Royal Council had assumed for itself the appointment of university professors, that is, in the previous seventy-three years, only 39 of the 180 individuals named to the chairs of law at Salamanca had been manteistas even though manteistas constituted the vast majority of applicants for these positions. The university added that in the current year, only two of its twenty law professors were manteistas; the others claimed membership in a colegio mayor.⁽¹⁰⁷⁾

Mastery over teaching positions constituted only one facet of the power of the colegios mayores within the universities. In open violation of university statutes, colegiales regularly held the office of maestrescuela and university rector. ⁽¹⁰⁸⁾ They were also in frequent control of university magistracies, the offices of juez escolástico and juez del estudio, regardless of rules which prohibited colegiales from occupying these important posts.⁽¹⁰⁹⁾As a result, university disputes involving the colegios mayores rarely went counter to their interests.

Rich, self-confident, and secure, the colleges, using the social prestige of their members to enhance their position, also attempted to upset the traditional ceremonial order of the universities to which they were attached. Disputes over precedence in one procession or another led to friction and even fistfights and brawls between the heads of the colegios mayores and the university rector and the heads of other colleges. Just such an incident occurred in 1637 when a member of one of the colleges apparently mistreated or verbally abused the rector of the University of [152] Salamanca. Upon learning of the squabble, Philip IV, in an irate note to the Royal Council, wrote:

any colegial who injures a university rector will lose his beca and be debarred from serving me in all the posts of these kingdoms.... Neither will he be able to compete for the position of Doctoral or Magistral canon nor be recommended for a [153] bishopric because the pretension of these colegiales who are neither older nor better letrados than others is highly irregular. ⁽¹¹⁰⁾

But hostilities between the colleges and the university did not cease at that point. In the disputes of the 1630s over appointments to professorships, the colegios mayores and the Universities of Salamanca and Valladolid were consistently at odds. ⁽¹¹³⁾ The former, seeking the patronage of the Royal Council, campaigned against student elections, while the latter, for the opposite reason, favored the continuance of the student vote. No doubt bitterness arising from these disputes had something to do with the mistreatment of Salamanca's rector by a colegial in the incident cited above.

As the colegio mayor share of Salamanca's teaching posts increased in the course of the seventeenth century, relations between the colleges and the university deteriorated. In 1681, 1685, and 1692 the University of Salamanca protested that doctors from the colleges boycotted examinations and degree ceremonies to the detriment of the students.⁽¹¹⁴⁾Meanwhile, the Royal Council, always eager to promise an investigation but partial to the colegio mayor cause, did little to correct the situation. Enmity between the two sides continued into the eighteenth century, coming to a head during the debates of the 1760s and 1770s over the projected reform of the colegios mayores. The disputes ended only with the final dissolution of the colleges in 1798.

[154] The other major rivals of the colegios mayores at Salamanca were the three Colleges of the Military Orders. Founded in the sixteenth century by the crown for the offspring of knights belonging to the orders of Alcantará, Calatrava, and Santiago, these communities enjoyed considerable wealth and prestige. ⁽¹¹⁵⁾Their feud with the colegios mayores centered on questions of ceremonial precedence.⁽¹¹⁶⁾ In 1659 Philip IV, probably under pressure from the Royal Council and its colegial-president, the Count of Castrillo, ruled in favor of the four colegios mayores.⁽¹¹⁷⁾ This decree served only to increase the bitterness between the two rival groups of colleges, and in 1659, 1666, 1678, 1679, and 1680 armed clashes took place between them. ⁽¹¹⁸⁾The Colleges of the Military Orders appealed to Charles II for retribution, alleging that the maestrescuela of Salamanca, the Royal Council, and even their own Council of the Military Orders were partisan to the colegios mayores. But the king replied by reaffirming the ceremonial leadership of the colegios mayores in 1680, and violence between the rivals erupted that same year. These clashes continued into the eighteenth century, coming to a halt only when the colegios mayores were suppressed, an action which did not go unsupported by the Colleges of the Military Orders.

The strong influence of the colegios mayores within the universities and the rivalries this fostered need not be considered only in a negative light. If the colleges had provided for their students a curriculum that was more innovative than that offered in the "schools," or had the colleges managed to supply the university with skilled, imaginative, and responsible instructors, then their control of teaching posts could be interpreted with favor. But as we shall see, the colegios mayores offered relatively few advantages to the universities, particularly with regard to teaching.

College instruction was limited to review sessions and mock exams designed to prime colegiales for the formal public examinations that they would have to face in order to gain their degrees. ⁽¹¹⁹⁾Informal lectures may also have been delivered within college walls, but in any event this instruction was intended to supplement, not supplant the regular university curriculum. That the college of San Ildefonso early in the eighteenth century rejected a royal request to teach national law at Alcalá de Henares [155] is a good indication that the other colegios mayores were equally conservative in their classes.⁽¹²⁰⁾Nevertheless, the colleges could have contributed to teaching at the universities by offering high quality instructors to serve in the faculty chairs, and there is no doubt that many colegiales were exceptional scholars.⁽¹²¹⁾ But it must also be remembered that the colegiales, owing to special graduation privileges they had fought for and won, received their academic titles within the walls of their own community after an examination conducted by professors largely of the college's own choosing. In view of the high proportion of colegial professors, it is not surprising that many of these examinations lost all pretense to objectivity. Little information about the academic caliber of these students survives, but an impression that colegiales, particularly in the years after 1600, neglected both their studies and their teaching duties for more pleasurable pursuits and private concerns can easily be obtained.

In 1618, for instance, the Royal Council of Castile ordered an investigation into the College of Cuenca after reports that the college was awarding academic degrees with "little ceremony" to men lacking the necessary qualifications.⁽¹²²⁾And in 1637, in a document already cited, the king himself expressed the opinion that colegiales were not necessarily superior letrados to those who were not. ⁽¹²³⁾ A report conducted in 1645 by the Bishop of Salamanca, Juan de Valençuela, on the academic merits of university scholars also suggests that the colegiales were not all they were made out to be. For example, Toribio de Santos, a student in Oviedo and reader of the university chair of Institutes in the faculty of civil law, merited only the following comment: "He has little reputation for letters or intelligence; he is a nephew of the President of Castile, Santos." ⁽¹²⁴⁾ It would be difficult to argue that ability alone had earned Toribio de Santos his chair.

Another reference to the academic qualifications of the colegiales mayores lies in a memorial sent by the Colleges of the Military Orders to Charles II. These colleges, admittedly the sworn enemies of the colegios mayores, presented the following, rather derogatory picture:

The Colegios Mayores are totally ignorant communities, since of the 120 who are now resident in them, one hundred are idiots and so incapable that they do not even know Latin; the chairs they read are without listeners; they study with dissolution and liberty... because they know their defects and excesses will not [156] come before your eyes but only before those of the royal ministers, their fellow colegiales, who disregard their faults. ⁽¹²⁵⁾

What is certain is that in all of the chairs for which colegiales compete, the oposiciones are... almost familiar in tone and in all those in which there are no Colegiales Mayores, the oposiciones are carried out with the necessary rigor as in the case of the chairs of medicine and in those of Latin, Rhetoric, Hebrew, and Greek. ⁽¹²⁷⁾

Hints and suggestions that many colegiales were students of questionable academic ability appear more credible when compared with the reports of the royal visitors who inspected college life. Their comments about the need to maintain high academic standards in the elections to becas lasted throughout the century, and these are good indications that geography and family had as much, if not more, to do with selection than merit. Furthermore, their descriptions of the luxury and the pleasurable appurtenances of college life does not suggest that colegiales lived in total dedication to academic pursuits. Yet these same students, using patronage to obtain university chairs, controlled teaching in the major faculties and brought their personal standards of scholarship into the schools. To compare the relative merits of colegial and manteista professors would be an impossible task, but one might venture the hypothesis that, especially in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the academic ability and scholarly distinction of the colegiales frequently fell below that of other instructors.

If colegiales did not injure teaching standards through lack of ability, they certainly endangered them by a lack of dedication to their work. Absenteeism among all university instructors, colegial and manteista alike, was common throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.⁽¹²⁹⁾ [157] Aside from illness, the major cause of this problem was personal business which interfered with university duties. For many professors the conflicts arose especially from negotiations for public office which necessitated extended trips to Madrid. The colegiales, keenly interested in these appointments, readily abandoned their chairs, or so a comment made in 1648 about the arts faculty at Salamanca suggests: "... it is very rare that a chair in arts held by a Colegial Mayor is read continuously for a year; some do not even read for a month, others two days." ⁽¹³⁰⁾ The anonymous author of this report noted further that in previous years "every colegial professor vacated his chair in the middle of the academic year to compete in oposiciones for other positions, thus leaving his students temporarily without a teacher."

In the law faculties, where colegial professors were the most numerous, problems multiplied. Colegiales often spent less time in the lecture halls than in oposiciones for higher chairs and in Madrid. In the meantime, their chairs were either left unattended or placed in the hands of substitutes, usually fellow colegiales, who were no more diligent in their classroom duties. As a result many of the chairs in these faculties suffered from exceptionally high rates of absenteeism and a rapid turnover of instructors. Teaching, moreover, was sporadic and discontinuous, while the Royal Council's reluctance to punish negligent colegiales served only to make matters worse.⁽¹³¹⁾

The indifference of colegial professors toward teaching stemmed from a belief that the university chair was not an end in itself but a passport to public office. The University of Salamanca in a letter to Philip V explained the colegiales' attitude this way:

The colegiales regard their chair as a honorary title and as a step to the Office, and they neglect their instruction. It happens that today among the six professors of law (three chairs are vacant), it can be said that only one, Doctor Bernardino Francos Militar, a manteista, teaches; ... the others, who are Colegiales Mayores, some for lack of ability, others for various pretexts, do not attend their classes.⁽¹³²⁾

[158] In addition to the disruption of university instruction, contemporaries charged that the colegios mayores were responsible for a decline in student matriculations, a problem common to all universities in seventeenth-century Castile. ⁽¹³³⁾The Colleges of the Military Orders explained that "with advancement in the colleges regulated more by seniority than excellence in their studies, many colegiales are idle because of the security of eventual promotion, while for those who are not colegiales, the result is a despair which urges them to abandon the university, as they see that the door to offices is closed and that it will open only to a few accredited lawyers who are considered necessary in the tribunals." ⁽¹³⁴⁾ The"falta de premios" or shortage of offices was said to discourage university study, and the colegios mayores, because of their dominant position within the universities and their monopoly of letrado posts, were obliged to take much of the blame for the decline in the number of students. It is possible that the colegiales, famous for the ease with which they received professorships and public offices, did indeed keep a number of potential students away from the universities. The six colegios mayores, consequently, must be seen as one, but by no means the only, reason for the depopulation of Castile's universities during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Supporting the colegios mayores, however, were the letrado and noble families who monopolized the leading positions in church and state. The educational interests of this class, combined with the Cámara's biased methods of appointment, helped turn the colleges into schools for the sons of court families and brought about the abandonment of charitable and academic goals set down in the colleges' founding statutes. The beca became merely a wedge to pry open the office door, the entrance to Castile's ruling elite. But in this sense the colegios mayores fulfilled at least one of their original aims. Generation after generation of colegiales dedicated their careers to the service of the crown, to the fulfillment of the Renaissance goals of service set by their founders. The changes which had taken place within the colleges were therefore responses to the growth, ideals, and interests of a letrado class created by the development of the absolute monarchy in Castile. And this was a world from which none of Castile's universities could remain immune.

1. The constitutions of Salamanca's four colegios mayores have been published in Sala Balust,Constituciones, Estatutos,yCeremonias de los Antiguos Colegios Seculares de la Universidad de Salamanca (4 vols., Madrid, 1962-66). For those of San Ildefonso, see AHN: Univ., leg. 674 F or 1086 F. The constitution and statutes of the Colegio Mayor de Santa Cruz are located in the Biblioteca Santa Cruz, Valladolid.

2. See below, p. 153.

3. For details about life in the colegios mayores, see M.A. Febrero Lorenzo, La Pedagogía de los Colegios Mayores en el Siglo de Oro (Madrid, 1960); E. Madruga Jiménez, Crónica del Colegio Mayor del Arzobispo de Salamanca (Salamanca, 1957); and J. Puyol, El Colegio Mayor de Santa Cruz y los Colegios Mayores (Madrid, 1929), who gives a daily schedule of the students in the colegios mayores (p. 21). At least nine hours a day were devoted to study. Beltrán de Heredia,Cartulario de la Universidad de Salamanca (Salamanca, 1971), 3: 371-478, provides additional details concerning the establishment of the colleges of Cuenca and Oviedo.

4. The college of San Ildefonso was somewhat of an exception in this regard, since about half of its scholarships were in the gift of various important personages, families, and towns; see J. de Rujula y Ochotereña, Marqués de Ciadoncha, Indice de los Colegiales del Mayor de San Ildefonso y Menores de Alcalá (Madrid, 1946), p. xvii.

5. Ajo y Sainz de Zúñiga, Historia de la Universidades Hispánicas (8 vols., Madrid, 1957-72), 2: 300-01.

6. The 1538 statutes of the University of Salamanca debarred colegiales from the office of university rector and councilor; see Esperabé Artega, Universidad de Salamanca (Salamanca, 1914), 1: 141-42. At Valladolid the colegiales of Santa Cruz were granted special permission by the crown in 1500 to be able, if elected, to hold the rectorship of the university; F. Arribas Arranz, "El Colegio Mayor de Santa Cruz en sus primeros anos," Santa Cruz (1961): 6. For some of the problems to which this particular privilege led, see AGS: DC, leg. 5-106.

7. Pérez Bayer, Por la Libertad de la Literatura Española (Palacio Real de Madrid), vol. I, folio 5.

8. Angel Riesco Terrero, Proyección Histórico-Social de la Universidad de Salamanca a Través de sus Colegios (siglos XV y XVI) (Salamanca, 1970), p. 50.

9. See Olmedo, Diego Ramírez de Villaescusa 1459-1537 (Madrid, 1944), p. xii.

10. See pp. 131-34 and Febrero Lorenzo, Los Colegios Mayores, pp. 155-62.

11. As a reminder to the reader: the colleges of Arzobispo, Cuenca, Oviedo, and San Bartolomé belonged to the University of Salamanca; Santa Cruz was in Valladolid and San Ildefonso in Alcalá de Henares.

12. See Sala Balust, Constituciones, 3: 14, 68, 209. The college of San Ildefonso was unique in that it preferred students from one diocese -- Toledo.

13. In the college of Oviedo, Galicia and Asturias were allowed two colegiales each.

14. See below, pp. 203-10.

15. See L. Sala Balust, Colegios de Salamanca, 1623-1770 (Valladolid, 1956), pp. 15-26.

16. AGS: GJ, leg. 959, "Discurso sobre los Colegios Mayores de Salamanca y Valladolid... 1714," folio 4.

17. BM: Add. 24,947, folio 96.

18. The colleges of Arzobispo and Santa Cruz later passed similar statutes.

19. See Pérez Bayer, Literatura Española, vol. I, folios 82-101. For a geographical breakdown of the colleges in the l630s, see AHN: Cons., leg. 7138, "Información de los Colegios Mayores," 19.I.1636.

20. See Febrero Lorenzo, Los Colegios Mayores, p. 54.

21. See below pp. 175-79 for changes in the age of university students.

22. BSC: lib. 22, no. 195.

23. See below, pp. 140-43.

24. For those of Arzobispo. see Ferrer Ezquerra and Misol García, Catálogo de Colegiales del Colegio Mayor de Santiago del Cebedeo, del Arzobispo de Salamanca (Salamanca, 1956); for Cuenca, see BSC: Ms. 285 and BUS: Ms. 2424; for Oviedo, see BSC: lib. 174, BNM: Ms. 940; for San Ildefonso, AHN: Univs., lib. 1233 F; and Santa Cruz, BSC: lib. 22.

25. Roxas y Contreras, Historia del Colegio Viejo de San Bartolomé (3 vols., Madrid, 1766), 1: no. 497; 2: nos. 23, 33, 42, 63, 85, 105.

26. Ibid., vol. I, no. 473; BSC: lib. 22, nos. 488, 513, 579; BSC: lib. 174, nos. 180, 256, 368, 346, 362, 378.

27. BSC: lib. 22, nos. 356, 397; BSC: lib. 174, nos. 271, 290, 312, 331, 411, 416; AHN: Univs., lib. 1233 F, nos. 727, 758, 890, 914, 937; Ferrer Ezquerra, Colegio del Arzobispo, nos. 232, 334.

28. For the Sierra family in this college, see BSC: lib. 22, nos. 533, 565, 587.

29. See BSC: lib. 22, nos. 511, 517, 526, 551. In a few cases, the nephew of the out-going colegial was admitted to the empty place; cf. BSC: lib. 22, nos. 500, 501.

30. BSC: lib. 22, nos. 58, 170, 195. For the third son, see Ferrer Ezquerra, Colegio del Arzobispo, p. 35.

31. Roxas y Contreras, Colegio Viejo, vol. 1, no. 362. His sons were Juan Chumacero y Sotomayor, colegial of San Bartolomé; Francisco Carrillo Chumacero, colegial of Arzobispo; and Antonio Chumacero, colegial of Cuenca.

32. AHN: Univs., lib. 1233 F, nos. 862-63.

33. Roxas y Contreras, Colegio Viejo, vol. I, nos. 457, 499; vol. II, nos. 5, 27, 34, 72, 74, 78, 106, 131, 138.

34. Pérez Bayer, Literatura Española, vol. I, folio 66, note 49.

35. These colegiales are spread throughout the admission books of the six colleges. For a list ofcolegiales ilustres from these communities, see Roxas y Conteras, Colegio Viejo, 2: 44ff.

36. AHN: Univs., lib. 1233 F, no. 872.

37. See Febrero Lorenzo, Los Colegios Mayores, pp. 60-63; Sala Balust, Constituciones, 3: 15, 209; 4: 15, 176; Pérez Bayer, Literatura Española, vol. I, folio 8.

38. Sala Balust, Constituciones, 3: 95.

39. Ibid., 3: 128.

40. See ibid., 4: 212; Pérez Bayer, Literatura Espauiola, 1: 16.

41. AGS: GJ, leg. 959, visita of 18.I.1635; BM: Add. 24, 947, folio 91. See also Sala Balust,Colegios de Salamanca, pp. 13, 102.

42. Sala Balust, Constituciones, 4: 48.

43. Ibid., 4: 83.

44. Ibid., 4: 146-47, 296.

45. See the 1534 statute of San Bartolomé which raised the college's poverty limit from 5,000 to 12,000 mrs.; cf. ibid., 3: 128.

46. See the reports of seventeenth-century visitations to the colleges in AGS: GJ, leg. 959. These have been published in Sala Balust, Colegios de Salamanca; see esp. the 1665 report of don Matías de Rada,. pp. 106-16. See also AHN: Cons. leg. 7138, letter of the maestrescuelaof Salamanca, 9.XI.1701.

47. See AHN: Univ., lib. 1233 F, nos. 640, 675, 862-63. For accounts of this collegesporcionistas, see AHN: Univs., lib. 911 F.

48. Sala Balust, Constituciones, 3: 234.

49. San Ildefonso is somewhat of an exception. Expressly designed to train churchmen, all of its graduates in the sixteenth century entered the church. However, by the reign of Charles II nearly 20 percent rejected ecclesiastical careers for those in government

50. Roxas y Contreras, Colegio Viejo, vol. 11, no. 98.

51. Ibid., vol. II, no. 138.

52. Sala Balust, Constituciones, 3: 14, 209; 4: 14. See also AHN: Cons., leg. 7138, Información de los Colegios Mayores," 19.I.1636.

53. Francisco Bartolomé, admitted to this college on 6.VIII.l578, was Santa Cruz's last student of medicine; cf. BSC: lib. 22, no. 274.

54. In 1580 the Royal Council ordered these two colleges to explain why they had never admittedmedícos;cf. Esperabé Artega, Universidad de Salamanca, 1: 571.

55. See Sala Balust, Colegios de Salamanca, pp. 24, 32, 102, 111.

56. BSC: Caja 31, no. 416.

57. See Sala Balust, Colegios de Salamanca, p. 25; AHN: Cons., leg. 7138, "Información de los Colegios Mayores," 19.I.1636; and Pérez Bayer, Literatura Española, vol. 1, folio 154.

58. On 15 December 1576 the Royal Council debated whether there should be "colegiales juristas" in San Ildefonso, probably after a previous request by that college for permission to admit such students; see AHN: Cons., Consultas de Viernes, leg. 7043.

59. AHN: Univs., lib. 1233 F, no. 536.

60. Bennassar, Valladolid au Siècle d'Or(Paris, 1967), p. 360.

61. Ibid., p. 360.

62. Ibid p. 361.

63. See U. González de la Calle, Oposiciones a Catédras en la Universidad de Salamanca, 1550-60 (Madrid, 1933). Orders of the Royal Council to stop corruption in the student elections appeared in 1558, 1561, 1565, 1567, 1580, 1584, 1586, 1592. 1595, 1598, 1602, 1604, and 1621; cf. Esperabé Artega, Universidad de Salamanca, vol. 1. See also AHN: Cons., leg. 7138.

64. Esperabé Artega, Universidad de Salamanca, 1 : 607.

65. AHN: Cons. leg. 7138, Fernando de Ibarra al Consejo Real, 19.I.1636.

66. Ibid., "Memorial de los Colegios Mayores," 9.XI.1638.

67. González de la Calle, Oposiciones, p. 71.

68. Ibid., p. 77.

69. AHN: Cons. leg. 7138, letters of 16 and 17.I.1636 and 2.II.1636 describe this clash.

70. See Pérez Bayer, Literatura Española, vol. II, folios 207 ff. The solidarity of the colegios mayores is also evident in the numerous joint memorials they sent to the Royal Council. Several of these can be found in AHN: Cons. leg. 7138.

71. AHN: Cons., leg. 7138, letter of 30.XI.164l.

72. AGS: GJ, leg. 943, "Relacion del Turno en la Universidad de Salamanca."

73. Roxas y Contreras, Colegio Viejo, vol. II, no. 72.

74. Sala Balust, Constituciones, 3: 15, 218; 4: 20, 176.

75. Arzobispo extended its beca from eight years to nine in 1581; cf. E. Madruga Jiménez,Crónica del Colegio Mayor del Arzobispo, p. 28. Oviedo and Santa Cruz also added another year or two to their scholarships; cf. Pérez Bayer, Literatura Española, Vol. I, folio 138.

76. See ALTS: Libros de Matrículas, for the appropriate years. Colegiales are listed separately at the front of each of these volumes. The same applies for the college of Santa Cruz: cf. AUV: Libros de Matrículas.

77. Sala Balust, Constituciones, 3: 269.

78. It is also known that colegiales moved into the hospedería before their regular scholarship was up. This was done to free themselves from certain restrictions -- poverty limits, prohibitions on the possession of clerical prebends, curfews, etc -- which applied to students with becas.

79. See Pérez Bayer, Literatura Española, vol. I, folio 139. Previously, the Royal Council had opposed extended stays in the hospederías; cf. Sala Balust, Colegios de Salamanca, p. 32.

80. See Roxas y Contreras, Colegio Viejo, vol. 1, no. 143.

81. BSC: caja 2, statute no. 28 Sala Balust, Constituciones, 3: 118, 247; 4: 31, 192.

82. BSC: caja 2, statute of 1.VIII.1580; Sala Balust,Constituciones, 3: 139. At the College of Fonseca in Santiago de Compostela a statute was passed in 1 583 which allowed only one colegial to compete for a chair at the same time in order to prevent "partialities and differences" within the community. The privilege of representing the college went to the eldest member; cf. Antonio Fraguas Fraguas, Historia del Colegio de Fonseca(Santiago de Compostela, 1956), p. 53.

83. Sala Balust, Constituciones, 4: 66, 221.

84. Toga, or judicial robe, implies a position in one of the tribunals or councils of the crown; in other words, a plaza de asiento.

85. AGS: GJ, leg. 959, "Discurso sobre los Colegios Mayores...," folio 1v.

86. In the sixteenth century, three of San Bartolomé's graduates became lawyers, While another three entered into the corregimientos of the crown. However, Roxas y Contreras, author of the biographies of this college's graduates, frequently avoided mention of jobs other than plazas de asiento that were held by San Bartolomé students in order to enhance the prestige of the college's record. It is likely, therefore, that more of San Bartolomé's students entered "temporal" offices during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries than Roxas y Contreras admits.

87. For the seventeenth century I have not been able to find reference to any student who left a colegio mayor as an abogado, and in all six of the colleges, only five students left for a Corregimiento.

88. On other occasions library books were sold, while San Ildefonso resorted to the sale of University offices in order to make ends meet; see AHN, Univ., leg. 387, letter of 25.V.l648, and Sala Balust, Colegios de Salamanca, pp. 33, 108.

89. AGS: GJ, leg. 959, "Discurso sobre los Colegios Mayores ...," folio 4v.

90. For the college of San Bartolomé, there are references to visitations in 1490, 1497, 1526, 1561, and 1565-66; see Sala Balust, Constituciones, 3: 85, 93, 121, 139, and Esperaba Artega,Universidad de Salamanca, 1: 520.

91. San Bartolomé passed a statute of this nature in 1507; see Sala Balust, Constituciones, 3: 101.

92. The 1561 visita to San Bartolomé was carried out by Doctor Matías Rodríguez, a former student. The names of previous "visitors" are not known.

93. AGS: DC, leg. 5-106.

94. IVDJ: Envio 90, folios 706 ff, "Collegios de Sala[man]ca... l5.IX.l587"; García de Loaysa a Mateo Vázquez, 15.IX.l587.

95. Such an occurrence took place in 1603, when two Latin students at Alcalá complained that San Ildefonso's becas went only to "friends and relatives [of the colegiales] and those from their own regions and factions." Subsequently, the crown demanded an inquiry into these accusations. See AHN: Univ., leg. 387, cédula of 3.IX.l603.

96. AHN: Cons., leg. 7138, letter to the four colegios mayores of Salamanca, XII.1623. This was the first letter of the junta asking the colleges to conform to their original statutes. In this same legajo, a letter, dated 23.XII.l623, of the rector of the college of Oviedo also refers to the "Junta."

97. AHN leg. 23² no 28.

98. AHN: Cons., leg. 7138, consulta of 4.VII.1634.

99. Sala Balust, Colegios de Salamanca pp. 10-26; AGS: GJ, leg. 959, "Visita of Don Mendo de Benavides..." AUS: MS 1925, folio 188 deals with this same visita.

100. BM: Add. 14,947, folio 71, cédula of 8.VII.1646.

101. Ibid., folio 91.

102. Ibid., folio 95.

103. Subsequent visits and lists of proposed reforms were little different; see Sala Balust,Colegios de Salamanca, pp. 31-37, 106-16; AGS: GJ, leg. 959; AUV: lib. D-7; BSC: caja 31, nos. 413-15.

104. Sala Balust, Colegios de Salamanca, pp. 45-62. See also Pérez Bayer, Literatura Española, vol. 1, folios 106-26, 134; BNM: Ms. 18,055, folios 130-36, "Papel Curioso en punto de Colegios."

105. On this attack and the reforms which were later enacted, see L. Sala Balust, Visitas y Reformas de los Colegios Mayores de Salamanca en el Reinado de Carlos III (Valladolid, 1958). Also useful is George M. Addy, The Enlightenment in the University of Salamanca (Durham, 1966), esp. chap. 10.

106. Pérez Bayer, Literatura Española, vol. II, folios 19,212. See also BNM: Ms. 18,377, Diario Histórico de la Reforma de los Seis Colegios Mayores... desde... 1771... hasta... 1777 by the same author.

107. AHN: Cons., leg. 7294, letter of 21.II.1714.

108. On 19 and 30 October 1655 the Royal Council reaffirmed university statutes barring colegiales from the offices of rector and maestrescuela of Salamanca; cf. AGS: GJ, leg. 942.

109. In 1567 the Royal Council first ordered that the office of Juez del Estudio was to be closed to colegiales; cf. Esperabé Artega, Universidad de Salamanca, 1: 520. This ruling, however, was repeatedly ignored; see BM: Add. 28,349, f. 227, "Los inconvenientes que ay que en Sala[man]ca tengan Colegiales en los oficios de provisor, juez metropolitano, y juez del estudio, 14.XI.l589." In the 1660s the Council was forced to reaffirm the original statute and this action was repeated in 1689; cf. AGS: GJ, leg. 942, no. 1 and Esperabé Artega, Universidad de Salamanca, 1 : 677.

110. AHN: Cons., leg. 7138, letter of 28.IX.1637.

111. See Beltrán de Heredia, Bulario de la Universidad de Salamanca (3 vols., Salamanca, 1966-67): 195, 204, 243. The College of Santa Cruz had similar privileges at the University of Valladolid; cf. BSC: caja 4, letter of 2.IV.1647.

112. Disruptions occurred in 1535, 1539, 1549, 1552, 1563, 1581, 1585, 1588, 1592, and 1613; see Esperabé Artega,Universidad de Salamanca, 1 : 413, 420, 488, 595, 633. By 1613 the president of the Royal Council, apparently weary of this endless feud, was said to be on the verge of ending all special graduation privileges for college students, including those of monks belonging to the religious colleges; cf. AUS: Ms. 2969, letter of 23.III.1613.

113. See AHN: Cons. leg. 7138 and Kagan, "Education and The State," pp. 247-49.

114. AUS: Ms. 2287, no folio; AHN: Cons., leg. 7138, letter of 25.I.1692.

115. For their history, see Sala Balust, Constituciones, 1: 15; Ajo, Universidades, 2: 228.

116. See AHN: Cons., leg. 7138, "Memorial de los Tres Colegios Militares, 1659"; BUS: Ms. 2266, folios 10, 29; RAH: Ms. 9-31-8-7120, "Memorial de los Cuatro Colegios Mayores...'; AUS: Ms. 1925, folios 196 ff., "Apologia por la affeción de las vecas de los Colegios Mayores."

117. BUS: Ms. 2266, folio 4, cédula of 8.IV.1659.

118. BUS: Ms. 2266, folio 29 ff.; RAH: Ms. 9-31-8-7120; AUS: Ms. 939, folios 149, 165.

119. Although teaching chairs were provided for in the original constitutions of the colleges, these, for the most part, remained a dead letter. Febrero Lorenzo, Los Colegios Mayores, pp. 115-24, claims that chairs were being read in the colleges, but in support of her claim cites only the original college statutes. Closer to the truth was Pérez Bayer, Literatura Española, vol. II, folio 195, who attests that the colegios mayores lacked the teaching chairs for which their founders had provided.

120. BNM: Ms. l8,657³, "Respuesta de la Universidad de Alcalá a un decreto de Felipe V sobre el estudio de leyes patrias, 1713."

121. Members of the Colegios Mayores who were authors have been catalogued and their Works noted in José Rezábal y Ugarte, Biblioteca de los Escritores que Han Sido Individuos de los Colegios Mayores (Madrid, 1805).

122. Esperabé Artega, Universidad de Salamanca, 1: 712.

123. See p. 153.

124. This refers to Miguel Santos de San Pedro, president of the Royal Council of Castile from 1629 to 1633; see BUS: Ms. 1925, folio 144 ff., "Memoria de los Colegiales...," 4.II.1645.

125. RAH: Ms. 9-31-8-7120.

126. BUS: Ms. 761, ff. 80-87, "Informe del Estado de los Colegios Mayores... 1685." See also Febrero Lorenzo, Los Colegios Mayores, p. 24.

127. AGS: GJ, leg. 943, "Relacion del turno...."

128. Ibid.

129. See below, pp. 171-73.

130. AHN: Cons. leg. 7138, "Memorial de 17.III.1648."

131. When the University of Salamanca protested in 1694 that Ambrosio Bernal, a colegial in San Bartolomé, had vacated his chair of Decreto but continued to collect his salary, Bernal, backed by the Bishop of Salamanca, a graduate of the Colegio Mayor de San Ildefonso, themaestrescuela of Salamanca, and the four colegios mayores of that city, appealed to the Royal Council. The partisan council upheld Bernal's position and ordered that his salary be paid. Furthermore, they threatened to fine the university for its vindictive action. For these proceedings, see AHN: Cons., leg. 7138, "Pleitos de la Universidad de Salamanca sobre la renta de don Ambrosio Bernal."

132. See Pérez Bayer, Literatura Española, vol. II, folio 107.

133. See below, pp. 219-21.

134. AHN: Cons., leg. 7138, "Memorial de los Tres Colegios Militares, 1659."