[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