Keepers of the City. The Corregidores of Isabella I of Castile (1474-1504) (review)

136 Reviews study of the comparative dramatic conventions stimulates to reflection students of both nationd dramas. Loftis's book is a model of detdled and thorough documentation of scholarly sources. The notes contdn a mine of information for the literary critic or historian. They dlow the book to overcome the criticism that it is neither history nor literary andysis. In attempting a true interdisciplinary approach to 'literary history' Loftis succeeds much of the time, and certdnly succeeds in pointing students from both disciplines to important sources and considerations. In doing this, Renaissance Drama in England and Spain is a vduable contribution to literary critic and Uterary historian dike. Jane Morrison School of Spanish and Latin American Studies University of N e w South W d e s Lunenfeld, M., Keepers of the City. The Corregidores ofIsabella I of Castile (1474-1504), Cambridge, C.U.P., 1987; pp.xi, 290; 7 Tables, 1 map. 1918 was a very poor season for Wilhelm II and his German generals, but a good one for Isabella I and her Castilian conegidores. In his volume on the Catholic Kings published in that year, R.B. Meniman spent several pages on the corregimiento, an administrative and judicid post that could be estabUshed in cities under royd jurisdiction, and whose incumbent, the conegidor, was dways appointed by the Crown and was responsible to it The post was not a new one in Isabella's day but she used this method of attempted royd intervention in city dfairs on a much wider scde than had her predecessors. The conegidor system, if we can cdl it that, had begun as a short-term emergency measure. Eventually, it became part of the normd, permanent, bureaucratic machinery of Hapsburg and Bourbon Spain, but the decisive phase in the process of making it so is generaUy ascribed to thereignof Isabella. For Meniman 'conegidores were, in fact, omnicompetent servants of an absolute king ... ' (p. 149). Those were the days when historians used to see 'efficient royd despotism' (p.78) on the march in late 15th-century France, Spdn, and England. 'Nationd ... consoUdation' (p.78) was aU the rage. Forty five years later much was changing, or about to change. In 1963, J.H. Elliott's Imperial Spain opened a new era in Spanish historicd studies. The section on Isabella and Ferdinand laid 'new monarchy' low, and damaged national umfication mythology beyond repair. It left intact, however, the traditional version of the corregidor's function and importance. That survived unchdlenged, in English language historiography at any rate, up to 1981, when Stephen Hdiczer's The Comuneros of Castile Reviews 137 appeared. Taking into account the vduable work done since 1963 on the Comunero Revolt of 1520-21 by Spanish and French historians, and employing much new archivd research, Hdiczer's study was concerned especidly with the long-term origins of the Revolt. This led him into some work on the conegidor system. His conclusion was that in the age of Isabella it was neither as systematic nor as successful as had been thought By 1983, Henry Kamen, in a new generd history of early m o d e m Spdn, was giving Isabella's conegidores very short shrift indeed. H o w much evidence, and what sort of evidence, had been provided to support these views? To do him justice, Meniman gave his sources. These included royd edicts, law codes, ordinances, chronicles, and a massive handbook for conegidores. That was not bad going when you consider that the subject was treated in no more than several pages in one volume of a set of four. The only two monographs on the topic, those of Fernando de Albi (1943) and B. Gonzdez Alonso (1970), seem to have used much the same type of materid. EUiott and Kamer supplied their readers with excellent bibliographies but, as is usud in general histories, gave them neither foot-notes nor end-notes. Like aU writers of general histories, they often had to rely on secondary sources, as they acknowledged Edicts, ordinances, law codes, handbooks and the like, can reveal much about theory and intentions, but not about practice. It was Hdiczer who first began to uncover materid that told...