Honor and Violence in Golden Age Spain (review)

Since the publication of the classic anthropological studies of Mediterranean culture by such luminaries as Pitt-Rivers and Peristiany, many scholars have examined the multiples ways that honor can structure, and be structured by, societies well beyond the scope of this region.¹ Taylor brings the analysis of honor back to its roots in Spain. Many scholars have pinpointed Golden Age Spain as the apotheosis of honor systems, especially because playwrights like Lope de Vega and Calderón de la Barca celebrated this code of honor during this period.² The question at the core of Taylor's monograph is whether these plays mirrored what the writers saw around them or whether Spaniards followed different codes.

Taylor uses two series of criminal documents to paint a picture of the daily decisions that Spaniards made when confronted with challenges to their honor. The sources were not plentiful for this period; in fact, Taylor was able to find only two series that were complete enough to be useful—criminal cases from a town called Yébenes and the Good Friday pardons. Taylor quotes from the plays and uses the criminal documents and a few moral treatises in order to debunk the notion that these plays in any way reflected the day-to-day realities lived by Spaniards. His argument is useful but not particularly new, since other authors have already made this claim. Nevertheless, Taylor adds to the honor canon by making a case for a rhetoric instead of a code of honor. This distinction may seem subtle but it points in the direction of less rigid definitions and reactions. What Taylor shows in the criminal cases is that Spaniards responded to challenges to their honor in many ways. People led complex lives and behaved in ways that were not particularly formulaic.

The richness of this book lies in Taylor's detailed discussion of the interactions, petty quarrels, and the jockeying for position in which people engaged regularly; through this discussion, Taylor successfully conveys everyday life in Golden Age Spain. He revels in the abundance of documentation that he consulted. He provides specialists in honor and violence studies with many details about customs—how Spaniards, say, expressed their disapproval (for example, by burning doors) or how they signaled the beginning of a fight (by removing their capes and touching their swords). The book is disappointing only in its failure to engage with the literature of other disciplines and other regions, which would have deepened the analysis. Yet, it deserves to be read not only by specialists of Iberia and Latin America but also by those interested in studies of criminality and violence and in criminal documents as a window onto plebeian culture.