El maestro de obras catedralicio en Castilla a finales del siglo XV

Abstract

This research examines the figure of the cathedral master builder, the director of the wide group who was integrating the differents roles of masonry at the end of the 15th century were working in the last big Gothic Castilian cathedrals. At the beginning, we analyze the routes to be a cathedral master builder. The study of the general conditions of the contract and the variants of the application of the system of mastery in this contracting of the master builders leads us to studying salaries and wage, specifications about their residence, conditions of work, as well as the development of their specific competitions of responsibility. The list of these architects is reduced but their professional prestige is big; their experience supports them to share the masters builders between different cathedrals, to report on other many works, to support narrow relations with the ecclesiastic promoters, to travel with kings or an economic position acquiring discharge reflected in the endowment of their own funeral space and the acquisition of goods like quarries, mills, lands or own houses. In other occasions, nevertheless, the cathedral mastery related problems to the justice that reflect how troubled life could be in the Cathedral‘s workshop life.