Beyond Revenge: Civilian Violence against Soldiers in a Frontier City (Pamplona 1519-1596)

Abstract

This article addresses an under analysed aspect in the history of the civil-military relations during the early modern period: civilian violence against soldiers. While the causes and factors behind the widespread aggressions and extortions civilians suffered at the hands of military men have attracted a great deal of scholarly attention, we know very little about the former’s violence on the latter. Analysing court trials against a wide array of civilians (from local authorities to peasants and manufacturing workers) on their attacks against the soldiers deployed in a new frontier city: Pamplona, I argue that civilian violence against soldiers, far from being a simple reaction to military aggressions, was the result of first, their incorporation into urban society; and second, the civilians’ active engagement in the shaping of informal rules and practices regulating civil-military relations from below.