Against the Office and against Nature: Partiality, Sodomy and Self-fashioning in a Spanish Royal Officer’s Trial (1594-1595)

Abstract

By studying an extraordinary case, that of the corregidor of Murcia Fernando de Vera y Vargas, accused of sodomy in 1594, this article analyses how different types of trials –a residencia and a sodomy process– require different self-fashioning strategies from the same individual. In opposition to the identity as corregidor, based on merits and the appropriate performance of an impartial loyal officer, in the sodomy trial Vera is presented as a distinguished citizen, from an honorable family and closely related to powerful local families as evidences of a noble character, incompatible with a crime against nature. Despite the differences between the two trials, both of them work on a complementary way to reveal a kaleidoscope of social tension that descends from the well-known sixteenth century Murcian factions. Beyond the self-fashioning analysis focused on discourse, the present work proves that the success of said discourses depended upon its confirmation by a determined fraction of the society and, in order to assure that confirmation, the display of a particular behavior that supported the intended self-portrayal was indispensable