Consumptions and municipal offices: the frustrated attempt of the city of Salamanca to consume a regiduría at the beginning of the 17th Century

Abstract

The access roads to the regidurías of the main Castilian cities from the second half of the sixteenth century were practically reduced to two: the resignations by their owner in favor of a relative or a person outside the family and the purchase of the office paying the corresponding price, being very rare the mercedes regias in favor of a certain person, who on the other hand since the sixteenth century almost always masked an alienation. The objective of this work is to explain one of these increasingly infrequent mercedes regias of a vacant regiment, the one that occurred in Salamanca at the beginning of the 17th century, as well as the unsuccessful attempt of its municipality to consume it, which led to a lawsuit before the Council of Castilla. We will see how that mercy concealed a purchase by price.