Urban lineages and “Parientes Mayores” in Guipuzcoa at the end of the Middle Ages (1450-1520)

Abstract

During the transition from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern Period, urban lineages and the “Parientes Mayores” continued sharing common interests and close family and economic ties, which enabled them to monopolize the government in guipuzcoan towns and to obtain the majority of the council positions, giving way to a process of oligarchization. The research employs prosopographic methods to analyse unpublished or poorly used sources, complemented by others sufficiently known, in order to demonstrate that, in spite of what the historiography has claimed to date, the “Parientes Mayores” were not defeated and displaced by urban lineages. On the contrary, a symbiosis occurred, which allow the “Parientes Mayores” to continue controlling local and regional politics directly or indirectly.