Writ recognizing Fernando Padilla Dávila as an hidalgo

Fernando Padilla Dávila, a town councillor in Jerez de la Frontera, started a lawsuit in 1557 in the Chancery of Granada, against Jerez City Council, that claimed him a tax on meat and fish. He requested to be declared an hidalgo (a member of the minor nobility) and therefore to be exempt from the payment. As the applicant was a wealthy man, the copy is richly decora .ted. Its forty-six parchment sheets, written on both sides, are protected by a leather binding. The whole document is written in ochre ink in Gothic redondilla, with golden initials in a blue or maroon square with white vegetable patterns. Gómara family.