Key Documents from the General Archive of Andalusia

Military orders under Spain's Old Regime

Military orders had a great deal of territorial, economic, and political power under Spain's Old Regime

The Order of Santiago was a military religious order originating in the late 12th century, in the kingdom of Leon. Its main objective was to fight the Moors, meaning that its territorial, political, and economic growth was closely tied to the conquest of the Iberian Peninsula.

One of the Order's key figures was Henry of Aragon, son of Ferdinand I of Aragon. At just nine years old, he was proclaimed Grand Master—the Order's highest authority—and held this position until he died.

The most significant legacy of his time as Grand Master was the General Chapter, held in the Monastery of Uclés in 1440. It was there that the statutes that would later govern the institution were established.

The General Archive of Andalusia houses what must be one of the first copies of these statutes. The book originally belonged to Diego Fernández de Córdoba.

The trials and tribulations of being a convert in 15th-century Spain and finding yourself on the wrong side of politics

Juan Rodríguez de Santa Cruz was a "veinticuatro," or twenty-four, meaning he was a member of Cordoba's municipal council. He was granted several privileges for his loyalty to Henry IV of Castile and enjoyed a high status as "alcalde examinador" (chief examiner) of the city's physicians and surgeons. His job was to judge the suitability of people working in those professions and grant them the appropriate licenses.

With the arrival of the Catholic Monarchs, his circumstances changed. They prohibited him from holding this post and found him guilty of the crime of "heretical depravity" because he was a converted Jew. He was stripped of all his possessions, including some houses in Plaza de Los Paraísos in the parish of Santa María. The Catholic Monarchs gave these houses to Andrés Calderón, "corregidor" (chief magistrate) of Granada. He, in turn, sold them to Ferrán Páez de Castillejo.

Ferrán Páez de Castillejo's grandson, Luis Páez, then converted them and the adjoining houses into a Renaissance palace. For this, he enlisted the help of the stonemason Hernán Ruiz, and his son Hernán Ruiz II. The palace became the property of the Count of Montegil and was later acquired by the State. In 1960, it became the main building of Córdoba's Archaeological Museum.

The importance of being a nobleman in 16th-century Castile

Fernando Padilla Dávila was a member of Jerez de la Frontera's municipal council (known as a "veinticuatro"). In 1557, he took a claim to the Chancellery of Granada (the highest judicial body in the territories of Castile to the south of the Tagus River) against Jerez council's intention to charge him a tax on meat and fish.

In his claim, he requested that his status as a nobleman be legally declared, which would exempt him from paying the tax.

This document is richly decorative, reflecting the applicant's sound financial position. It is a leather-bound booklet containing 46 parchment pages with writing on both sides. The entire document has been written in rounded Gothic lettering, in ocher ink. The initial letters are highlighted, outlined in gold ink and inscribed in blue or crimson squares with fine white leaf patterns.

Services rendered by the knight commander Rodrigo Orozco during the capture of Toledo in 1522

Following Charles of Ghent's accession to the throne, there was an uprising in Castile, known as the Revolt of the "Comuneros," or citizens of Castile. They attacked the houses of a number of nobles in Úbeda who were supporters of Charles I, including that of the Orozco family.

Once the revolt had been quelled, Rodrigo Orozco, knight commander of the Order of Santiago, took part in the Siege of Toledo from 1521 until 1522, with troops that he financed himself. The city was the rebels' last stronghold.

This document was written at Rodrigo Orozco's request. It is 28 pages long and testifies to the personal and financial support he gave to the King's cause.

Fighting the illegal trade in cultural goods

The vital collaboration by different countries to fight the illegal trade in cultural goods and restore them to their rightful owners

Choir books were large musical manuscripts made of parchment that were used in churches and cathedrals from the Middle Ages until the 19th century. Their size meant that they could be read by all members of the choir at the same time.

This is one of a set of three choir books that were stolen in Seville in 1968 before being recovered and returned by the American authorities to the Spanish consul in San Francisco.
As they form part of Andalusia's documentary heritage, and their exact provenance is unknown, they were given to the General Archive of Andalusia.

The books are illuminated manuscripts with borders and capital letters in watercolors, with Mudejar latticework and plateresque motifs. They are bound in calfskin over wood.

The slave trade was a lucrative business for smugglers and corrupt officials

In 1631, Captain Juan de Burgos set off from Angola with a cargo of 400 slaves, bound for Veracruz. As required by law, he had registered it with the Casa de Contratación (House of Commerce) in Seville, which was the body responsible for overseeing this type of trade with the New World.

The ship never reached its destination, so Miguel de Neve, one of the cargo owners, reported the incident to the authorities. An investigation was carried out and documented in this report.

The testimonies showed that, following numerous mishaps, the governor of Havana had falsified a sale for his own benefit. He alleged that there were only 120 slaves left, with the others having escaped or died en route.

Although everything was monitored by the Casa de Contratación in theory, the smuggling of slaves, as well as fraud and bribery by royal officials, were very common in trade with the Indies.

"Repartimiento": payment for services rendered and a way of populating a territory

"Repartimiento" (meaning distribution) was a repopulation system used in the Iberian Peninsula during the Middle Ages. It consisted of distributing the houses and estates of conquered towns and villages among the individuals who had taken part in the Reconquest.

The original version of this "repartimiento" document recording the distribution of property was lost in a fire, but a copy was kept in a judicial file.

This copy was issued by the legal authorities in Loja at the request of Pedro García de Vida y Quesada. It concerns the "repartimiento" of the town of Luque (Córdoba) by Alfonso XI on August 24, 1385 to the 27 knights who conquered the city of Alcalá de Benzaide. One of those knights was an ancestor of Pedro García de Vida.

Territorial organization in the Alpujarras region after its Muslim inhabitants had fled

The origins of the Cehel estate lie in the properties that Luis Zapata acquired in the Alpujarras region of Granada. In 1512, he used them to create an entailed estate for his son, the knight commander Francisco Zapata.

The map shown in the image relates to the period when the properties passed to Pedro José Félix de Silva Meneses Zapata, the Count of Cifuentes, after he won legal proceedings to make him beneficiary of the estate.

The Hoces Collection in the General Archive of Andalusia is an essential resource for studying the way in which the land in the Alpujarras was organized by its new settlers.

The difficulties encountered in navigating the Guadalquivir River

Over the centuries, the difficulties encountered in navigating the Guadalquivir River have led to countless improvement projects.

The decline in trade between Seville and Cádiz over the 17th century, which was reinforced when the Casa de Contratación was moved to Cádiz in 1717, was largely due to the difficulty of navigating the Guadalquivir River.

The map shown in the image is part of the dossier for a prize awarded by Seville's Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País (Economic Society of Friends of the Country) for improving the river's navigability.

The winning proposal was by Francisco Pizarro, mathematics teacher at the Real Colegio Seminario (Royal College) in San Telmo. The project involved removing the river's bends and shallows (which were the main issues) using a system of cut-throughs that would help to reestablish navigation and prevent flooding.

The library of the General Archive of Andalusia

The painter Francisco Pacheco (1564–1644), Velázquez's teacher and father-in-law, painted a series of portraits of distinguished men of the time, each accompanied by a biographical sketch. They were compiled in a manuscript dated 1599, which was never published.

The collection of portraits was broken up after the artist's death, and the first edition facsimile of the manuscript (today owned by the Lázaro Galdiano Foundation) was not published until 1881.

The copy held in the General Archive of Andalusia belonged to the Library of the Royal Artillery Factory in Seville.

In some cases, the extensive bibliographical collections in the General Archive have filled in some of the gaps in the information provided by these documents.

Documents describing the final years of Spain's presence in the Philippines

José David Sánchez Ibargüen y Corbacho, a naval officer from Montellano (Seville), was sent to the Philippines to suppress the growing indigenous insurrection. In May 1897, he was promoted to the rank of Commander of the Naval Section of Lake Lanao on the island of Mindanao, and posted to Marahui base camp.

In command of a flotilla of four gunboats, three barges, and three warships, he harassed the subversive indigenous settlements and villages in the area over several years. As a result, the area found itself in a permanent state of conflict which was not resolved until Spain's presence in the Philippines came to an end.

There are 84 settlements shown on the map, of which 11 are marked with the symbol for "punished" (10 on the lake and 1 on land) and 13 are considered hostile, for harassing convoys in the area.

Seven "cotta," or indigenous fortifications, are also marked. It also shows four anchored gunboats which are highly likely to be the Lanao, General Blanco, Almonte, and Carguera.

Baelo Claudia

At Baelo Claudia in Bolonia Cove (Cádiz), visitors can see one of the most complete Roman urban sites in the whole of Spain.

The excavations of the Roman city of Baelo Claudia were carried out by Pierre Paris and George Bonsor. Bonsor created this floor plan and elevation of the interior facade of the eastern gate, opposite the necropolis which he excavated himself.

The set of drawings of Baelo that are part of the George Bonsor Collection are all the more significant considering that all the documentary material drawn up by the archaeologists working under Pierre Paris was lost. The cause was a fire that broke out in the main buildings of the Escuela de Estudios Superiores Hispánicos (School of Advanced Hispanic Studies) during the fighting in Madrid's Ciudad Universitaria area at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War.

Document on loan from the Mairena del Alcor Town Council.