Year: 1969
Type: article
Abstract: of aptitude for trade and the total abandonment of commercial endeavors by ennobled merchants in favor of an aristocratic life based on land and rents" (viii).Togetherwith the main title, this would seem to promise a discussion primarily concerned with trade and with the role of aristocracy, old and new, in the world of commerce in sixteenth-century Spain.While this intention, in effect, has been carried out, it accounts for only a portion of the subject matter; hence it does not accurately sum up the work as a whole.The his- torians' debate implied by the allusion to "frequent assumptions" remains outside the body of the discussion, and the author's "challenge," in fact, may be regarded as only one of several uses to which her discoveries may be put.A clearer indication of the book's content is offered by the subtitle.Indeed, the noble- man shares his category of the "Elite" here with the clergy, lawyers, doctors, notaries and .merchants.Taken together, they comprise about a half of the book.Most of the remaining discussion treats the working classes, the social outcasts and unassimilated classes: Moriscos, slaves and the underworld.In short, this is a comprehensive description of the social classes of Sevilla in the period of rapid change following the opening of the New World -a period, too, following upon the conclusion of the reconquest in the Peninsula, with its many diffi- cult social problems continuing from the past.If the burgeoning commerce with America is one powerful source of change, another is the increasing social mobility of conversos and commoners.
Source: Renaissance and Reformation
Language: English
Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W1781130460