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University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2017 Lords Of The Seven Parishes: Neighbourhood, Guild, And Revolt In Early Modern Seville, 1520-1652 Igor Knezevic University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the European History Commons Recommended Citation Knezevic, Igor, "Lords Of The Seven Parishes: Neighbourhood, Guild, And Revolt In Early Modern Seville, 1520-1652" (2017). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 2397. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2397 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2397 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Lords Of The Seven Parishes: Neighbourhood, Guild, And Revolt In Early Modern Seville, 1520-1652 Abstract My dissertation links two popular revolts in Seville, in 1520-1 and 1652, both of which had as their focus the artisan parish of Omnium Sanctorum, in the Feria district of the city. The first was a local echo of the great Comunero Revolt, while the second was arguably the most serious political uprising in the Crown of Castile after 1520. The symmetry between these events, alongside the fact that La Feria—as it was popularly known—was the most likely source of urban unrest throughout this period, demands a study of the specific local conditions that enabled, structured or defused popular protest in early modern Spain’s greatest metropolis. The two central chapters of this dissertation examine, firstly, the meaning and nature of neighbourhood community—including its importance in the articulation of collective action—and, secondly, the silk guild’s (Arte de la Seda) petitioning and ideological framework in the seventeenth century (as most of the rebels in 1652 were silk workers). I also discuss the production of memory—the ways in which sixteenth- and seventeenth-century urban historians dealt with the subject of popular uprisings—as well as the role of the asistentes (royal governors) of Seville, above with regard to food provisioning, its relation to concepts of justice and politics. This dissertation thus brings together several lines of inquiry, each with its own particular trajectory and set of concerns, yet bearing direct relation to the questions posed here—the literature on revolt and rebellion in early modern Europe, on Spanish and Mediterranean cities, on the nature and uses of written memory, on urban neighbourhoods and popular politics, on guilds and artisans (above all silk workers), and finally the seventeenth-century ‘crisis.’ At the confluence of these kindred streams is a more complete understanding of the nature and mechanisms of urban revolt, the popular role in the governance of the city and the kingdom, but also of self-perceptions and alternative visions of the civic Republic nurtured by those who were not meant to have an opinion on such matters. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group History First Advisor Antonio Feros Keywords Artisans, Cities, Neighborhoods, Popular politics, Revolt Subject Categories European History This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2397 LORDS OF THE SEVEN PARISHES: NEIGHBOURHOOD, GUILD, AND REVOLT IN EARLY MODERN SEVILLE, 1520-1652 Igor Knezevic A DISSERTATION in History Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2017 Supervisor of Dissertation _________________________ Antonio Feros Associate Professor of History Graduate Group Chairperson _________________________ Peter Holquist, Associate Professor of History Dissertation Committee Roger Chartier Annenberg Visiting Professor in History Jorge Téllez Assistant Professor of Romance Languages Richard Kagan Emeritus Professor, Johns Hopkins University LORDS OF THE SEVEN PARISHES: NEIGHBOURHOOD, GUILD, AND REVOLT IN EARLY MODERN SEVILLE, 1520-1652 COPYRIGHT 2017 Igor Knezevic This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0 ACKNOWLEDGMENT My debt to my advisor Antonio Feros is incalculable—simply put, without him this dissertation would not have seen the light of day. On this long journey across an unknown sea, with sightings of land rare and arrival commonly doubted, he was my resolute and unwavering captain. His belief in the seaworthiness of this project kept it afloat, his knowledge and wisdom kept it on course when all I could see was an indifferent horizon, and in the final, desolate stretches, mind and body mutinous, he pointed out the telling signs of imminent landfall. I could not have hoped for a surer hand at the tiller, or a better teacher, mentor, and friend along the way. Before the journey proper (research and writing), I also profited immensely from his graduate seminars on early modern history and historiography, and his acute sensitivity to the complexities of the period. I also reserve special gratitude for Professor Roger Chartier, for his extreme graciousness and generosity in appraising my work in progress, and more generally for serving as an inspiration in his persistent search for connections—between genres, disciplines, forms of expression and modes of communication, and his great passion for Hispanic culture and history. I would like to thank all my professors at the University of Pennsylvania’s history department who have contributed in some way to this project, even if indirectly, especially Ben Nathans, Margo Todd, and Daniel Richter—they are partly responsible for any merit it may have, though not the errors, which are mine. Richard Kagan, of Johns Hopkins, whose work first led me to dream of Spanish cities, their plazas and trazas, and Jorge Tellez, of the University of Pennsylvania’s Hispanic and Portuguese Studies department, played a crucial role in the final stretch for which I will always be iii grateful. Finally, in various brief but instructive encounters in Madrid, Prague, and Los Angeles, James Amelang—as he has done for so many students of Spanish history— imparted some of his encyclopedic knowledge of Spain, its history, and archives. I would also like to thank Ken Mills, whose course on Colonial Latin America I stumbled into as unwary undergraduate, only to be seduced away from non-academic pursuits as well as my interest in modern Spain, and set on a mission to probe the deeper fathoms of Iberian history. His passion and enthusiasm still burn bright in my mind after all these years, and I will always value his friendship. The staff at the various archives and libraries in Seville and Madrid were, as they have been for a legion of scholars before me, indispensable and far too indulgent and patient as I sought, sometimes clumsily, to prise open the treasure troves whose worthy custodians they are. I would like to thank all the staff at the Archivo Histórico Provincial, the Archivo Municipal, the Archivo del Arzobispado, Biblioteca Colombina, and the Archivo de la Diputación (all in Seville), as well as the Archivo Histórico Nacional and the Biblioteca Nacional (Madrid) and the Archivo General de Simancas. Joaquín de la Peña, the hermano mayor of the brotherhood of Nuestra Señora Reina de Todos los Santos of Omnium Sanctorum—heir to both the early modern cofradías of Holy Sacrament and the Souls in Purgatory of the came parish—was kind enough to allow me access to the archive of the confraternity, a stone’s throw from the parish church of Omnium Sanctorum, and to sit with me in person as I spent hours and days poring over the records. Even a modest exploratory venture like this one requires financial backers, and, though they were neither princes nor monarchs, princely sums have nevertheless been iv invested in this enterprise over the past several years by sundry august bodies and institutions. The foundation was laid by the University of Pennsylvania History department’s generous Benjamin Franklin Graduate Fellowship, and later Dissertation Fellowship. One precious year in the archives was made possible by the The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation Fellowship. Two shorter research trips were funded by a Global Cities Summer Research Grant, from the History of Art Department and Visual Studies Program of the University of Pennsylvania, and a Dissertation Research Grant from the Program for Cultural Cooperation between Spain’s Ministry of Culture and United States Universities. These grants and awards all helped to unlock the doors of the Spanish archives, but I was able to make more of the material found there thanks to the Mellon Summer Institute in Spanish Paleography, hosted by the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin, and taught by the brilliant and ebullient Consuelo Varela. As a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania I was fortunate to have been surrounded by a sterling group of shipmates far more skilful than me, above all Tim Slonosky, Kathryn Ostrofsky, Matthew Gaetano, Dan Cheely, Anton Matytsin and Matthew Mitchell, and older, wiser colleagues such as Andrew Berns. Most foreign scholars come to Seville to work in its magnificent Archive of the Indies, so I was grateful to find an affable and intrepid comrade-in-arms at the city’s local archives, where I spent most of my time: Ellen Dooley, who is a true sevillana by nature. I also wish to thank Antonio Suárez Varela for making the Simancas archive seem less intimidating than it first appeared, and for his help with a key transcription. Parts or early drafts of chapters of this dissertation were presented as papers at various conferences, and I am grateful above all to Jelle Haemers, Jan Dumolyn, and Patrick v Lantschner for giving me the opportunity to test my ideas by contributing to their always interesting panels at the European Urban History Association conferences (in Prague and Helsinki), and to profit from their innovative approaches to the history of urban revolts and popular politics, as well as their conversation and companionship, which I hold dear.

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