ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the role of festivals in the social history of Spain before proceeding to other cultural and social aspects violence, religion, culture and daily life in late medieval and early modern Spain. The great festivals organised by the mighty always included performances and displays that took place in the main square of the town – as was the case of the great feast in Valladolid in 1428, the telling of which opened this chapter. Similarly, the feasts often took place in both urban and country settings. The history of festivals goes back to the very beginnings of history, and they have always been an integral part of the human social and cultural need for play. They also served as ways of articulating prestige, social difference and power. Festivals and other public ludic events thus functioned not merely as sites of power and as sites of contestation, but also as generators of a manifold discourse of inclusion and exclusion.
