ABSTRACT
Litigation, “a device from which relatively few Castilians, even unschooled members of the peasantry, shied away from,”1 was an integral part of Spanish culture. “The nobility was one of the most litigious groups in early modern Castile, second only to the king, and their litigiousness lasted throughout the early modern period, even after ordinary Castilians had begun to shy away from an increasingly expensive, distant, and cumbersome court system.”2 Women used the courts in a variety of ways, with widows being able to litigate on their own behalf and female guardians on behalf of their wards.3 In their guardianship agreements (tutelas or curadurías), female guardians formally renounced the laws that gave them protection as women and thus took on a male role within the court system. Guardianship agreements decreed that female guardians, in the name of their wards, could be sued and could sue “against any persons, Christians as well as Jews and Moors, because of the goods and inheritances” claimed by their wards.4 Richard Kagan records that the early modern Spanish courts concentrated on “disputes over contracts, inheritances, questions of jurisdiction and ownership, together with various matters concerning the limitations of seigneurial law,” issues that formed the bulk of the noble
used their legal power as guardians to protect their families’ interests and to shape family strategy. This chapter argues that female guardians made extensive use of the legal system as a tool to set family strategy and protect themselves, their wards, and their property. The nature of their involvement changed over time, but legal power remained a crucial tool for female guardians.
