ABSTRACT
The aristocracy traditionally has been held responsible for the economic backwardness of many parts of Europe. In the fifteenth century, the Castilian aristocracy was one of the most economically powerful in Europe. Contrary to the implicit assumptions of the traditional view of the 'aristocratic crisis', there is a nexus between this dynamic and the lords' financial problems around 1600. A more professionalized aristocracy with a more bureaucratized notion of service, in the Weberian sense, was making headway in politics. Concentration of property in Castile did not bring about advances in innovative investment but rather a reinforcement of the patterns of social and political seigniorial administration. Nobles only occasionally engaged in commerce, and when they did so it was because they had been granted monopolies or customs exemptions in return for political services. By the late sixteenth century, many nobles had mortgaged their estates beyond what their earnings would allow, and they went bankrupt.
