Popular Control through Public Accountability in Iberia (Thirteenth to Sixteenth Centuries)

Abstract

Abstract This article analyzes the participation of the people in the Castilian procedure of accountability called juicio de residencia (comparable to the Italian sindacato) as a fertile ground for the development of popular control in urban settings. It adopts a longue-durée approach considering its transformations from its origins in the thirteenth century to the sixteenth century and from Castile to the Spanish Monarchy. In addition, it draws on a bottom-up approach and makes a case for qualitative instead of quantitative research, taking into account the massive but heterogeneous archival material related to residencias from the fifteenth century to the sixteenth century in the Hispanic Monarchy. In order to prove the main hypothesis, after presenting the limits and virtues of the Hispanic sources, I focus on two aspects. The first part presents evidence of people of all sorts consistently participating in the juicios de residencias that held officials accountable, as well as the development of a modality of collective action that was propitious for popular control: the presentaciones de capítulos. The second part shifts from the actors to the effects of that participation, testing different indicators of the potential of residencias for popular control. Ultimately, this article argues that officers’ accountability under the form of residencias was a consistent instrument for Castilian people to exert pressure on authorities and a habitual resource for popular actions.