Holy brotherhood
The Santa Hermandad was a corporation made up of groups of armed people, paid by the municipal councils of the Crown of Castilla to persecute criminals. It was instituted by Isabel la Católica in the Cortes de Madrigal in 1476 (XV century), unifying the different Brotherhoods that had existed since the eleventh century in the Christian kingdoms. Some studies consider it the first police force in Europe subject to a certain organization and government administration. It was dissolved in the year 1834, when the Estate of Próceres voted in Cortes decreed its total extinction, having by then been replaced by the General Superintendence of Police created in 1824 as the directing body of the General Police of the Kingdom, with the precedent of the General Police Ministry established by José Bonaparte. As a whole, they could be considered as antecedents of the State Security Forces and Bodies.
History
Precedents
The first brotherhoods had an organization similar to the cofradías, but with the purpose of establishing an armed force to defend the towns from the attacks of turbulent nobles and out-of-work mercenaries and to persecute robbers and bandits who They practiced rustling. It was King Alfonso VI of León, in the XI century, who granted the first privileges, in the mountains of the province of Toledo, so that such brotherhoods could be formed and dedicated to the persecution and punishment of criminals, among which the so-called "golfins" who roamed those regions.
Enrique II of Castile, between 1369 and 1379, commissioned the creation of brotherhoods for the security of the fields in the Comarca de la Sisla, in the province of Toledo, and their association between them. One of the municipalities that participated in this was Sisla Mayor, in the current municipality of Orgaz. This association of municipalities received the name of Brotherhood of San Martín de la Montiña.
In 1245, Fernando III the Saint created police brotherhoods in strategic places to stop crime in the countryside: Ciudad Real and Talavera de la Reina.
Brotherhoods were created in the different Christian kingdoms; with the exception of the County of Barcelona, where the "somatén" or touch of surname, transcript of the "ribat" or call of rebate of the Muslims. In Navarra it received the name of "orde".
An event that will be transcendental in the birth of this organization occurs in 1300, when the Toledo people from Los Montes join the Talaveranos from La Jara in a federation, which was joined two years later by those of what was then called Villa Real (Ciudad Real). Thus, a stage was opened, where the resulting new institution will become more effective by coordinating its efforts, increasing human potential and improving strategies to combat banditry.
Creation of the Holy Brotherhood
In 1473 Enrique IV of Castilla authorized the formation of the New General Brotherhood of the Kingdoms of Castilla y León, at the request of the attorneys in Cortes, to ensure compliance with the law and prosecute crime in towns and roads. However, this first Holy New Brotherhood quickly dissolved, while the succession conflict after Enrique's death aggravated the insecurity situation in the kingdom. For this reason Alonso de Quintanilla, Accountant Major, and Juan de Ortega, the king's sacristan, promoted the formation of a new Holy Brotherhood, contacting the Castilian cities so that they could send their representatives to Dueñas, where in March 1476 they held the meeting that drew up the general project, presented shortly after to the kings Isabel I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon in the Courts of Madrigal. On the pre-existing basis of the Brotherhoods that some cities had built, on April 19, 1476 The kings and kings approved the Ordenamiento de Madrigal drawn up by their Royal Council which regulated the creation of the Holy Brotherhood to protect trade, pacify the difficult traffic on the roads and prosecute banditry. In addition, as a militia it would play an important role in the war in Granada but it would have a short life, since from 1498 it was again reduced to local levels, in accordance with the wishes of the cities.
This institution has been understood as an instrument that seeks to guarantee public order, as well as the embryo of a regular and specialized army, especially from 1480. Its main function was to judge and punish crimes committed in the open air, outside the towns and cities.
It was initially created for a period of three years, its jurisdiction was territorialized (five leagues around each locality with more than thirty residents, eight provinces), its troop was organized (one horseman for every one hundred residents and one soldier for every one hundred and fifty, grouped into gangs), their fields of legal action were stipulated (robbery, crimes, arson, summary trials with immediate application of the penalty) and they were endowed with an economic structure (funding through armholes), political and administrative (the group of delegates from the eight provinces, León, Zamora, Salamanca, Valladolid, Palencia, Ávila, Burgos and Segovia, made up the Council of the Brotherhood).
It was also introduced into the Crown of Aragon, with the idea of unifying institutions between Castile and Aragon, although this attempt failed. These ideas evolved into the Guardias de Castilla.
Content
According to Hernando del Pulgar, the Catholic Monarchs agreed to call the Cortes "to give order to those robberies and wars that took place in the kingdom" and, elsewhere, he added that in the same Cortes "Princess Doña Isabel was sworn in as Crown Princess of the Kingdoms of Castilla and León for after the days of the Queen".
Obviously such facts were linked; and, in substance, the chapters of the Holy Brotherhood approved by the Catholic Monarchs in the Cortes of Madrigal in 1476 also had the objective of preparing a militia that could strengthen royal power. The policy that presided over the creation of this permanent military force could not have been more skilful and discreet: limit the jurisdiction of the mayors to a few cases, subject the squad members to rigorous discipline, placing captains at their head, and appointing or causing to be appointed general. of that militia, always on the warpath, to the Duke of Villahermosa, bastard brother of Fernando el Católico, were safe means to entrust the councils with the persecution and punishment of criminals, avoiding the inconveniences and dangers of popular license. The unity of the body and the concentration of the command turned the Holy Brotherhood into a powerful auxiliary of the monarchy, because the 2000 men of war that the councils paid "were ready for what the King or Queen sent them".
These soldiers were distinguished by their uniform: a ponytail, or leather vest up to the waist and with skirts that did not go past the hips. The puffer jacket had no sleeves and therefore revealed the sleeves of the shirt, which were green. They were popularly known as cuadrilleros, because they went in squads (four soldiers), or green sleeves, because the green color of their sleeves identified them immediately.
After its approval in the Courts of Madrigal and the holding of local meetings, on August 1, 1476, a general meeting was held in Dueñas in which its organization and operation were established. The territory was divided into eight provinces (Burgos, Salamanca, Palencia, Valladolid, León, Segovia, Ávila and Zamora), and belonging to it was compulsory. For its financing, a tax was created that was levied on all sales except meat. In addition, a permanent board was created, the Council of the Brotherhood, to which an attorney for each of the provinces belonged, who could change, and four immovable positions appointed by the kings: president, position for which Lope de Ribas was appointed, Bishop of Cartagena, treasurer or accountant, who fell to Alonso de Quintanilla, provisor, Juan de Ortega, and captain general, for whom Alfonso de Aragón, half-brother of the king, was appointed. Around 1480 the "treasury" of the Holy Brotherhood, Entrusted with collecting the contributions, it was entrusted to external lessors, entrusted first to Pedro González of Madrid, who was later replaced by the prominent Jewish financier Abraham Senior (on August 15, 1488). The company of Senior's landlords formed for that occasion was also made up of his son-in-law Meir Melamed (Mayr Malamed) and by Luis de Alcalá, alderman of Madrid, who agreed on behalf of all of them .
The Holy Brotherhood appears in chapter 45 of Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605), by Miguel de Cervantes.
Decline
_C%C3%A1rcel_de_la_Santa_Hermandad.jpg)
This kind of rural police was very effective in its early days, inflicting severe punishments and furthering the central authority of the royals by causing the nobility to lose much of their immense power and influence. However, some authors affirm that later on it yielded in discipline and efficiency due fundamentally to the following causes: it was insufficient for the permanent Army and yet excessive for the security corps; suppose a considerable burden for the towns that had to pay it; and the increasingly frequent use of the regular Army in public order missions. It is said, for example, that the green sleeves never arrived on time, that crimes went unpunished or that the villagers themselves managed to solve their problems, so that when they appeared, their labor was unnecessary. For this reason, it is assumed, the people coined the expression "A good time, green sleeves!" as a symbol of ineffectiveness, delay or uselessness.
The Holy Brotherhood began to decline little by little, until in 1834 a Law was voted in the Cortes ordering its total disappearance.
Contenido relacionado
United Nations
Valentin Paniagua
Jose Pardo y Barreda
Sovereignty
Inter-American Democratic Charter