Note 76 — Appendices

So rarely, that Salazar de Mendoza affirms in his book upon Castilian Dignities that this “high prenomen” (alto prenombre Don) might properly be used by none but kings, infantes, prelates, and the ricos-homes of the realm.

In a.d. 1626, Fernández de Navarrete complained of the tendency prevailing among the Spaniards generally to usurp the title Don. “Nowadays in Castile,” he wrote (Conservación de Monarquías, p. 71, etc.), “exists a horde of turbulent and idle fellows that so style themselves, since you will hardly find the son of a craftsman (oficial mecánico) that does not endeavour by this trick to filch the honour that is owed to true nobility alone; and so, impeded and weighed down by the false appearance of caballeros, they are unsuited to follow any occupation that is incompatible with the empty authority of a Don.”

Some of the reasons why these rogues or pseudonobles (as Fernández de Navarrete called them), attempted to pass for hidalgos or “sons of somebody,” are disclosed by Townsend, writing a century and a half later. “Numerous privileges and immunities enjoyed by the hidalgos or knights, sometimes called hijos dalgo, have contributed very much to confirm hereditary prejudices to the detriment of trade. Their depositions are taken in their own houses. They are seated in the courts of justice, and are placed near the judge. Till the year 1784, their persons, arms, and horses were free from arrest. They are not sent to the common jails, but are either confined in castles or in their own houses on their parole of honour. They are not hanged, but strangled, and this operation is called garrotar, from garrote, the little stick used by carriers to twist the cord and bind hard their loading. They cannot be examined on the rack. They are, moreover, exempted from the various taxes called fechos, pedidos, monedas, martiniegas, and contribuciones reales and civiles: that is, from subsidies, benevolence, and poll tax, or taille paid by the common people, at the rate of two per cent., in this province, but in others at the rate of four. They are free from personal service, except where the sovereign is, and even then they cannot be compelled to follow him. None but the royal family can be quartered on them. To conclude, the noble female conveys all these privileges to her husband and her children, just in the same manner as the eldest daughter of the titular nobility transmits the titles of her progenitors.

“The proportion of hidalgos in the kingdom of Granada is not considerable; for out of six hundred and fifty-two thousand nine hundred and ninety inhabitants, only one thousand nine hundred and seventy-nine are noble; whereas, in the province of León, upon little more than one-third that population, the knights are twenty-two thousand. In the province of Burgos, on four hundred and sixty thousand three hundred and ninety-five inhabitants, one hundred and thirty-four thousand and fifty-six are entitled to all the privileges of nobility; and in Asturias, of three hundred and forty-five thousand eight hundred and thirty-three, nearly one-third enjoy the same distinction.”—(Journey through Spain in the years 1786 and 1787: Vol. III., pp. 79, 80.)