The aristocratic elites sought to perpetuate themselves in power from the Middle Ages to the contemporary period. The lineage of the Fernández de Córdoba, with almost 50 families, is an example of the strategies they articulated in order to maintain or increase their status. The resource shows the main positions in the high administration held by this lineage over 5 centuries. From the 15th to the 18th century, they predominated in the Councils (in a range of 72.2% at the beginning of modernity and 42.2% in the following century). In the 18th century, as the author points out, in absolute terms, the weight of this lineage in the administration declined as a result of the arrival of the Bourbons to the Spanish throne. The Bourbons displaced the traditional elites and placed the like-minded in an exercise of political control. The Fernández de Córdoba family arrived in the 19th century weakened but, with the new winds of change, they were able to adapt to the period of transition between the Old Regime and the New Liberal State; 51.4% of the lineage’s political posts were concentrated in the positions of senators and deputies. Not only were they oriented towards high administration, this lineage also proliferated in the local elite and in the clergy; forms of social reproduction based on marriages with strong families and on avoiding the atomisation of property during its hereditary transmission.

Collection: Statistics

Project: 3. Rural world and urban world in the formation of the European identity., 4. Family, daily life and social inequality in Europe.

Chronology: XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII, XIX

Scope: Secondary Education, Baccalaureate, University

Link: https://rua.ua.es/dspace/bitstream/10045/109718/1/Revista-de-Historia-Moderna_38_06.pdf

Resource type: Statistics

Format: Table

Source: Recio Molina, R. (2020). "La evolución del papel político de la nobleza española de la Edad Moderna a la Contemporánea: el ejemplo de los Fernández de Córdoba", en Revista de Historia Moderna. Anales de la Universidad de Alicante, nº 38, p. 159.

Language: Spanish

Date: 2020

Owner: Pablo Ballesta Fernández (Modernalia)

Copyright: ©Revista de Historia Moderna ©Raúl Molina Recio

Abstract: The resource shows the evolution of the Fernández de Córdoba lineage in the high administration of the monarchy. Over the centuries, they went through different stages, from a great influence in the 15th century, a decline with the arrival of the Bourbons in the 18th century and finally their reconversion into parliamentary deputies in the 19th century

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