In their aim to hold the positions of local administration in Navarre, the nobility designed and established a process through which members of the aristocracy could gain access to a political career during Modernity. Education from early childhood became one more tool for overcoming the rest of the population, and government and administration posts were reserved for them when they reached sufficient age and ability.
As early as the Catholic Monarchs in Navarre, people of trust were placed in positions of local government, promoting institutional and social processes in which they had to be reviewed in their posts. But as the years went by, the council posts in Pamplona were occupied almost entirely by the urban aristocracy, reaching their peak in the 18th century.
As for the city’s aldermen, most of them were nobles, the rest falling to certain socio-professional groups that barely accounted for 1% of the total urban population, being lawyers, notaries, solicitors and merchants. On the other hand, a large proportion of Navarrese (35% of the total) were excluded from local public office for almost the whole of Modernity. As a result, the autonomy of power in the smaller towns was more lax, with the main Navarrese graduates focusing on occupying positions of higher political and social status, leaving the concern in these rural areas in the hands of the lower and middle nobility.

Collection: Graphics

Project: 3. Rural world and urban world in the formation of the European identity., 5. Power and powers in the history of Europe: oligarchies, political participation and democracy.

Chronology: XVIII

Scope: Secondary Education, Baccalaureate, University, Postgraduate

Link: http://www.tiemposmodernos.org/tm3/index.php/tm/article/view/144

Resource type: Graph

Format: Bar chart

Source: Orduna, P. (2009). "Participación de las élites en las instituciones del Reino de Navarra (ss. XVI-XVIII), en Tiempos modernos, nº 18, p. 33.

Language: Spanish

Date: 2009

Owner: Roberto José Alcalde López (Modernalia)

Copyright: ©Tiempos Modernos ©Pablo Orduna Portús

Abstract: Participation of socio-professional groups in Navarre's institutions in the 18th century

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