"Not to be expressed in the titles the price in that they bought": The founders of the Maestranza de Caballería of Seville and the sale of peerages during the reign of Charles II

Abstract

We divide this article into three parts. In a brief initial section, we make a short study on the current state of the studies about the Sevillian nobility in the Modern Age. In a second part, we exhibit various facts related to the foundation, in 1670, of the Real Maestranza de Caballería, briefly analyzing the motivations of this fact and its founders. Finally, we work the concept of “benefit”, as the purchase of charges and –essentially– peerages by the founders of this institution, during the reign of the last monarch of the House of Austria.