Family and power in Modern Spain. The rise of a family of lawyers: the Valcarcel family (17th and 18th centuries)

Abstract

The aim of this article is to examine the rise to power of the Valcarcel family. This family was made up mainly of bureaucrats who, having started from a plebeian social position (some of them even descended from upwardly mobile converts), was granted access to nobility by the Spanish Ancient Regime. The author would like the reader to focus their attention on this family’s intriguing, gradual climb up the social ladder using intricate family strategies and all the resources and procedures which the
establishment had laid out. This gradual climb eventually gave way to a dynasty of bureaucrats who held different positions within the top administrative apparatus in the 17th and 18th century Castile.