The Regulation of Private Spaces: The Codification of the Royal Chamber of the Spanish Monarchy in the Seventeenth Century

Abstract

Since the first appearance of monarchies, the presence of the king determined a graded hierarchy of the surrounding space. At the same time, the position of the different courtiers in that ‘created’ space showed their rank in the palatial world and, therefore, in the whole of the court, determining the degree of access to the royal person. The admission to the Royal Household of the monarch, especially to the Royal Chamber, favoured this closeness to the ruler. This contribution aims to study the evolution of the shape of the palatine space that took place in the seventeenth-century Spanish Monarchy, especially the changes related to the Royal Chamber that regulated access to the most private spaces of the king. Indeed, in the daily practice of government during the reigns of Philip III and Philip IV, the validos, or minister-favourites like Lerma and Olivares, confirmed that the royal palaces were political spaces, and they strove to submit these spaces to their control. Within this context, the Instruction of 1637 and other subsequent regulatory documents focused on restricting the access to the royal apartments, with the Chamber at their heart, influencing the relation between private and public at court.

Notes

1 This article was funded as part of the projects ‘Protection, Production and Environmental Change: The Roots of Modern Environmentalism in the Iberian Peninsula (16th−18th centuries)’ (AZ 60/V/19); ‘Madrid, Sociedad y Patrimonio: pasado y turismo cultural’ (H2019/HUM-5898); and ‘Corte y sitios reales: espacios de poder, representación y producción (1650-1750)’ (COSIRE/V1065); as well as a Salvador de Madariaga grant at The Centre for Privacy Studies (PRIVACY) at Copenhagen. 

2 Several volumes of these ordinances have been published, for example Holger Kruse and Werner Paravicini (eds), Die Hofordnungen der Herzöge von Burgund. Band 1. Herzog Philipp der Gute, 1407–1467 (Paris, 2005).

3 José Martínez Millán (ed.), La Corte de Carlos V (5 vols, Madrid, 2000).

4 There are partial studies on the royal households of a few Navarrese kings of the Late Middle Ages by authors such as Fernando Serrano Larrayoz, María Narbona Cárceles and Francisco de Paula Cañas Gálvez. In recent years the service of the prince of Viana has been studied in depth by Vera Cruz Miranda Menacho, notably in ‘La Corte del Príncipe de Viana: organización del hostal navarro y de la casa de Aragón’, in Francisco de Paula Cañas Gálvez and José Manuel Nieto Soria (eds), Casa y corte: ámbitos de poder en los reinos hispánicos durante la Baja Edad Media (1230–1516) (Madrid, 2019), pp. 147-67.

5 There are no overviews of the Neapolitan household, though there are a few classic studies on institutions such as Roberto Mantelli, Il publico impiego nell’economia del regno di Napoli: retribuzioni, reclutamento e ricambio sociale nell’epoca spagnuola (secc. XVI−XVII) (Naples, 1986), and several on the royal chapel by Valeria Cocozza, such as ‘“Hombres de pecho y inteligencia en negocio de estado”: il cappellano maggiore di Napoli tra Cinque e Seicento’, Dimensioni e problemi della ricerca storica 2 (2015), pp. 145-65.

6 There are no studies on the Sicilian royal household during the Early Modern age, only on the households of a few viceroys such as Don Juan José de Austria, in Koldo Trápaga Monchet, La actividad política de don Juan [José] de Austria en el reinado de Felipe IV (1642−1665) (Madrid, 2018), pp. 289-332.

7 Félix Labrador Arroyo, La Casa Real en Portugal (1580−1621) (Madrid, 2009).

8 There are various studies by Manuel Rivero Rodríguez in Martínez Millán (ed.), Carlos V, vols I and II, and José Martínez Millán and Santiago Fernández Conti (eds), La Monarquía de Felipe II: la Casa del Rey (2 vols, Madrid, 2005).

9 As studied in José Eloy Hortal Muñoz and Félix Labrador Arroyo, La Casa de Borgoña: la Casa del rey de España (Leuven, 2014).

10 For the evolution of the Household of Castile in the Spanish Monarchy, Andrés Gambra Gutiérrez and Félix Labrador Arroyo (eds), Evolución y estructura de la Casa Real de Castilla (2 vols, Madrid, 2010).

11 A volume recently came out on the changes made to the court and ceremonial of the Spanish Monarchy as a result of this journey; Margaret M. McGowan and Margaret Shewring (eds), Charles V, Prince Philip, and the Politics of Succession. Imperial Festivities in Mons and Hainault, 1549 (Turnhout, 2021). In this volume, the changes made to the ceremonial of the entourage of Prince Philip (II) are analysed in Félix Labrador Arroyo and José Eloy Hortal Muñoz, ‘The Entourage of Prince Philip in Connection with the Felicissimo Viaje: The Beginning of Burgundian Etiquette at the Spanish Court?’, pp. 79-102.

12 The formation of this household is examined in Santiago Fernández Conti, ‘La introducción de la etiqueta borgoñona y el viaje de 1548−1551’, in Martínez Millán (ed.), La corte de Carlos V, vol. II, pp. 210-25. Its components are discussed in Ibidem, vol. V, pp. 105-15, and summarised by Feliciano Barrios Pintado, ‘Sólo Madrid es corte’, in Felipe II. Un monarca y su época. La Monarquía Hispánica (Madrid, 1998), pp. 167-84.

13 The structure of this household is analysed in José Eloy Hortal Muñoz, ‘Organización de una Casa. El Libro de Veeduría de la reina Ana de Austria’, in José Martínez Millán and Maria Paula Marçal Lourenço (eds), Las relaciones discretas entre las Monarquías Hispana y Portuguesa: las casas de las Reinas (siglos XV−XIX) (Madrid, 2008), vol. I, pp. 275-309. These codes of etiquette have been studied by Magdalena S. Sánchez, ‘Privacy, Family and Devotion at the Court of Philip II’, in Marcelo Fantoni, George Gorse and Malcom Smuts (eds), The Politics of Space: European Courts ca. 1500−1750 (Rome, 2009), pp. 364-68.

14 Rita Costa Gomes, ‘Usages de cour et cérémonial dans la péninsule Iberique au Moyen Âge’, in Rose Duroux (ed), Les traités de savoir-vivre en Espagne et au Portugal du Moyen Âge à nos jours (Clermont-Ferrand, 1995), pp. 6-7.

15 Studied in depth in Section III of Hortal Muñoz and Labrador Arroyo, La Casa de Borgoña, pp. 459-573.

16 Luis Robledo Estaire, ‘La estructura de las casas reales: Felipe II como punto de encuentro y punto de partida’, in Luis Robledo Estaire, Tess Knighton, Cristina Bordas Ibáñez and Juan José Carreras, Aspectos de la cultura musical en la Corte de Felipe II (Madrid, 2000), pp. 15-22; Martínez Millán and Fernández Conti, La monarquía de Felipe II, vol. I.

17 José Martínez Millán ‘The Triumph of the Burgundian Household in the Monarchy of Spain. From Philip the Handsome (1502) to Ferdinand VI (1759)’, in Werner Paravicini (ed.), La cour de Bourgogne et l’Europe. Le rayonnement et les limites d’un modèle culturel (Paris, 2011), pp. 745-71.

18 The reign is analysed in detail in José Martínez Millán and José Eloy Hortal Muñoz (eds), La Corte de Felipe IV (1621−1665). Reconfiguración de la Monarquía Católica (2 vols, Madrid, 2015).

19 Published in José Martínez Millán and Maria Antonietta Visceglia (eds), La monarquía de Felipe III: la Casa del rey (2 vols, Madrid, 2008), vol. I, pp. 326-48.

20 On the shaping of this concept, Franz Bosbach, Monarchia Universalis. Storia di un concetto cardine della politica europea (secoli XVI­−XVIII) (Milan, 1998; published originally in German, 1988).

21 See the introduction by Martínez Millán and Visceglia, La monarquía de Felipe III, vol. I, pp. 25-300.

22 Published and analysed in José Eloy Hortal Muñoz, Félix Labrador Arroyo, África Espíldora García and Jesús Bravo Lozano (eds), La configuración de la imagen de la Monarquía Católica. El ceremonial de la Capilla Real de Manuel Ribeiro (Madrid and Frankfurt am Main, 2020).

23 Published in José Eloy Hortal Muñoz and Félix Labrador Arroyo, Etiquetas y Ordenanzas de Felipe IV (1621−1665) in Martínez Millán and Hortal Muñoz, La Corte de Felipe IV, vol. II, pp. 168-86.

24 Théodore Godefroy, Le Ceremonial François: Contenant Les Ceremonies Observées en France aux Sacres & Couronnemens de Roys, & Reynes, & de quelques anciens Ducs de Normandie, d’Aquitaine, & de Bretagne … (Paris, 1649), vol. I.

25 Mariana Fubini Leuzzi, ‘Un’Asburgo a Firenze fra etichetta e impegno político: Giovanna d’Austria’, in Giulia Calvi and Riccardo Spinelli (eds), Le donne Medici nel sistema europeo delle corti: XVI–XVII secolo (Florence, 2008), pp. 233-56.

26 They are published in Martínez Millán and Fernández Conti, La Monarquía de Felipe II, vol. II, pp. 811-999. On the process that led to the publication of the Etiquetas Generales de Palacio, Félix Labrador Arroyo, ‘La formación de las Etiquetas Generales de Palacio en tiempos de Felipe IV’, in Hortal Muñoz and Labrador Arroyo, La Casa de Borgoña, pp. 99-128.

27 See Fernando Bouza Álvarez, ‘La majestad de Felipe II. Construcción del mito real’, in Fernando Bouza Álvarez and José Martínez Millán (eds), La corte de Felipe II (Madrid, 1994), pp. 37-72.

28 The original plans are currently kept in Archivo General del Palacio Real de Madrid (hereafter AGPR), Plans, nrs 4096 to 4108 (previously in Sección Histórica, box 51). There, we find instructions for twelve ceremonies such as princes’ oaths at San Jerónimo, holy mass in the Royal Chapel, royal entrances (by coach) of the King and the Queen, and Corpus Christi processions, amongst others. There are other copies, for example those referred to by John E. Varey in ‘Processional Ceremonial of the Spanish Court in the Seventeenth Century’, in Karl-Hermann Körner and Klaus Rühl (eds), Studia Iberica: Festschrift für Hans Flasche (Bern, 1973), pp. 643-52, in the British Library, Additional Ms 28459.

29 See the website of the Progetto Cerimoniali di Napoli and its several publications: https://www.progettocerimoniali.org/ (accessed 25 September 2021).

30 Published in José Eloy Hortal Muñoz, África Espíldora García and Pierre-François Pirlet, El ceremonial en la Corte de Bruselas del siglo XVII: Los manuscritos de Francisco Alonso Lozano (Brussels, 2018).

31 Analysed in detail in José Eloy Hortal Muñoz, ‘Courtly and Ceremonial Spaces in Spanish Royal Sites: An Evolution from the Renaissance to the Baroque’, in Anna Kalinowska and Jonathan Spangler (eds), Power and Ceremony in European History Rituals, Practices and Representative Bodies since the Late Middle Ages (London, 2021), pp. 87-104.

32 Access to the sovereign was studied in Dries Raeymaekers and Sebastiaan Derks (eds), The Key to Power? The Culture of Access in Princely Courts, 1400−1750 (Leiden, 2016). See in particular the editors’ introduction, pp. 1-15.

33 David Starkey, ‘Intimacy and Innovation: The Rise of the Privy Chamber, 1485−1547’, in David Starkey et al. (eds), The English Court: From the Wars of the Roses to the Civil War (London and New York, 1987), pp. 71-117; David Starkey, The Reign of Henry VIII: Personalities and Politics (London, 1986), chapter 1.

34 There are several publications on the Junta, notably Francisco Javier Díaz González, La Real Junta de Obras y Bosques en la época de los Austrias (Madrid, 2002); and José Martínez Millán, ‘La descomposición del sistema cortesano: la supresión de la Junta de Obras y Bosques’, in Paolo Broggio et al. (eds), Europa e America allo specchio. Studi per Francesca Cantù (Rome, 2017), pp. 159-86.

35 Archivo General de Simancas, Estado, legajo 1111, fol. 105.

36 José Martínez Millán, ‘Las luchas por la administración de la gracia en el reinado de Felipe II: La reforma de la Cámara de Castilla, 1580−1593’, Annali di storia moderna e contemporanea 4 (1998), pp. 31-72.

37 Several works have been published on the Royal Chamber of the Spanish Monarchy, especially in recent years. A pioneering study was Yves Bottineau, ‘Aspects de la cour d’Espagne au XVIIe siècle: l’etiquette de la chambre du roi’, Bulletin Hispanique 74, no. 1-2 (1972), pp. 138-57. It was followed by Ignacio J. Ezquerra Revilla, ‘La Cámara’, in Martínez Millán and Fernández Conti, La monarquía de Felipe II, vol. I, pp. 121-42; José Martínez Millán, ‘La transformación institucional de la Cámara de la Casa Real de la Monarquía Hispana durante el siglo XVII’, in Hortal Muñoz and Labrador Arroyo, La Casa de Borgoña, pp. 279-336, and various studies by José Martínez Millán, Ignacio J. Ezquerra Revilla, José Antonio Guillén Berrendero and Koldo Trápaga Monchet, in Martínez Millán and Hortal Muñoz, La Corte de Felipe IV, vol. I, pp. 317-439.

38 As studied by José Martínez Millán and Carlos Javier de Carlos Morales (eds.), Felipe II (1527–1598): La configuración de la Monarquía Hispánica (Valladolid, 1998), pp. 219 and ff.

39 AGPR, Administración General, box 939/2, file 49, San Lorenzo de El Escorial, 25 March 1583.

40 The role of the Royal Guard with respect to these matters of etiquette and jurisdiction during all the Habsburg reigns is analysed in chapters VII and VIII of José Eloy Hortal Muñoz, Las Guardas Reales de los Austrias hispanos (Madrid, 2013), pp. 381-472.

41 Published in Hortal Muñoz and Labrador Arroyo, Etiquetas y Ordenanzas de Felipe IV, vol. II, pp. 483-84.

42 The Bureo was the governing body of the Household of Burgundy. See the classic articles by Emilio Benito Fraile, ‘Notas para el estudio de la Real Junta del Bureo’, Revista de la facultad de derecho de la Universidad Complutense 73 (1987−88), pp. 475-86 and ‘La Real Junta del Bureo’, Cuadernos de historia del derecho 1 (1994), pp. 49-124, and Ignacio J. Ezquerra Revilla, ‘La Real Junta de Bureo’, in Martínez Millán and Hortal Muñoz, La Corte de Felipe IV, vol. I, pp. 167-316.

43 AGPR, Administración General, bundle 939/1, file 49.

44 On the Household of the Cardinal-Infante, Birgit Houben, Wisselende gedaanten. Het hof en de hofhouding van de landvoogden Isabella Clara Eugenia (1621–1633) en de kardinaal-infant don Fernando van Oostenrijk (1634–1641) te Brussel, unpublished Ph.D. thesis (University of Ghent, 2009).

45 On this subject, José Eloy Hortal Muñoz, ‘Reality or Myth? The “Domestication” of the Nobility through the Codifica­tion of Space and Ceremonial: Royal Sites and Palaces during the Reigns of Philip III and Philip IV of Spain (1598−1665)’, in Krista De Jonge and Stephen Hoppe (eds), Court Residences as Places of Exchan­ge in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe 1400−1700 (Turnhout, 2023) (in press).

46 On the workings of this system during the reign of Philip IV, see José Luis Sancho Gaspar and Gloria Martínez Leiva, ‘¿Dónde está el rey? El ritmo estacional de la corte española y la decoración de los Sitios Reales (1650-1700)’, in Cortes del Barroco. De Bernini y Velázquez a Luca Giordano. Exhibition catalogue (Madrid, 2003), pp. 85−98.

47 The duke of Lerma was governor (alcaide) of the Alcázar of Toledo, Casa de Campo and the Casas Reales de Valladolid, while Olivares was governor of the Reales Alcázares of Seville, the Cuarto Real de San Jerónimo (1630−33), which became the Buen Retiro palace (1633−43), and the palaces of Vaciamadrid and the Zarzuela. Don Luis de Haro held the governorships of the Buen Retiro, El Pardo, Valsaín and the Reales Alcázares of Seville, as well as the life office of Master of the Horse of the Córdoba stables. Following his death in 1661, his son, the marquis of Eliche, gained many governorships, as did the count of Monterrey and Fernando de Valenzuela, by then under Charles II.

48 The post of Master of the Horse was held by the duke of Lerma (1599−1618), the duke of Uceda (1618−21), the duke of Infantado (1621−22), the count-duke of Olivares (1622−45), the marquis of Carpio (1645-48), and Don Luis de Haro (1648–61).

49 The duke of Lerma (1599−1618), the duke of Uceda (1618−21), the count-duke of Olivares (1621−26), the duke of Medina de las Torres (1626−36), and, once again, Olivares (1636−45) were sumilleres de Corps.

50 AGPR, Administración General, bundle 939/1.

51 AGPR, Administración General, bundle 939/15, n.d. There is another copy in the Biblioteca Universitaria de Salamanca, Manuscript 1712, ff. 138r-153r. Analysed in detail in Ignacio J. Ezquerra Revilla, ‘La Cámara Real como espacio palaciego de integración’, in Martínez Millán and Hortal Muñoz, La Corte de Felipe IV, vol. I, pp. 398-405.

52 ‘los gentilhombres de la cámara, los gentilhombres de llave de la cámara sin ejercicio, los médicos de cámara, guardarropa, ayudas de cámara, ayudas y mozos de guardarropa, ayudas de barbero, boticario, ayudas y mozos de la botica, mayordomo del estado de la cámara, lavandera de Corps, costurera, sastre, calcetero, jubetero, zapatero, bordador, gorrero, sombrerero, cordonero, plumajero y demás oficiales de la Cámara.’

53 On the importance of this office and its regulation during the period of Philip IV, José Martínez Millán and Koldo Trápaga Monchet, ‘Secretario de Cámara’, in Martínez Millán and Hortal Muñoz, La Corte de Felipe IV, vol. I, pp. 333-37.

54 The importance of the valets de chambre in the French monarchy is studied in detail in Mathieu da Vinha, Les valets de chambre de Louis XIV (Paris, 2004).

55 An overview of this office in José Eloy Hortal Muñoz and Félix Labrador Arroyo, ‘Un oficio castellano en la Casa de los Habsburgo: los escuderos de a pie’, Chronica Nova 39 (2013), pp. 205-40.

56 Ignacio J. Ezquerra Revilla, ‘El limes doméstico de la administración castellana moderna: los Porteros de Cámara en el Consejo Real’, in Gambra Gutiérrez and Labrador Arroyo, Evolución y estructura de la Casa Real de Castilla, vol. II, pp. 809-36; and Ignacio J. Ezquerra Revilla, ‘Indicio del ámbito doméstico regio en las Chancillerias y Audiencias: los Porteros de Cámara (Siglos XVI-XVII)’, Historia, Instituciones, Documentos 37 (2010), pp. 63-85.

57 AGPR, Administración General, box 939/1, file 49, 28 December 1642.

58 AGPR, Administración General, box 939/1, file 49, 24 January 1665.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

José Eloy Hortal Muñoz

José Eloy Hortal Muñoz

José Eloy Hortal Muñoz is Associate Professor of Early Modern History at the University Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid. His major works include the monographs Las guardas reales de los Austrias hispanos (Madrid, 2013); and (with Gijs Versteegen) Las ideas políticas y sociales en la Edad Moderna (Madrid, 2016). He has also edited Politics and Piety at the Royal Sites of the Spanish Monarchy in the Seventeenth Century (Turnhout, 2021); and co-edited (with René Vermeir and Dries Raeymaekers) A Constellation of Courts: The Households of Habsburg Europe, 1555–1665 (Leuven, 2014); and (with África Espíldora García and Pierre-François Pirlet), El ceremonial en la Corte de Bruselas del siglo XVII. Los manuscritos de Francisco Alonso Lozano (Brussels, 2018), which was awarded the Henry Pirenne Prize in 2019.