Careers and Mobility

Tales of the bandos, revenge, and local violence conjure up a picture of backward and unenlightened provincial societies, turned in upon themselves and cut off from the currents of change affecting the larger world of Castile in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Yet the provinciality of local extremeño society coexisted with another, perhaps equally important aspect that hinged upon the careers of members of noble and hidalgo families that took them away from home and involved them in the more cosmopolitan academic, bureaucratic, ecclesiastic, and military life of Castile and its empire. Earlier in this chapter mention was made of the successful professional careers of middle-level hidalgos such as Dr. Francisco de Sande of Cáceres and Licenciado Diego González Altamirano of Trujillo; for these men and their families such careers meant a significant elevation in status. But it was not only the middle- and lower-level hidalgos who entered professions and pursued careers that took them away from Cáceres or Trujillo to the universities or the court, to Seville, Italy, Flanders, or the Indies. The noble families of these cities consistently produced important figures in the academic, bureaucratic, ecclesiastic, and military circles of Castile and its empire.

The explanation for this phenomenon lies in several distinct but related considerations. The provincial nobles were the leaders and the wealthiest members of local society. They received at least some education, which would make further study at a university, and all that could imply, more accessible to them than to most. As society's leaders they also were in a natural position to form ties with the court. Captain Diego de Ovando de Cáceres's support of Ferdinand and Isabella paved the way for his son Frey Nicolás de Ovando to become Comendador of Lares of the Order of Alcántara,

and Frey Nicolás's continuing ties with Ferdinand—as well as his administrative abilities—led to his appointment as governor of Hispaniola in 1502. Doubtless Dr. Lorenzo Galíndez de Carvajal's long-time professional career and association with the crown was largely responsible for his son Diego's appointment as a Comisario de Perpetuidad for Peru in 1560. Fray Diego de Chaves, eldest son of the prominent Escobar family of Trujillo, served as royal confessor to Philip II's unfortunate son don Carlos and later to Philip himself. Many families had longstanding traditions of service to the crown, either in the bureaucracy or military, or in the Church. The military tradition was particularly strong because such service historically was identified with the nobles' position and role in society.

What underlay and to some extent sustained these traditions of service and career mobility was the structure of the noble family itself. The nobility's emphasis on lineage and preservation of family wealth and position led to an increasing concentration of inherited property in the hands of one or two children. In the sixteenth century the growing number of entails conveyed the largest portion of inheritable estates to one heir per generation, usually (but not invariably) the eldest son. Many noble families, of course, continued to follow the practice of partible inheritance (equal division among all legitimate heirs), and some very wealthy patriarchs might create two or more entails. But it was becoming more and more common for one son to succeed to the entail or largest part of the estate, while only one or two daughters received dowries substantial enough to allow them to marry individuals of comparable wealth and status. While all legitimate children inherited a portion of the parental estate, the creation of entails often impelled noble children who would expect to inherit relatively small legacies to pursue alternative careers. The convents of Cáceres and Trujillo were filled with the daughters of local noble families, and young men went off to study at the university, join religious orders, serve in the military, or, increasingly in the sixteenth century, try their luck in the Indies.

While most nobles and hidalgos probably were functionally literate, levels of education varied considerably. Gómez de Solís, captain and encomendero in Peru from a prominent family of Cáceres, sent a letter in December 1546 to Gonzalo Pizarro in which he said his good firend and fellow cacereño Benito de la Peña actually

wrote the letter because his own crude efforts ("estos letrones míos") were unsuitable.^[92] In contrast one of Gómez's brothers in Cáceres, Lorenzo de Ulloa Solís, was an ordained priest who managed the family's complicated affairs in Cáceres and Peru for years.

Most extremeños who sought a higher education studied at Salamanca, which is not surprising given the university's proximity to the region and its reputation.^[93] A university education did not come cheaply, and most students depended on assistance from their families or other patrons during their years of study. In 1575, for example, Diego de Vargas Figueroa of Cáceres gave his son don Cristóbal de Figueroa Ocampo 250 sheep and 150 lambs to sell in order to buy himself books when he entered the university.^[94]

Certain families favored higher education and professional careers. Dr. Nicolás de Ovando, nephew of Frey Nicolás de Ovando and on his mother's side of don Bernardino de Carvajal, canon of the cathedral of Plasencia, spent most of his adult life and career at the court. He served first on the audiencia of Valladolid and from 1550 until his death in 1565 as a member of the royal council of the Military Orders. In his will Ovando left all his law books to his grandson Nicolás de Ovando, who wanted to study in Salamanca or Alcalá.^[95] Doubtless the most outstanding member of this family was Licenciado Juan de Ovando, descendant of an illegitimate branch of the family of Captain Diego de Ovando de Cáceres and a cousin of Dr. Nicolás de Ovando. Born in 1514, in his remarkable career Licenciado Juan de Ovando served as a catedrático of the University of Salamanca, canon of the cathedral of Seville, member of the Council of the Inquisition, and eventually sixth president of the Council of the Indies, from 1571 until just before his death in 1575. As president of the Council of the Indies Ovando initiated the codification of laws relating to the government of the Spanish empire. He died before codification was completed, but the ordinance of 1573 represented a first step toward standardization. Ovando also served as financial advisor to the crown. As a public figure, he was renowned for his integrity and competence.^[96] Other families also developed traditions of public service and higher education.^[97]

The church, especially religious orders, attracted members of the nobility and brought some extremeños into considerable prominence. In addition to the royal confessor, Fray Diego de Chaves, Trujillo produced the cardinal Licenciado don Gaspar Cervantes de

Gaete, who successively served as archbishop of Messina (Sicily), Salerno, and Tarragona, where he died and was buried in 1575, and was a prominent specialist in canon law at the 1562–1563 meeting of the Council of Trent.^[98] The first bishop and subsequently first archbishop of Lima was the Dominican Fray Jerónimo de Loaysa, member of a prominent noble family of Trujillo. Another Dominican, Fray Felipe de Meneses of Trujillo, became catedrático of the University of Alcalá de Henares and prior of the convents of Toledo and Segovia. Philip II put him in charge of the reform of the Mercedarian order in Galicia.^[99] In Cáceres don Bernardino de Carvajal was a cardinal, and in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries several members of the Sande Carvajal clan served as dignitaries of the cathedral of Plasencia.^[100] Licenciado Fray Antonio Gutiérrez de Ulloa was Inquisitor of Lima in the 1570s. In addition to these luminaries many other young men of noble families entered orders such as San Juan de los Caballeros or the mendicant orders, which normally took them away from home and sometimes even outside of Spain. Although certainly there were hidalgos in the secular priesthood, and non-hidalgos could enter religious orders, the majority of hidalgos who chose ecclesiastical careers opted for the regular rather than the secular priesthood.^[101]

While the church probably accounted for the largest number of hidalgos who sought opportunities away from home—an ecclesiastical career, after all, did offer a lifelong solution to the problem of making one's livelihood—military service might have been nearly as popular. Not only did military service correspond to the traditional role and predilections of the nobles, but it offered greater flexibility in some senses than the church, since entering the military need not be a lifetime commitment. Because so many nobles participated in military campaigns at one time or another—the politics and conflicts of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries assured there would be many opportunities to bear arms—it is impossible to estimate how many nobles and hidalgos gained at least some military experience at some point.

As was true for the bureaucracy or the church, certain families had a high level of involvement in the military. The patriarch of the Pizarro family, Captain Gonzalo Pizarro, fought in Granada, Italy, and Navarre (in Italy with "el Gran Capitán," Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, and with Diego García de Paredes), and his son Hernando

accompanied him in the last campaign, as did Juan Cortés, the Pizarro ally who went to Peru and returned to become a regidor of Trujillo. Juan de Chaves ended the brief chronicle of his lineage with a list of his forebearers who died in the service of the crown: Martín de Chaves, older brother of Luis de Chaves, el viejo, died in the battle of Archite; Francisco de Chaves, his great-grandfather, died in "las lomas de Málaga"; Nuño de Chaves, his father's brother, and Francisco de Chaves, his own older brother, both died in Peru; and his brother don Alonso de Sotomayor, who was named captain for the infantry sent to fight the French in 1558, died of illness on the campaign.^[102] Captain Martín de Meneses (brother of Fray Felipe de Meneses), who spent over forty years in Peru, claimed his father and three uncles (one of whom died in Florida and another in Mexico) all had served in the military.^[103]

Probably the most famous military hero of the epoch was Diego García de Paredes, the "Samson of Extremadura," who had legendary strength, courage, and skill; he was born in 1468 and fought alongside "el Gran Capitán" in Italy. In the early sixteenth century Diego García's illegitimate half-brother Alvaro de Paredes, who died in 1511, accompanied him, as later would Alvaro's own illegitimate son, Sancho de Paredes (see table 2). After numerous campaigns Diego García de Paredes, loyal member of Charles V's entourage, was named "caballero de la espuela dorada" in Bologna in 1530, where he died in 1533. His illegitimate son of the same name, born in Trujillo in 1506 and raised by a cousin, went to the Indies in 1524 but returned to Europe in the 1530s. He spent about ten years fighting in Flanders, Germany, Italy, and Sicily and attained the rank of captain before returning to Trujillo and then leaving for Amazonas with his compatriot Francisco de Orellana. His nephew Luis, oldest son of legitimate half-brother Sancho de Paredes, died fighting in Andalusia.^[104]

The participation of the Sande family of Cáceres in the military (see table 2) was perhaps exceptionally high. The outstanding military figure of the family was don Alvaro de Sande. Second son of the third señor of Valhondo and a relative through his grandfather of Diego García de Paredes, don Alvaro was destined for a career in the Church and studied briefly in Salamanca before deciding that his vocation lay elsewhere. In the 1530s he participated in expeditions to Tunis and elsewhere in the Mediterranean and in the 1540s

fought in Flanders and against France, returning subsequently to Italy. After the Spanish disaster of 1559 at the island of Gelves (off the Tunisian coast), he was captured by the Turks, taken to Constantinople, and finally ransomed at great cost. Because of his reputation the Turks at first invited Sande to join them. When he refused, they delayed considerably in arranging the ransom. Ferdinand, the Holy Roman Emperor and grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella, whom Sande's grandfather Sancho de Paredes Golfín had served, at the request of his brother Maximilian finally interceded on Sande's behalf, and the ransom (variously 40,000 or 60,000 escudos) was accepted. Despite the expense and the hiatus in his career, don Alvaro de Sande returned to active military life in Italy and the Mediterranean, serving as coronel, field marshal, and captain general, and finally as governor of Milan, where he died in 1573. Philip II granted him señorío of the village of Valdefuentes and later the title of Marqués de Piobera.^[105]

Don Alvaro de Sande was the most famous but not the only military officer in the family. One of his brothers, Diego García de Sande, was a general who served in the Mediterranean and a comendador of Santiago, and another, Arias de Sande, was a captain who died in Italy. Four of his nephews, sons of his brother Pedro de Sande, joined the military as well. Two of these nephews died at Gelves and another in Italy. The fourth, don Juan de Sande, also fought in Italy and served as a captain in the Gelves campaign. In 1569 the city council of Cáceres made him captain of the two hundred infantrymen recruited to fight in Granada. He survived the campaign but died shortly after his return to Cáceres in 1571.^[106] Don Alvaro de Sande's first cousin on his mother's side was another Diego García de Paredes (they were both grandsons of Sacho de Paredes Golfín), who fought in Italy under his famous cousin and in Flanders. He was made a captain before he left the military and went to Peru in the 1540s. And in the less prominent branch of the Sande family (those distant relatives who sued to prove their hidalguía in Granada) at least two sons of that Pedro de Sande had military careers. Don Juan de Sande served in Italy and Flanders, and his brother don Bernardino was a captain in the Philippines.^[107]

Military service provided an opportunity to earn distinction and royal favor as well as personal enrichment, but as seen in the case of don Alvaro de Sande and his relatives, the fortunes of war also

brought death or captivity. For officers and soldiers of some means, the last could mean long periods of imprisonment awaiting payment of ransom money by relatives or charitable organizations at home. Baltasar de Valverde (brother of Licenciado Diego García de Valverde, who served on several audiencias in the New World) thought that his nephew (his first cousin's son) was a captive of the "king of Fez." In his will of 1579 he asked his brother's son to help ransom him because "the lad is very virtuous and very honorable" and deserving of help.^[108] Ransoming was a standard feature of the many military campaigns and conflicts of the period. Relatives of Hernando de Monroy, a prisoner in Algiers, sent 200 ducados to Dr. Nicolás de Ovando at the court to negotiate his release. Family and relatives raised 300 ducados toward the ransom of Pedro Alvarez Holguín, who was missing after the Gelves disaster but was finally located in Sicily in 1561.^[109]

Like study at the university or entrance into a religious order, military service was a career choice that many noble families willingly supported. The regidor Sancho de Paredes Holguín, for example, gave his brother Jerónimo de la Cerda 75,000 maravedís when he went off to serve in Italy in 1554.^[110] While the military was often the career choice of younger or illegitimate sons, this pattern was not invariable. Since military service could be of short duration, and individuals who opted for long-term careers still would be likely to return home periodically between campaigns, the military did not mean a permanent absence and so was not incompatible with marrying and establishing a household. Given the strength of the military tradition, and the possibility of maintaining one's position at home despite periods of absence, conceivably many hidalgos went off to the Indies (especially in the earlier decades of the sixteenth century) in much the same spirit that they, their fathers, or other relatives joined the army. Like the military, going to the Indies meant service to the crown with the expectation of personal distinction and gain and a possibility of returning home.

The careers that hidalgos chose were important not only because they offered a solution to the problem of how to provide for sons whose inheritance was small; these careers also created the basis for a network of contacts that connected nobles in Cáceres and Trujillo with the outside world. The network diminished the provincialism and isolation that threatened to engulf local extremeño soci-

ety, put the nobles in touch with the wider currents of Castilian life, and provided opportunities to acquire expertise in legal, financial, and commercial matters. Cacereños frequently turned to their compatriots Dr. Nicolás de Ovando or Licenciado Juan de Ovando, and trujillanos to Fray Felipe de Meneses or the royal confessor Fray Diego de Chaves, for assistance and advice. By extending itself geographically—sending its sons or illegitimate or poor relatives away from home—and encompassing a number of different careers, the noble family bolstered its position at home while preserving and protecting the lineage linked to the entailed estate, title, and arms.