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Spanish Society, 1348–1700

Beginning with the Black Death in 1348 and extending through to the
demise of Habsburg rule in 1700, this second edition of Spanish Society,
1348–1700 has been expanded to provide a wide and compelling explora-
tion of Spain’s transition from the Middle Ages to modernity.
Each chapter builds on the first edition by offering new evidence of the
changes in Spain’s social structure between the fourteenth and seventeenth
centuries. Every part of society is examined, culminating in a final section
that is entirely new to the second edition and presents the changing social
practices of the period, particularly in response to the growing crises facing
Spain as it moved into the seventeenth century. Also new to this edition is
a consideration of the social meaning of culture, specifically the presence
of Hermetic themes and of magical elements in Golden Age literature and
Cervantes’s Don Quijote.
Through the extensive use of case studies, historical examples and literary
extracts, Spanish Society is an ideal way for students to gain direct access to
this captivating period.

Teofilo F. Ruiz is Professor of History at the University of California, Los

Angeles. His previous publications include A King Travels: Festive Tradi-
tions in Late Medieval and Early Modern Spain (2012), Spain, 1300–1469:
Centuries of Crises (2007), Medieval Europe and the World (2005) and From
Heaven to Earth: The Reordering of Castilian Society, 1150–1350 (2004).
Spanish Society, 1348–1700
Second Edition

Teofilo F. Ruiz
Second edition published 2017
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2017 Teofilo F. Ruiz
The right of Teofilo F. Ruiz to be identified as author of this work has
been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
First edition published by Pearson Education Limited 2001
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Ruiz, Teofilo F., 1943– author.
Title: Spanish society, 1348–1700 / Teofilo F. Ruiz.
Description: Second edition. | Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY :
Routledge, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016055547 | ISBN 9781138957862 (pbk. :
alk. paper) | ISBN 9781138999053 (hbk : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9781315180960 (ebook : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Spain—Social conditions—to 1800. | Spain—Social
life and customs. | Spain—History—711–1516. | Spain—History—
House of Austria, 1516–1700. | Social classes—Spain.
Classification: LCC HN583 .R85 2017 | DDC 306.0946—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016055547
ISBN: 978-1-138-99905-3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-95786-2 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-18096-0 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
To
Sir John H. Elliott
¡Qué amigo de sus amigos!
¡Qué señor para criados
y parientes!
¡Qué enemigo de enemigos!
¡Qué maestro de esforçados
y valientes!
¡Qué seso para discretos!
¡Qué gracia para donosos!
¡Qué razón!
¡Qué benigno a los sujetos
y a los bravos y dañosos,
un león!
Jorge Manrique
Contents

List of tablesix
Preface to the second editionx
Preface to the first editionxiv
Acknowledgementsxvi

Introduction: from medieval to early modern 1

PART I
The geographical and political setting9

1 The making of Spain 11

PART II
A society of orders43

2 Those who have not: peasants and town dwellers 45

3 Those who have: nobility and clergy 77
4 On the margins of society 104

PART III
The structures of everyday life131

5 Festivals and power: sites of inclusion and exclusion 133

6 From Carnival to Corpus Christi: festivals of affirmation 155
7 The burdens of violence: sites of conflict 176
8 Resisting violence: the wrath of the poor 202
viii Contents
9 The patterns of everyday life: eating and dressing 224
10 The patterns of everyday life: religion, honour,
sexuality and popular culture 248

PART IV
Culture and society in an age of decline269

11 Spain under the late Habsburgs: society in an age

of crisis I 271
12 Spain under the late Habsburgs: society in an age
of crisis II 290
Conclusion 310

Appendix I: chronology of events, 1348–1700316

Appendix II: glossary of terms320
Bibliography323
Index336
Tables

2.1 City population in early modern Spain63

2.2 The population of Seville, 1384–159465
2.3 A typology of urban social groups in Seville66
2.4 Changes in trades in Barcelona, 1516–171770
9.1 Summary of caloric intake of Spanish sailors in the early
seventeenth century235
Preface to the second edition

Preface to the second edition of Spanish society, 1348–1700

The first edition of Spanish Society, 1400–1600 appeared more than a decade
and a half ago in 2001. Since then, there have been many important works
on the social history of early modern Europe and of late medieval and early
modern Spain. My own work has changed dramatically over that period of
time and, although I still think that my book has held its own over the period
since its first publication, clearly, there are many things I would do quite dif-
ferently today. Over the course of my long career, I have written many books
to the chagrin of trees and to the well-being of insomniacs. Of all the books
I have written, however, Spanish Society has always been, and remains, my
favourite. When I wrote it towards the end of the twentieth century, I was
able to work on both sides of the chronological divide (the dreaded 1492)
and to argue against the rigid distinctions between medieval and early mod-
ern. The book also allowed me to draw from literature and to use culture as
a means to understand social structures and the social meaning of cultural
artefacts. As such, though profoundly anchored in social history, the first
edition of Spanish Society, 1400–1600 sought to integrate culture into social
developments. Liking the original so much, I am a bit reluctant to admit that
a highly revised second edition is necessary. One’s own sense of possession of
one’s work and the illusory sense that the works one writes are truly endur-
ing (which of course they are not) may lead me to attempt only a cosmetic
reassessment of my 2001 efforts. This is not the case here, and over the years
I have come to realise that a somewhat longer and different book, while not
discarding what was accomplished in the first edition, was necessary.

Chronology, geography, culture and religion: Spain in

a global society

Chronology
I should begin with the most obvious change in the nature of this second
edition, that is, changes in the chronological span of the book. In the first
 Preface to the second edition xi
edition, I was constrained by the dates dictated by the demands for a series
on social history for which my Spanish Society, 1400–1600 was just one
of the volumes commissioned by the general editor of the series. Although
I sought to provide some background for the period before 1400, as well
as to go well beyond 1600 and to illustrate some discreet aspects of social
change with historical vignettes drawn from before and after those chron-
ological boundaries, the results were not always satisfactory. Clearly, the
sweeping impact of the Black Death in the mid-fourteenth century, the end
of Alfonso XI’s reign in 1350 (the only king to die from the plague in West-
ern Europe and to maintain some semblance of order in Castile during the
turbulent fourteenth century), the rising tide of violence against religious
minorities and myriad of other developments had an important impact on
the social structures of peninsular kingdoms. These developments need to
be explicated in greater detail if one is to make sense of social change in the
later centuries.
The first edition chronological terminus, 1600, coincided roughly with an
important landmark, the death of Philip II in 1598, widespread epidemics
throughout Iberia and economic decline. Nonetheless, for the next hundred
years, the Habsburgs still ruled in the different Spanish kingdoms. Clearly,
the seventeenth century witnessed the almost break-up of the Spanish mon-
archy in 1640, military defeats in the Low Countries and elsewhere in Cen-
tral Europe, the rise of France, the Dutch republic and, to a lesser extent,
England (all three enemies of Spain) as the hegemonic power(s) in Western
Europe. The seventeenth century also observed the final settlement of reli-
gious warfare but without any real gains after more than a century of war.
The troubled (almost tragic) end of the Habsburg dynasty in the Iberian
Peninsula in 1700 triggered new social issues. We cannot see the develop-
ment of new attitudes towards social groups or the rise of religious sensi-
bilities unless we understand the political and cultural context of the long
seventeenth century. It was, after all, a general European crisis that affected
Spain as much as it did the rest of the continent. The War of Spanish Suc-
cession, the coming of a Bourbon dynasty to rule Spain in the eighteenth
century and beyond signalled a new period in Spain’s (now truly Spain as a
centralised monarchy to the detriment of traditional autonomies and liber-
ties) institutions, economy and social life. Two new concluding chapters
(Chapter 11 and 12) address mostly seventeenth century issues and what
I may call the social and cultural history of a society in crisis.

Geography
Although the first edition aimed at examining Spanish society in the wider
context of the expansive Spanish world, the reality is that the main thrust
of my arguments and of the historical issues examined focused mostly on
the Iberian Peninsula. Since 2001, world history and a global approach to
historical phenomena have transformed the manner in which we study the
xii Preface to the second edition
past. In the case of Spain, the first global empire, this is even more pertinent.
While writing a social history of the entire Iberian world would yield a book
very different from the original one, I hope to extend slightly the geographi-
cal boundaries of my inquiry in this second edition. Although, as I note,
writing a social history of the entire Spanish world is beyond the scope of
this work and beyond my abilities, then or now, I would like to draw more
information from other areas of the Spanish Empire (and then monarchy
after 1556). After all, natives in the New World were a significant part of the
Spanish social structure. Conversos in Mexico or Cuzco, as Nathan Wachtel
has shown, were also part of that world in ways that were similar, and yet
distinct from those of the peninsula.
Similarly, the Spanish enclaves in North Africa, Oran, Ceuta, Melilla and
elsewhere had different social histories than those in the metropolis. Con-
versos and Moriscos played important roles in North Africa as translators
and interlocutors that would have been inconceivable in sixteenth and sev-
enteenth-century Spain. Jews were welcome in these North African enclaves
while barred from the peninsular kingdoms. And then, there are the issues
of Spaniards in Rome, Naples, Milan and elsewhere. Whether they were
part of the heavy footprint of Spanish administration and religious life in
Italy, or living on the margins as Conversos and Jews in the Roman (and
Venetian) ghettoes, they were also part of Spain’s outreach to the outside
world. And we find Spaniards in the Low Countries and in Germany either
as administrators, merchants or soldiers. They carried with them elements
of Spanish culture into different parts of the world, but they also borrowed
important cultural tools from the diverse contexts in which they lived and
worked, and then brought that back to Spain.

Culture and religion

Although the first edition of Spanish Society is filled with literary references
and deploys literary texts as a way to understand social relations and struc-
tures, I neglected to deploy other cultural forms that reflected specific social
issues. For example (a topic to be explored in greater detail in a new chap-
ter), in seventeenth century Seville, as Amanda Wunder shows in a recent
book, in the midst of growing political, economic and social crises, the lead-
ing citizens of Seville invested in the building of churches, in the decora-
tion of religious sculptures, religious painting and similar pious enterprises.
What did such activities mean in the context of Spanish society? What did
the emphasis on vivid representations of blood and suffering so intensely
depicted in Baroque Spain mean for the social and cultural history of early
modern Spain?
Similarly, although I address the clergy as one of the orders in Spanish
society, I did not pay enough attention to religion as an institution that
helped shaped the contours of Spanish society. In Spain and the Iberian
world, religion played an important role, not just in the spiritual life of the
 Preface to the second edition xiii
Spanish population but also in the manner in which social relations were
constructed. Religion pervaded the very fabric of society and shaped the
manner in which the dominant religion – Catholic Christianity – related to
the world at large and to other religious groups in their midst – Protestants,
Jews, Muslims. Thus, religion played a fundamental role in the forging of
social differences, artistic production, while also influencing political deci-
sions and foreign policy. Finally, Chapter 12, a new concluding chapter
focuses on two discreet topics. The first addresses the nature of culture in
seventeenth century Iberia as a context for the decline of Spain and the trou-
bled rule of the late Habsburgs in the peninsula. By presenting a case study
of the role of magic, Hermeticism and other cultural tropes in the social life
of Spanish people, I attempt to see how these esoteric forms of knowledge
pervaded the life of Spaniards on both sides of the Atlantic, and modified
the growing austerity of seventeenth century Catholic doctrine. The second
is the unavoidable issue of decline and the growing awareness by statesmen
and the learned that “disillusionment” had become an important aspect of
their world.

Spain in a global society

As much as I am able to do so, I would like to place some of the develop-
ments in social history within a global context. Spain was the first truly
global empire, and peninsular social norms were replicated throughout
its vast possessions beyond the sea. Royal and princely entries, a topic we
explore with a great deal of detail in chapters below, were replicated by vice-
roys and episcopal entries in Mexico City, Cuzco and elsewhere throughout
the empire. The Inquisition in Mexico and in Peru also found Conversos
allegedly practising Judaism. In time, the Inquisition would come to moni-
tor the beliefs of natives, found to have relapsed into their ancestral prac-
tices. While there were important differences and geographical contexts,
there was continuity in social practices (if one wishes, as I do, to think of
religion as a social practice) throughout the vast arc of Spanish lands around
the world.
Preface to the first edition

For far too long ‘social history’ was regularly, even routinely defined dis-
missively and negatively along the lines of ‘history with the high politics,
economics and diplomacy left out’. Over the latter decades of the twentieth
century, however, a virtual revolution in the sub-discipline of ‘social history’
gathered momentum, fuelled not only by historians but also by specialists
from such established academic disciplines as anthropology, economics, pol-
itics and especially sociology, and enriched by contributors from burgeon-
ing cultural, demographic, media and women’s studies. At the cusp of the
twenty-first century, the prime rationale of the recently launched ‘Social His-
tory of Europe’ series is to reflect the cumulative achievement and reinforce
the ripening respectability of what may be positively yet succinctly defined
as nothing less than the ‘history of society’.
Initiated by the late Professor Harry Hearder of the University of Wales,
the ‘Social History of Europe’ series is conceived as an ambitious and open-
ended collection of wide-ranging general surveys charting the history of
the peoples of the major European nations, states and regions through key
phases in their societal development from the late Middle Ages to the pre-
sent. The series is not designed to become necessarily either chronologically
or geographically all-embracing, although certain pre-eminent areas and
periods will demand a systematic sequence of coverage. Typically, a volume
covers a period of about one century, but longer (and occasionally shorter)
time-spans are proving appropriate. A degree of modest chronological over-
lap between volumes covering a particular nation, state or region is accept-
able where justified by the historical experience.
Each volume in the series is written by a commissioned European or
American expert and, while synthesising the latest scholarship in the field,
is invigorated by the findings and preoccupations of the author’s original
research. As works of authority and originality, all contributory volumes
are of genuine interest and value to the individual author’s academic peers.
Even so, the contributory volumes are not intended to be scholarly mono-
graphs addressed to the committed social historian but broader synoptic
overviews which serve a non-specialist general readership. All the volumes
are therefore intended to take the ‘textbook dimension’ with due seriousness,
 Preface to the first edition xv
with authors recognising that the long-term success of the series will depend
on its usefulness to, and popularity with, an international undergraduate and
postgraduate student readership. In the interests of accessibility, the provi-
sion of notes and references to accompany the text is suitably restrained and
all volumes contain a select bibliography, a chronology of principal events,
a glossary of foreign and technical terms and a comprehensive index.
Inspired by the millennial watershed but building upon the phenomenal
specialist progress recorded over the last quarter-century, the eventually
multi-volume ‘Social History of Europe’ is dedicated to the advancement of
an intellectually authoritative and academically cosmopolitan perspective
on the multi-faceted historical development of the European continent.
Raymond Pearson
Professor of Modern European History
University of Ulster
Acknowledgements

In the more than a decade and a half since the writing of the first edition, my
debt to those mentioned in my earlier acknowledgment has only increased.
Here I reproduce the language found in my acknowledgements in 2001.
Clearly, some of those mentioned below have made additional contributions
to my understanding of Spanish history. Other scholars have made signifi-
cant contributions to my work since 2001, and their insights have played an
important role in how I perceive the period and how I write about it. Rich-
ard Kagan’s invaluable contributions to the questions of festivals and local
government deserve a place of honour, so have been the contributions of the
late and much missed Olivia Remie Constable. I have learned a great deal
from my colleagues at UCLA, Margaret Jacob, Lynn Hunt, Efrain Kristal,
Jesus Torrecilla, Ali Behdad and others during the intervening years since
the first edition. I have done so from their collective and individual erudition
and scholarly generosity.
As I wrote more than a decade and a half ago, writing a comprehensive
social history of late medieval and early modern Spain means borrowing
heavily from scholars who have long toiled in reconstructing the Spanish
past. My gratitude for their work – which I cite often in my notes or in the
bibliography – is great indeed. I am aware that my labour has largely been
to weave and interpret their accumulated wisdom and insights. But I have
also incurred a great debt to those who directly, through comments and sug-
gestions, or indirectly, through their example and work, have played a sig-
nificant role in the formulation of this book. I am most thankful to Hilario
Casado, Paul Freedman, Francisco García Serrano, Xavier Gil Pujol, Manuel
Gonzalez Jiménez, Denis Menjot, David Nirenberg, Adeline Rucquoi and
Jesús Solórzano Telechea for their comments, suggestions and support then
and for their continuous friendship and scholarly example now. The origi-
nal Chapter 4 was presented for discussion at the University of Califor-
nia Medieval Seminar at the Huntington Library, where I received valuable
comments from participants. Chapters 5 and 6 were presented to the UCLA
European History Seminar and to my own graduate seminar on the social
and cultural history of late medieval and early modern Europe. I benefited
 Acknowledgements xvii
immensely from the questions of graduate students and faculty alike, above
all from Margaret Jacob and Lynn Hunt’s perceptive observations.
In thinking about social history in general, my ideas have long been
shaped by the late Jacques Le Goff’s personal and scholarly example, by the
late Lawrence Stone’s vivid interventions at the Davis Center (Princeton)
for more than twenty years. His combative and uncompromising commit-
ment to history has made an indelible mark on the way in which historians
conceive of their métier. My wife and sister soul, Scarlett Freund, laboured
over every line of the original text. The mistakes are all mine, but whatever
is good and elegant here is due to her editorial skills and exacting critical
mind. So much so that, in all fairness, this has been a truly collaborative
enterprise. But then, this has been the case in every aspect of our life together.
This book is dedicated, once again, to Sir John H. Elliott, doyen of His-
panists all over the world. For many years, Sir John H. Elliott’s generosity,
sensitivity to the work of others and scholarship have inspired and galva-
nised a whole generation of scholars. For almost thirty years, I have ben-
efited from his advice and guidance and have incurred a great debt to his
work and friendship. Over the last fifteen years since the publication of
the first edition, Sir John H. Elliott’s works have expanded the boundaries
of our knowledge of the Iberian early modern world and of the writing of
history. His generosity and that of his wife, Lady Oonah Elliott, to me and
to many others, have been extraordinary. This dedication is therefore but a
very modest token of my enduring admiration, gratitude and love.
Teofilo F. Ruiz
University of California at Los Angeles
Los Angeles and Paris 2016
Introduction
From medieval to early modern

Historians of late medieval and early modern Spain have long seen the reign
of the Catholic Monarchs (Isabella, 1474–1504, and Ferdinand, 1479–
1516) as a watershed between two historical periods: the Middle Ages and
the onset of modernity. To be sure, 1492 – annus mirabilis of the Castil-
ian and Aragonese kingdoms; symbol of centralising reforms – witnessed
momentous events in the history of the peninsula. Nonetheless, the central-
ity assigned to the capture of Granada, the expulsion of the Jews and the
encounter between the Old World and the New have obscured far more
enduring historical transformations.
Although some historians, most notably Sir John H. Elliott in his magiste-
rial Imperial Spain, 1469–1716,1 have noted a continuity between the late
Middle Ages and the early modern period, most textbooks and monographs
dealing with the history of Spain, whether in English, Spanish or French,
faithfully tread the chronological path that splits the Middle Ages and the
onset of modernity into discrete periods. This is the case for texts intro-
ducing students to the history of Spain as well as for those addressing the
erudite.2 The truth is that we remain prisoners of chronological constructs.
Like other histories, Spanish historiography absorbed the positivism of
leading nineteenth-century European historians and adopted the concept of
iron-clad epochs and the view that prominent political events – les grandes
journées – demarcate distinct historical periods.3
Nevertheless, 1492 did signal important landmarks in the political life
of the Spains. The conquest of Granada, the expulsion of the Jews, the
encounter with the New World were events of high historical significance,
and collectively they had a dramatic impact on the mentality of Castilians,
Aragonese, Catalans and other inhabitants of heterogeneous Spain.
The problem with these sharp chronological divisions, however, is that
they arbitrarily separate the late Middle Ages from the early modern period.
They also privilege political history over historiographical perspectives that
are at least as important, or more so. Of course, I am referring here to the
social and economic history of the Spanish kingdoms, conceived not as an
appendage to a central political discourse but as manifesting a centrality of
its own.
2 Introduction
My aim in this book is quite straightforward. I wish to question the tradi-
tional periodization of the history of Spain, to suggest new ways of thinking
about the late Middle Ages and the early modern period and to envisage
social change as occurring independently of political watersheds. The dates
1348 and 1700, the chronological starting and ending points of this book,
serve as arbitrary landmarks that link the social worlds of western Europe
and signal the bridging of historical periods traditionally held apart: the late
medieval and the early modern. One of my contentions in this book is that
a history of the sixteenth-and-seventeenth centuries cannot be written with-
out a thorough grounding in the preceding century, and vice versa.
Nonetheless, the extent to which formulations of social (and, by impli-
cation, economic) history have depended on chronological boundaries is
evident in the pioneering and monumental Historia de España y América,
written under the direction of the great Jaume Vicens Vives.4 More than
forty years after its original publication in 1957, this multi-volume work
remains a model of how to organise a discussion of social history; at the
same time, despite the originality and forward vision of Vicens Vives, the
project did not escape the chronological impositions of a ruling ideology
that conceived the history of Spain, and still conceives it, as a move from
one significant date to another (1212, 1492, 1588, 1598, 1640, 1715, 1812)
or as a record of ruling dynasties or systems (the Trastámaras, the Hab-
sburgs, the Bourbons, the Republic). Thus, the second volume of Vicens
Vives’s collection closes arbitrarily (from the standpoint of social and eco-
nomic history) with political events, such as the end of the reign of the
Catholic Monarchs and the dissolution of the Trastámara dynasty, instead
of with social or economic shifts such as the series of uprisings in Castile,
Valencia and elsewhere in the 1520s, or the influx of American gold and
silver from the 1530s onwards. And the formidable third volume ends in a
similar fashion, with the dwindling of Habsburg rule in Spain, rather than
with the more significant demographic and economic transformations of the
mid-eighteenth century.
This criticism notwithstanding, one cannot but praise the efforts of Vicens
Vives and of most of the historians who contributed to the Historia de
España y América – in particular, the authors of volume III who delivered
a history of mentalités and of marginality, topics still unexplored in Spain
and in many other places outside of France in the 1950s.5 We now have
another excellent entry in the field of social history. As I was completing
the last chapter of the first edition of this book, James Casey’s excellent
monograph Early Modern Spain: A Social History appeared in print. After
the initial scare of perhaps finding that the project I had spent years on had
been pre-empted, I realised after a careful reading that our approaches to
the social history of Spain diverge considerably. Casey’s Early Modern Spain
deals with a different chronological period. Although he makes revealing
incursions into the period before 1500, the main thrust of his research is
the early modern period, above all the seventeenth century, which anchors
 Introduction 3
his earlier research. My book, on the other hand, emphasises the continuity
between the late Middle Ages and the early modern period. Moreover, Casey
addresses topics other than the ones that are my main concerns. While he
looks closely at religion and the family, I emphasise festivals, violence and
daily life. In the end, the two books provide complementary accounts of
Spain’s social history from 1348 to the end of the ancien régime, but from
varying chronological and methodological perspectives. But the problem
remains unsolved. Like the dates in Vicens Vives’s Historia de España y
América, those in Casey’s narrative (1492 and 1500) remain a formidable
wedge between epochs – the medieval and the early modern – and reinforce
the strict boundaries set by political events.
When we cling to such chronological markers as 1492 and, therefore, to a
specific kind of one-dimensional history, we become captive to a conception
of history as politics. This deters us from studying historical transforma-
tions over la longue durée, from describing and explaining change over a
long period of time – a task that is, after all, the fundamental duty of the
historian. I should emphasise of course that social and economic history
should not be studied or written without the proper political context. None-
theless, in terms of underlying social structure, culture, mentalité and the
discourse of daily life, changes often occur imperceptibly; and in the case of
late medieval and early modern Spain, whenever we perceive a sharp break,
it bears no connection to 1492. If we could view and study the social history
of Spain as a continuum, as a progression of social change that takes place
over the course of centuries, then the distinctions between medieval and
early modern would cease to be meaningful or useful.
Other aspects of writing social history are equally deserving of reassess-
ment. Textbook after textbook describes Spain as a society of distinct orders
(la sociedad estamental). They then give us a quick synopsis of these orders,
almost always in a descending and fixedly hierarchical arrangement: nobil-
ity first, clergy second, the rest later. Missing from this analysis is the com-
plex set of relations among different social groups, as well as the wide range
of possibilities within groups. Let me offer a few examples.
Writing in the late 1320s, Don Juan Manuel (1282–ca.1348), a prince of
royal blood and one of the most troublesome nobles in late medieval Cas-
tile, described the social order of his day in El libro de los estados (The Book
of Orders). Borrowing from well-established medieval notions of the tripar-
tite division of society, Don Juan Manuel imagined a social hierarchy that
was neatly divided into three broad orders (estamentos): those who pray
(the clergy), those who fight (the nobility), and the rest, the immense major-
ity of the population he defined as labradores (literally, those who work the
land). An additional category acknowledged urban dwellers, in turn divided
into three subcategories: the upper urban elite of the bourgeoisie, mercantile
groups, and labourers (menestrales).
In adopting the tripartite division of society prevailing in medieval West-
ern Europe, Don Juan Manuel followed a tradition which maintained that
4 Introduction
felicity in this world and salvation in the next depended largely on accepting
one’s assigned place in the social hierarchy. Don Juan Manuel’s convictions,
however, ran counter to the changing realities of the late Middle Ages. His
lofty views of the privileges of the noble estate, and his dismissive comments
on those who worked, found their comeuppance in the urban militias that
were manned by the very merchants and artisans he had branded as peas-
ants, militias which defeated him time and again on the battlefields of north-
ern Castile. Don Juan Manuel’s normative categories may read well on paper
and accurately reflect the mindset of an aristocrat in mid-fourteenth-century
Castile, but they bear little relation to the fluid social world of late medieval
Spain, where status was constantly being redefined by wealth and war.6
Writing more than a century later, in the 1470s, Jorge Manrique (ca.1440–
79) – by birth, a scion of one of the noblest families in Castile and Don Juan
Manuel’s social equal; by vocation, an indefatigable warrior and poet – presents
us with a far more nuanced view of social structure. In his extraordinarily beau-
tiful poem ‘Ode to the Death of my Father’ (Coplas a la muerte de mi padre),
Jorge Manrique reflects on the levelling properties of death. Comparing our
lives to rivers that flow into a sea ‘which is dying’, he notes that all rivers, large
and small, run into the sea, and that all are equal, ‘those who live by the [work
of their] hands and those who are rich’.7
In a poem intended to praise the nobility of his father, this is indeed a
remarkable statement. For Manrique, at least in these pages, society is
divided into two distinct groups: those who work with their hands (the
poor) and those who do not work (the rich). Thus, he somewhat sets aside
the divinely inspired hierarchies presumed to sustain medieval life. Instead,
it is wealth and work that define social categories. In the same vein, in Gut-
ierre Díaz de Gámez’s The Unconquered Knight: A Chronicle of the Deeds
of Don Pero Niño (known in Spanish as El Victorial), written in the 1430s
and 1440s, the true honour of knighthood resides not in birth, titles or dis-
plays of arms, but in dedication and commitment to knightly ideals. ‘Not all
are knights who ride upon horses; neither are all knights to whom kings give
arms. They have the name but they do not pursue the calling’.8 Manrique, of
course, would have agreed with that.
The sentiments expressed in these poems and in other literary works of
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries reveal confusion in the face of loosen-
ing social categories and the difficulty of discerning who was noble and who
was not, who was a true Christian and who not, or, as was often debated in
fifteenth-century Spain, who was a New Christian and who was an Old one.
Thus, Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616), writing in an ironic mode, could
have Sancho Panza argue that since he was an Old Christian – meaning,
a peasant who could brandish his ‘purity of blood’ as opposed to the mer-
chants and nobles who bore Converso ties – he had the right to be made
a duke. More to the point, in the second volume of Don Quijote, San-
cho, quoting his grandmother, states that there are only two lineages in the
world: those who have and those who have not (el tener y el no tener).9
 Introduction 5
Similarly, the peasants of Lope de Vega’s (1562–1635) many rousing plays,
among them Fuente Ovejuna and Peribáñez y el comendador de Ocaña, or
the farmers of Calderón de la Barca’s (1600–81) El Alcalde de Zalamea,
embody nobility and faithfulness to the strictest code of honour, while their
noble adversaries and tormentors epitomise villainy.
But right behaviour and Christian ideals were slowly eroding, as the influx
of American silver and the birth of capitalism gave rise to new attitudes
towards wealth. Many literary works touched on these economic transfor-
mations and the altered relations among social groups. ‘More entailments
[mayorazgos] are created by money and education than by the exercise of
arms’,10 wrote Cervantes in Don Quijote, his numerous examples reflecting
perhaps on his own troubled life. A similar though vitriolic indictment of the
porosity of social classes appears in Francisco de Quevedo’s (1580–1645)
Letrilla, a poem about the role of money in early modern Spain. Money,
Quevedo wrote, makes nobles out of inferior people and Christians out of
Moors; it buys favours, it buys love, it makes the ugly beautiful.
These literary depictions had real-life corollaries that illustrate the dif-
ficulties in discussing social hierarchies between 1400 and 1600. The old,
‘feudal’, tripartite social model was imported into the contemporary world
as part of Western European elites’ idealised and self-serving representa-
tion of themselves; yet this official script was challenged daily by the radi-
cal transmutation of economic roles and the onslaught of money, war and
politics. The perviousness of social boundaries, the role of wealth and
work and the growing secularisation of society outpaced and eventually
overthrew the elaborate social distinctions that, devolving from God down-
wards, had provided assurance to the few against the many and held the
promise of order and salvation to the population at large. This is not to
say, of course, that uneven relationships did not persist. They did, but were
couched in the new idioms of class, education and personal – as opposed to
collective – achievement.
Modern historians, however, have not yet overcome the Circe-like fasci-
nation with estates and orders. These tidy categories have led to oversimpli-
fied accounts of complex and perplexing systems of social accommodation
and conflict. The tripartite division of society has supplied an elegant expla-
nation for the interaction between diverse social groups, but it has obscured
or ignored countless variations within each order. A well-to-do merchant
in fifteenth-century Burgos, a commercial centre in northern Castile, wore
armour, proudly carried his heraldic colours, and lived in a well-appointed
house in which he might even have hosted kings.11 In spite of his commercial
or professional pursuits, a sixteenth-century ‘honoured citizen’ of Barcelona
had a far more aristocratic lifestyle and mentality than a destitute noble-
man, barely scraping a living in some obscure corner of Spain.12 The poor
hidalgo (lower-level Castilian nobility) in Lazarillo de Tormes, a picaresque
novel of the mid-sixteenth century, lived as marginal and hungry a life as
did his socially inferior counterparts. Examples, and exceptions, abound
6 Introduction
indeed; they all point to the uncertain character of social classifications. This
is doubly the case in Spain, where social filiation, family organisation, terms
of inheritance, economic conditions and the relationship between those on
top and those below varied dramatically and regionally.
Conventional descriptions of the social order thus leave a great deal to be
desired. Perhaps the best way to describe a society in transition from orders
to classes is to offer a typology of social filiation or positioning that is based
on privilege, tax-exemption and power. For, ultimately, two broad catego-
ries held sway: those who, because of wealth, legal prerogatives and social
standing were part of the hegemonic order; and those who, lacking some or
all of these attributes, were not. But such a typology cannot be dogmatic.
The category of social and economic class is, after all, as problematic as that
of ancient social orders. In devising such constructs – and we must remem-
ber that they are nothing but semantic constructs – we need to keep a care-
ful eye on variations within each social category. Relationships of power, of
hegemon to subaltern, are found not only across but within groups as well.
A powerful rico hombre in fifteenth-century Spain had more in common
with a semi-aristocratic merchant in Burgos, in terms of taste, lifestyle and
power, than with a poor hidalgo. The opening of the second volume of Don
Quijote offers a glimpse of the internecine struggles, animosities and envy
that existed between hidalgos and caballeros. As might have been the case
in real life, the caballeros of the unnamed village of La Mancha resented the
use of the title Don by Alonso Quijano, the deluded man soon to become
Don Quixote.
Conversely, types of marginality ranged widely, and we err when we lump
together all Conversos, or all Moriscos. Although ancestry provided a com-
mon bond and served as a deterrent to integration into Spanish society, it is
clear that rank, money, education and place of residence accounted at least
as much for the ease with which some individuals and families crossed over
or assimilated into specific social niches in Spain.13
With these introductory remarks as context for the discussion that fol-
lows, this book opens with a short chapter on the geography and politi-
cal life of Spain between 1348 and 1700. By providing a broad outline of
Spanish history during this period, I try to address the economic, political
and cultural history of these three centuries and a half and their links to
social developments. I also take into account the discovery of, and encoun-
ter with, the New World as well as the impact of America on the social
fabric and the demographic resources of Spain (especially in Castile). Part II
introduces the concept of orders (estamentos). This part includes three
broad chapters organised around Sancho’s maxim on the haves and the
have-nots. We begin with those who worked: the peasants and urban dwell-
ers who did not enjoy the vast social and legal privileges of their betters.
The following chapter examines in some detail the lives of nobles and cler-
gymen. A third and final chapter focuses on those living on the margins of
society. Part III, on the tenor of life in late medieval and early modern Spain,
 Introduction 7
explores a series of interrelated topics: violence and resistance; festivals and
the character of daily life; diet and dress as sites for social exchange and as
links between groups. How did these social groups interact? Under what
terms? To what purpose? The forms of social exchange encompassed a wide
range of public events: royal entries, religious spectacles, festive cycles, civil
wars, mob violence. And on these occasions, boundaries – and connec-
tions – between social groups were forged, contested, negotiated. Part IV
examines the role of religion, esoteric knowledge and decline in the diverse
worlds of the Spanish Monarchy. In the end, it was all about power: who
had power, and how they contrived to exert it; who lacked power, and how
they managed to endure.

Notes
1 John H. Elliott, Imperial Spain, 1469–1716 (New York: St. Martin’s Press,
1964).
2 There are many examples of these types of textbooks and monographs. See,
for example, Antonio Ballesteros, Historia de España y su influencia en la his-
toria universal, 8 vols in 9 (Barcelona: P. Salvat, 1918–41); Ramón Menéndez
Pidal (ed.), Historia de España (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1940–); or La Historia
de España Alfaguara, 7 vols (Madrid: Alianza, 1973–) which has the virtue of
linking, in vol. III, the reign of the Catholic Kings to the early modern period.
Similarly, in Historia de España, 13 vols (Barcelona: Labor, 1980–86), directed
by Manuel Tuñon de Lara, vol. V integrates the late Middle Ages with the early
modern period, but the chronological landmarks are always political.
3 There are many examples from traditional (and great) eighteenth- and nineteenth-
century national histories such as the works of Guizot, Michelet, Croce, Carlyle,
Ranke, Macauley, etc. For Spain see Modesto Lafuente, Historia de España,
30 vols (Barcelona: Montaner y Simón, 1850–66). See Peter Linehan, History
and Historians of Medieval Spain (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), and Hayden
White, Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe
(Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973).
4 Jaume Vicens Vives (ed.), Historia de España y America: social y económica, 2nd
edn (Barcelona: Editorial Vicens Vives, 1971).
5 The differences between vols I, II and III are important even though, in principle,
all three follow the same format. Volume III includes sections on marginality, a
topic that is missing in earlier volumes.
6 On Don Juan Manuel and the Libro de los estados, see José R. Araluce Cuenca,
El libro de los estados: Don Juan Manuel y la sociedad de su tiempo (Madrid:
José Porrua Turanzas, 1976).
7 There are many editions of Jorge Manrique’s greatest work. An English transla-
tion, not a very faithful or readable one, by Henry W. Longfellow can be found
in Ten Centuries of Spanish Poetry, ed. Eleanor L. Turnbull (Baltimore: The
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1955), 23–77.
8 Gutierre Díaz de Gámez, The Unconquered Knight: A Chronicle of the Deeds of
Don Pero Niño (London: Routledge, 1928), 12.
9 There are many editions of Don Quijote. Throughout this book, I use Don Qui-
jote de la Mancha, edited and annotated by Martin de Riquer (Editorial Juventud:
Barcelona, 1955). For Cervantes’s view of Old Christians as the origins of nobility,
see vol. I, ch. 21, 192–202; for the two lineages in the world, vol. II, ch. 20, 685.
10 Don Quijote, II, ch. 24, 713–19.
8 Introduction
11 See the illustrations depicting the merchant-knights of Burgos in the fifteenth
century in Reglà de la cofradía de Nuestra Señora de Gamonal, de Burgos y libro
en que se pintan los caballeros cofrades, edición facsimile (Burgos: Ayuntami-
ento de Burgos, 1995).
12 On the ‘honoured citizens’ of Barcelona, see James S. Amelang, Honored Citi-
zens of Barcelona: Patrician Culture and Class Relations, 1490–1714 (Prince-
ton: Princeton University Press, 1986).
13 See Scarlett Freund and Teofilo F. Ruiz, ‘Jews, Conversos, and the Inquisition in
Spain, 1391–1492: The Ambiguities of History’, in Marvin Perry and Freder-
ick M. Schweitzer (eds.), Jewish-Christian Encounters over the Centuries (New
York: Peter Lang, 1994), 169–95.
Part I

The geographical and

political setting
1 The making of Spain

The social history of Spain, or, more precisely, of the Spains, must always be
placed against the variegated backdrop of Iberian geography, climate, lan-
guage and economic patterns. To a large extent, village size, family structure
and social position were governed by regional conditions, by what the land
would allow to grow. Climate and topography thus determined the location
of towns and villages as well as the amount of rent nobles could extract
from their peasants.
Spain’s ecological diversity is unmatched by that of any other country in
Western Europe. Few places in Europe have suffered such adverse climatic
conditions (extreme heat and severe cold) and so hostile an environment
(thin soil, little water) as did parts of Spain (the Castilian plateau, western
Aragon) in the late Middle Ages.
If we think of Spain in the plural – the Spains – it is not only because in
1350 or in 1700 a unified Spain in a true political sense had not yet come
into being, but also because the country as a whole (that is, geographical
Spain as part of the Iberian Peninsula) was, and remains, sharply divided
into distinct topographical and climatic regions. The availability of water in
Aragon, Castile and Andalusia played a crucial role in creating starkly con-
trasting conditions of wealth and poverty. One cannot, therefore, accept the
notion of a social history of Spain that privileges the history of one region
over another. Castile may have become synonymous with Spain because of
its demographic and political hegemony in the late Middle Ages and early
modern period, but Castile was certainly not all of Spain. For the sake of
convenience, however, historians often describe a region as normative and
the rest as variations of or as parallels to that norm. This kind of ‘history
from the centre’ regards politics as the prime mover of historical events
and subordinates the study of social structure to that of political power.
Geography teaches us otherwise. This observation becomes even more per-
tinent when one considers Spain, not just as the regions under Spanish royal
jurisdiction in the Iberian Peninsula (which also included Portugal and its
empire from 1580 to 1640), but as a complex and multi-faceted collection
of territories in the Americas, the Pacific, North Africa, the Low Countries
(Flanders, Brabant, and elsewhere), Italy, and, certainly under Charles V,
Another random document with
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Advice to a Mother.
 PART I.—INFANCY.
I hardly know so melancholy a reflection, as that Parents are necessarily the
sole directors of the management of Children; whether they have, or have not
judgment, penetration, or taste, to perform the task.—Greville.
Man’s breathing Miniature!—Coleridge.

PRELIMINARY CONVERSATION.

1. I wish to consult you on many subjects appertaining to the

management and the care of children,—will you favor me with your
advice and counsel?
I shall be happy to accede to your request, and to give you the
fruits of my experience in the clearest manner I am able, and in the
simplest language I can command—freed from all technicalities. I
will endeavor to guide you in the management of the health of your
offspring;—I will describe to you the symptoms of the diseases of
children;—I will warn you of approaching danger, in order that you
may promptly apply for medical assistance before disease has gained
too firm a footing;—I will give you the treatment on the moment of
some of their more pressing illnesses—when medical aid cannot
quickly be procured, and where delay may be death;—I will instruct
you, in case of accidents, on the immediate employment of remedies
—where procrastination may be dangerous;—I will tell you how a
sick child should be nursed, and how a sick room ought to be
managed;—I will use my best energy to banish injurious practices
from the nursery;—I will treat of the means to prevent disease where
it be possible;—I will show you the way to preserve the health of the
healthy,—and how to strengthen the delicate;—and will strive to
make a medical man’s task more agreeable to himself,—and more
beneficial to his patient,—by dispelling errors and prejudices, and by
proving the importance of your strictly adhering to his rules. If I can
accomplish any of these objects, I shall be amply repaid by the
pleasing satisfaction that I have been of some little service to the
rising generation.
2. Then you consider it important that I should be made
acquainted with, and be well informed upon, the subjects you have
just named?
Certainly. I deem it to be your imperative duty to study the
subjects well. The proper management of children is a vital question,
—a mother’s question,—and the most important that can be brought
under the consideration of a parent; and, strange to say, it is one that
has been more neglected than any other. How many mothers
undertake the responsible management of children without previous
instruction, or without forethought; they undertake it as though it
may be learned either by intuition or by instinct or by affection! The
consequence is, that frequently they are in a sea of trouble and
uncertainty, tossing about without either rule or compass; until, too
often, their hopes and treasures are shipwrecked and lost!
The care and management, and consequently the health and future
well-doing of the child, principally devolve upon the mother; “for it is
the mother after all that has most to do with the making or the
marring of the man.”[130] Dr. Guthrie justly remarks that—“Moses
might never have been the man he was unless he had been nursed by
his own mother. How many celebrated men have owed their
greatness and their goodness to a mother’s training!” Napoleon owed
much to his mother. “‘The fate of a child,’ said Napoleon, ‘is always
the work of his mother;’ and this extraordinary man took pleasure in
repeating, that to his mother he owed his elevation. All history
confirms this opinion.... The character of the mother influences the
children more than that of the father, because it is more exposed to
their daily, hourly observation.”[131]
I am not overstating the importance of the subject in hand when I
say that a child is the most valuable treasure in the world, that “he is
the precious gift of God,” that he is the source of a mother’s greatest
and purest enjoyment, that he is the strongest bond of affection
between her and her husband, and that
“A babe in a house is a well-spring of pleasure,
A messenger of peace and love.”[132]

In the writing of the following pages I have had one object

constantly in view—namely, health—
“That salt of life, which does to all a relish give;
Its standing pleasure, and intrinsic wealth,
The body’s virtue, and the soul’s good fortune—health.”
 ABLUTION.

3. Is a new-born infant, for the first time, to be washed in warm

or in cold water?
It is not an uncommon plan to use cold water from the first, under
the impression of its strengthening the child. This appears to be a
cruel and barbarous practice, and is likely to have a contrary
tendency. Moreover, it frequently produces either inflammation of
the eyes, or stuffing of the nose, or inflammation of the lungs, or
looseness of the bowels. Although I do not approve of cold water, we
ought not to run into an opposite extreme, as hot water would
weaken and enervate the babe, and thus would predispose him to
disease. Lukewarm rain water will be the best to wash him with.
This, if it be summer, should have its temperature gradually lowered,
until it be quite cold; if it be winter, a dash of warm water ought still
to be added, to take off the chill.
It will be necessary to use soap—Castile soap being the best for the
purpose—it being less irritating to the skin than the ordinary soap.
Care should be taken that it does not get into the eyes, as it may
produce either inflammation or smarting of those organs.
If the skin be delicate, or if there be any excoriation or “breaking-
out” on the skin, then Glycerin soap, instead of the Castile soap,
ought to be used.
4. At what age do you recommend a mother to commence
washing her infant in the tub or in the nursery-basin?[133]
As soon as the navel-string comes away.[134] Do not be afraid of
water,—and that in plenty,—as it is one of the best strengtheners to a
child’s constitution. How many infants suffer, for the want of water,
from excoriation!
5. Which do you prefer—flannel or sponge—to wash a child with?
For the first part of the washing a piece of flannel is very useful—
that is to say, to use with the soap, and to loosen the dirt and the
perspiration; but for the finishing-up process, a sponge—a large
sponge—is superior to flannel, to wash all away, and to complete the
bathing. A sponge cleanses and gets into all the nooks, corners, and
crevices of the skin. Besides, sponge, to finish up with, is softer and
more agreeable to the tender skin of a child than flannel. Moreover, a
sponge holds more water than flannel, and thus enables you to
stream the water more effectually over him. A large sponge will act
like a miniature shower-bath, and will thus brace and strengthen
him.
6. To prevent a new-born babe from catching cold, is it necessary
to wash his head with brandy?
It is not necessary. The idea that it will prevent cold is erroneous,
as the rapid evaporation of heat which the brandy causes is more
likely to give than to prevent cold?
7. Ought that tenacious, paste-like substance, adhering to the skin
of a new-born babe, to be washed off at the first dressing?
It should, provided it be done with a soft sponge and with care. If
there be any difficulty in removing the substance, gently rub it, by
means of a flannel,[135] either with a little lard, or fresh butter, or
sweet oil. After the parts have been well smeared and gently rubbed
with the lard, or oil, or butter, let all be washed off together, and be
thoroughly cleansed away, by means of a sponge and soap and warm
water, and then, to complete the process, gently put him for a minute
or two in his tub. If this paste-like substance be allowed to remain on
the skin, it might produce either an excoriation or a “breaking-out.”
Besides, it is impossible, if that tenacious substance be allowed to
remain on it, for the skin to perform its proper functions.
8. Have you any general observations to make on the washing of
a new-born infant?
A babe ought, every morning of his life, to be thoroughly washed
from head to foot; and this can only be properly done by putting him
bodily either into a tub, or into a bath, or into a large nursery-basin
half filled with water. The head, before placing him in the bath,
should be first wetted (but not dried); then immediately put him into
the water, and, with a piece of flannel well soaked, cleanse his whole
body, particularly his armpits, between his thighs, his groins, and his
hams; then take a large sponge in hand, and allow the water from it,
well filled, to stream all over his body, particularly over his back and
loins. Let this advice be well observed, and you will find the plan
most strengthening to your child. The skin must, after every bath, be
thoroughly but quickly dried with warm, dry, soft towels, first
enveloping the child in one, and then gently absorbing the moisture
with the towel, not roughly scrubbing and rubbing his tender skin as
though a horse were being rubbed down.
The ears must after each ablution be carefully and well dried with
a soft dry napkin; inattention to this advice has sometimes caused a
gathering in the ear—a painful and distressing complaint; and at
other times it has produced deafness.
Directly after the infant is dried, all the parts that are at all likely to
be chafed ought to be well powdered. After he is well dried and
powdered, the chest, the back, the bowels, and the limbs should be
gently rubbed, taking care not to expose him unnecessarily during
such friction.
He ought to be partially washed every evening; indeed it may be
necessary to use a sponge and a little warm water frequently during
the day, namely, each time after the bowels have been relieved.
Cleanliness is one of the grand incentives to health, and therefore
cannot be too strongly insisted upon. If more attention were paid to
this subject, children would be more exempt from chafings,
“breakings-out,” and consequent suffering, than they at present are.
After the second month, if the babe be delicate, the addition of two
handfuls of table salt to the water he is washed with in the morning
will tend to brace and strengthen him.
With regard to the best powder to dust an infant with, there is
nothing better for general use than starch—the old-fashioned starch
made of wheaten flour—reduced by means of a pestle and mortar to
a fine powder; or Violet Powder, which is nothing more than finely-
powdered starch scented, and which may be procured of any
respectable chemist. Some mothers are in the habit of using white
lead; but as this is a poison, it ought on no account to be resorted to.
[136]

9. If the parts about the groin and fundament be excoriated, what

is then the best application?
After sponging the parts with tepid rain water, holding him over
his tub, and allowing the water from a well-filled sponge to stream
over the parts, and then drying them with a soft napkin (not rubbing,
but gently dabbing with the napkin), there is nothing better than
dusting the parts frequently with finely-powdered Native Carbonate
of Zinc. The best way of using this powder is, tying up a little of it in a
piece of muslin, and then gently dabbing the parts with it.
Remember excoriations are generally owing to the want of water—
to the want of an abundance of water. An infant who is every
morning well soused and well swilled with water, seldom suffers
either from excoriations or from any other of the numerous skin
diseases. Cleanliness, then, is the grand preventive of, and the best
remedy for, excoriations. Naaman the Syrian was ordered “to wash
and be clean,” and he was healed, “and his flesh came again like unto
the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.”[137] This was, of course, a
miracle; but how often does water, without any special intervention,
act miraculously both in preventing and in curing skin diseases!
An infant’s clothes, napkins especially, ought never to be washed
with soda; the washing of napkins with soda is apt to produce
excoriations and breakings-out. “As washerwomen often deny that
they use soda, it can be easily detected by simply soaking a clean
napkin in fresh water and then tasting the water; if it be brackish and
salt, soda has been employed.”[138]
10. Who is the proper person to wash and dress the babe?
The monthly nurse, as long as she is in attendance; but afterward
the mother, unless she should happen to have an experienced,
sensible, thoughtful nurse, which, unfortunately, is seldom the case.
[139]

11. What is the best kind of apron for a mother, or for a nurse to
wear, while washing the infant?
Flannel—a good, thick, soft flannel, usually called bath-coating—
apron, made long and full, and which of course ought to be well dried
every time before it is used.
12. Perhaps you will kindly recapitulate, and give me further
advice on the subject of the ablution of my babe?
Let him by all means, then, as soon as the navel-string has
separated from the body, be bathed either in his tub, or in his bath,
or in his large nursery-basin; for if he is to be strong and hearty, in
the water every morning he must go. The water ought to be slightly
warmer than new milk. It is dangerous for him to remain for a long
period in his bath; this, of course, holds good in a tenfold degree if
the child has either a cold, or a pain in his bowels. Take care that,
immediately after he comes out of his tub, he is well dried with warm
towels. It is well to let him have his bath the first thing in the
morning, and before he has been put to the breast; let him be washed
before he has his breakfast; it will refresh him and give him an
appetite. Besides, he ought to have his morning ablution on an empty
stomach, or it may interfere with digestion, and might produce
sickness and pain. In putting him in his tub, let his head be the first
part washed. We all know, that in bathing in the sea, how much
better we can bear the water if we first wet our head; if we do not do
so, we feel shivering and starved and miserable. Let there be no
dawdling in the washing; let it be quickly over. When he is
thoroughly dried with warm dry towels, let him be well rubbed with
the warm hand of the mother or of the nurse. As I previously
recommended, while drying him and while rubbing him, let him
repose and kick and stretch either on the warm flannel apron, or else
on a small blanket placed on the lap. One bathing in the tub, and that
in the morning, is sufficient, and better than night and morning.
During the day, as I before observed, he may, after the action either
of his bowels or of his bladder, require several spongings of
lukewarm water, for cleanliness is a grand incentive to health and
comeliness.
Remember it is absolutely necessary to every child from his
earliest babyhood to have a bath, to be immersed every morning of
his life in the water. This advice, unless in cases of severe illness,
admits of no exception. Water to the body—to the whole body—is a
necessity of life, of health, and of happiness; it wards off disease, it
braces the nerves, it hardens the frame, it is the finest tonic in the
world. Oh, if every mother would follow to the very letter this advice,
how much misery, how much ill health, might then be averted!

MANAGEMENT OF THE NAVEL.

13. Should the navel-string be wrapped in SINGED rag?

There is nothing better than a piece of fine old linen rag, unsinged;
when singed, it frequently irritates the infant’s skin.
14. How ought the navel-string to be wrapped in the rag?
 Take a piece of soft linen rag, about three inches wide and four
inches long, and wrap it neatly round the navel-string, in the same
manner you would around a cut finger, and then, to keep on the rag,
tie it with a few rounds of whity-brown thread. The navel-string thus
covered should, pointing upward, be placed on the belly of the child,
and must be secured in its place by means of a flannel belly-band.
15. If, after the navel-string has been secured, bleeding should (in
the absence of the medical man) occur, how must it be restrained?
The nurse or the attendant ought immediately to take off the rag,
and tightly, with a ligature composed of four or five whity-brown
threads, retie the navel-string; and to make assurance doubly sure,
after once tying it, she should pass the threads a second time around
the navel-string and tie it again; and after carefully ascertaining that
it no longer bleeds, fasten it up in the rag as before. Bleeding of the
navel-string rarely occurs, yet, if it should do so—the medical man
not being at hand—the child’s after-health, or even his life, may, if
the above directions be not adopted, be endangered.
16. When does the navel-string separate from the child?
From five days to a week after birth; in some cases not until ten
days or a fortnight, or even, in rare cases, not until three weeks.
17. If the navel-string does not at the end of a week come away,
ought any means to be used to cause the separation?
Certainly not; it ought always to be allowed to drop off, which,
when in a fit state, it will readily do. Meddling with the navel-string
has frequently cost the babe a great deal of suffering, and in some
cases even his life.
18. The navel is sometimes a little sore after the navel-string
comes away; what ought then to be done?
A little simple cerate should be spread on lint, and be applied every
morning to the part affected; and a white-bread poultice, every night,
until it be quite healed.
19. What are the causes of a rupture of the navel? What ought to
be done? Can it be cured?
(1.) A rupture of the navel is sometimes occasioned by a
meddlesome nurse. She is very anxious to cause the navel-string to
separate from the infant’s body, more especially when it is longer in
coming away than usual. She, therefore, before it is in a fit state to
drop off, forces it away. (2.) The rupture, at another time, is
occasioned by the child incessantly crying. A mother, then, should
always bear in mind that a rupture of the navel is often caused by
much crying, and that it occasions much crying; indeed, it is a
frequent cause of incessant crying. A child, therefore, who, without
any assignable cause, is constantly crying, should have his navel
carefully examined.
A rupture of the navel ought always to be treated early—the earlier
the better. Ruptures of the navel can only be cured in infancy and in
childhood. If it be allowed to run on until adult age, a cure is
impossible. Palliative means can then only be adopted.
The best treatment is a Burgundy pitch plaster, spread on a soft
piece of wash-leather about the size of the top of a tumbler, with a
properly adjusted pad (made from the plaster) fastened on the center
of the plaster, which will effectually keep up the rupture, and in a few
weeks will cure it. It will be necessary, from time to time, to renew
the plaster until the cure be effected. These plasters will be found
both more efficacious and pleasant than either a truss or an elastic
bandage; which latter appliances sometimes gall, and do more harm
than they do good.
20. If a child has a groin rupture (an inguinal rupture), can that
also be cured?
Certainly, if, soon after birth, it be properly attended to. Consult a
medical man, and he will supply you with a well-fitting truss, which
will eventually cure him. If the truss be properly made (under the
direction of an experienced surgeon) by a skillful surgical-
instrument-maker, a beautiful, nicely fitting truss will be supplied,
which will take the proper and exact curve of the lower part of the
infant’s belly, and will thus keep on without using any under-strap
whatever—a great desideratum, as these under-straps are so
constantly wetted and soiled as to endanger the patient constantly
catching cold. But if this under-strap is to be superseded, the truss
must be made exactly to fit the child—to fit him like a ribbon; which
is a difficult thing to accomplish, unless it be fashioned by a skillful
workman. It is only lately that these trusses have been made without
under-straps. Formerly the under-straps were indispensable
necessaries.
 These groin ruptures require great attention and supervision, as
the rupture (the bowel) must, before putting on the truss, be
cautiously and thoroughly returned into the belly; and much care
should be used to prevent the chafing and galling of the tender skin
of the babe, which an ill-fitting truss would be sure to occasion. But if
care and skill be bestowed on the case, a perfect cure might in due
time be insured. The truss must not be discontinued until a perfect
cure be effected.
Let me strongly urge you to see that my advice is carried out to the
very letter, as a groin rupture can only be cured in infancy and in
childhood. If it be allowed to run on, unattended to, until adult age,
he will be obliged to wear a truss all his life, which would be a great
annoyance and a perpetual irritation to him.

CLOTHING.

21. Is it necessary to have a flannel cap in readiness to put on as

soon as a babe is born?
Sir Charles Locock considers that a flannel cap is not necessary,
and asserts that all his best nurses have long discarded flannel caps.
Sir Charles states that since the discontinuance of flannel caps
infants have not been more liable to inflammation of the eyes.
Such authority is, in my opinion, conclusive. My advice, therefore,
to you is, by all means discontinue the use of flannel caps.
22. What kind of belly-band do you recommend—a flannel or a
calico one?
I prefer flannel, for two reasons—first, on account of its keeping
the child’s bowels comfortably warm; and, secondly, because of its
not chilling him (and thus endangering cold, etc.) when he wets
himself. The belly-band ought to be moderately but not tightly
applied, as, if tightly applied, it would interfere with the necessary
movement of the bowels.
23. When should the belly-band be discontinued?
When the child is two or three months old. The best way of leaving
it off is to tear a strip off daily for a few mornings, and then to leave it
off altogether. “Nurses who take charge of an infant when the
monthly nurse leaves are frequently in the habit of at once leaving off
the belly-band, which often leads to ruptures when the child cries or
strains. It is far wiser to retain it too long than too short a time; and
when a child catches hooping-cough while still very young, it is safer
to resume the belly-band.”[140]
24. Have you any remarks to make on the clothing of an infant?
A baby’s clothing ought to be light, warm, loose, and free from
pins. (1.) It should be light, without being too airy. Many infants’
clothes are both too long and too cumbersome. It is really painful to
see how some poor little babies are weighed down with a weight of
clothes. They may be said to “bear the burden,” and that a heavy one,
from the very commencement of their lives! How absurd, too, the
practice of making them wear long clothes. Clothes to cover a child’s
feet, and even a little beyond, may be desirable; but for clothes, when
the infant is carried about, to reach to the ground, is foolish and cruel
in the extreme. I have seen a delicate baby almost ready to faint
under the infliction. (2.) It should be warm, without being too warm.
The parts that ought to be kept warm are the chest, the bowels, and
the feet. If the infant be delicate, especially if he be subject to
inflammation of the lungs, he ought to wear a fine flannel, instead of
his usual shirts, which should be changed as frequently. (3.) The
dress should be loose, so as to prevent any pressure upon the blood-
vessels, which would otherwise impede the circulation, and thus
hinder a proper development of the parts. It ought to be loose about
the chest and waist, so that the lungs and the heart may have free
play. It should be loose about the stomach, so that digestion may not
be impeded; it ought to be loose about the bowels, in order that the
spiral motion of the intestines may not be interfered with; hence the
importance of putting on a belly-band moderately slack; it should be
loose about the sleeves, so that the blood may course, without let or
hindrance, through the arteries and veins; it ought to be loose, then,
everywhere, for nature delights in freedom from restraint, and will
resent, sooner or later, any interference. Oh that a mother would
take common sense, and not custom, as her guide! (4.) As few pins
should be used in the dressing of a baby as possible. Inattention to
this advice has caused many a little sufferer to be thrown into
convulsions.
 The generality of mothers use no pins in the dressing of their
children; they tack with a needle and thread every part that requires
fastening. They do not even use pins to fasten the baby’s napkins.
They make the diapers with loops and tapes, and thus altogether
supersede the use of pins in the dressing of an infant. The plan is a
good one, takes very little extra time, and deserves to be universally
adopted. If pins be used for the napkins, they ought to be the Patent
Safety Pins.
25. Is there any necessity for a nurse being particular in airing an
infant’s clothes before they are put on? If she were less particular,
would it not make him more hardy?
A nurse cannot be too particular on this head. A baby’s clothes
ought to be well aired the day before they are put on, as they should
not be put on warm from the fire. It is well, where it can be done, to
let him have clean clothes daily. Where this cannot be afforded, the
clothes, as soon as they are taken off at night, ought to be well aired
so as to free them from the perspiration, and that they may be ready
to put on the following morning. It is truly nonsensical to endeavor
to harden a child, or any one else, by putting on damp clothes!
26. What is your opinion of caps for an infant?
The head ought to be kept cool; caps, therefore, are unnecessary. If
caps be used at all, they should only be worn for the first month in
summer, or for the first two or three months in winter. If a babe take
to caps, it requires care in leaving them off, or he will catch cold.
When you are about discontinuing them, put a thinner and a thinner
one on, every time they are changed, until you leave them off
altogether.
But remember, my opinion is, that a child is better without caps;
they only heat his head, cause undue perspiration, and thus make
him more liable to catch cold.
If a babe does not wear a cap in the day, it is not at all necessary
that he should wear one at night. He will sleep more comfortably
without one, and it will be better for his health. Moreover, night-caps
injure both the thickness and the beauty of the hair.
27. Have you any remarks to make on the clothing of an infant,
when, in the winter time, he is sent out for exercise?
 Be sure that he is well wrapped up. He ought to have under his
cloak a knitted worsted spencer, which should button behind; and if
the weather be very cold, a shawl over all; and, provided it be dry
above, and the wind be not in the east or in the northeast, he may
then brave the weather. He will then come from his walk refreshed
and strengthened, for cold air is an invigorating tonic. In a
subsequent conversation I will indicate the proper age at which a
child should be first sent out to take exercise in the open air.
28. At what age ought an infant “to be shortened?”
This, of course, will depend upon the season. In the summer, the
right time “for shortening a babe,” as it is called, is at the end of two
months; in the winter, at the end of three months. But if the right
time for “shortening” a child should happen to be in the spring, let it
be deferred until the end of May. The English springs are very trying
and treacherous; and sometimes, in April, the weather is almost as
cold, and the wind as biting, as in winter. It is treacherous, for the
sun is hot, and the wind, which is at this time of the year frequently
easterly, is keen and cutting. I should far prefer “to shorten” a child
in the winter than in the early spring.

DIET.

29. Are you an advocate for putting a baby to the breast soon
after birth, or for waiting, as many do, until the third day?
The infant ought to be put to the breast soon after birth; the
interest, both of the mother and of the child, demands it. It will be
advisable to wait three or four hours, that the mother may recover
from her fatigue; and then the babe must be put to the breast. If this
be done, he will generally take the nipple with avidity.
It might be said that at so early a period there is no milk in the
breast; but such is not usually the case. There generally is a little
from the very beginning; which acts on the baby’s bowels like a dose
of purgative medicine, and appears to be intended by nature to
cleanse the system. But, provided there be no milk at first, the very
act of sucking not only gives the child a notion, but, at the same time,
causes a draught (as it is usually called) in the breast, and enables the
milk to flow easily.
 Of course, if there be no milk in the breast—the babe having been
applied once or twice to determine the fact—then you must wait for a
few hours before applying him again to the nipple, that is to say, until
the milk be secreted.
An infant who, for two or three days, is kept from the breast, and
who is fed upon gruel, generally becomes feeble, and frequently, at
the end of that time, will not take the nipple at all. Besides, there is a
thick cream (similar to the biestings of a cow), which, if not drawn
out by the child, may cause inflammation and gathering of the
bosom, and, consequently, great suffering to the mother. Moreover,
placing him early to the breast moderates the severity of the
mother’s after pains, and lessens the risk of her flooding. A new-born
babe must not have gruel given to him; as it disorders the bowels,
causes a disinclination to suck, and thus makes him feeble.
30. If an infant show any disinclination to suck, or if he appear
unable to apply his tongue to the nipple, what ought to be done?
Immediately call the attention of the medical man to the fact, in
order that he may ascertain whether he be tongue-tied. If he be, the
simple operation of dividing the bridle of the tongue will remedy the
defect, and will cause him to take the nipple with ease and comfort.
31. Provided there be no milk AT FIRST; what ought then to be
done?
Wait with patience: the child (if the mother has no milk) will not,
for at least twelve hours, require artificial food. In the generality of
instances, then, artificial food is not at all necessary; but if it should
be needed, one-third of new milk and two-thirds of warm water,
slightly sweetened with loaf sugar (or with brown sugar, if the babe’s
bowels have not been opened), should be given, in small quantities at
a time, every four hours, until the milk be secreted, and then it must
be discontinued. The infant ought to be put to the nipple every four
hours, but not oftener, until he be able to find nourishment.
If, after the application of the child for a few times, he is unable to
find nourishment, then it will be necessary to wait until the milk be
secreted. As soon as it is secreted, he must be applied, with great
regularity, alternately to each breast.
I say alternately to each breast. This is most important advice.
Sometimes a child, for some inexplicable reason, prefers one breast
to the other, and the mother, to save a little contention, concedes the
point, and allows him to have his own way. And what is frequently
the consequence?—a gathered breast!
We frequently hear of a babe having no notion of sucking. This “no
notion” may generally be traced to bad management, to stuffing him
with food, and thus giving him a disinclination to take the nipple at
all.
32. How often should a mother suckle her infant?
A mother generally suckles her baby too often, having him almost
constantly at the breast. This practice is injurious both to parent and
to child. The stomach requires repose as much as any other part of
the body; and how can it have it if it be constantly loaded with
breast-milk? For the first month, he ought to be suckled about every
hour and a half; for the second month, every two hours,—gradually
increasing, as he becomes older, the distance of time between, until
at length he has it about every four hours.
If a baby were suckled at stated periods, he would only look for the
bosom at those times, and be satisfied. A mother is frequently in the
habit of giving the child the breast every time he cries, regardless of
the cause. The cause too frequently is, that he has been too often
suckled—his stomach has been overloaded; the little fellow is
constantly in pain, and he gives utterance to it by cries. How absurd
is such a practice! We may as well endeavor to put out a fire by
feeding it with fuel. An infant ought to be accustomed to regularity in
every thing—in times for suckling, for sleeping, etc. No children
thrive so well as those who are thus early taught.
33. Where the mother is MODERATELY strong, do you advise that
the infant should have any other food than the breast?
Artificial food must not, for the first three or four months, be
given, if the parent be moderately strong; of course, if she be feeble,
a little food will be necessary. Many delicate women enjoy better
health while suckling than at any other period of their lives.
34. What food is the best substitute for a mother’s milk?
The food that suits one infant will not agree with another. (1.) The
one that I have found the most generally useful, is made as follows:
Boil the crumb of bread for two hours in water, taking particular care
that it does not burn; then add only a little lump sugar (or brown
sugar, if the bowels be costive), to make it palatable. When he is five
or six months old, mix a little new milk—the milk of ONE cow—with
it, gradually, as he becomes older, increasing the quantity until it be
nearly all milk, there being only enough water to boil the bread; the
milk should be poured boiling hot on the bread. Sometimes the two
milks—the mother’s and the cow’s milk—do not agree; when such is
the case, let the milk be left out, both in this and in the foods
following, and let the food be made with water instead of with milk
and water. In other respects, until the child is weaned, let it be made
as above directed; when he is weaned, good fresh cow’s milk MUST, as
previously recommended, be used. (2.) Or, cut thin slices of bread
into a basin, cover the bread with cold water, place it in an oven for
two hours to bake; take it out, beat the bread up with a fork, and then
slightly sweeten it. This is an excellent food. (3.) If the above should
not agree with the infant (although, if properly made, they almost
invariably do), “tous-les-mois”[141] may be given. (4.) Or, Robb’s
Biscuit, as it is “among the best bread compounds made out of
wheat-flour, and is almost always readily digested.”—Routh.
(5.) Another good food is the following: Take about a pound of
flour, put it in a cloth, tie it up tightly, place it in a saucepanful of
water, and let it boil for four or five hours; then take it out, peel off
the outer rind, and the inside will be found quite dry, which grate.
(6.) Another way of preparing an infant’s food, is to bake flour—
biscuit flour—in a slow oven, until it be of a light fawn color. (7.) An
excellent food for a baby, is baked crumbs of bread. The manner of
preparing it is as follows: Crumb some bread on a plate; put it a little
distance from the fire to dry. When dry, rub the crumbs in a mortar,
and reduce them to a fine powder; then pass them through a sieve.
Having done which, put the crumbs of bread into a slow oven, and let
them bake until they be of a light fawn color. A small quantity either
of the boiled, or of the baked flour, or of the baked crumb of bread,
ought to be made into food in the same way as gruel is made, and
should then be slightly sweetened, according to the state of the
bowels, either with lump or with brown sugar.
(8.) Baked flour sometimes produces constipation; when such is
the case, Mr. Appleton of Budleigh Salterton, Devon, wisely
recommends a mixture of baked flour and prepared oatmeal,[142] in
the proportion of two of the former and one of the latter. He says:
“To avoid the constipating effects, I have always had mixed, before
baking, one part of prepared oatmeal with two parts of flour; this
compound I have found both nourishing, and regulating to the
bowels. One tablespoonful of it, mixed with a quarter of a pint of
milk, or milk and water, when well boiled, flavored, and sweetened
with white sugar, produces a thick, nourishing, and delicious food for
infants or invalids.” He goes on to remark: “I know of no food, after
repeated trials, that can be so strongly recommended by the
profession to all mothers in the rearing of their infants, without or
with the aid of the breast, at the same time relieving them of much
draining and dragging while nursing with an insufficiency of milk, as
baked flour and oatmeal.”[143]
(9.) A ninth food may be made with “Farinaceous Food for Infants,
prepared by Hards of Dartford.” If Hards’ Farinaceous Food
produces costiveness—as it sometimes does—let it be mixed either
with equal parts or with one-third of Robertson’s Patent Groats. The
mixture of the two together makes a splendid food for a baby. (10.) A
tenth, and an excellent one, may be made with rusks, boiled for an
hour in water, which ought then to be well beaten up by means of a
fork, and slightly sweetened with lump sugar. Great care should be
taken to select good rusks, as few articles vary so much in quality.
(11.) An eleventh is—the top crust of a baker’s loaf, boiled for an hour
in water, and then moderately sweetened with lump sugar. If, at any
time, the child’s bowels should be costive, raw must be substituted
for lump sugar. (12.) Another capital food for an infant, is that made
by Lemann’s Biscuit Powder. (13.) Or, Brown and Polson’s Patent
Corn Flour will be found suitable. The Queen’s cook, in his recent
valuable work,[144] gives the following formula for making it: “To one
dessertspoonful of Brown & Polson, mixed with a wineglassful of
cold water, add half a pint of boiling water; stir over the fire for five
minutes; sweeten lightly, and feed the baby; but if the infant is being
brought up by the hand, this food should then be mixed with milk—
not otherwise.”
(14.) The following is a good and nourishing food for a baby: Soak,
for an hour, some best rice in cold water; strain, and add fresh water
to the rice; then let it simmer till it will pulp through a sieve; put the
pulp and the water in a saucepan, with a lump or two of sugar, and
again let it simmer for a quarter of an hour; a portion of this should
be mixed with one-third of fresh milk, so as to make it of the
consistence of good cream.
When the baby is five or six months old, new milk should be added
to any of the above articles of food, in a similar way to that
recommended for boiled bread.
(15.) For a delicate infant, lentil powder, better known as Du
Barry’s “Revalenta Arabica,” is invaluable. It ought to be made into
food, with new milk, in the same way that arrow-root is made, and
should be moderately sweetened with loaf sugar. Whatever food is
selected ought to be given by means of a nursing-bottle.
If a child’s bowels be relaxed and weak, or if the motions be
offensive, the milk must be boiled. The following (16.) is a good food
when an infant’s bowels are weak and relaxed: “Into five large
spoonfuls of the purest water rub smooth one dessertspoonful of fine
flour. Set over the fire five spoonfuls of new milk, and put two bits of
sugar into it; the moment it boils, pour it into the flour and water,
and stir it over a slow fire twenty minutes.”
Where there is much emaciation, I have found (17.) genuine arrow-
root a very valuable article of food for an infant, as it contains a great
deal of starch, which starch helps to form fat and to evolve caloric
(heat)—both of which a poor, emaciated, chilly child stands so much
in need of. It must be made with good fresh milk, and ought to be
slightly sweetened with loaf sugar; a small pinch of table salt should
be added to it.
I have given you a large and well-tried infant’s dietary to choose
from, as it is sometimes difficult to fix on one that will suit; but
remember, if you find one of the above to agree, keep to it, as a baby
requires a simplicity in food—a child a greater variety.
Let me, in this place, insist upon the necessity of great care and
attention being observed in the preparation of any of the above
articles of diet. A babe’s stomach is very delicate, and will revolt at
either ill-made, or lumpy, or burnt food. Great care ought to be
observed as to the cleanliness of the cooking utensils. The above
directions require the strict supervision of the mother.
Broths have been recommended, but, for my own part, I think
that, for a young infant, they are objectionable; they are apt to turn