James Casey offers an innovative study of prestige, power and the role of the family in a Mediterranean city during the early modern period. He focuses on the structure and values of the ruling class of Granada, where a new elite consolidated its authority. The study suggests that their power was linked to the pursuit of honour, which demanded participation in the politics of the commonwealth and depended greatly on the network of personal relations which they were able to build with kinsmen, clients and patrons. It explores the way in which this system contributed to the relative tranquillity of the community during a turbulent time of religious and political change, that of the rise of absolutism and of the Counter Reformation. The book sheds fresh light on the nature of the early modern family and will be essential reading for historians of early modern Spain and Europe.
| ISBN: | 9780521107839 |
| Publication date: | 29th January 2009 |
| Author: | James University of East Anglia Casey |
| Publisher: | Cambridge University Press |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Pagination: | 332 pages |
| Series: | New Studies in European History |
| Genres: |
European history Social and cultural anthropology |