Abstract
In her new book Sex, Gender, and Illegitimacy in the Castilian Noble Family, 1400-1600, Grace E. Coolidge examines the complicated family structures of Spanish noble families during the late Middle Ages and early modern era. This latest monograph builds on her previous body of scholarship, which has expanded our understandings of early modern children and family structures. Through deep archival research into over 250 cases of illicit unions and the more than 450 illegitimate children that resulted from them, Coolidge uncovers the ways in which these children could become tools for dynastic power. Her work also reveals some of the ways that Castilian women exercised agency, how the infamous honor codes of early modern Spain were more flexible than has been previously assumed and argued, and how families could be rife with conflict and emotional complications but also sites of deep affection that frequently involved multiple generations and—at times—cadet branches of aristocratic families.
Chapter one examines the complex masculinity of Castilian noblemen and how fatherhood and illegitimate children factored into its development. By looking at actual practice and not just prescriptive literature and the dictates of canon law, Coolidge provides a more nuanced view of the ways patriarchy operated. She shows how illegitimate children could demonstrate a nobleman's virility, provide flesh and blood proof of their masculinity, and help to extend and maintain the family and its interests. In other words, “early modern masculinity could accommodate and even be enhanced by the presence of illegitimate children” (60). Illegitimate children required education and manners; their very presence necessitated care and nurture and the financial resources to provide them with these benefits. Although Coolidge acknowledges that her evidence is skewed because she is dealing with cases in which fathers recognized their children, the ways in which these men provided yearly allowances and dowries for illegitimate daughters suggests at least a sense of obligation if not outright affection. One fascinating insight from this chapter is how convents could and did provide solutions to custody issues. Illegitimate daughters often entered convents earlier than their legitimate counterparts. This investment paid off in real terms because convents typically required smaller dowries than marriages. Moreover, these daughters and their cloistered communities provided spiritual intercession on behalf of the family.
The second chapter “Beyond Chastity: Women, Illegitimate Children, and Reputation” uncovers fascinating examples of how many women with illegitimate children “remained fully engaged in life” (67). Although chastity was paramount in prescriptive literature, the examination of court records and other archival materials undertaken by Coolidge indicates that the ideals of reputable femininity were more elastic than scholars have previously argued. Coolidge coins the phrase “active maternity” and examines how women used the Spanish legal system and courts to protect themselves and their children. In many of these cases, women benefited economically from their sexual relationships with the aristocratic men to whom they were not married. They could also use these economic resources to repair damage done to their reputations during the course of those relationships. Coolidge does note that this was not static through time. There seems to have been more flexibility prior to the Council of Trent and its impacts on popular marriage practice. These trends were also not static across the class. Not surprisingly, high-ranking women had greater access to resources than enslaved women who also bore illegitimate children to noblemen. Enslaved women and domestic servants from lower-class backgrounds often had fewer choices. However, intimate connections might result in their freedom and some economic support that might provide them with “more potential control over their own destinies” (96).
In the third chapter, Coolidge turns more directly to the experiences of illegitimate children themselves. Because they could be an asset to noble families, some had experiences like that of Catalina, the daughter of doña Luisa de Mosquera and Iñigo López de Mendoza. Catalina grew up in the care of her paternal grandmother, received a humanist education, and served as a lady-in-waiting to the princess Juana of Austria. Coolidge points to how the case of Catalina was typical in a few ways, demonstrating the development of sibling bonds, how the care of illegitimate children required the labor (physical, mental, and emotional) of women, and the multi-layered nature of many aristocratic families. Some illegitimate children, like Catalina, administered estates for their parents, and some married legitimate cousins. In other cases, their legitimate siblings might also provide for them economically and socially. These were often long-term relationships that followed these individuals into adulthood.
The adult experiences of illegitimate members of the Spanish nobility are the focus of the fourth chapter. Although many aristocratic fathers demonstrated a sense of obligation—if not explicit affection—many of their illegitimate children grew up with ambiguous identities. This could result in anxieties over their future paths. Although less able to trace direct evidence of emotional fall-out, Coolidge does examine the fraught realities of some of these adults who grew up without legal legitimacy. For instance, she uses quantitative methods here to trace how illegitimate daughters were slightly less likely to marry and had generally smaller dowries than their legitimate half-sisters. When they did marry, it was often to men of slightly lower rank than their legitimate siblings. Although there were military and church positions for illegitimate sons, they were more often stuck at the rank of monk rather than rising up the ecclesiastical hierarchy into more prestigious positions. In addition to this, Coolidge's findings suggest they might not be able to depend on support from their legitimate relatives. Lawsuits brought by family members often followed when illegitimate children inherited titles.
Chapter five focuses on the emotional burdens and complexities of the noble pursuit of dynasty and the inconsistent reactions that ranged from affection to rage and violence when in the presence of illegitimate children and their mothers. An increasingly patrilinear society, Castile and its nobles still depended heavily on women. Arranged marriages were the norm and were not necessarily happy. A nobleman's alternate family could be a potential site of love and affection. Here, Coolidge draws on the large body of work done by the medievalist Barbara Rosenwein (1998, 2006, 2016, 2020), applying her ideas to show how some nobles like the “Duke of Medina Sidonia had multiple contrasting emotional communities in his multiple families” (191). Coolidge's investigation into the history of emotions also takes her into the comparison of adulterous liaisons and their dramatization in the wife-murder plays that became popular in the Spanish playhouses of the early modern period. She finds that while real women did often pay a higher price for extramarital sex than men, they rarely resulted in murder. In the few cases—only four in a period of more than 200 years—that she found, the homicidal husbands received punishment instead of the happy endings their fictionalized versions often met with on the stage.
Because Sex, Gender, and Illegitimacy in the Castilian Noble Family is arranged thematically, Coolidge sometimes revisits cases she covered earlier in the book. On the one hand, this can feel a bit repetitive at times. On the other hand, this approach allows both the author and the reader to consider the multiple factors at play in family formation, defining status, and the unknowns. The second Count of Arcos, whose wife left his household and who lived openly with another woman with whom he fathered nine children and who also fathered children with two enslaved women, appears in several chapters as do the women with whom he was involved. A woman named Catalina Enríquez de Ribera also appears multiple times. Doña Catalina first appears in Chapter two in a discussion of potential sexual assault. Catalina had been a lady-in-waiting to the Countess of Casteñada. Then the Count of Casteñada kidnapped her before her arranged marriage to a lower-ranking nobleman could be consummated, took her to a castle, and had a sexual relationship with her. Catalina then appears in Chapters three and five in the context of discussions about the agency of women and its limits. In spite of the fact that Coolidge includes her as an example multiple times, she admits there are unknowns. This woman might have been in love with the count “and happy to be rescued from an unwanted arranged marriage, or she might have made the best of the circumstances she found herself in and created a new life with the count because she had to” (196). Catalina, who ultimately became the count's wife after the death of his first wife, and Casteñada were together for three decades.
Occasionally, the author draws conclusions that fit into her schema without taking into account other factors. Although usually that does not mar Coolidge's arguments, it does make for a few factual errors. For instance, in her examination of the Duchess of Osuna's acceptance of her husband's illegitimate children and her continued support of him upon his legal troubles in the 1620s, Coolidge assumes it was his extramarital relationships that landed him in prison. She misreads the excesses that the duchess referred to in a memorial to King Philip IV of Spain as referring to her spouse's sexual activity (202) when, in reality, they encompassed issues related to waging private war in the Mediterranean and the abrogation of state power.
Nonetheless, Coolidge's study makes an important contribution to the understanding of early modern families in one of the most powerful kingdoms in the period. She convincingly shows the constant presence of illegitimate children and how illegitimacy became imbricated with multiple functions of families, from economic to political to emotional. It contains some wonderful genealogical charts that help the reader to untangle gnarled and intersecting family trees. This book also furthers the growing body of scholarship on the agency of women and the flexibility of honor codes in early modern Spain. Women become visible. They had key roles in legally-structured families, in alternative families, and in partnerships with other women. Sex, Gender, and Illegitimacy in the Castilian Noble Family, 1400-1600 will be of interest to social historians, historians of emotion, gender historians, and historians of Spain and its empire. Any scholar or graduate student interested in these topics would benefit from reading Coolidge's work.