Blood, Land and Power

• The historical data and vast information in the historical sources is arranged in this book using software to make clusters of data and quantification. This serves as illustrative example for future research on how to apply such methods to historical research. • The analysis of formation of new elites and powerful families, and the social networks they belonged to, serves to understand in the long run how groups and families in localities of southern Europe have consolidated their power and how political institutions (then and now) have served to the perpetuation of such families in the exercise of power. • Disputes and rivalry between factions, elites and groups of power to control land (as main economic source of power) and political institutions have not ceased since the early modern period until today. Southern and Mediterranean Europe localities are a good example in which fierce struggles between elite groups have lasted across space and time.

This long-duree study contributes to a deep knowledge of the formation of ruling elites, nobility, political class and rich families in southern Europe (Spain) during the transition from the Ancien Regime to the nineteenth century's new liberal regimes.OPEN ACCESS The analysis of land management, lineage, and family through the case study of early modern Spanish nobility from sixteenth to early nineteenth century is a major issue in recent historiography. It aims to shed light on how upper social classes arranged strategies to maintain their political and economic status. Rivalry and disputes between old factions and families were attached to the control and exercise of power. Blood, land management and honour were the main elements in these disputes. Honour, service to the crown, participation in the conquest and 'pure' blood (Catholic affiliation) were the main features of Spanish nobility. This book analyses the origins of the entailed-estate (mayorazgo) from medieval times to early modern period, as the main element that enables us to understand the socio-economic behaviour of these families over generations. This long-duree chronology within the Braudelian methodology of this research aims to show how strategies and family networks changed over time, demonstrating a micro-history study of daily life.