Descripción: |
Este trabajo estudia la evolución del linaje Fajardo durante los siglos XVI y XVII. En primer lugar para entender la casa aristocrática de los marqueses de los Vélez partimos de su ascenso al adelantamiento del reino de Murcia, a fines del siglo XIV. La herencia de los antepasados y los méritos individuales o «individualismo noble» son elementos decisivos para comprender el ascenso en la corte y la obtención de hábitos de órdenes militares. Esta estirpe prueba su nobleza y limpieza de sangre a través del testimonio de una clientela que declara en sentido favorable. Tras conocer el poder e influencia del tronco principal del linaje, se lleva a cabo un acercamiento a diversas ramas bastardas que, sin embargo, pronto son legitimadas y encumbradas en la sociedad estamental de los siglos XVI y XVII. El apoyo y reconocimiento de la familia Fajardo promovió que varios de sus vástagos espurios fuesen nombrados caballeros de órdenes militares, desempeñasen importantes cargos e, incluso, llegasen a enlazar con sus parientes legítimos y obtener un título nobiliario. Por tanto, a través de la casa de los Vélez se analiza un aspecto poco estudiado: cómo las familias de la aristocracia española protegían a su descendencia ilegítima, haciendo que pronto se olvidase su origen ignominioso. This paper examines the evolution of the Fajardo lineage during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This study of the aristocratic household of the Vélez earls begins with a discussion of their late-fourteenth-century ascent to the status of ‘adelantados’ of the Kingdom of Murcia. Both prestige inherited from noble ancestors and individual merits or ‘noble individualism’ played a decisive role in the promotion of this family at court and the entry of its members into military orders. This lineage demonstrated its nobility and purity of blood thanks to the favourable testimony of a loyal client-network. Having examined the power and influence of its dominant core, this paper goes on to focus on various illegitimate branches of this lineage, which were quickly legitimated and raised into the upper strata of sixteenth- and seventeenthcentury Castilian society. With the support and approval of their legitimate relatives, several of the illegitimate descendants of the Fajardo family gained access to military orders, attained important offices, and even married into legitimate branches of the lineage, thus securing a noble title for their descendants. This study of the Vélez household thus approaches a little-known subject by examining the way in which Spanish aristocratic families protected their illegitimate offspring, and the speed with which they covered up their ignominious origins. |