Against lords and Parientes Mayores. Social conflict and resistance in the late medieval Basque Country

ABSTRACT This work aims to define the structural elements of aristocratic rule, noble lords in Álava and Parientes Mayores (heads of household) in Guipúzcoa and Biscay, over their lordships and church patronages; the fiscal and political opposition presented by hidalgos (petty nobility), peasants, ferrones (metal-industry workers) and townspeople; and the evolution of the resulting conflict over time. We also outline the discourses elaborated to legitimise lordly authority or to reject it, and those mobilised to denounce the arbitrary fiscal demands of the nobility and conditions of political exclusion. In order to illustrate this, we examine the rule of the Rojas and the Hurtado de Mendoza families over the small towns of Antoñana and Santa Cruz de Campezo, and the steadfast opposition to this rule from the towns’ residents.