Objective/Context:

This article explores the link between clemency and obedience within the jurisdictional legal order of Castile and the Indies. We analyze the legitimization of the relationship, founded on the love of the King, between the Monarch and his vassals. Our analysis centers on the decades following the Comunero Rebellion of 1781 in the New Kingdom of Granada.

Originality:

We explore clemency as an element strengthening the emotional bonds between the King and his vassals, which was questioned because it was considered that rather than achieving its purpose, it had served to make the inhabitants more rebellious.

Methodology:

Based on the analysis of archival and printed sources that addressed the problem of obedience in the New Kingdom of Granada, to find correlations with the use of royal clemency and the relationship between the King and his vassals.

Conclusions:

Our analysis shows how clemency was questioned as a virtue that strengthened the emotional bond between vassals and the Monarch. Thanks to the flexibility of the conception of clemency as a part of the dialectic between love and fear of the King, it was considered that while the King could demonstrate his munificence towards his subjects, vassals were responsible for deserving forgiveness only if they acted with blind obedience. This conception, although weakened a few years later, may have helped to build the arguments that represented the Spanish monarchy as a despotic system during the decades thereafter.

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