¹ Ramón de Mesonero Romanos (1803–1882) wrote the best pages on Madrid social life during the reign of Isabel II. Traditionally he has been considered one of the main representatives of Spanish costumbrismo, a literary genre that emphasized description of customs and popular life. However, Mesonero's writing went beyond the descriptive framework. His Madrid scenes are full of sociological observations and critical judgments of many aspects of Madrid social life. Because he mainly focused his critiques on the middle and upper classes, he has been labeled a bourgeois writer by some literary critics. New approaches to Mesonero's work emphasize him as a forerunner of literary realism and naturalism of the second half of the century.

² Mesonero coined the term empleomanía to signify the desire of most members of the elite to obtain jobs in the State administration.

³ Romanos, R. de Mesonero, Escenas Matritenses (Madrid: Fernando Plaza, 1990), 63.Google Scholar

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⁹ Fayard, J., Los miembros del Consejo de Castilla (1621–1746) (Madrid: Siglo XXI, 1982), 502–03Google Scholar; Fayard, J., “Los ministros del Consejo Real de Castilla (1746–1788),” Cuadernos de Investigación Histórica (Madrid, VI, 1982), 109–136.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Shubert, A., A Social History of Modern Spain (Winchester, MA: Unwin Hyman, 1990), 5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹¹ Moya, A. Morales, Reflexiones sobre el Estado español del siglo XVIII (Madrid: Instituto Nacional de Administración Pública, 1988), 66.Google Scholar

¹² This represents 50.6 percent of the 238 ministers who formed the government cabinets during this period, or 65 percent of 183, if we exclude the navy and war ministries most frequently occupied by military.

¹³ Fayard, J., Los miembros del Consejo de Castilla (1621–1746), 322–87.Google Scholar

¹⁴ For the deflation of these values I have used the price series from Barciella, C., ed., Estadísticas Históricas de España, Siglos XIX-XX (Madrid: Fundación Banco Exterior, 1989), 501, 518Google Scholar; Cuenca-Esteban, J., “The Markets of Latin American Exports, 1790–1820: A Comparative Analysis of International Prices,” in Johnson, L. L. and Tandeter, E., Essays on the Price History of Eighteenth Century Latin America (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1990), 373–99.Google Scholar

¹⁵ This estimate refers to the second half of the nineteenth century; see J. M.^a Jover, Política, diplomacia y humanismo popular en la España del siglo XIX (Madrid: Alianza, 1976), 236Google Scholar. Very far from the 19.2 percent estimated for the English population, Bédarida, F., A Social History of England, 1851–1975 (London: Methuen, 1979), 48Google Scholar. David Ringrose estimates at 5,000 reales the minimum yearly income necessary to maintain a family of four with a bourgeois living standard at the end of the eighteenth century (Ringrose, D., Madrid and the Spanish Economy, 1560–1850 [Berkeley, University of California Press], ch. IV).Google Scholar

¹⁶ The median of fifty-eight family fortunes of the old aristocracy between 1835–1889 was 8.4 million reales (Magro, A. Bahamonde, “Crisis de la nobleza de cuna y consolidación burguesa (1840–1880),” in Madrid en la sociedad del siglo XIX [Madrid: CIDUR, 1986], 326–75, vol. I). My own estimate for ninety-nine merchant fortunes and forty-seven fortunes from high bureaucrats between 1800–1860 was 1,373,485 and 557,363 reales.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Marichal, C., Spain (1834–1844). A New Society (London: Tamesis Book, 1977), 131Google Scholar; Janke, P., Mendizabal y la instauración de la monarquía constitucional en España (1790–1853) (Madrid: Siglo XXI, 1974), ch. XVI.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Daumard, A., Les bourgeois et la bourgeoisie en France depuis 1815 (Paris: Aubier, 1987), 201.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Minister of Gracia y Justicia in 1820 and 1823. Archivo Histórico de Protocolos de Madrid (AHPM), Protocolo (P.). 25446, wp (without pagination).

²⁰ AHPM, P. 25764, p. 559.

²¹ AHPM, P. 26813, p. 529.

²² Mayorazgo is a legally entailed estate belonging to a lay family (AHPM, P. 28758, p. 1016).

²³ AHPM, P. 26376, f. 3394.

²⁴ The marquis of Caballero, for instance, had more than 750,000 reales in government debt from owed salaries (AHPM, P. 22980, p. 650).

²⁵ Bankers, politicians and courtiers created a network of privileged information for stock market and government debt speculation. This circle controlled most operations of the newly created Madrid Stock market (Fortuño, J. A. Torrente, Salamanca bolsista romántico [Madrid: Taurus, 1969], 62)Google Scholar; de Otazu, A., Los Rothchild y sus socios en España (1820–1850) (Madrid: O.Hs. ed., 1987), 240.Google Scholar

²⁶ The Aguiuesolarte-Murrieta company specialized in the commercialization of Spanish wines and wool in England (AHPM, P. 25609). About Mendizabal, see Janke, (1974: 372)Google Scholar; Llorens, (1968: 60).Google Scholar

²⁷ Otazu, A., Los Rothchild, 312.Google Scholar

²⁸ AHPM, P. 27101, p. 1896.

²⁹ He had sold an important part of his sugar mills some years before his dead (AHPM, P. 26792, P. 125).

³⁰ AHPM, P. 26804, p. 1375.

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³³ Lara, M. Tuñón de, “Sociedad señorial, revolución burguesa y sociedad capitalista,” in Crisis del Antiguo Régimen e industrialización en la España del siglo XIX (Madrid: Edicusa, 1976), 15.Google Scholar; Fontana, J., “La desamortización de Mendizabal y sus antecedentes,” in Cambio social y nuevas formas de propiedad (Barcelona: Critica, 1985), 237–39.Google Scholar

³⁴ Occupation, especially in the case of professional groups, is a category of relative sociological value that can be used to trace some social trends. Notwithstanding, one cannot treat this kind of variable independently of the historical framework for which it was created. It is necessary to be aware that many people labeled professionals in public documents, were rentier owners at the same time and vice versa. The relativity of the sociological value of occupational categories depends on the availability of mechanisms for social mobility in a specific social context, whether those be legal mechanisms (civil rights, access to education, etc.) or cultural mechanisms (social bias, evaluation of personal merit, patronage). Despite the promulgation of a body of rights in the nineteenth century, different liberal constitutions, both cultural and legal mechanisms of social mobility in Spain remained controlled by the old provincial elites. In Spain, as in most of continental Europe, registered social categories in population and electoral censuses were extremely confusing. Many politicians defined themselves as hacendado or propietario in a way in which it is impossible to distinguish the Weberian categories of class and status (Burdiel, I., La política de los notables. Moderados y avanzados durante el Régimen del Estatuto Real (1834–1836) [Valencia: Alfons el Magnaim, 1987], 66–69)Google Scholar; Pezzino, P., “Autonomia e accentramento nell'Ottocento siciliano: íl cas di Naro,” Annali de la fondazione Lelio e Lisli Basso-ISSOCO, IX (1987–1988), 15–94.Google Scholar

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³⁷ Some of them belonged to an early period in which liberalism was not yet divided; for others I simply lack the information.

³⁸ Archivo Historico Nacional (AHN), Estado, Carlos III, Expediente (Exp.) 1853.

³⁹ His father Was a member of the Council of Castile. The Argüelles family had representatives in this institution since the seventeenth century (AHPM, P. 21000, p. 431).

⁴⁰ AHN, Estado, Carlos III, Exp. 1325.

⁴¹ AHPM, P. 27142, p. 242.

⁴² Eusebio Bardají y Azara was the nephew of the Marqués de Nibbiano, famous diplomat of Carlos IV. His father was the General Commissioner of War in Catalonia. AHN, Estado, Carlos III, Exp. 1256.

⁴³ José María de Calatrava, for instance, was a clear example of this trend: brilliant parliamentarian in 1812, nominated for the Supreme Court in 1820, becoming its president. After his exile, he attained a position in the Council of State, then was minister in several occasions and president of the cabinet Diceionario Enciclopédico Hispano American de Literatura, Ciencias y Aries (DEHA) (Barcelona: Montaner y Simón, 1887–1910).Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Ringrose, , Madrid and the Spanish Economy, chap. VIIGoogle Scholar; Mendizábal, for instance started his business carrier supplying the army, first in his county, then in his province, and finally in a national scale in partnership with the Bertran de Lis, other family of bankers and politicians (Janke, P., Mendizabal, 5–9).Google Scholar

⁴⁵ The Aguerris and Goyeneches were among the most representative families of Madrid's seventeenth-century financial elite. On Aguerri, see Ayan, C. Sanz, Los banqueros de Carlos II (Valladolid: Universidad de Valladolid, 1988), 378Google Scholar. On the Goyeneche family, see Baroja, J.Caro, La hora de Navarra. Personas, familias, negocios e ideas (Pamplona: Comunidad Foral de Navarra) ch. IV.Google Scholar

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⁵³ Ringrose, D., “Ciudad, país y revolución burguesa: Madrid, del siglo XVIII al XIX,” in Bahamonde, A. and Carvajal, L. E. Otero, eds., Madrid en la sociedad del siglo XIX vol I (Madrid: CIDUR, 1986), 316.Google Scholar

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⁵⁵ I am using the Weberian concept of status in the sense of social prestige Weber, M., Economy and Society. An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, Roth, G. and Wittch, C., eds., (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978).Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Founded during the Spanish Reconquest against the Moors, the Ordenes Militares held military, religious, and administrative functions. By the end of the eighteenth century, however, they had become selective clubs to preserve aristocratic values.

⁵⁷ Agustin de Argüelles was one of the most brilliant politicians of liberal Spain. He belonged to a family of the Asturian middle nobility whose fortune had suffered the outcome of years of bad administration. Because he was not the eldest son, Don Agustin could not inherit the entailed mayorazgo that belonged to the family. His only alternative was to look for a job in the court. He moved to Madrid early in his life after completing his law degree. Nonetheless, Argüelles never attained an economic position. His supporters had to provide him with the amount of money required to be eligible as a candidate in the national elections (see Galiano, A. Alcalá, Galería de españoles célebres [Madrid, 1852]).Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Candidates had to earn an income of 8,000 reales a year. However, the case of Argüelles was exceptional in the parliamentary history of the period Galiano, Alcalá, “Galería de españoles célebres: Agustín de Argüelles” [1955: 353, vol. II]; Burdiel (1987: 294).Google Scholar

⁵⁹ This was the case of Ventura González Romero whose father, a wealthy peasant from the region of Cameros, acquired nobility because he married a gentlewoman from the same region (AHN, Estado, Carlos III, Exp. 2352).

⁶⁰ Mousnier, R., La plume, la faucille et le marteau. Institutions et societe en France, du Moyen Age a la Revolution (Paris: PUF. 1970)Google Scholar; Molas, P., “La Chancillería de Valladolid en el siglo XVIII. Apunte sociológico,” in Molas, P., ed., Historia social de la administración española. Estudios sobre los siglos XVII y XVIII (Barcelona: CSIC, 1980), 93.Google Scholar

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⁶² The Canga Argüelles family held credentials of nobility since 1535 (AHN, Estado, Carlos III, Exp. 1806; AHN, Ordenes Militares, Santiago, exp. 208 [mod.]). The Bardají family came from Graus (Aragón) where they had a “mayorazgo” and their family seat (AHN, Estado, Carlos III, Exp. 1256).

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⁶⁴ The Martinez de la Rosa family has obtained credentials of nobility in 1573, 1734, 1735 and 1777 (AHN, Estado, Carlos III, Exp. 2362; Sarrailh, J., Un homme d'Etat Espagnol: Martinez de la Rosa, 1787–1862 [Bourdeaux: Feret et Fils, 1930], 9).Google Scholar

⁶⁵ AHN, Estado, Carlos III, Exp. 2389.

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⁶⁸ His family had obtained hidalgo credentials from the Chancery of Valladolid in 1746 and 1777 (AHN, Estado, Carlos III, Exp. 2344).

⁶⁹ AHN, Estado, Carlos III, Exp. 1819.

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