An examination of the clientele of the Spanish kings of arms at the end of the Ancien Régime (1775-1804)

Abstract

This article deals with an aspect of the social functions of heraldry in Early Modern Age that has been neglected by historiography, and refers to what are known as certifications of arms, a little-used source in this regard. More specifically, it analyses the usefulness of the certifications issued by Rújula y Jimeno, and by Ortiz de Cagiguera, kings of arms to the Spanish monarchs Charles III and Charles IV, in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It demonstrates in the process that the social extraction of the kings of arms’ clientele continued to comprise mainly upwardly mobile families, both bureaucrats and military, as well as local elites and merchants, while the old nobility were only a minority. It also shows how these certifications were acquired as another instrument for the social advancement of these individuals, who used noble symbols (armerías) to conceal their commoner origin (an example of Soria Mesa’s “immobile change”). The heraldic fraud found in the early seventeenth century continued with Rújula and Ortiz de Cagiguera. But there were also changes: royal servers became more important clients, while in the certifications, the number of arms described increased dramatically.