The Prison of the King. Subaltern voices and signs of the existence of a political identity in 15th century Castile

Abstract

The concept of identity is quite controversial. In this article I will deal with the notion of political identity in a particular way: identity as a shared structure for the understanding of a specific set of social relations. From this point of view the very existence of an extended political identity does not depend on institutional development issues, nor can it be solely measured by its implications in terms of social conflict. It seems clear that a political identity defined in these terms is quite difficult to analyse considering the particular conditions offered by medieval documentary evidence. Trying to prove the existence and crystallisation of such political identity in 15^th century Castile, this article carries out a comparison of a series of texts taking as a reference point a concept repeated in all of them (the topos of the prisoner king). The analysis goes on to focus on the particular conditions which allow for the crystallization of such an identity through a communication system that is at least partly autonomous.