Muerte, ceremonial y ritual funerario: Procesos de cohesion intraestamental y de control social en la alta aristocracia del antiguo régimen (corona de Castilla, siglos XV-XVIII)

Abstract

In the last years death has been analyzed from the point of view of the physical extinction of man, in the sense that death involves, the internal assumption of the ecclesiastical discourse of what should be a proper death, and the phenomena that attends the extinction of man. The methodology used in such studies, has focused in the study of wills, chiefly as formulary acts, simply analising those rules. However, it has been neglected a point of view of singular importance: the analysis of how the élites of the Ancient Régime used the phenomenon of «death» in order not only to quiet social contestation and to conduct it back towards a discourse of the unconscious submission to the model of the dominant class; but to integrate and cohesionate the same linage and, also, the nobility class. In short, the analysis of the phenomenon of «death» as another mechanism, of preservation of the social model of the dominant class. In this way, we will deal with death as a coherent concatenation of ritualised acts, directed to achieve the, internal and external, social reproduction of power inside the privileged estate in the Ancient Régime. Then we will approach to these acts of lineage integration, social control and power legitimation, promoted by the Mendoza household on occasion of the decease of the dukes of Infantado.