Clérigos en sociedadel despliegue vital del clero secular andaluz en la baja Edad Media

Laburpena

The secular clergy enjoyed an indisputable prominence in the society of the late Middle Ages. This paper focuses on the clergy living in the largest urban area in Andalusia at the end of the 15th century and beginning of the 16th century -Seville. Amongst the many aspects relating to the clergy, we pay attention to those which made up their personal life and more particularly to such activities as they conducted outside ecclesiastical precincts in order to intermingle with the society of which they were part. This is possible thanks to the documentary evidence used in our study: the notarial protocols. The public notary offices in Seville had a significant number of members of the secular clergy amongst their more active customers, which allows us to obtain a comprehensive view of this group. Such a view includes things like celibacy, their qualities as human beings and above all their individual economies: their properties, the economic criteria which they relied on, their participation in trade exchanges -as brokers or moneylenders- and their standards of wealth. All these aspects are enriched by the analysis of their intellectual backgrounds, their social prestige, their relationship with ethnic and religious minorities, etc: in short, a number of dealings in which, to a large extent, members of the clergy were deeply involved within the society to which they belonged.