Los galeotes de la monarquía hispánica durante el Antiguo Régimen

Abstract

Previous studies of this author have dealt with the topic ofconvict oarsmen in the Crown of Castile during the period of Habsburgrule. For this study the theme has been extended to the Crown of Aragonand to the reign of the Borbons of the Old Regime. As a consequence ofthe multiple territories which comprised the Hispanic Monarchy, no onelaw applied to all of the kingdoms until the promulgation of the PenalCodes of 1822 and 1848. Regarding the implantation of the condemnationto the galleys each territory had its own genesis and separate evolution. InCatalonia convict oarsmen were first enlisted in the galleys at the beginningof the fifteenth century. By 1438 this punishment was fully establishedin all the territories of the Crown of Aragon. With regard to Castile,condemnation to the galleys was introduced by Ferdinand the Catholicand later in 1530, Charlcs V fully regulated condemnation to the galleysand the types of offences that incurred this punishment.For his part Philip I1 made a great effort to increase the power of thegalley fleet. As a result he increased the duration of those condemned toconvict galley service and widened the number of crimes sanctioned by itboth in the Crown of Castile and that of Aragon. Initially neither territoryestablished a list of crimes that incurred condemnation to the galleys.Instead capital punishment, exile and other similar penalties werecommuted to convict galley service. Nevertheless, the revision of penallegislation highlighted that, as time passed, a good number of criminalsbecame liable for forced labour at the oar: thieves, blasphemers, falsewitnesses, deserters, prison escapees, vagabunds, those who resisted justice,etc. As military needs grew as Habsburg hegemony developed, it provednecessary to modify some aspects of the condemnation to the galleys: thelength of service of those condemned was extended, new crimes were addedto those punishable by forced labour at the oar, etc. While not all oarsmenwere convicts, they constituted a majority of the manpower that drove theMediterranean war fleet. The shortage of manpower forced the Crowninto a utilitarian concept of punishment. This article also analyses thecrimes punished by condemnation to the galleys and the evolution thattook place under the Habsburgs and Borbons. The article concludes withan account of the daily life of the convict oarsmen. The rigours of the work,the poor diet and the wretched conditions in which they lived producedhigh annual mortality rates. A study of the three centuries or thereaboutsof the Early Modern period points to the conclusion that the passage oftime did not moderate the punishment. Men of the Enlightment wereconscious of the need to humanize the punishment, but their achievementswere limited to the field of ideas of the eighteenth century, preparing theway for the great change that took place in the nineteenth century.