On the 500th Anniversary of the Communities of Castile: From Political and Legal culture in the Courts of Santiago-La Coruña to Contemporary Parliamentarism

Abstract

When the V Centenary of the Communities of Castile is being celebrated, their fundamental aspects stand out, linked not so much to a succession of intense political events, still less to warlike confrontations, but to the principle of participation in the common in matters of the government. Community, political participation, citizenship, institutional change and resistance are notes that mark the passage from the legal dimension to politics in the communal revolt. They are simultaneously terms and concepts of great modernity that influenced deeply into the social imaginary and have marked the nineteenth-century parliamentary dynamic that passed into the twentieth century with topics of great current interest. The political treatise of the moment and, above all, the citizen demands in the Community chapters are an expression of the desire for the involvement of an active people in the government. Against the imperial ideal of Carlos V, the Hispanic political tradition was raised based on citizen solidarity. The ratio iuris was thus accompanied by political ideas, social aspirations, economic problems and a deep moralized sense of political action in terms that interest contemporary parliamentarianism due to their timelessness.