The gremio and the cofradía: a trade and a brotherhood, the same men in two rooms.
The brotherhood carries what one hand cannot.
The household
Extended households with godparent networks (compadrazgo) — spiritual kin who backed a business as strongly as blood.
The trade
Silk of Granada, ceramics of Talavera, ships of Lisbon and Seville; each gremio held the standard and its cofradía held the charity.
1300s
Jewish, Muslim and Christian craftsmen worked the same streets in Toledo and Valencia; technique moved between them — paper, silk, irrigation, glazing.
Municipal fueros fixed weights, measures and market days: shared rules made trade possible between strangers.
1400s
Every gremio had a cofradía: masses for the dead, dowries for daughters, and a chest for members who fell ill. Business and mercy were funded from the same box.
Notarial protocols recorded apprenticeship contracts in detail — the terms a boy's family negotiated survive in full.
1500s
Casa de Contratación in Seville licensed the Atlantic; a family with one licensed ship could seed a dynasty.
Post-Trent parish registers (1563 onward) make Iberian and Latin American lines traceable across the ocean.
Free books
PARES: digitised Spanish state archives.
Free text; the everyday economy of the age.
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