Carta executoria

In favor of Juan Gayton de Cuenca, Granada, Spain, 12 September 1578

In the case of this carta, the pleito de hidalguia was initiated in 1573 by three brothers in their thirties: Juan Gaytan de Cuenca, Francisco Gaytan de Cuenca, and Alonso Gaytan de Truxillo. They lived in Jerez de la Frontera, in southern Andalucia, an area only recently reconquered from the Moors. The case occured during the reign of Phillip II, a zealous Catholic who did not hestitate to use the Inquisition to prosecute heresy. It may be significant, then, that the carta claims emphatically that the brothers do not descend from "bastardos ni de moros ni judios ni conversos ni que ayan sido presos ni penitenciados por el Sancto oficio de la Inquisicion." They were thus legitimate, of old Christian family and pure blood, without taint of Jews or Moors. They claim, in fact, to have descended from one of the warriors who fought in the Reconquest of Spain. One witness recalls that their father and grandfather kept horses and had slaves, like all persons of quality did.

Parchment, 66 folios, 321 x 226 (311 x 215) mm, 34 lines, in Spanish, written in a rounded gothic hand.