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In this article, Scan Perrone draws attention to the Assembly of the Clergy in Castile in the early-modern period. This is a significant representative institution with a long history of active participation in government which has received little attention from scholars outside Spain. The Assembly was never a part of the Cortes of Castile, but was made up by delegates from the Cathedral Chapters, excluding the bishops themselves, which negotiated the clerical subsidies to the Crown on behalf of the whole clergy of Castile, and then apportioned them among the clergy of the different dioceses. The article analyzes the composition and working of the Assembly, which enjoyed considerable freedom from Crown interference both in its elections and its proceedings, and produces evidence to suggest that the Assembly functioned successfully as a means of keeping the subsidies within bearable limits, and apportioning the burden with reasonable equity.
