Marketing a New Legal Code in Fifteenth-Century Castile: A Case Study of the Interactions Between Crown, Law and Printing

Abstract

At the end of the fifteenth century, Isabel of Castile sought to organize the print publication of a compilation of royal law with the aim to disseminate multiple copies of a standardized text in a short period of time and ensure that all judges would apply the same legal code. This chapter studies some marketing aspects of the first and third editions of Díaz de Montalvo’s Ordenanzas Reales, particularly those related to the royal dispatch issued by the Castilian Crown in 1485 to proclaim the Ordenanzas to the Castilian councils. ‘Marketing a New Legal Code’ illuminates the interactions between the Castilian Crown, law and print and seeks to uncover some of the unexpected social, cultural and legal consequences of printing laws in the early modern period.