Content area
Abstract
The importance of written word is obvious, and the words which generate the truth are indispensables when justify a conflict, but through the medieval ages what decides the situation is “the legitimacy obtained by the arms”. The capacity of certification of the words is instable and always vague, as we can see in cases as the reign of Alfonso X in the 13th century, the revolution of Trastámara in 14th century or the civil war in the reign of Juan II in the first half of 15th century, and for this, resorting to the war was necessary. But in the conflict of succession in the later half of the reign of Henry IV, in which a great transformation is lived in the history of Castile that correspond to a period in the change of education system, so as the form of circulation of discussion that are marked by the introduction of printing in every way. The king Henry IV does not dispose military power to make submission to the contrary party. On the other hand as the party of Alfonso as the following party of Isabel does not have enough military and economic power. And then the problem is at a standstill. In that state of things the “supplications” appear as an important strategy. Until then, in Castile the supplications were understood as a media of propaganda useful to slander the king or let down his prestige. Now these supplications are elaborated minutely by theologians and intellects with the object of insistence and acquisition the legitimacy of his option according to the code of the period acquiring in this way the institutional paper. The supplications propagate not only in a high society but all over the oral society by the voice of preachers, messengers in open space as a square, a market, a fountain, etc. From this point of view, in the present thesis we intended to concrete this system of function to describe the paper of the discussion in the Castilian society, and the place that the propaganda politic has in the conflict of succession of Henry IV.
