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El título de este libro, Iglesia, poder y fortuna, refleja bien los principales ejes de los trabajos recopilados en sus páginas, textos que se deben a algunos de los más destacados especialistas españoles en la historia social del clero. Los distintos autores que han colaborado en esta obra ofrecen al público un análisis actualizado de una cuestión esencial de nuestra historia: el importantísimo papel que jugó el clero en la enorme movilidad social que caracterizó a la España de los siglos XVI al XVIII. Más allá de los estereotipos ya superados, que nos hablaban de una sociedad estática, inmóvil e inmutable, donde el cambio social era casi imposible, el ascenso social y el ennoblecimiento fueron una realidad omnipresente, aunque fuese sistemáticamente disimulada en interés de la estabilidad del propio sistema y en beneficio de sus élites. Del valor de esta imagen estamental transmitida da buena cuenta el hecho de que la hayamos aceptado como algo incuestionable hasta hace pocos años. Esta obra aborda de forma novedosa y desde la multiplicidad de perspectivas este interesantísimo fenómeno en que la Iglesia cobró protagonismo. La capilla real, el confesionario regio, el clero de las catedrales o el mundo de los conventos, las redes sociales, los aspectos económicos, la limpieza de sangre, el éxito social, la crítica, el azar, el fracaso... todos estos aspectos sirven en el presente volumen como lentes de estudio de una movilidad social que encontró en la instrumentalización de lo eclesiástico una plataforma inmejorable.

The aim of this study was to investigate a group that was an important part of local elites in the Hispanic Monarchy: that of the members of a Cathedral Chapter. It was conducted through the analysis of the specific case of Córdoba, however, the purpose was the achievement of extrapolative results. A wide chronological approach was required for wide-ranging conclusions within the framework of the long duration of the early modern period, which is why the exam covers from the last quarter of the 15th century to the end of the Ancien Régime. A deep knowledge of international bibliography and a massive and rigorous use of the documentation from several archives were the basis of this thesis. The results revealed how the Cathedral Chapter worked as a superb machinery that channeled social mobility and legitimized it due to the constant re-creation of the same corporate image, from which each of its members and, by extension, their families benefited. Throughout the studied period, behind a façade of steadiness the sociological composition of the Cathedral Chapter evolved significantly. The institution had a clear functionality of which different groups made use of. Economic and relational capital was transformed by its institutional symbolic power: converso families, rural elites and urban mesocracy were integrated into the local aristocracy, by following a specific channel and without destabilizing the theoretical basis of a system that could hardly accept change. The role of an international market of ecclesiastical benefices established by Rome was vital: tools like resignations or coadjutories made possible a precocious instrumentalization of the Chapter institution. The interpretation of this social phenomenon as a whole has been the ultimate result of this work.

At the end of the first decade of the 21st century, it seems to be a fitting moment to stop and analyse the current status of the issue of ecclesiastical chapters in the catholic Atlantic World. So in the present paper I make available to the reader a review of the main historiographic production in a summary and comparative way, with special attention to the spanish bibliography, but without ignoring that of other countries like France, England, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Mexico or Peru, for example.