MATRIMONIO, CONSANGUINIDAD Y LA ARISTOCRACIA NUEVA CASTELLANA: CONSOLIDACIÓN DE LA CASA DE ALBA (1440-1531).

Social History, Family History and Political History converge on this article, in which we try to analyse how the house of Alba was formed, and progress in the trajectory of social ascent the house of Alba experienced from the 13th century -when they were members of the oligarchy of Toledo- until 1531, when the Duchy was created for Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, the Great. In this process, marital alliances with more prestigious aristocratic families, such as the Enríquez and the Benavente, played a prominent role, and subsequently, in the sixteenth century, marriages between close relatives with some degree of consanguinity became recurrent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]