Corruption in the Iberian Empires: Greed, Custom, and Colonial Networks

The past decade has witnessed a renewed interest in empires, in the mechanisms, structures, and personnel of government, and in what was permitted, restricted, suffered, or castigated in the governing of early modern Iberia and its overseas dominions. This volume, which presents relatively short essays by nine authors, is devoted to the concept of corruption, a term originally limited to the subversion of justice—one of the principal attributes and justifications of a monarch's authority—but whose valence and meaning in the early modern era expanded to include any abuse or violation of laws, practices, or customs of governmental institutions. It is useful to remember that the Iberian kingdoms were precocious in fusing medieval patrimonial practices of government to a new Weberian administrative rationalism, thus creating a mixed system of governing, and as a number of the authors of this volume remind us, what was considered corruption was quite different in early...