SOCIETY

It is a class society, based on privileges, rights and obligations, marked by birth. In society the following estates were distinguished:

Nobility (5%) ranged from the Titles of Castile and Grandes de España, a true élite that accumulated immense patrimonies, to knights or hidalgos with much more precarious haciendas. 

Also, throughout the XVI and XVII centuries were common purchase of titles and access to the nobility for services to the monarchy (nobility of toga).

             It was also remarkable the differences between the clergy(5-10%):

•  The high clergy (archbishops, cardinals and abbots) maintained situations similar to the nobility.

• The lower clergy (parish priests, chaplains, monks ...) lived, in general, similar to the artisans or peasants. 

Among the unprivileged

 The pecheros and farmers (urban population )subject to the payment of taxes and ordinary justice (80%). 

There were also many differences between them: the lives of the agrarian landowners or of the great merchants. 

However, all of them were obliged to pay taxes, which in Castile were very high and numerous.