Aristocracy, Proprietary Churches and Episcopal Power in the Kingdom of León: the Monasteries of the Flaí­nez Family

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to study the proprietary churches of the Flaí­nez family in order to elucidate the effects of the ecclesiastical reforms on the aristocratic control of religious institutions in medieval Spain. The analysis reveals that even though the family retained the ownership of many of its monasteries, in the last decades of the 11th century some of them began to be put under the Episcopal jurisdiction. This process was achieved through practices in which bishops had to negotiate individually with the lay owners