Las últimas voluntades de los soldados castellanos que participaron en la Guerra de Sucesión. El caso de Burgos, 1705-1712

Abstract

The beginning of the War of Succession provoked, once again, the need to form a military contingent to place Philip V on the Spanish throne. The monarch, in 1704, granted some Royal Ordinances aimed at carrying out a military reform. The regiments were made up of Castilian, Flemish, Italian and French soldiers. Some of these Castilian soldiers took part in the conflict after having been drawn by lot in their places of origin and as members of the militia. Their forced departure provoked on these soldiers the need to settle their earthly affairs, but also those of the spirit before God.This work tries to show what were the wishes of about twenty soldiers whomade their last will and testament between 1705 and 1711 and whose last will deeds are preserved in the collections of the Notarial Protocols of a notary of the city of Burgos, José de Mata. Men coming from the rural world, obliged to be part of the militia, owners of some type of goods and conscious that their destiny, almost certainly, would be death, felt the obligation to name testamentaries and heirs, as well as the need to put in order everything related to their spirit. They were modest country men who wished to use their property for the celebration of masses and, in the best of cases, for the foundation of small memorials.