The Cloistered Ambassador: non-European Agents in the Convents of Madrid (1585-1701)

Abstract

In line with its medieval predecessors, the Habsburg court had no particular problem in receiving representatives from outside the Christendom’s framework. Until 1580 these usually included Maghrebi envoys with an ambiguous status and without a notable diplomatic presence. Subsequently, the aggregation of the crown of Portugal to the Spanish Monarchy and the ceremonial standardization that gradually took place led, on the one hand, to the arrival of African and Asian agents of a different profile, with whom there was less familiarity, and on the other, to an attempt to assign them to the existing diplomatic categories. Among the numerous problems of Madrid as a reception centre for “exotic embassies,” we will look at the use of the city’s monasteries as accommodation for some of these agents and their entourage. Instead of being offered houses, these individuals were left in a provisional situation in accordance with their dubious diplomatic status, a policy that triggered problems of public order and decorum because of their difficult coexistence with the monastic communities. These and other monasteries played a further role as places of sociability and exchange for people who were not accustomed to such institutions. This will provide a glimpse into the complementarity between palaces and monasteries in a strongly confessionalised court and, paradoxically, into a kind of ceremonial flexibility that bordered on tolerance.