To the numerous and very distinguished titles for which he collected the conditions of bachelor, knight-captain, royal captain or permanent councilor, Alonso Yáñez Fajardo, nicknamed “El Granadino”, added around 1490 what was probably the most profitable condition: the greatest courtesan of the kingdom.

After the successful 1486 expedition aid award After this money, which he had lent during the capture of the Loja, and which he would still lend until 1492, for him to take over the squares of Baza, Malaga or Almería, the Catholic Monarchs decided to grant the brave captain the income of the mencebías of the Kingdom of Granada.

It wasn’t a bad advantage. And the best proof of this is that even today, more than five centuries after his death, Fajardo is known less for his work in brothels than for the official rank of the Catholic Monarchs. He gained such prominence in the brothels that, over time, he was nicknamed the “lord of prostitutes”, the “official prostitute” or, as he was called among the soldiers, “Fajardo Putero”.

Commercially: Senior prostitute

Painting by Étienne Jeaurat showing French prostitutes being taken to a police station.

But the most curious thing is not that Alonso Yáñez Fajardo, the bastard son of Lorca’s manager, decided to take advantage of the huge business of brothels in the Kingdom of Granada; He began to manage this activity through managers who eventually supported him. all kinds of extremes. If there is something remarkable about the case, it is that this was done with the approval of the Court. That and theirs were a drop in the bucket. extensive brothel network Operating during the reigns of Isabel and Ferdinand.

As far as I remember recently A B CAragon and Castile already had regulated youth centers where prostitution was tolerated, a “lesser evil” in St. Augustine’s own words, in which they wanted to avoid problems such as adultery, which were seen by the authorities as even worse. kidnappings and rapes. His Catholic majesty recognized that this formula was worth transferring to other troubled areas of their dominions. And they did not hesitate to implement it.

“The connection between noble gangs and ruffians created an atmosphere of generalized conflict that was very present in the pacification policies of the Crown in the 15th century. In this atmosphere of late medieval crisis, we understand the initiative undertaken by the Catholic Monarchs to eliminate the legalization of prostitution, introduce themselves In a 2022 article devoted to Castilian mencebías of the 17th century, historian Milagros León describes the creation of brothels to the point of rewarding the most loyal minor nobles with their monopolies.

The lords and municipal authorities set about the task of regulating the brothels in detail, which enabled the Court to benefit twice from the lust business that abounded in Milagros León: the Crown managed to make it profitable to its advantage and turned it into an enterprise. an “escape valve”, a way to quell fights and maintain order. Or at least to try.

The court did not even hesitate to use laws that would encourage prostitution to concentrate in brothels. In the Cortes of Madrigal of 1476, the Catholic Monarchs ruled that secret prostitutes pay double than the public ones: 24 maravedíe per year, 12 maravedí for the latter.

Legalization of adultery

To legalize brothels in Castile, the regulations of Seville, the city with the busiest brothel in the country, were taken as an example. The result was the monarch II. Already granted by Felipe was the Pragmática of 1571 and a regulation requiring the health of prostitutes to be checked, or the payment of the income that workers had to pay, known as “partridge rights”. to the sheriffs of the council in exchange for their protection.

“To prevent excesses, civil and religious authorities decided to establish municipal brothels,” historian Andrés Moreno Mengíbar said in 2000. Country. In this environment, the Catholic Monarchs encouraged towns such as Écija, Carmona or Cádiz to form mencebías and gave Fajardo a monopoly of those in Granada, among other benefits paid for his services.

Brothel after brothel, the south was self-sufficient a dense network In the 16th and 17th centuries. Moreno Mengíbar estimates that there were about a hundred “pharmacists” in Seville alone in the mid-16th century; This name is given to the houses where prostitutes live in return for paying rent.

But if there is one spot that stands out on the map of the 16th-century European lust market, it is Valencia. There was a huge brothel housing “between 200 and 300” female workers, if we trust the Flemish traveler Antonie de Lalaing, who visited here in October 1501. “This place is as big as a small town,” the Flanders courtier emphasized with astonishment. macro brothel It consisted of several hostels spread across various streets, all organized.

Neither Valencia nor Granada nor Seville are in any case isolated redoubts.

It is said that during the reign of Philip III, 800 brothels were spread all over Madrid, the houses were open day and night and young women authorized to work in this way worked, certain well-defined conditions were established for this: being over 12 years old, elderly, orphaned or of unknown parents to be and not to be of noble origin. Such an atmosphere of tolerance did not last forever, of course: The situation took a different turn with the ruler Philip IV (1605-1665), who was said to have been scandalized when he learned of the immoral life of the Ottoman ambassador in Madrid.

In 1623, the planet known as the “King Planet” deemed such a network immoral and began a long period of restriction. So, the same Philip IV who was said to be sex addict, a wild, promiscuous and tormented womanizer who had enough children to form several football teams: some calculations suggest between 20 and 40; Others, more generous, reach up to 46 offspring.

But this is another chapter in national history.

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*An earlier version of this article was published in June 2023.