During some of the darkest moments of Spanish history the mere mention of him, always in a low voice, instilled panic among the people. The Holy Garduña it was a secret society of criminals whose power challenged the Church and the Crown alike. They were rogues, prostitutes and swordsmen for hire. For more than 200 years they reigned as the undisputed monarchs of the underworld of the Spanish geography, and even today their legacy has not completely disappeared. In fact, their heritage and way of acting remain alive in criminal organizations such as the Camorra .
The Spanish Reconquest was a time of intense religious and nationalist exaltation, where the Jews and Muslims who lived in Christian territory were defenseless and became favorite victims of bandits and criminals who, on many occasions, brandished the defense of the faith as justification for their outrages, which earned them the tacit approval of the Church. For this reason, it is not surprising that the nobles and knights who formed the hosts of the Reconquest received the unexpected reinforcement of an authentic legion of ruffians who saw in this campaign the opportunity to obtain good loot. The Santa Garduña was born as a consequence of all this .
The origins of the marten as a unified force date back to the time of the Catholic Monarchs, who in the fifteenth century undertook their crusade against the last strongholds of Muslim influence in the Iberian Peninsula. It was a time when the balance of power was changing, and although nobles and feudal lords were losing much of their power, the truth is that a new oligarchy had not yet developed to take their place, so there was a clear vacuum of power that allowed the Garduña to act in many places with total impunity.
The members of the Garduña were an extreme extension of the Holy Inquisition, and their activity could be compared today to that of the Ku Klux Klan, that is, an essentially racist secret society in charge of the illegal persecution of citizens for xenophobic reasons, especially Jews and Muslims who did not embrace Christianity. They resorted on many occasions to the murder of anyone who spread or practiced heterodox ideas.
"Death in Madrid" by Lorenzo Vallés
La Garduña was a peculiar group. It established a complex liturgy that included the custom of commending oneself to the Virgin before an attack or consulting the Bible as an oracle before making important decisions, opening it at random and looking for an allegorical meaning for the passage revealed in this way. They looted and burned, executed at their own expense those they considered heretics, and reclaimed their property.
He acted mainly in Seville, a city that became the main headquarters of the movement. The Garduña was organized into nine grades that were accessed based on the merits of the militants, but not before completing an exclusive initiation ceremony for each rank. The snitches they were the spies, scouts, and gatekeepers of the order; the coverts they were prostitutes who performed support and information tasks; the mermaids they were often the mistresses of the gang leaders; the bellows they were in charge of managing the loot; the blossomers they constituted the shock force, those who assaulted; the pointers they were refined swordsmen who acted as duelists for hire; the handsome were recruited from among them , who led the band. Although the supreme leadership corresponded to the masters .
However, once the Reconquest was over, the marten became a cumbersome ballast for the authorities. It was a group that was especially jealous when it came to the amount of their spoils and on many occasions when they chose a target they carried out their task with meticulousness, without heeding requests or reasons. What broke the patience of the Court…
Collaboration with Javier Ramos of Places with History