Pleitos de términos, demarcación de territorios y jueces de comisión: procedimiento y conflictos

Abstract

Durante el Antiguo Régimen la monarquía recurrió a los jueces de comisión para ejecutar los apeos, deslindes y amojonamientos que fue preciso realizar durante los pleitos de términos. En el presente trabajo, partiendo de un proceso sustanciado en la Audiencia de Sevilla por la jurisdicción de Benazuza en el siglo XVIII y basándonos en el memorial ajustado del pleito y en las alegaciones jurídicas presentadas por los litigantes y por el juez de comisión, se analizan los procedimientos seguidos por estos comisarios regios, así como las dificultades que encontraron a la hora de llevar a cabo estas tareas. De igual forma, se estudia la resistencia de los pleiteantes a las resoluciones de los comisionados.

During the Old Monarchic Régime, commissioner judges were sought after to execute los surveys, demarcations and markings that were needed during the term disputes. In this paper and stemming from a process followed at the Hearings of Seville by the jurisdiction of Benazuza in the 18th century, based on the revised memoire of the dispute and the legal allegations filed by the litigants and the judge, we analyze the procedures followed by these royal commissionaires as well as the difficulties they found when embarking on these tasks. Likewise, we study the reluctance of these litigants to enforce the commissionaires’ rulings.

Starting from an analysis of normative sources and legal procedures of the Spanish Monarchy during the ancient régime, this article proposes a parallel interpretation of the management of abandoned things and people. It is based on a fundamental idea seemingly shared in this European society organized under a corporate principle: every social relationship carries a responsibility, in the sense of having to respond to something or someone, take charge, and care for people and things. Derived from this constitutional ideology, where every father/owner/manager had the duty to care for their possessions and family members, the Sovereign ‘supreme administrator and tutor’ could claim universal guardianship over all individuals and things within its realm, ensuring that no one remained alone, isolated, or sterile. This legitimizes its intervention as a guarantee of order protection and reproduction.