El confesor real en la Castilla de los Trastamara: 1366-1504

The knowledge about the figure of royal confessor has been, until recent times, very limited for the period of medieval Castile. A lot of studies have been done for Modern Age, when the institution of the kinǵs confessor played an important role in the Court of the Hispanic Crown. It is evident that this figure didńt appear ex nihilo in the Sixteenth Century and there existed some origins. Many historians mentioned some medieval confessors in their studies about any other subjects. Actually, it was not clear if those clerics could be properly considered as confessors. Our first aim has been to find all the references which exist in the sources and bibliography about kinǵs confessors in the Middle Ages and verify their nature as confessors. We fixed the beginning of the period of study with the reign of Enrique II, and its end with the death of Isabel I in 1504. The main reason is the fact that both sovereigns are the first and last monarchs of Trastamara dinasty, a very significant period in the origin of Modern State in Castile. The Church was an essential element in this process, on account of the service which many clerics enlisted to the Crown in different tasks (diplomacy, bureaucracy, Counsel and Counselling, etc.) and their ideological support to this endeavour. In this context, the royal confessor could perform an important work as personal advisor and a loyal subject to the person of the king in so many activities. This is well-known for Modern Age and also fort the reign of transition between this period and the precedent: the period of Catholic Kings. But it isńt for the times backwards...

The role of Libraries in Cultural Centres Abroad: an insight

This research paper sets up a typology of libraries managed by cultural centres abroad. Nearly 2,200 libraries linked to a dozen of different cultural organizations provide not only traditional services such as loan and access to printed and audiovisual materials but they also approach local citizens, offering help and services in matters of education, literacy, cooperation, social issues or development. These actions may fit under the label of cultural diplomacy actions. This paper analyses the relevance of those cultural centres and offers a classification through a table including networks of institutions of the thirty most significant cultural centres worldwide.