(literally, “brotherhood”), any of several medieval unions of Spanish towns and peasant communes.
Hermandades were founded as a means of self-defense during the wars with the Arabs and the feudal civil wars. Some hermandades were established to provide armed defense of their members’ rights and freedoms against the encroachments of the feudal lords; there also existed, however, hermandades formed by towns and feudal lords. The earliest known hermandad is that of Asturias, which was founded in 1115.
The hermandades frequently found themselves in conflict with the crown; more often, however, they were used by the Spanish kings in the kings’ struggles with the feudal lords. Hermandades became widespread during the 13th and 14th centuries and played an important role in the Reconquest. They enjoyed extensive rights and privileges and had their own administration and their own military units.
As the kings gained absolute power the hermandades lost their independence and became tools of the crown. In 1498 the right of self-rule was taken away from the Santa Hermandad, one of the most important of the unions; the role of this hermandad, which had been founded in 1476 and included towns and peasant com munes in Castile, Leon, and Asturias, was reduced to that of a rural constabulary. The Santa Hermandad was finally dissolved in 1835.