Los Ludeña, regidores madrileños y familia hidalga principal de la Mancha Una relación clientelar de Miguel de Cervantes

Abstract

In La Mancha region there is no record of any visit by Cervantes. The reiteration of literary references to two towns in Toledo’s La Mancha leads us to search the biography of Cervantes for connections with Quintanar de la Orden and El Toboso. I explore a line of research focusing on the years of his marriage (1584-1586). In the relaciones of 1586, there is a client relationship with Pedro de Ludeña, born in Madrid, and his godfather. The Ludeña family is also the main linage of noblemen in the town of Quintanar de la Orden during those years. For his part, in 1584, Cervantes made a deal with the attorney Ortega Rosa to process the publication of Laínez’s El Cancionero. At that time, Ortega Rosa was the representative of seventeen owners of windmills in El Toboso. Still in 1584, and after forty years of exile for murdering a member of the Ludeña family, the nobleman Cepeda returned to Quintanar de la Orden. At this point, there are biographical parallels with the Persiles plot. These data, together with the literary ones, allow to argue that Cervantes had a special knowledge of these two places: Quintanar de la Orden and El Toboso.