Espiel

Espiel belonged to the hill country north of Córdoba, where local government developed within the larger jurisdictional world of that city. Its early modern institutions are documented more securely than an uninterrupted narrative from antiquity. Under Charles I and Queen Juana, royal authorisation allowed the council to have its own alcaldes and chief alguacil, giving the community a recognisable body of local officers.

A municipal grain store, or pósito, was created under Philip II. Its surviving ordinances dated 1593 show how provisioning and the management of grain formed part of town government. The seventeenth century also brought a period of private lordship, when Espiel passed to Juan de Góngora, the first marquis of Almodóvar. This arrangement proved temporary. The history of the locality through the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries therefore involved negotiation between municipal institutions, Córdoba's superior jurisdiction and the claims of private lords, rather than a simple progression toward complete urban independence.