Archivo General de Simancas

Precedents and foundation

Compared with the archives of other European crowns, the foundation of the Simancas archive shows an evident delay on the part of Castile, although historians have identified several earlier attempts to create an archive. The most widely repeated account is that John II of Castile and Henry IV of Castile ordered some documents to be gathered in a particular place; this was never fully carried out but is cited as a precedent. Another account, poorly supported by the written sources, holds that an archive existed in Burgos in the early 16th century and was destroyed by the comuneros.

The clearest precedent was the archive that Ferdinand the Catholic tried to organise in 1509, entrusting it to the bachelor Diego Salmerón, who died in 1519 without completing it. His successors in the post, the licentiates Galindo and Acuña, left no trace of having done anything with the task.

The archive dates from 1540. In that year Charles I issued in Brussels a cédula that was the first order to send documents to the castle of Simancas. At first the archive shared the building with a prison, but the determination to create a large central archive was clear: works to adapt the building were carried out in 1542 and 1543, while the first consignments of documents were being received.

16th century

Among the first documents to reach the castle were those kept in the castle of La Mota at Medina del Campo, where some have seen another precedent of Simancas.

In 1545 the licentiate Antonio Catalán was appointed the first keeper (tenedor) of the archive, and from then on the archive existed as an institution and not merely as a project. Catalán held the post for less than two years, but his tenure was productive in the recovery of documents: in 1545 and 1546 numerous cédulas were issued across Castile ordering documents to be handed over to the archive.

After Catalán's death in 1547 the post went to Diego Briviesca de Muñatones. His tenure was not as fruitful as might have been hoped: he took possession of the post only in 1548, left the work to his brother, and in the eleven years he held it he lived in Spain for only three. In 1559 he gave it up because he was going to the Indies.

The years that followed were among the most irregular in the life of the archive. To remedy the situation, in 1561 Philip II divided the post between two men: a lawyer, the licentiate Sanci, and Diego de Ayala, who had experience in handling documents and official business. They were joined in running the archive by Tomás Bretón, the deputy governor of the fortress. This arrangement did not last: Sanci died in August 1562, and in 1563 the deputy governor's key and allowance were withdrawn as unnecessary, leaving Diego de Ayala alone in charge.

Ayala's long tenure can be divided into two stages:

• 1563–1574: he put the archive in order and catalogued it;
• from 1574: he carried out constant works to enlarge it.

Little is known of the first years, up to 1564. One known fact is that in 1572 Ayala travelled to Madrid to collect documents, among them fifty-three chests of papers concerning the Indies. From 1575, as the great works of enlargement advanced, the fortress gradually lost its character as a prison.

Juan de Herrera took part in the works of remodelling, giving the courtyard its present proportions. The works always went hand in hand with the gathering of documents, and the archive had the help of leading cultural figures of the time: in 1567 orders were issued so that the historian Jerónimo Zurita could work with its documents, and in 1572 he handed over papers to Ayala.

The second stage was marked by Ayala's complaints that the archive shared the building with a prison, which in his view greatly increased the risk of fire. At the same time he tried to enlarge the archive as much as possible, which from 1588 onwards caused serious financial problems. There were contradictory moments: Philip II visited the archive in 1592 and ordered all kinds of new works, for which little money was then provided. At times there was no money to pay either Ayala's assistants or the workmen.

In this second stage, in 1588, came a milestone: the Instruction that Philip II issued for the government of the Simancas archive. Drafted mainly by Ayala together with the royal secretaries Vázquez and Zayas, it set the number of officials, their working hours and pay, and ordered among other things that no original documents be taken out, that no light or fire be lit, and that the most important documents be copied to protect the originals. Later writers on the archive have praised it highly.

Diego de Ayala died on 16 February 1594, aged 82, after years in which he had to borrow money to keep the works going. Although his last years were troubled by money problems and ill health, a great many documents, many of them of high value, were collected in that period.

During this time the building was also used as a prison and to store furnishings, weapons and even money.

17th century

Diego de Ayala was succeeded by his son, Antonio de Ayala Manuel, who knew the work well because he had stood in for his father during absences and illnesses. He held the post until his death in 1610, and during his tenure the archive's officials became permanent staff.

The arrival of documents continued alongside the works. There were also researchers wishing to consult the documents, such as the chronicler Pedro de Valencia, although such access was rarely granted.

From this time onwards a pattern can be seen in the documents that arrived: apart from some large consignments, most were papers from the ministries that had piled up, had lost their current value and were sent to Simancas to free space.

After Antonio de Ayala's death came a turbulent period of short tenures. From Juan Gallo, who never took possession, to Diego de Isla, who was archivist for about two years, there was no stable head until Diego de Cepeda, who held the post from 1617 to 1630.

During Cepeda's tenure Francisco and Antonio de Hoyos, father and son, were sent to inspect the archive. Later historians have judged them harshly, because most of their inventories were mere lists of bundles without analysis. In any case this was a period of transition, waiting for Juan de Ayala Tello to come of age.

The heir of the Ayala family held the post from 1630 to 1656. At first everything seemed favourable – he was young and had experience – but problems soon followed. Difficulties with his brother Diego, whom he had chosen as one of his officials, and the Instruction issued by Philip IV in 1633, which ordered the archive to follow the method of Antonio de Hoyos, weakened his position. He was also obliged to report every year on the state of the archive.

Philip IV authorised the Count-Duke of Olivares to form his own collection of documents, and Juan de Ayala's tenure as a whole has been seen as confused and of little effect. He was retired in 1656; in 1640 he had obtained the right to be succeeded by one of his sons, and in the meantime the archive was run by Pedro García de los Ríos until 1659.

The second half of the 17th century was dominated by Pedro de Ayala, another member of the family, who ran the archive from 1659 to 1698. On his arrival he found an archive without funds, with the works halted and many bundles not yet put on the shelves, so the first decade of his tenure was devoted almost entirely to seeking money.

In 1670 he even threatened to resign, and after many journeys and requests he obtained thirty thousand ducats for works, which were carried out until 1675. Meanwhile all kinds of documents entered the archive, the most notable being 61 boxes from the secretariats of the Council of War, for both land and sea.

Pedro de Ayala died in 1698, having named his eldest son, Francisco Antonio de Ayala, as his successor. The new century did not change the fact that historians of the early modern period had no access to the archive for research except in very particular cases.

18th century

The first half of the 18th century was marked by the tenure of Francisco Antonio de Ayala, who ran the archive from 1698 to 1743. With him began a situation that lasted until about 1815: almost the whole staff of the archive belonged to the Ayala family. In 1710 Philip V visited Simancas.

His tenure had its successes – many documents of the last Habsburgs arrived – and its setbacks: in 1727 a tower and part of the wall of the outer enclosure collapsed, and much money had to go into urgent works. Documents of great importance arrived in this period, such as the will of Charles II and Philip V's renunciation of the French crown.

When Francisco Antonio de Ayala died in 1743 he was succeeded by his son Manuel Santiago de Ayala Gallo, who ran the archive until 1772. Researchers such as Ascensio de Morales worked in the archive at this time, and accounts left by visitors of the period describe how the archive was run and what conditions they found there.

Exceptional documents arrived in this period, such as the Concordat of 1753 [es]. There were also difficult moments, such as the general repair of the castle in 1749, which included works against the damp that was damaging the documents in the lower rooms. The castle was also affected by the 1755 Lisbon earthquake.

Manuel Santiago de Ayala Gallo died in 1772. His son Manuel de la Cruz Ayala y Rosales, who had been made an official of the archive at the age of seven, with a substitute doing the work until he could do it himself, was appointed archivist in 1773, at the age of 25; he held the post until his death in 1811. Other notable events of the 18th century were the visit of the Count of Floridablanca in 1773 and the transfer in 1785 of all the documents on the Indies – one of the strengths of the Simancas holdings – to the General Archive of the Indies, newly created in Seville. In 1791 Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos visited the archive and criticised its staff as idle.

19th century

The new century was marked above all by the harm the Peninsular War did to the archive. French soldiers were quartered in the fortress, the archive's staff lost all authority and their work stopped, and the kitchen the garrison needed in the building was a fire hazard. In 1811 Manuel de la Cruz Ayala died, ending the line of archivists of the Ayala family.

An official report of 1817 described the archive as left in utter confusion by the calamities of the war, with most of its papers loose and thrown on the floor. Documents had been moved from place to place without any order, and a fire in the garrison's kitchen forced bundles to be moved in haste.

Part of the documents was taken to France, because Napoleon wanted to create a great central European archive in Paris and had already plundered archives in Germany, Austria and Italy. General Kellermann was ordered to move documents to Bayonne and then to Paris. Most of them came back after Napoleon's fall, except those on relations between Spain and France, which were returned only during the Second World War.

To restore order in the archive, Tomás González [es] was appointed royal commissioner in 1815. Apart from a few consignments – the last ones arrived in 1852 – the archive stopped receiving documents and became a closed archive.

Ferdinand VII arranged for several consignments of documents to be sent to Simancas between 1826 and 1832, not for cultural or conservation reasons but to separate his ministers from the information the papers contained. He also visited the archive in 1828.

A royal order of April 1844 opened the archive, at least in general terms, to research, and historians such as Manuel Danvila [es] and Antonio Cánovas del Castillo were able to work there. Documents on the private life of the royal family, however, were excluded.

From then on, Spanish archive administration developed on an official footing: in 1858 the professional corps of archivists [es] was created, and the work of Simancas was redirected towards cataloguing and dissemination. The first display case for exhibiting documents dates from the directorship of Francisco Díaz Sánchez (1869–1890).

Notable events of the second half of the century include the visit of King Alfonso XII in 1878, the directorship of Claudio Pérez Gredilla in the last decade of the century, and the arrival of the telephone in 1894.

20th century

During the 20th century the facilities were greatly improved to make the researchers' work easier. The exhibition of documents kept growing, and the archive came to be regarded as a cultural institution in which the conservation of documents goes hand in hand with research and exhibition, under the Ministry of Culture.

In 1914 the documents of the Inquisition were transferred from Simancas to the National Historical Archive in Madrid in exchange for some 700 bundles, which drew protests in Valladolid; in 1917 a proposal to move other major series to Madrid provoked protests throughout the province and was dropped.

During the Spanish Civil War the province of Valladolid was in the Nationalist zone from the start, and some improvements were carried out at the archive between 1936 and 1938. In the 1950s, at the time of the fourth centenary of the death of Charles I, a major reform was undertaken to meet the demand of the growing number of researchers wishing to work in Simancas, and a residence for researchers was built.

In 1941 the Spanish government recovered a group of documents – about 58,000 – known as the "Simancas bundles" (legajos de Simancas), through an exchange of works with the Vichy government of Marshal Pétain. Their return was complicated. In the same agreement Spain also recovered works such as the Immaculate Conception of Soult and the Lady of Elche, and in return gave France several works of art, mainly paintings.

Despite all the comforts brought by the modern age, discomfort remained the rule for researchers in the 20th century. González de Amezúa described the only inn in Simancas as a wretched place.

21st century

At the turn of the 21st century the archive was renovated in a programme of works that lasted from 1999 to 2007. The works were originally expected to end in 2004, but the delay meant that events planned at the castle for the fifth centenaries of the deaths of Isabella the Catholic and Christopher Columbus could not be held there. The director of the archive, José Luis Rodríguez de Diego, attributed the delays to heavy rain.

On 14 January 2008 the Minister of Culture, César Antonio Molina, inaugurated the renovated building. At the ceremony he said that in Simancas the richness of the "documentary content derives from its architectural project". Since then the archive has hosted various cultural events, including a meeting of the board of the Fundación Camino de la Lengua Castellana in 2009. After this latest reform, visitors can see parts of the archive that were previously closed to them, such as one of the research rooms and the castle chapel. A building has also been put up next to the fortress, with an assembly hall, an archival centre, a dissemination department and an exhibition room.

Reproductions of the documents can be requested in digital and paper form; requests for purposes other than research involve accepting the ministry's conditions and, where applicable, signing an agreement with it.

In 2017 UNESCO added the archive to its Memory of the World register.