power. Thus although the project of institutionalization took many decades, Ferdinand of Aragon was comparatively well positioned for it by the time of his marriage to Isabella of Castile in 1469.
Now this did not prevent King Alfonso of Portugal, a former ally of Castile, from making a claim to Castile, based on the fact that the King's wife was the daughter of Isabella's late brother Henry IV (Lope I.i). The relevance of this background to the issue of justice in feudal and modern Spain is that it was in 1476, the year of the incident at Fuente Ovejuna, that the authority of Aragon was decisively established over Castile and the ultimate direction of the Spanish empire was set.
More will be said about the difference between the world as envisioned by Lope and the world of Spanish history that Fuente Ovejuna is meant to represent. Nevertheless, in Fuente Ovejuna, rival ideas about how the world does or should work come together in the royal court to be resolved into a new idea about the world. To see how this is accomplished, it is necessary to examine the action and personalities of the play.
The action is straightforward, fast-moving, and shockingly melodramatic. Fuente Ovejuna, an outlying village, is occupied by troops of pro-Portuguese Comendador Don Fernan Gomez, whose immediate feudal patron is a 22-year-old nobleman, Master of Calatrava. Sexually corrupt and politically ambitious, the Comendador coerces virtually any peasant girl into what amounts to a private harem. Only Laurencia, daughter of Fuente Ovejuna's mayor Esteban and bride-to-be of Frondoso, consistently refuses his attentions. Indeed, Frondoso threatens him with a crossbow. In the wake of a military defeat by Ferdinand, the Comendador interrupts the wedding of Frondoso and Laurencia, arresting him for assault and carrying her to his quarters. Laurencia, beaten and probably raped (though Frondoso insists she fought her way out of captivity), returns to the...