In early modern Castile the Crown authority was played within the political arena having as a mirror the so-called economica (the art of the good government of the household). The king, a prudent father of his subjects, should punish and sometimes pardon the criminals in order to keep the political body balanced. The criminal punishment or pardon should be the end of every lawsuit. Seville in the times of Cervantes offered lots of occasions to develop judicial practices. This article explains how justice was developed within this framework and gives a picture of Ancient Régime justice quite different to the repressive justice depicted by Foucault in his Surveiller et punir.
