Definition
A Spanish law term denoting a nobleman of high rank — specifically a count or baron. The ricohome occupied one of the most elevated positions in the feudal hierarchy of medieval Castile and the broader Spanish legal tradition, functioning as a great lord who held lands directly from the crown and owed military and advisory service in return. The term is occasionally rendered *ricohombre* in historical texts.
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Why It Matters in Research
Researchers are most likely to encounter *ricohome* when working through materials on Spanish colonial law, the legal history of territories once governed under Spanish dominion (including portions of the American Southwest, Florida, and Louisiana), or comparative feudal law scholarship. The term appears in sources tracing the reception of Spanish feudal tenure into early American land law, particularly in cases and treatises addressing Spanish land grants and the legal status of grantees.
The principal navigational risk is that *ricohome* appears as a term of historical description rather than operative legal doctrine. It does not create rights or duties cognizable in any modern court, but it surfaces in title chains and archival records where understanding the grantee's status under Spanish law affects the interpretation of the original grant. Researchers relying on translated Spanish colonial documents should note that translators sometimes render *ricohombre* inconsistently — as *grandee*, *nobleman*, *count*, or simply *baron* — which can obscure its precise technical meaning when tracing feudal obligations attached to specific lands.
The term also carries significance for understanding the *Siete Partidas* and the *Nueva Recopilación de las Leyes de España* (the Recopilación), which are the primary source texts cited by all three historical dictionaries. White's *New Recopilation* — cited by Burrill — was among the most widely consulted English-language digests of Spanish law available to American courts adjudicating Spanish land grant disputes in the nineteenth century. Finding *ricohome* in a source that cites White is a strong signal that the surrounding passage draws on this digest rather than original Spanish legislative texts.
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Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries — Black's (both editions) and Burrill — are in complete agreement on substance: *ricohome* denotes a nobleman, count, or baron under Spanish law, and all three anchor the definition in the same primary source tradition (White's *New Recopilation*, Book 1, Title 5, Chapter 3). This uniformity reflects the narrow, descriptive function of the term; it was never contested or redefined across legal eras.
Burrill's citation is the most precise, giving the specific book, title, chapter, and section of White's *New Recopilation*, which makes it the most useful entry for a researcher who needs to locate the original passage. Black's first edition cites simply "1 White, Recop. 36," and the second edition follows with a nearly identical citation. None of the dictionaries engage with the broader feudal context or the term's relationship to Castilian constitutional history — a gap worth noting, since the *ricohombre* class had formal political functions (advisory roles to the crown, participation in the *Cortes*) that go beyond mere honorific rank and could affect how obligations attached to land grants are interpreted.
None of the historical dictionaries address the term's appearance in American jurisprudence, which is the context most likely to matter to Law Mind researchers.
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