A 'Veinticuatro' or 'Caballero Veintiquatro' (Knight/Gentleman Veintiquatro) was an official in several Andalusia

Andalusia

Andalusia is the most populous and the second largest in area of the autonomous communities of Spain. The Andalusian autonomous community is officially recognised as a nationality of Spain. The territory is divided into eight provinces: Huelva, Seville, Cádiz, Córdoba, Málaga, Jaén, Granada and...

n cities in pre-modern Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

, notably Úbeda

Úbeda

Úbeda is a town in the province of Jaén in Spain's autonomous community of Andalusia, with some 35,600 inhabitants. Both this city and the neighboring city of Baeza benefited from extensive patronage in the early 16th century resulting in the construction of a series of Renaissance style palaces...

, Baeza

Baeza

Baeza is a town of approximately 16,200 inhabitants in Andalusia, Spain, in the province of Jaén, perched on a cliff in the Loma de Baeza, a mountain range between the river Guadalquivir on the south and its tributary the Guadalimar on the north. It is chiefly known today as having many of the...

, Jaén

Jaén, Spain

Jaén is a city in south-central Spain, the name is derived from the Arabic word Jayyan, . It is the capital of the province of Jaén. It is located in the autonomous community of Andalusia....

, Córdoba

Córdoba, Spain

-History:The first trace of human presence in the area are remains of a Neanderthal Man, dating to c. 32,000 BC. In the 8th century BC, during the ancient Tartessos period, a pre-urban settlement existed. The population gradually learned copper and silver metallurgy...

, Seville

Seville

Seville is the artistic, historic, cultural, and financial capital of southern Spain. It is the capital of the autonomous community of Andalusia and of the province of Seville. It is situated on the plain of the River Guadalquivir, with an average elevation of above sea level...

, Jerez de la Frontera

Jerez de la Frontera

Jerez de la Frontera is a municipality in the province of Cádiz in the autonomous community of Andalusia, in southwestern Spain, situated midway between the sea and the mountains. , the city, the largest in the province, had 208,896 inhabitants; it is the fifth largest in Andalusia...

 and Granada

Granada

Granada is a city and the capital of the province of Granada, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Granada is located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, at the confluence of three rivers, the Beiro, the Darro and the Genil. It sits at an elevation of 738 metres above sea...

. The office or post itself was referred to as a veintiquatría. It was largely equivalent to the role of an Alderman

Alderman

An alderman is a member of a municipal assembly or council in many jurisdictions founded upon English law. The term may be titular, denoting a high-ranking member of a borough or county council, a council member chosen by the elected members themselves rather than by popular vote, or a council...

, or Councilor, in English local government. It was an office reserved exclusively to those of noble birth- (Hidalgos

Hidalgo (Spanish nobility)

A hidalgo or fidalgo is a member of the Spanish and Portuguese nobility. In popular usage it has come to mean the non-titled nobility. Hidalgos were exempt from paying taxes, but did not necessarily own real property...

, of which there were many in Spain) , though, like many official postions, the post could be bought and sold among Hidalgos. Many of the Conquistador

Conquistador

Conquistadors were Spanish soldiers, explorers, and adventurers who brought much of the Americas under the control of Spain in the 15th to 16th centuries, following Europe's discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus in 1492...

s, and the merchants who established the Spanish Empire

Spanish Empire

The Spanish Empire comprised territories and colonies administered directly by Spain in Europe, in America, Africa, Asia and Oceania. It originated during the Age of Exploration and was therefore one of the first global empires. At the time of Habsburgs, Spain reached the peak of its world power....

 in America, (for example, the immensely rich Diego Caballero

Diego Caballero

Diego Caballero was a Spanish merchant and minor Conquistador in the Caribbean area and in the islands off the coast of Venezuela. He organised raids on natives, whom he then used as slaves in pearl fishing and other enterprises. He amassed enormous wealth in America, which he invested in further...

, were Caballeros Veintiquatro, or bought the post to display the new position in Spanish society the wealth gained in the Americas had allowed them to achieve.

The Veintiquatro name apparently derived from the original number (24) of members of a town council, but this varied with time and from town to town. They had immense privileges their duties were many and various, from deciding and collecting local taxes, to regulating and inspecting markets and shipping and including the relief of poverty and inspecting prisons.

Sources

• Real Academía Española Diccionario de la Lengua Española, 4th Definition of the meaning of Veinticuatro. http://buscon.rae.es/draeI/SrvltGUIBusUsual?LEMA=veinticuatro
• Veintiquatros of Seville http://personal.us.es/alporu/histsevilla/gobierno_aytmto.htm
• Marichalar, Amalio, et al Historia de la legislación y recitaciones del derecho civil de España Madrid 1862 http://books.google.es/books?id=DT00AAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false page 332