The Historical Sociology of Bullfighting

This chapter presents the theoretical and empirical foundations of the research. The first part refers to Norbert Elias’ theory of the civilising process, from which bullfighting is understood as an activity subject to progressive control of violence dependent on the social transformations taking place in the context in which it is inserted. The empirical foundations are centred on the materials and sources that support this theoretical reading, i.e., bullfighting treatises, chronicles, laws, news or reports from foreign visitors, whose elements provide concrete content to the theory.