This article analyses the literature on Hermandades Sindicales de Labradores y Ganaderos. This topic has been ignored in most studies on the Spanish agrarian sector during the Franco's dictatorship, but nowadays it is arousing widespread interest. The paper is organised in three sections. The first analyses the contributions reported prior to 1975. Critical works written in the 1960s and 1980s are commented in the second section. The third section considers recent studies of local nature. The survey focuses on the explanations scholars have given about the origins of these inter-classist institutions and their effects on the rural world. Hermandades have been considered an instrument of great landowners and of support to Franco's regime. Some studies, without disagreeing with these considerations, conclude that Hermandades also favoured small farmers and rural workers' interests
