Talk:Modern Age
Spain on maps. A geographic synopsis
Compendium of the National Atlas of Spain. Update
Thematic structure > History > Historical overview > Modern Age
The Modern Age began on the Iberian Peninsula during the joint reign of Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon (1469-1504/1516) and ended with the Spanish War of Independence (1808-1814). There were two dynasties that ruled throughout that period, the Habsburgs dynasty (1517-1700) and the Bourbons one; the latter since the childless death of Charles II.
During the 15th century, the dynastic link between Castile and Aragon was very strong as well as that between Castile and Portugal. The Aragonese Trastámaras all married Castilian queens, while the Castilians almost all married Portuguese queens. The result was a civil war that Isabella, daughter of Juan II of Castile, supported by Aragon, won against Juana la Beltraneja, daughter of Enrique IV, (Isabella’s stepbrother), supported by Portugal.
The Canary Islands were incorporated into the Castilian-Aragonese dynastic union, through a colonising occupation. Also were incorporated the Kingdom of Granada, in what many have called “the last medieval war”, and the Kingdom of Navarra, which was occupied by a Castilian army with the support of the noble side of the beamonteses.
The Catholic Monarchs developed a policy of marriage agreements with Portugal, England and the House of Burgundy-Habsburg. Their goal was to encircle an old enemy, France and their dream was to complete the peninsular union, which failed due to successive deaths. The result was the enthronement of the Habsburg dynasty, whose first king was their grandson, Charles I of Spain (1516), who also became Holy Roman Emperor Charles V four years later.
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Dynastic union of Aragon and Castile
1137-1410 1412 1412-1516 The Berenguer Dynasty in Aragon
Last king Martin I, died childless
The Compromise of Caspe
Don Fernando "el de Antequera", regent of Castile, grandson of Pedro IV of Aragon and nephew of Martín I was elected king by the assembly of three commissioners per territory (Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia)
The Trastámara dynasty in Aragon
Ferdinand I (1412-1416). Born in Medina del Campo Ꝏ Eleanor, Countess of Alburquerque.
Alfonso V (1416-1458). Born in Medina del Campo Ꝏ María, daughter of Enrique III of Castile, appointed Lieutenant General of Aragon due to the frequent absences of the king who established a court in Naples.
Juan II (1458-1479). Born in Medina del Campo Ꝏ Juana Enríquez, daughter of the Admiral of Castile don Fadrique Enríquez, defender of Isabella against Juana «La Beltraneja».
Ferdinand II (1479-1516). Born in Sos Ꝏ Isabella I, queen of Castile
Co-authorship of the text in Spanish: María Sánchez Agustí, José Antonio Álvarez Castrillón, Mercedes de la Calle Carracedo, Daniel Galván Desvaux, Joaquín García Andrés, Isidoro González Gallego, Montserrat León Guerrero, Esther López Torres, Carlos Lozano Ruiz, Ignacio Martín Jiménez, Rosendo Martínez Rodríguez, Rafael de Miguel González.. See the list of members engaged
The distribution of territories: Tordesillas and Saragossa
Columbus returned from his voyage in March 1493 and first reported on his success to Juan II of Portugal. When he arrived in Barcelona in April, where the court was at that time, an ambassador defending Portuguese rights had preceded him.
However, the Catholic Monarchs had already acted before Pope Alexander VI to obtain bulls to support them, as the Portuguese used to do regarding Africa. They had already heard about the discovery because in February Martín Alonso Pinzón wrote to them urgently from Bayona, where he had arrived before Columbus did in Lisbon (Lisboa).
The admiral proposed to draw a line in the direction of the meridian and so it was determined in the bulls, not in the Inter Caetera on May 3, but in the Inter Caetera II on May 4. Although the line, which the Spanish aspired to draw over the Azores and Cape Verde, was moved 100 leagues to the west to facilitate the Portuguese return from the fortress of São Jorge da Mina, in Africa.
In the Treaty of Tordesillas (June 1494) the definitive layout would be 370 leagues to the west of the Barcelona proposal. The Catholic Monarchs waited impatiently until June for the geographical report entrusted to Columbus on his second voyage. Antonio Torres brought this information on a boat and delivered it at Medina del Campo in April. Thus, they learned that the city of La Isabela was 750 leagues from the Canary Islands. They then decided on the distribution of the limits of influence across the Atlantic in such a way as to satisfy Portugal (which wanted the line further to the west, 370 leagues from the Azores and Cape Verde), saving their future territory with another 380 leagues, from the line to the island of Hispaniola. Nobody had expected there was a continent that extended to the east, in Brazil.
The antemeridian would be decided after the clash between the Portuguese and the Spanish on the other side of the world. The Portuguese had built the fort of Ternate (1509) and the Spanish the fort of Tidore in the Moluccas. After a meeting of cosmographers in Badajoz-Elvas (1524), an essential agreement was reached in Saragossa for the Spanish, who by then knew how to get to Asia from America through the Pacific, but not how to return. They did not discover it until 1565, when Urdaneta managed to attain his way back, sailing north towards Acapulco.
Co-authorship of the text in Spanish: María Sánchez Agustí, José Antonio Álvarez Castrillón, Mercedes de la Calle Carracedo, Daniel Galván Desvaux, Joaquín García Andrés, Isidoro González Gallego, Montserrat León Guerrero, Esther López Torres, Carlos Lozano Ruiz, Ignacio Martín Jiménez, Rosendo Martínez Rodríguez, Rafael de Miguel González.. See the list of members engaged
The unexpected America
The second trip to the Indies had a colonising purpose. They were up to 21 ships and 2,500 pioneers: soldiers, friars, merchants, artisans, supplies, farm animals, etc. Juan de la Cosa, Ponce de León, Father Las Casas were all travelling when Columbus was sailing on his third voyage and widespread explorations of the islands and the coasts were already taking place. Balboa confirms that there is another ocean to the west. It is a new continent, with unknown flora and fauna, unimaginable cultures and fabulous empires, whose mythology predicted the arrival of mysterious gods from the sea.
America, once linked to Spain, becomes part of the European culture
America was the discovery of an unexpected and prodigious reality, which Spain had to tackle. The original peoples of the new continent also had to face the discovery of a “western culture” (oriental for them) in its Hispanic interpretation. For them it was, equally, an unthinkable and prodigious scenario. Both existences accepted their common challenge with the mindset and the instruments that were available at that time.
The peninsular Spaniards had a very weak demographic presence and they easily settled on the poor Caribbean islands. They found highly developed social structures on the continent where they sought to accommodate. Most of those diverse native peoples admitted the colonisers’ directions, in which they saw immediate advantages. Thus, ten years after Cortés entered Tenochtitlan, the Virgin (of Guadalupe) already appeared to the Chichimeca Indian Cuauhtlataotzin. Fifteen years later, the first printing press was created, and immediately the written grammar of the various native languages was drafted.
Columbus was clearly set to take sides: in the confrontation between two Taino chiefs, Guacanari and Caonabo, he took the side of the former, whose two sons embarked for Spain in 1495. Moreover, they did so on the first ship built in an American shipyard, the Santa Cruz (la India). In the case of the Aztec empire, Hernán Cortés did act as a conqueror and also as a leader of the uprising peoples subjected by the imperial despotism of the Mexica. The army that conquered Tenochtitlan in 1521 was made up of some 900 Spaniards and tens of thousands of avenging warriors, particularly Tlascaltecas. The Tlascaltecas (following the model of the señoríos vascos) were recognised as hidalgos who were titled don before their Hispanicized names. They participated in the expansionism of Cortés and played an active role, together with Legazpi (founder of Manila in 1571) in the conquest of the Philippines. Two children of Moctezuma (Isabella and Peter) started noble dynasties on the Peninsula, which have survived to the present day. Regarding the Inca empire, Pizarro and the Spaniards acted similarly: they were at the same time conquerors and supporters of the legitimate emperor, Huascar, in the civil war in which his bastard brother, Atahualpa (who ended up assassinating him), tried to snatch the throne from him. Cuzco (1533) soon became a great Hispanic capital, with the legitimist Inca nobility incorporated into the Spanish culture.
In America, a dominant class of few peninsulars and many Creoles, the children of a mighty mixture of blood, committed many abuses. Nonetheless, in Spain, intellectuals, theologians and jurists understood America as an extension of the Peninsula; in the Controversias de Valladolid (1550 and 1551), it was debated whether there were fair titles for the new peoples which the different Laws of the Indies intented to legislate in their favour. The Crown, which enslaved 10,000 Muslims after the capture of Malaga (1487), rejected this practice for its subjects in America, which led to the African slave trade.
Thus, arose a formidable cultural and political space. It encompassed on the one hand, sons and grandsons of the Incas or Mexica, who became, for example, chroniclers of the Indies as well as others who reached high literary accomplishments, such as the Mexican Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz in the 17th century. There were also leaders of the great anti-Spanish rebellion (1780), such as the Hispanic-Inca hero Tupac Amaru II, José Gabriel Condorcanqui Noguera. The New Continent started developing, magnificent constructions began in 1541, with the Cathedral of Santo Domingo; in 1560, the one in Cuzco and in 1571, the Metropolitan Cathedral of Mexico; splendid palaces, great fortifications, ports and highways. Among the oldest universities in the world are several of the forty founded there (the first in 1538 in Santo Domingo), while there were only thirty on the Peninsula. Today we know that despite the large amounts of silver and gold that the Spanish extracted from America, much more was invested in over three centuries that gave rise to nineteen nations with powerful Hispanic cultural roots (1810-1824), which also proudly value their native peoples.
Co-authorship of the text in Spanish: María Sánchez Agustí, José Antonio Álvarez Castrillón, Mercedes de la Calle Carracedo, Daniel Galván Desvaux, Joaquín García Andrés, Isidoro González Gallego, Montserrat León Guerrero, Esther López Torres, Carlos Lozano Ruiz, Ignacio Martín Jiménez, Rosendo Martínez Rodríguez, Rafael de Miguel González.. See the list of members engaged
From the route of the Moluccas to the circumnavigation of the globe
Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese explorer familiar with Southeast Asia, who fell into disgrace (1514) at the Lisbon court, went to Seville and proposed to an assenting Charles I, to start a spice route to the west, in the opossite direction to the carreira da India of the Portuguese, through Africa and the Indian Ocean. He undertook to find the passage to the Southern Sea of Balboa, reach the Moluccas and return the same way, always within the Spanish hemisphere of the Teatry of Tordesillas. In 1519, he set sail with 5 ships and 239 crew members, including Juan Sebastián Elcano and the Italian chronicler Antonio Pigafetta, author of the Diary that chronicled the expedition. Magellan discovered the strait that bears his name, crossed the ocean, to which he gave a new name, and arrived as far north as Cebu, where he died in a skirmish with the natives.
Elcano then took command, went down to the Moluccas and filled the Victoria, the only ship available at the time, with rich spices. He had the brilliant intuition of not going back by the same route (the currents capsized all the ships sailing to the east) and risking going back through the Indian Ocean and Africa, facing up to the Portuguese attacks, as indeed happened. In 1522, three years later, he arrived in Seville. With him were only 18 ragged and sick but immensely rich men, who had made the first circumnavigation of the world.
It was not until 1565 (Urdaneta’s return) that the Kuroshio Current was found, a return route, far to the north up to Acapulco. During the 16th and 17th centuries, the Spanish travelled along the coast from Patagonia to Alaska, discovered the lands of the Pacific (Juan Fernández, Rapa Nui, Marianas, Caroline islands, Torres Strait), traded with China and Japan, occupied the Philippines and earned for the Pacific the name of the “Spanish lake”.
Co-authorship of the text in Spanish: María Sánchez Agustí, José Antonio Álvarez Castrillón, Mercedes de la Calle Carracedo, Daniel Galván Desvaux, Joaquín García Andrés, Isidoro González Gallego, Montserrat León Guerrero, Esther López Torres, Carlos Lozano Ruiz, Ignacio Martín Jiménez, Rosendo Martínez Rodríguez, Rafael de Miguel González.. See the list of members engaged
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The Habsburgs Charles of Habsburg (1516-1556), son of Juana I of Castile and Philip the Handsome, incorporated the peninsular kingdoms and their possessions into his dynasty. He replaces the traditional political line of the Trastámara (Peninsular union and defence of the common interests) by a decisive link with the family interests of the Habsburgs, in their heterogeneous and conflictive Central European domains. In this enterprise were wasted the enormous resources of the Spanish Crown which during the 16th century and much of the 17th, was the first territorial and economic power in the world. The Habsburgs of the 16th century were Charles I and Philip II (1556-98), who in 1580 joined his Crown to Portugal; and those of the 17th were Philip III (1598-1621), Philip IV (1621-1665) and Charles II (1665-1700) who in full imperial decline and having died childless, left the crown to the French Bourbons. |
Spain before Imperial Europe
Charles I of Spain and Holy Roman emperor Charles V, a remote foreigner who knew nothing about Spain, arrived in 1517 surrounded by Flemish lords, with whom he replaced the peninsular nobility in government. This inheritance was, for him, a simple addition to the glory of the Habsburgs. The disappointment of his subjects increased with his claim to the Imperial Crown, after the death of his grandfather Maximilian, and his demand that the cost (donations to the German prince-electors) should come from the Cortes de Castilla convened in 1519 while he was marching to Germany. He was crown Emperor in 1520, but caused an uprising in the cities of Castile (the Comunidades) and trade union revolts in Valencia and Majorca (the Germanías). The nobility condescended to them, until they saw their anti-lordly character (anti-Moorish in Valencia). The comuneros Padilla, Bravo and Maldonado were executed in Villalar (1521) and the Germanías (Llorens in Valencia) suffocated in 1522. From then on, the aristocracy and the people of the Spanish kingdoms became hopelessly enthusiastic about the labyrinth of European imperial politics.
In Spain, the elitist movement critical of clerical corruption could have given rise to Protestantism, inspired in the ideas of Erasmus of Rotterdam. However, the Emperor, who soon learned Spanish and ended his life in retirement at the Jerónimos de Yuste Monastery, considered himself an advocate of the ideal of Universitas Christiana, supported by his peninsular kingdoms, which provided so much economic return from America. Thus, he confronted the reformism of Luther and the German princes who defended him, promoted the Council of Trent with a large presence of Hispanic theologians, and supported the Society of Jesus in the Counter-Reformation. He forbade studying at foreign universities (except for Bologna), Erasmism was isolated, Protestantism was persecuted. The Spanish version of the feeling of direct union with God –mysticism– was always frowned upon by the Inquisition. Along with that came movements of an exaggerated spiritualism, such as that of the recogidos and of the iluminados.
In order to isolate France, the Catholic Monarchs arranged the marriage of their children, Juan and Juana, with two Habsburgs. Although there was an economic interest as well. Spanish merino wool, the main raw material for export had competed advantageously with English wool since the 14th century with which it disputed the markets of Flanders and the Netherlands, a flourishing domain of the Habsburgs, inherited from the House of Burgundy. The great European textile centres were there: cloths, lace, tapestries, rugs and bedspreads. The fine linens were known throughout Europe as “cloth from Holland”. Nevertheless, while Flanders, in the south of the Netherlands, remained faithful to Spanish wool, the Dutch soon preferred English wool and linen or cotton, imported from overseas.
The herds were owned by the nobility, powerfully organised in the association called the Mesta (1273-1836). The cattle migrated in winter, grazed on rented meadows in La Mancha and Extremadura, and returned in spring. They moved along their own paths, protected by cane (cañas) fences, or by ropes (cuerdas) between stakes, named cañadas (75 m wide), cordeles (38 m) and veredas (21 m), with periodic resting places (descansaderos). The ranchers paid the servicio y montazgo as they passed through the “royal ports” that marked the entire Sistema Central: a great fiscal source for the Crown. The fair of Medina del Campo was the financial centre, and export was organised from the Consulate of Burgos. The Mesta, distributed territorially in four districts (cuadrillas), was grouped into route networks: Leonese, Segovian, Sorian and from Cuenca, with a meticulous judicial and economic regulation that still keeps a strong presence today.
Co-authorship of the text in Spanish: María Sánchez Agustí, José Antonio Álvarez Castrillón, Mercedes de la Calle Carracedo, Daniel Galván Desvaux, Joaquín García Andrés, Isidoro González Gallego, Montserrat León Guerrero, Esther López Torres, Carlos Lozano Ruiz, Ignacio Martín Jiménez, Rosendo Martínez Rodríguez, Rafael de Miguel González.. See the list of members engaged
The huge heritage of Philip II
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With Philip II, Spanish hegemony oscillated between war successes –San Quintín (1557) or Lepanto battles (1571)– and failures, such as that of the Spanish Armada (Armada Invencible, 1588), or the resistance to accept his rule in the Netherlands (the “United Provinces” of the north). On the Peninsula, his unitary political conception pushed him to dictate intergrative provisions in clothing, customs and religion for the Moriscos (many lived in Granada and even in Aragon and Valencia). This caused a great uprising, the rebellion of the Alpujarras that, once defeated, led to the dispersion of the Moriscos of Granada. Ten years later, the mythical King Sebastian of Portugal died childless in the battle of Alcazarquivir. Philip II, supported by powerful Lusitanian nobles, was recognised King of Portugal as Philip I. He lived in Lisbon for two years, where he organised a court and planned to make the River Tagus navigable to Toledo. After another ten years (in a secret episode of betrayal, envy and love, with the involvement of the princess of Éboli and the king himself), Antonio Pérez, the royal secretary, orders the assassination of Juan de Escobedo, secretary of Don Juan de Austria. Antonio Pérez fled and took refuge under the protection of a foral institution: the Justicia Mayor de Aragón. It was in 1591, when Don Pedro Lanuza, supported by the people of Saragossa, refused to hand him over to the King’s Justice. However, a royal army took Saragossa, Don Pedro was executed and strong cuts of the Aragonese fueros (privileges) were dictated, which increased the unitary policy.
The brilliant Spanish hegemony was kept on credit. Philip II had to declare bankruptcy three times, despite the high tax pressure in Castile and the constant incomes of precious metals from America and from Spain itself, because the middle years of the 16th century are known as the prodigious decade of Spanish mining. The Crown owned all of the mines, and between 1550 and 1570, the silver production of the Guadalcanal mine (Seville) surpassed the one of Potosí. There was a formidable development of mining engineering, administration and techniques in Spain and America, and in 1624, the Board of Mines (Junta de minas) was created. No amount seemed to suffice; the Genoese (Centurione or Spínola) and German (Fugger or Welser) banks lent money guaranteed by the mines, then by the taxes on wool and, always, by the gold and silver of America. Their agents were controlling income in Seville and Cádiz (trade with America), at the Medina fairs (wool trade), in the Cantabrian export ports and at the consulates of Seville and Bilbao. They were contracted on behalf of the Spanish and were also in charge of the thousands of payments (soldiers, imports, maintenance of the Spanish road from Milan to Flanders, etc.). The very high imports always kept a deficit balance of trade, but there were many Spanish industries as well, such as the cloth one in Segovia, the Basque ironworks, cutlery in Albacete, and the Toledo swords. Mining declined in the 17th century, although in the 18th century there was an evident recovery, due to copper from Riotinto and mercury from Almadén.
During the 16th and 17th centuries, the Spanish Administration was of utmost efficiency, accounting precision, information speed, and support for specifically Spanish sciences, such as the nautical or botanical sciences. Justice had two supreme courts (the chancillerías), royal territorial audiences, and corregimientos in each city (the corregidor was the highest municipal and judicial authority) with very important institutions such as the veedores (overseers for inspection visits) and the juicios de residencia (very important in the Indies), to which all authorities, including viceroys, had to submit after leaving office. However, some ancient figures survived, such as the adelantamientos (a military title for “a forward man”), used for a long time in the Indies, not to mention that various sectors had their own jurisdictions (universities, army, professional associations, etc.).
Co-authorship of the text in Spanish: María Sánchez Agustí, José Antonio Álvarez Castrillón, Mercedes de la Calle Carracedo, Daniel Galván Desvaux, Joaquín García Andrés, Isidoro González Gallego, Montserrat León Guerrero, Esther López Torres, Carlos Lozano Ruiz, Ignacio Martín Jiménez, Rosendo Martínez Rodríguez, Rafael de Miguel González.. See the list of members engaged
The Pax Hispanica
Philip III, a lover of art, literature and, particularly, hunting left the government in the hands of Royal favourites (validos): the Duque de Lerma and then his son, the Duque de Uceda, as Louis XIII would do in France with Cardinal Richelieu. Shortly before his death, his father, Philip II, had sealed the peace of Vervins with France, which he would consolidate by marrying his daughter Anne of Austria to the French king. He signed the peace with England in 1604 and suspended the war in the Netherlands (Twelve Years’ Truce) in 1609. Thus, the Pax Hispanica reigned throughout Europe. The fight only continued against the Turks, who harassed the Habsburg territories on the Danube and the Spanish coasts through the North African pirates. This was the excuse for the expulsion of the Moriscos in 1609. About three hundred thousand would leave, especially from the ancient kingdoms of Murcia and Valencia, with great damage to the production of orchards and rice fields, which would not be overcome even with the introduction of new crops.
A subsistence agriculture employed more than 90% of the population, with the three traditional crops for the winery, the oil mill and the mill, that is, wine, oil and wheat. However, there were still innovations, such as the substitution of oxen for mules, corn brought from America or industrial crops: esparto grass and hemp (sails and ropes), linen and mulberry (textiles); for dyes, indigo and madder (red dyes and pharmacy) as well as the barrilla for glass, soaps and pharmacy. Nonetheless, everything was declining due to the dreadful tax pressure on industrial production, which prevented profits and technical innovation. In 1679, with Colbert-like criteria for state intervention, the General Board of Commerce (Junta General de Comercio) was created, which attracted some foreign capital for the manufacture of glass, ceramics, soap and, above all, paper, which the expansive administration consumed without limit. Shipyards were promoted in America, such as the one in Havana, where the largest ship in the world, the Trinidad, was built in the 18th century with four decks, 140 cannons and a capacity for 1,140 sailors. Notwithstanding, the exhausted Spain demanded much more: economic weakness, wars, emigration to America (600,000 people?) and three appalling epidemics led to a decrease in the population, especially in the centre of the Peninsula.
It is true that, in the 18th century, the Bourbons managed to maintain the façade of the Spanish political edifice. Albeit, as a significant symbol, the Trinidad was sunk by the English in the Trafalgar battle at the beginning of the 19th century (1805).
Co-authorship of the text in Spanish: María Sánchez Agustí, José Antonio Álvarez Castrillón, Mercedes de la Calle Carracedo, Daniel Galván Desvaux, Joaquín García Andrés, Isidoro González Gallego, Montserrat León Guerrero, Esther López Torres, Carlos Lozano Ruiz, Ignacio Martín Jiménez, Rosendo Martínez Rodríguez, Rafael de Miguel González.. See the list of members engaged
The failure of the Habsburg project
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With Philip IV, el Rey Sol Spanish power was expected to increase. In the Thirty Years’ War, which began in Germany (1618) between Catholic and Protestant princes, Spanish-Austrian victories followed one another. Denmark, Norway and Sweden were unable to offset the balance until, in 1635, faced with the enormous power of the Habsburgs, France entered the war, supported by the United Provinces (Holland), England and Scotland. The triumphs gave way to defeats (the resounding disaster at Rocroi in 1643 was one of them). Spain is forced to sign the Peace of Westphalia (1648) and the Peace of the Pyrenees (1659) which meant its loss of territories, the recognition of the independence of Holland and the replacement of Spain in the European hegemony by a new great power: France.
From 1621, the Conde-Duque de Olivares was the Royal favourite, who failed in his attempt to involve all the kingdoms of the Crown in fiscal and military policies (Unión de Armas, a military and administrative unification project), because the public finances of the kingdom of Castile had more expenses than incomes and it was impossible to obtain more money from it. American mines were exhausted. Military defeats were profuse. Portugal saw its possessions attacked because of the Spanish wars. Moreover, international credit was fleeing, as Spain could not repay the loans. This terrible situation gave rise to The 1640 Crisis, with plots and rebellions in most of the kingdoms. In Catalonia, the abuses of the quartered troops was the excuse for some reapers (segadors), in the Corpus procession (the Corpus of Blood) to assassinate the viceroy. The Canon Pau Claris proclaimed the Catalan republic and offered the throne to Louis XIII, whose troops occupied Catalonia committing even more excesses. Barcelona was conquered by the king in 1652 but France stayed in the Catalan north Pyrenees. In Portugal, on December 1 (still a national holiday), the Duque de Bragança João IV, was proclaimed king after assassinating the Secretary of State Vasconcelos and arresting the vicereine. Portugal won resounding victories against all the Spanish armies and finally saw its independence recognised in 1668.
In 1700, Charles II died, a physically and mentally handicapped king who had bequeathed the Crown to a grandson of Louis XIV of France. All of Europe rises up against a hegemony, this time of the Bourbons, who would reign in France and Spain. Once again, foralistas and autonomist criteria were confronted, defended by Charles of Austria, pretender to the throne, against the centralists of the enlightened despotism, typical of the Bourbons. Most of the Crown of Aragon was in favour of the Habsburgs in a European Succession War that ended when Don Carlos inherited the imperial crown following the treaties of Utrecht and Rastatt (1713-1715), rigged by Louis XIV without consulting the Spaniards. Europe accepted the Bourbons in Spain in exchange for cutting down the Spanish European power, which resulted in the loss of Flanders, Luxembourg, Milan, Naples, Sardinia, Sicily, Gibraltar and Minorca, and in the commercial concessions to Great Britain in America. The new king, Philip V, issued the unifying Decretos de Nueva Planta (new administrative and tax organization). Among other provisions, the Cortes de Castilla incorporated cities from the Cortes de Aragón.
Co-authorship of the text in Spanish: María Sánchez Agustí, José Antonio Álvarez Castrillón, Mercedes de la Calle Carracedo, Daniel Galván Desvaux, Joaquín García Andrés, Isidoro González Gallego, Montserrat León Guerrero, Esther López Torres, Carlos Lozano Ruiz, Ignacio Martín Jiménez, Rosendo Martínez Rodríguez, Rafael de Miguel González.. See the list of members engaged
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The Bourbon monarchy In 1700, it seemed that the imposing power of the Habsburgs would be replaced by the Bourbons. That is why the War of Spanish Succession broke out throughout Europe. In 1714, with the Treaty of Utrecht, Europe ended up accepting the French King, but Spain lost all its territories on the continent, Minorca and Gibraltar. Thus, Spain had to give up the monopoly of its trade with America, a secular ambition of Great Britain. |
Bourbon Reformism
The European reformist spirit of the 18th century arrived with Philip V. As a result, for example, the Habsburgs’ hunting palaces were converted into Royal Sites and beautiful Versailles-like palaces with attractive gardens and fountains, were periodically visited by the court with all their paraphernalia.
Many royal factories opened and technical advances were fostered following the model of Colbert, the minister of Louis XIV. They catered to strategic productions (weapons’ factories), luxury creations for the court in the Royal Sites (porcelain, tapestries, crystals...), consumer goods (table linens, cloths...) and even leisure (playing cards). The Colbertist leadership led to the establishment of the so-called “estanco” products, which were sold by concession of the State: tobacco, stamps, stamped paper. Peasants and artisans repopulated barren lands, occupying new areas as an “enlightened urbanism”. Minister Pablo de Olavide stood out, repopulating areas of Andalusia and Sierra Morena during the reign of Charles III (1767).
The stability of the first years of Charles III was interrupted as from 1763-1765. One of the endemic cereal crises produced a shortage of bread. There were riots, and a public security order on the use of wide-brimmed hats and long capes, which unleashed the anger of the people of Madrid against the Minister Marqués de Esquilache, who Charles III had brought from Naples. Esquilache was banished and the king was forced to decree a price reduction. The Society of Jesus was blamed for these and other riots, and was expelled from Spain in 1767, as had previously happened in France and Portugal. The Jesuits were persecuted for their opposition to statist regalismo (policy developed during the Enlightenment, consisting of reclaiming faculties, powers, or prerogatives for the monarch, recognized by the nobility and the clergy).
In 1761, the Road Instruction was published to connect the court with the outskirts. The General Superintendence of Roads was created and in 1802 was founded the School of Civil Engineers. The road network had about 25,000 km, which crossed rivers, mountains and the fierce opposition of the Mesta in defence of its livestock transhumance paths’ network (red cabañera). The dirt roads were just wide enough for two horses while the paved ones allowed for the passage of two carts at a time. Works on navigable canals began, some unfinished, such as the Canal de Castilla or the Canal Imperial de Aragón (1776-1784). The maritime ports were promoted with their work boards. A decisive step was the free trade decrees of 1765 and 1778, which opened the connection of 15 Spanish and 24 American ports.
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Co-authorship of the text in Spanish: María Sánchez Agustí, José Antonio Álvarez Castrillón, Mercedes de la Calle Carracedo, Daniel Galván Desvaux, Joaquín García Andrés, Isidoro González Gallego, Montserrat León Guerrero, Esther López Torres, Carlos Lozano Ruiz, Ignacio Martín Jiménez, Rosendo Martínez Rodríguez, Rafael de Miguel González.. See the list of members engaged
The administration of the territory in Spain and America
The Bourbons introduced a unitary and centralist State, which sought efficiency against the administrative dispersion of the Habsburgs. The Peninsula was divided into 32 provinces, following the French influence, especially in Castile (24 provinces); those of the crown of Aragon, Navarra and the Basque territories were kept as single provinces. In the Central Administration, they took the model of ministries, which they called secretarías de despacho. The Decretos de Nueva Planta eliminated the regional privileged status (foralidad) in the crown of Aragon, although not in Navarra or the Basque provinces, nor for the feudal rights of the bishop of Urgel over Andorra.
In the Territorial Administration, they created the disputed figure of the intendentes, similar as provincial governors, with control functions of supplies and fiscal intervention. They were suppressed in 1724, and restored by the Marqués de la Ensenada in 1749. Nonetheless, the chancillerías and audiencias, reflected on the map Administration of Ordinary Royal Justice in the 16th Century, were maintained.
The peninsular viceroys were replaced by captain generals, which was a more managerial than courtly position. From 1716, the captain general also acted as president of the audience for administrative and governmental matters; and the maritime departments reinforced the defensive system.
Following this model, in America the four great viceroyalties and a General Captaincy were maintained; the one of Chile was once called a kingdom. The Bío Bío River was agreed upon with the Mapuche population as a natural border. The mighty Viceroyalty of New Spain included New California, New Mexico, Texas, Florida, and all of the Caribbean.
Co-authorship of the text in Spanish: María Sánchez Agustí, José Antonio Álvarez Castrillón, Mercedes de la Calle Carracedo, Daniel Galván Desvaux, Joaquín García Andrés, Isidoro González Gallego, Montserrat León Guerrero, Esther López Torres, Carlos Lozano Ruiz, Ignacio Martín Jiménez, Rosendo Martínez Rodríguez, Rafael de Miguel González.. See the list of members engaged
The Enlightenment culture
The economic societies of friends of the country were very particular institutions. In 1765, the Real Sociedad Bascongada was the first to obtain royal approval. Then further development of these institutions continued, especially with Charles III. Campomanes encouraged their expansion in his Speech on the Promotion of Popular Industry (1774) and by the distribution of promotional circulars throughout Spain. A year later, in 1775, the Real Sociedad Económica Matritense was approved.
Each one presented its own profile but in all of them, there were noblemen, ecclesiastics, civil servants, soldiers, landowners, intellectuals, liberal professionals such as doctors and journalists, as well as some merchants and artisans. In any case, people with reformist tendencies. The main interest of the societies were education, the economy, charitable work (montes de piedad) and the teaching of trades. They also pursued a fair knowledge of their own territory.
In the university field, several reform projects failed such as those of Melchor de Macanaz, Mayans (Idea of the new teaching methods for Spanish Universities, 1767) or that of Pablo de Olavide. During the 18th century, historical universities coexisted with others of less relevance and newly created ones. Among the latter, it is worth mentioning the University of Cervera, founded in 1717 by Philip V to replace the rest of the universities in Catalonia, all of which were suppressed due to their support for the Habsburg pretender to the Spanish throne, against the Bourbons.
Conservatism predominated in the university cloisters and ideas of criticism or progress were non-existent. For example, to be a full professor at the University of Valladolid, it was necessary to swear the defence of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. Therefore, being impossible to use the universities as disseminators of the Enlightenment principles, the Bourbons promoted other centres for the teaching and promotion of scientific knowledge and culture. Thus, in addition, the French reality of those times was emulated. The royal academies arose, the academy of language, of history and all kinds of institutions in the various disciplines: medicine, mathematics, mining... Natural history cabinets, astronomical observatories and botanical gardens were created.
As for the Ecclesiastical territorial organisation, it was said that to the north of the Sistema Central all the bishoprics depended on Santiago de Compostela, except for Oviedo and León, which even in the 18th century continued to qualify as “exempt bishoprics”, (obispado exento) of Burgos or Toledo, despite this being the “Primate Headquarters” since its conquest. In the south, two archdioceses predominated, Granada and Seville, both also recognised since their conquest. The latter was extremely powerful, being the head of all American episcopates.
The cabildos were a very important centre of power in the cities. During the eighteenth century new bishoprics were achieved in Santander (1754), Ibiza (1782), Tudela (1783) and Minorca (1795). Calatayud, Játiva and Lorca, which also aspired to it, did not achieve their transformation from a collegiate church to an episcopal see. Many collegiate churches, however, managed to survive throughout the 18th century. The collegiate churches and their cabildos played a very notable role in many smaller towns being like second-rate cathedrals.
Co-authorship of the text in Spanish: María Sánchez Agustí, José Antonio Álvarez Castrillón, Mercedes de la Calle Carracedo, Daniel Galván Desvaux, Joaquín García Andrés, Isidoro González Gallego, Montserrat León Guerrero, Esther López Torres, Carlos Lozano Ruiz, Ignacio Martín Jiménez, Rosendo Martínez Rodríguez, Rafael de Miguel González.. See the list of members engaged
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You can download the complete publication Spain on maps. A geographic synopsis in Libros Digitales del ANE site.
