I. TIMELINE (XVIth-XVIIth centuries)
a) MODERN EUROPE
1498 April:
Portugal’s Vasco de Gama reaches India.
XVIth century
1500 April. Portugal’s Pedro Alvares Cabral discovers Brazil.
1502 On his third voyage, begun in 1501, Amerigo Vespucci (1454-1512) realizes that he has
discovered a new continent, which is named for him: America.
1513 Niccolo Machiavelli
(1469-1527) publishes The Prince. His
inspiration is the Spanish king Ferdinand the Catholic.
1521 April. Martin
Luther defends the Protestant Reformation before Charles V at the Diet of Worms.
1527 Sack
of Rome. Charles V’s troops, at war
with Pope Clement VII, pillage Rome.
1534 After
his marriage to Anne Boleyn (1533) Henry VIII of
England (1509-1547) severs the Church of England from Rome (Act of Supremacy).
1535 October. Jacques Cartier founds Quebec in Canada. The beginning of the French colonization of North America.
1545 The
Council of Trent begins (ending in 1563).
1553 Mary
Tudor is Queen of England (until 1558). Catholicism gains ground. She marries the future Philip II
of Spain on July 25, 1554.
1558 November
17. Mary Tudor dies in London. Elisabeth I rises to the throne (1558-1603).
1571 October 7.
The Battle of Lepanto.
1572 August 24. The St. Bartholomew’s Day
Massacre. Killing of Protestants in Paris.
1589 After converting to Catholicism (“Paris is worth a mass”) Henry IV
becomes the first king of the House of Bourbon (King of France,
until 1610).
1598 April
13. Henry IV signs the Edict of
Nantes. Protestantism is tolerated in France. The “Wars of
Religion” which had plagued France (1562 – 1598) come to an end.
XVIIth century
1603 March
24. Death of Elizabeth I of England.
1607 The English found their first settlement in North America: Jamestown (
John Smith and Pocahontas) in Virginia.
1610 Assassination
of Henry IV of France. Louis XIII (1610-1643) takes the throne. The regency of his mother, Marie
de Medici, lasts until 1614.
1618 Defenestration
of Prague. The Thirty Years War begins.
1620 November 11.
The Mayflower reaches the coast of North
American shores (Cape Cod, Massachusetts). On November 21 the occupants of the
boat sign the Mayflower Compact, a landmark document and harbinger of self-rule
in the American colonies.
1628 Richelieu takes La Rochelle. The Protestants are politically subdued by
the king of France. 1630,
November
10. Richelieu becomes Louis XIII’s
all-powerful chief minister.
1631 Grotius publishes his work De iure belli ac pacis.
1643
May 14.
Death of Louis XIII. Regency of
Anne of Austria and Mazarin (until 1661).
1648 October 24.
Treaties of Westphalia. The Thirty Years War ends. Spain recognizes
the independence of the United Provinces (Northern Netherlands). Triumph
of the “Europe of nations” against imperial universalism.
1649 January 30.
Execution of Charles I of England, the first time a monarch is publicly beheaded
in Europe. Oliver
Cromwell is the ruler of England until his death (1658).
August 26. La Fronde revolt begins against the Regent Anne of Austria
and Mazarin.
1650 February 11.
Death of French philosopher René Descartes.
1651 Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) publishes The
Leviathan.
1653 End of
The Fronde (begun in 1658) with the victory of Mazarin and Anne of
Austria.
1659 November
7. Signing of the Treaty of the Pyrenees between France and Spain. End
of Spanish hegemony. The “French Century” begins.
1660 May 30. The Stuarts regain
the throne in England, with Charles II (until 1685).
1661 March
9. Death of Mazarin. Start of the personal rule of Louis XIV (until 1715).
1673 February
17. Death of French playwright Molière.
1682 May:
Louis XIV moves to the Palace of Versailles.
1685 February
6. After the death of Charles II of
England, he is succeeded on the throne
by James II (1685-1688).
March 21. Birth of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750).
October 18. Louis XIV revokes the
Edict of Nantes.
1688 The Glorious Revolution in England.
1689 The English Parliament passes the Bill of Rights.
King William III (of Orange,1689-1702),
marries the daughter of James II, Mary II (1689-1694).
b) MODERN SPAIN
Spanish kings
1474-1504 Ferdinand and
Isabella (Catholic Kings)
1504-1517 Regencies
1517-1556 Charles I (as
emperor Charles V)
1556-1598 Philip II
1598-1621 Philip III
1621-1665 Philip IV
1665-1700 Charles II
Essential dates
XVth century
1478 Creation of the Spanish
Inquisition
1492
January 2 The Catholic kings enter in Granada.
End of the Reconquest.
March 31 Edict of expulsion of the Jews from
Spain.
October 12 Christopher Columbus discovers America.
1496 With the conquest of the island of Tenerife,
the occupation of the Canary islands initiated by the Crown of
Castile in 1477 comes to an end.
1497 Conquest
of Melilla by the Castilian knight Salvador de
Estopiñán.
XVIth
century
1512 Conquest of the Kingdom
of Navarre (part located south of the Pyrenees) by Ferdinand the Catholic.
1513 Vasco Núñez de Balboa
reaches the Pacific Ocean
(South Sea) after crossing the isthmus of present day Panama.
1519 Beginning of the conquest
of the Aztec empire (Mexico) by
Hernan Cortés.
1520-1521 War of the Communities (April 23, 1521: the comuneros are
defeated at Villalar).
1522 September 6: Juan
Sebastián Elcano completes the first circumnavigation of the world.
1533 Francisco Pizarro conquers
Cuzco the capital of the Inca empire.
He will found Lima in 1535.
1536 Pedro de Mendoza founds the “City of Our
Lady Saint Mary of the Fair Winds”. First settlement in actual “Buenos Aires”
(Argentina).
1540 The papacy authorizes the
founding of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), created by Ignacio de Loyola.
1542 Charles I promulgates the “New Laws.”
Inspired by Bartolomé de las Casas, they are an instrument to protect
indigenous peoples in the Americas from abuse by Spanish colonists.
1556 Charles V abdicates, leaving to his son
Philip II all his domains, except those of the Empire. He will continue to hold the imperial title
until his death.
1557 August 10. The Battle of St. Quentin.
Momentous Spanish victory on the Feast Day of St. Lawrence.
1559 April 2. The Treaty of
Cateau Cambressis. The beginning of Spanish hegemony.
July 10.
1561 July. Madrid becomes the
capital of the Spanish monarchy.
1565 Miguel López de Legazpi reaches the Philipines islands. Manila becomes
capital of the Spanish colony in 1571.
1566 July.
Revolt of the Sea Beggars in the Netherlands. The Calvinists attack Catholic Churches. 1567, August
28. The Duke of Alba reaches Brussels at the head of an army. 1568, June
5. Execution of the Counts of Egmont and
Horn. The anti-Spanish, rebellion in the
Netherlands spreads.
1571 October 7.
The Battle of Lepanto.
1581 15 April. The Portuguese Cortes recognize Philip II as King of Portugal. In exchange the monarch
agrees to respect the traditional jurisdiction and privileges of the Portuguese
kingdom. On July 27 Philip II arrives in Lisbon, remaining in the Portuguese
capital until 11 February, 1583.
1588 Failure of Spain’s invasion
of England (the Invincible Armada).
1592 The Cortes of
Tarazona. Philip II puts an end to the Aragonian
revolt, suppressing the lifelong appointment of the Chief Justice of
Aragon.
XVIIth
century
1605 Publication of the first
part of Don Quixote by Miguel de
Cervantes.
1609 April 9. Decree expelling the moriscos (Moors)
from the Iberian Peninsula. The effective expulsion would remain in effect
until 1614.
1616 April 23. Miguel de Cervantes dies in
Madrid. On the same day
William Shakespeare dies in Stratford upon Avon (England) (May 3 on the Gregorian calendar).
1626 Philip IV (1621-1665)
proclaims the “Union of Arms”, a plan advanced by the Count Duke of Olivares to create a common army
composed of troops hailing from all across Spain’s territories in the service
of the Spanish Monarchy.
1640 Catalonian and Portuguese
revolts against Philip IV.
1656 Velázquez
(1599-1660) paints “Las Meninas”.
1659 November 7.
Signing of the Treaty of the Pyrenees
between France and Spain. End of Spanish
hegemony. The “French Century” begins.
1665 Philip IV of Spain dies, succeeded by Charles
II (1665-1700). The regency begins,
lasting until 1676.
1700 November 1. Death of Charles II.
November 12. Acceptance by Louis XIV of Spanish Crown for
his grandson Philip of Anjou that becomes Philip V of Spain.
II. SOME WORDS
Mayflower
The
Leviathan
Peace
of Westphalia
Treaty
of the Pyrenees
Glorious
revolution
Bill
of Rights
Spanish
Inquisition
War
of the Communities
Jesuits
Rule
of Law
King/monarch
Legist
Territorial
monarchy
State
assemblies
Cortes
Magna Carta
Absolutist
(legibus solutus)
Roi justicier
Fürstenstaat
Pragmáticas
Infante
“Grandes”
Hermandad
Señoríos
Audiencia
Corregidores
Malos
usos
III. SOME QUESTIONS
1. From feudal kings to territorial monarchs:
Spain, France and England.
2. The political limits to the Royal
prerogative in the late medieval monarchies: the Estates Assemblies and the
origins of the representative principle and the first constitutional texts.
3. A
king subject to the law or the medieval origins of the “Rule of law”
4.
The apogee of Royal Power: absolute monarchy. Differences with territorial
monarchies.
5.
Were Absolute monarchs autocrats?
6. The peculiar structure of the Spanish Catholic
Monarchy: between composite monarchy and absolute state.
III. TEXTS
1. From
kings to monarchs
Kings in the Late Middle Ages were
to recover much of the power they had lost in the early medieval period, both
externally, by gaining independence from emperors and popes, and internally,
where they gained ground against their great vassals, the feudal barons. By becoming the undisputed holders of power,
kings evolved into monarchs – a concept much more akin to the imperial Roman
conception of political rule. It is no coincidence that European lawyers
trained in the late medieval universities resorted to citing Roman law texts to
justify the kings’ political autonomy, in accord with the well-known
maxim: Rex est imperator in regno suo,
which sanctioned the independence of the new monarchs from the Holy Roman
Empire and from papal authority.
The political consolidation of the
monarchs of the Late Middle Ages (in contrast to the kings of the Early Middle
Ages) was possible, firstly, because royal status came to be hierarchically
situated, at least in theory, above all feudal bonds. The first to advance this principle was Abbot
Suger de Saint Denis (1081-1151), royal adviser to Louis VI and Louis VII and a
historian who described feudal society as a pyramid at whose apex stood the
king of France, above all other lords.
Somewhat later, also in France,
there appeared the legal term “sovereignty,” coined by “legists” of Louis IX
(1226-1270), better known as St. Louis. Inspired by the Roman concept of
imperium, these jurists contended that the King of France prevailed over all
lords because he was “sovereign.”
2. A territorial monarchy
The Late Medieval monarchs not only
managed to become “sovereigns,” staking their legitimacy upon the hereditary
principle, but also exerted their power over whole territories. This situation stood in sharp contrast to
what happened during the era of the Germanic kingdoms, during which kings
represented Germanic groups. The Visigothic and Frankish monarchs were, for
example, elected by their respective nations.
In the Late Middle Ages monarchies
came to be defined by the territories over which they ruled. The king’s power was exercised over entire
regions, a new reality reflected in the royal titles themselves: as of 1190 Philip II Augustus (1179-1223) was
referred to in official documents as “Rex Franciae” (King of France) instead of
“Rex Francorum” (King of the Franks) as his predecessors had been designated.
The emergence of territory-based
monarchies meant that kings had to possess the means to govern and manage all
the land under their rule. Unlike what
occurred with the kings in the feudal period, in the Late Middle Ages the
monarch had at his disposition a group of “officials” he was able to pay because he consistently
collected taxes. He also possessed a
permanent and professional army, which
had already appeared in France in the mid 15th century under Charles VII
(1422-1461) - a factor which proved
crucial to ensuring the French House of Valois’ triumph in the Hundred Years'
War.
3. Towards
the shared exercise of power: the rise of state assemblies
Feudalism radically altered relationships
of power as kings became bound to their vassals through a contractual
relationship, the feudal pact, which placed them on a plane of equality. The
most important consequence of this relationship was that, when exercising their
power, kings were obligated to seek the support of their subjects, or at least
those with the greatest social and political power: the nobles and urban
oligarchs.
Although, as we shall see below, the
“parliamentary system” in the strictest sense emerged in 18th century England,
it is clear that the principle according to which the sovereign was expected to
make decisions by reaching a consensus with the representatives of his kingdom
had already appeared by the Late Middle Ages. To this end assemblies of the
estates were constituted, so termed because in them the most important social
groups (the estates) convened – usually nobles, clergy and representatives of
the cities. The assemblies of the
estates received various names in the different European kingdoms. In the Iberian Peninsula they were called the Cortes; in England, Parliament; in France and the
Netherlands, Estates General; and in
Poland or the Empire, Diet.
The precedent for these assemblies
may be traced back to the “feudal court,” composed of the king’s most important
vassals – essentially nobles and bishops – who owed him consilium. The principle
that kings should consult with their subjects – or at least with the most
important (magnates) – regarding important political decisions became
institutionalized through the curia regis,
a kind of select assembly presided over by the king and made up of the great
landowning nobles and the highest-ranking ecclesiastical authorities. As such,
it represented an advisory body whose origins may be traced back to the ancient
Germanic aula regia. As part of this
forum the great nobles, barons and bishops convened in order to parler (from
the French, to speak) with the king – hence the term parliament, which in
England came to designate the assembly which discussed the most important
matters of state with the king.
Following the flourishing of cities
in the late medieval period, this restricted body was expanded with the
integration of representatives from the burgeoning urban bourgeoisie. The kings would seek to offset the nobility’s
considerable influence by simply admitting representatives from the cities into
the royal curia.
4. The
Spanish origins of the representative principle
This crucial initiative of admitting
city representatives into the royal curiae
was adopted for the first time in European history in Spain, specifically in
the Kingdom of León, in 1188 when King Alfonso IX summoned the representatives
of cities, along with nobles and bishops, convening the first cortes in Spanish history, so termed
because it brought together the three curiae, or cortes, representing the kingdom’s most important “estates” or
social classes. The example spread to
other European kingdoms thereafter. In
Spain over the course of the 13th century cortes
took hold in Castile and the eastern kingdoms of the Crown of Aragon, in
Catalonia, Aragon and Valencia.
In the Iberian Peninsula the
political importance of the cortes
varied. In Castile they only acquired a
certain relevance in the 14th century.
However, during the 15th century the cortes
suffered a clear decline leading to their virtual disappearance from politics
after the defeat at Villalar (1523), ending the rebellion of the Castilian
cities (War of the Communities) against Charles V. In contrast, in the kingdoms
of the eastern peninsula, integrated until the late Middle Ages into the Crown
of Aragon, the cortes boasted
undeniable political power, largely maintained after their integration into the
Spanish Monarchy, until their abolition by Phillip V at the beginning of the
18th century. Las Cortes de Navarra,
on the other hand, continued to exist until the 19th century.
5. Europe’s first
“constitutional” texts?
Although “constitutionalism” tends
to be a term used in relation to the era of the liberal state when, based on
the premises prevailing in the French Revolution (1789-1799), most European
nation-states accepted 19th century constitutional texts as their legal bases,
in reality the constitutional principle, understood as a legal text
circumscribing royal power, is a legal principle which appeared in the Late
Middle Ages. In fact, it emerged as a reaction to the substantial increase in
kings’ power and a way to protect subjects and their property from potentially
arbitrary actions by the crown.
These documents were solemnly pacted
between the monarch and his subjects, such as the decrees approved under the
initiative of Alfonso IX of León at the Cortes of 1188, which C. Sánchez
Albornoz called the “León Carta Magna” because in it the king promised the
representatives of his kingdom that he would not wage war, declare peace, or
make important decisions without the consent of the bishops, nobles and leading
men of the cities, whose advice was to inform the king’s conduct.
The best known of this class of
documents which we might call “protoconstitutional” was the Magna Carta Libertatum (Great Charter of
Freedoms ) or simply the “Magna Carta,” a document by which the English
nobility, backed by the City of London and the Church in 1215, imposed
themselves upon King John of England (John Lackland) for having suffered
serious defeats to Philip Augustus of France and to Pope Innocent III, which
resulted in major territorial losses. The importance of the Magna Carta lies
not so much in its specific content, but rather in the importance it had in the
constitutional history of England itself, in the United States of America, and
in the modern world in general as a symbol of the possibility of placing legal
limitations upon royal power.
6. The Modern Age and the triumph
of royal absolutism
For some the Middle Ages came to a
close upon the taking of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks on May 29, 1453.
For others it ended with the discovery of America on October 12, 1492. In any
case, the period that follows directly precedes our own times and has
traditionally been known as the Early Modern Period, spanning the 16th and 17th
centuries. During this stage the major
development in terms of the history of the state was the spectacular growth in
the power of kings, who consolidated a new model of political organization
termed absolute monarchy, whose paradigmatic summation came in the famous
phrase attributed to Louis XIV: “I am the state” (L´État c’est moi), conveying the complete identification of the
state with the figure of the king.
Kings during this era were no longer
considered subject to the traditional order created by God and, therefore, were
no longer bound by the limits of medieval, “pact-based” government. Hence the decline of the “assemblies of the
estates.” The key development was that
absolute kings were enabled to create laws.
Previously they had only been able to conserve them, confirm them and
above all, protect them by exercising their roles essentially as judges, a
function afforded them as representatives of God on Earth. During this era monarchs came to stand above
the law (legibus solutus) and were
able to actually devise it, which is precisely why they were regarded as
absolute monarchs. They had fully recovered the legislative function which had
been a prerogative of the Roman emperors.
In the Early Modern Period the old medieval roi justicier would become a roi
législateur.
7. The state of the prince
Although in some kingdoms royal
absolutism appeared early, such as in Castile, where the kings imposed their
supremacy as of the late 14th century, the era of classic absolutism (hoch
Absolutismus) would span the 16th and 17th centuries, although in some
countries, such as France, it would last until the second half of the 18th. The
era of absolute monarchy is also known in German historiography as the
Fürstenstaat, literally the “State of the Prince,” because all branches of the
state – executive, legislative and judicial – relied upon the monarch and
exercised their powers in his name.
In absolute monarchy the king
becomes the sole repository of power. As
such, all state functions are placed in his hands, not only judicial functions
(which he already held in medieval times) but also legislative ones. This marked an important development, as in
the Middle Ages the king could not alter the order established by God through
creation, but only maintain and protect it.
Ultimately the king established himself as governor and administrator
and, unlike what happened in the monarchies of the Late Middle Ages, he could
make decisions and pass laws without necessarily consulting with the assemblies
of estates.
8. The Castilian origin of
Absolutism
Absolute monarchy, of course, which
as a political model first appeared in Spain, specifically in Castile in the late
14th century, would tend to curtail the authority of these estate-based
assemblies, which were overpowered by sovereigns who could unilaterally modify
the legislation passed by the cortes.
As of the
reign of John I (1379-1390) the crown’s burgeoning authority was as unstoppable
as was the political decline of the Castilian Cortes. Clear evidence of
this was the emergence of unilateral royal legislation outside the purview of
the Cortes and its dictates, with the issuance of what were known as pragmáticas. The case was that the
Cortes was unable to pressure the kings based on the body’s capacity to
generate revenue, as the Spanish monarchs were receiving massive quantities of
gold and silver from their American colonies.
It should also be considered that tax revenues in Castile depended
essentially on the peculiar servicio de
millones, which charged local authorities with collecting special
taxes. Finally, beginning with the reign
of Charles I the nobility ceased to attend meetings of the Cortes, which undercut the representativeness of the Castilian
assembly of the estates. Thus, it is hardly surprising that henceforth the Cortes in Castile and León played an
increasingly formal, token role, with the kings convening them essentially to
add greater solemnity to the announcement of certain decisions and acts which
they had proposed. Another of their primary functions involved the royal
succession; it was the Cortes which heard the oath taken by the crown prince, a
necessary step for him to become king.
9. The resistance to the Absolute
monarchy model
An exception to the decay of Estates
Asemblies in the Absolutist period, however, came in England, where Parliament
was able to curb royal prerogatives as of the mid 17th century. In the Iberian
Peninsula the cortes preserved their
authorities and political relevance in the eastern kingdoms of the old Crown of
Aragon (Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia) in which the structure of pact-based
rule continued to endure until the early 18th century when the political
organization of these kingdoms was abolished by the Nueva Planta Decrees.The same thing occurred in Portugal between
1580 and 1640 when the kingdom became part of the Catholic Monarchy.
10. Absolutism in the Spanish
Catholic monarchy
In the Spanish monarchy the respect
for traditional law (the privileges of the kingdom) was also the order of the
day in the eastern kingdoms formerly integrated into the Crown of Aragon (the
kingdoms of Aragon, Valencia, Mallorca and the Principality of Catalonia), with
them conserving almost all of the privileges which had been secured by the
medieval cortes. Thus, in the 16th
and 17th centuries, though the kings of Spain were the West’s most powerful on
paper, in practice they occupied a very different constitutional position in
each and every one of their kingdoms. In fact, they were only absolute monarchs
in Castile, which explains why whenever
possible the Spanish monarchs incorporated the territories they conquered or
occupied, such as Navarre and the Americas, into the Castilian Crown, where
their power was not constrained by all the impediments upon it in places such
as Aragon, Catalonia, Valencia, the Netherlands, Italy, Sicily, Naples, Milan,
Franche-Comte, Luxembourg and, after 1580, Portugal.
11. The Catholic Kings and the United Spanish
Monarchy
Isabel and
Fernando
The union
of the crowns of Castile and Aragón was a consequence of the pressures of
turbulent domestic politics in both kingdoms as much or more than it was part
of a grand diplomatic design. Such a union had been attempted once before,
after the death of Alfonso VI in 1109, and had failed completely. There were
two main factors behind the marriage of Isabel of Castile and Fernando of Aragón
in 1469: the desperate need of Juan II to garner Castilian assistance in the
Catalan civil war, protecting against the danger of French intervention, and
the need of the teenaged princess Isabel to have a royal mate on whom she could
rely to strengthen her cause in Castile. Fernando was heir to an important
Hispanic patrimony, but unlike Alfonso V of Portugal, was not ruler of a firm,
compact state that would have provided a base for intervention in Castilian
affairs.
Isabel, born in 1451, was one year older than
Fernando. Her life had been difficult and tempestuous, caught up in the
political intrigues of the Castilian aristocracy and the succession to the
throne. As the daughter of the second marriage of Juan II of Castile, she was originally
far removed from the dynastic succession, ranking behind her half-brother
Enrique IV, his daughter Juana, and her own elder brother the Infante Alfonso.
Enrique IV was tolerant, easy-going, and peace-loving, and hence not the type
of ruler who could most easily dominate the powerful, quarrelsome, and
ambitious Castilian aristocracy. Despite lack of pronounced political ability,
he strove to maintain [171] order in the kingdom but after ten years became the
victim, in 1464, of a strong aristocratic reaction which forced royal
recognition of the predominance of the aristocratic faction and of his young
half-brother, Alfonso, as heir to the throne. The propaganda that has blackened
Enrique IV's historical reputation originated at this time, for he was labeled
by dissident nobles impotent, sexually perverted, achristian, and promuslim. A campaign
was waged to have his heiress, Juana, declared illegitimate because of
Enrique's supposed impotence, and the unfortunate princess was given the
nickname la Beltraneja after one Beltrán de la Cueva, a former court favorite
who was without the slightest evidence tagged as her father.
Yet
Castilian aristocratic conspiracies were notoriously fissiparous. Young Alfonso
suddenly took ill and died, and the king regained the upper hand. Isabel then
remained the sole candidate of the dissident aristocracy for the role of a more
agreeable and manageable heiress than the legitimate daughter of the ruling
king. Isabel's Portuguese mother had gone mad in her later years, and the
constant intrigues and harassment by political factions to which Isabel's
adolescent years were subject developed distinctly paranoiac tendencies in the
princess. Isabel never doubted the justice of her cause and viewed herself the
legitimate heiress of Castile, fully accepting all the propaganda about Enrique
IV and his daughter Juana. A round-faced, plumpish, green-eyed girl with dark
blonde hair in her youth, Isabel had been reared in the rural castles of
Castile and did not receive a sophisticated education. She was vigorous and
energetic. Devoted to the hunt, and had a great sense of dedication to her
responsibilities. She was also, as befit a fifteenth-century Castilian
princess, extremely pious and committed to the cause of religion in her realm.
Fernando
had been born in 1452 and literally grew up in the great Catalan civil war.
Healthy and vigorous, he had a somewhat better education than Isabel and
received much more practical experience at an early age, commanding military
forces at thirteen. His political understanding was conditioned by the
constitutional theories and practices of the Aragonese empire. Native instinct
and long experience developed in Fernando one of the best European diplomats of
his generation, yet despite the praise justly lavished upon him by Machiavelli,
he was no unscrupulous Cesare Borgia. Unlike some of his contemporaries, his
ideal was not absolute monarchy but political compromise and the constitutional
monarchist state of Aragón. Though his religiosity was less obvious than that
of Isabel, Fernando was also pious, and was influenced by the mystical strain
of much of the religiosity of the fifteenth century, so that together with the
prudent and calculating politician there existed a potential crusader.
The
Castilian succession crisis began with the death of Enrique IV in 1474. Much of
the aristocracy chose sides between Isabel on the one hand and (the supposedly
illegitimate) Juana, backed by Alfonzo V of Portugal as her suitor, on the
other. The succession struggle lasted five years, during which the cause of
Doña Juana was supported by the entire southern half of the kingdom, as well as
by some of the towns of Old Castile. Isabel herself saw the issue strictly in
terms of black and white. The actual leader of the Isabeline party was D.
Fernando. who brought in Aragonese military technicians to organize the
somewhat backward Castilian levies that eventually brought victory to Isabel at
Toro in 1476. Three years later, Juan II of Aragón died at the age of 81, and
the Castilian consort ascended the Aragonese throne as Fernando II (1479-1516).
The union of the crowns established a dyarchy,
but there was no attempt at constitutional fusion of Castile and the states of
the Aragonese empire. Each principality remained autonomous and distinct with
its separate administration, united only by the common diplomatic and military
policies of the two rulers. There was never any question as to whether Isabel
held authority in the constitutional systems of the Aragonese empire; the only
point at issue was the influence of Fernando in Castile. It was ultimately
decided that Fernando would enjoy kingly status and prerogatives even to the
extent of exercising functions of government, but that only Isabel would
receive homage as direct ruler and have power to disburse funds or make royal
appointments.
The dynastic alliance worked with surprising
harmony, and in Castilian affairs the two sovereigns frequently issued common
decrees with a joint seal. The effectiveness of their royal administration permitted
Castile to realize its size and strength for the first time since the great
reconquest and to take the lead from Portugal in overseas expansion. In the
Aragonese lands, Fernando's government finally checked the decline of Catalonia
and encouraged a new era of modest prosperity.
The ordering
of Castile
Isabel could probably never have become queen
of Castile (1474-1504) had it not been for the dissidence of the grandes and
other aristocrats, yet she and Fernando planned to be anything but tools of
aristocratic factionalism. Indeed, the Isabeline cause was able to take
advantage of a certain current of democratic sentiment in Castile during the
1470s, for the petty nobility and townspeople wearied of the inordinate
influence and ambition of the grandes
and looked to a new ruler to provide order and justice.
Spanish historians often refer to the monarchy
of Isabel and Fernando as the first modern state. This is an exaggeration. The
distinctly new ideas of the royal couple were few, and the only radically different
institution that they created was the Inquisition. Their political vision was
to perfect existing monarchist institutions, but this in itself meant drastic
change in the functioning of Spanish government. The establishment of genuine
law and order, bringing internal peace and stability and the crushing of those
divisive forces that had held Castile back for more than a century, marked a
turning point from which the Spanish crown would move toward eventual European
hegemony. If not the first modern state, the monarchy of Isabel and Fernando
was the most effective reformed government in late-fifteenth-century Europe.
Its reforms guaranteed the resources for final completion of the reconquest in
1492 and so won from the papacy the title by which the royal couple is known to
history--the Catholic Kings.
Isabel and Fernando did not aim at the
establishment of absolute monarchy in Castile and Aragón, for this concept was
not introduced until the Bourbon dynasty of the eighteenth century. Their political
ideal, according to the language of their documents, was the "preeminent
monarchy," superior in authority to all other institutions, yet respectful
of the laws of the kingdom and the rights of its subjects. The Castilian
monarchy of Isabel built upon the traditional Castilian state--a strong royal
executive with considerable scope for royal law, but functioning in harmony
with a comparatively weak traditional Cortes that held a limited power of the
purse and a nominal right to ratify the royal succession. These relations were
the easier because most of the third estate looked to the crown to protect its
subjects from the ravages of the aristocracy. The Castilian Cortes was summoned
sixteen times during the reign of Isabel and Fernando--with one hiatus of
fourteen years, between 1483 and 1497--and in almost every case proved quite
docile. Unlike the Cortes of the Aragonese empire, those of Castile still made
little effort to wring juridical or other concessions from their sovereigns.
The first objective
of the new rulers was to assert royal sovereignty, put the aristocracy in its
place, and restore public order. During the chaotic reigns of Juan II and
Enrique IV, followed by the civil war of 1474-1479, murder and pillage had
ravaged much of the kingdom. During the 1460’s, a number of Castilian towns had
revived the earlier tradition of forming a hermandad, a brotherhood for
self-protection and the policing of roads. In 1476, this force was ratified by
the crown, which authorized formation of a broad Santa Hermandad with
crossbowmen and other armed policemen to serve as a rural constabulary. The
Hermandad was deprived of any independent jurisdiction and kept subordinate to
the crown, but it brought order [174] to the central and northern parts of
Castile. Before it was finally disbanded by the crown in 1498 it had done much
to make Castile one of the most orderly kingdoms of western Europe.
The
fractious elements of the aristocracy had to be dealt with by more powerful
forces, and the royal military, with their new artillery, were used during the
early years of the reign to put down disturbances. Subsequently, the building
of new castles was prohibited. The monarchy of Isabel and Fernando was by no
means an enemy of the aristocracy, but it brooked no challenge to royal
authority. Large tracts of land recently alienated from the royal domain were
reoccupied, but otherwise the crown ratified the economic jurisdiction of the
señoríos and the latifundia that went with them. Grandes were encouraged to
attend the royal couple and spend a great deal of time with the peripatetic
court, in a policy that later became standard with royal states. Though the
joint rulers were reluctant to appoint aristocrats to influential positions of
government, there was ample opportunity to employ them more profitably in the
foreign wars that filled the era. In 1512, a special Corps of Royal Guards, an
early unit of what was becoming a Spanish army, was created exclusively as a
place of special military honor in which young noblemen might serve the crown.
Some of the
land alienated under Enrique IV was restored to the royal domain, and the
territory of certain rebels was also confiscated. The royal patrimony in
Castile was further enlarged by providing that D. Fernando would be elected
master of each crusading order after the death of its incumbent leader. By
1494, the king had become master of the third and last order. Since the crown
was in a position to accomplish those military tasks for which the orders had
originally been established, most of their income and eventually their entire
properties were incorporated into the royal domain.
In 1480,
the Castilian royal council, which had existed since the reign of Fernando III
and had held almost exclusive responsibility for affairs of state since 1385,
was reorganized. Heretofore it had been a committee of aristocrats and church
hierarchs, but under the Catholic Kings it was composed of eight or nine
lawyers, only three nobles, and one cleric. The royal legal system was also
revamped. There had been a royal audiencia (supreme court) since the reign of
Alfonso X, but its jurisdiction was sometimes uncertain. In 1485, the royal
audiencia was located permanently at Valladolid, and four regional audiencias
were established as well. These measures, together with the reestablishment of order
and security, were part of a general program of developing a rule of law in
Castile. Compared with other states of that period, the system functioned well,
for the extension of royal authority encouraged greater justice for the lower
classes, and the [175] right of appeal to the royal audiencia for certain kinds
of cases was guaranteed.
The
Catholic Kings followed the policy of intervention in municipal affairs that
had become fairly common during the preceding two hundred years, sending out
regular corregidores for one year's service in towns to report on local government
and tax collection. Other royal agents, pesquisidores and veedores, were sent
sometimes to check further on the corregidores. For general military and administrative
jurisdiction, the system of frontier adelantamientos (forward border jurisdictions)
was expanded into a series of nine to cover the entire kingdom, with one
adelantado, or military governor, for each.
One of the
great successes of the government of the Catholic Kings was their ability to
select talent and employ it in the royal service. New leadership was provided
for administrative, ecclesiastical, juridical, and military affairs. The reign
saw no political or constitutional development in Castile, but accomplished
great administrative improvement and brought into government new elite elements
from the third estate. It was also a time of broad codification of laws in
Castile, as in the Aragonese lands.
The only major social revolt in Castile during
the fifteenth century was the rebellion of the peasant irmandades
(brotherhoods) of Galicia, which are not to be confused with the constabulary
of the Santa Hermandad of the main part of the kingdom. Formation of irmandades
of Galician peasants and townspeople of the third estate had been authorized by
Enrique IV in 1465 to check the overweening power of the Galician aristocracy.
The irmandades were reasonably well organized by districts, and in some areas
into groups of one hundred. They were sometimes led by elements of the petty
nobility in opposition to the high aristocracy and church prelates. Their goal
was basic social and economic reform, with better terms and an end to feudal
residues for the peasants, and reduction of obligations for the towns on
seigneurial and church domain. Rising in armed revolt, they took over large
areas of Galicia and forced key prelates and aristocrats out of the region or
into hiding. In general terms, the revolt of the irmandades, which may at one
time have had fifty thousand not fully armed followers, was the Galician
equivalent of the Catalan remença uprising and the foráneo revolts in the
Balearics, generated by the pressures of feudal survivals in a late medieval
period of socia1 and economic change.
The
irmandade revolt was put down, well before the general victory of Isabel in
Castile, by a reaction of the regional aristocracy of Galicia, which finally
concentrated its forces against the ill-armed peasants. In general, reprisals
were not severe, and the Galician aristocracy split almost immediately into
several feuding factions in a [176] fight that degenerated into all-out civil
war. In 1480-1481, the crown finally extended direct royal police authority
into the region, broadening the scope of the Santa Hermandad to include all
Galicia and sending a special royal commission to restore order and settle quarrels.
A decree of 1480 explicitly canceled whatever residues of bondage to the soil
existed in Galicia and a few other regions. Peasants in all parts of the
kingdom were recognized as free subjects. and some minor reforms in Galicia
ensued, but the social authority of the aristocracy and church remained greater
there than in other parts of Castile. This reality, combined with population
pressure and factors of climate and soil, left the peasantry of Galicia under
greater stress than in most of the rest of the kingdom.
The one
radical innovation in the state system of Fernando and Isabel, the
establishment of the Castilian (or Spanish) Inquisition, was designed to
maintain orthodoxy and unity among the Catholic subjects of the crown. Though
the Inquisition was an instrument in statebuilding, it was formally a religious
tool, and will be discussed in chapter 11. It became the ultimate guarantee of
unity and orthodoxy in the realm.
The
Ordering of Aragón and Catalonia
The rule of
Fernando in Aragón was one of conservative reform that did not greatly alter
the existing constitutional structure. The king spent little more than one year
in ten in the lands of Aragón during his reign, for he fully appreciated the
greater weight and importance of Castile in the affairs of the monarchy. From
his youth he had been well versed in the constitutions of the Aragonese
principalities, and accepted without hesitation the existing constitutional structure
of Aragón and Valencia. He reorganized the Aragonese royal council and
specifically ratified constitutional guarantees of safeconduct and temporary
sanctuary in that state. There was no attempt at new social regulation in
Aragón that compared to what was worked out in Catalonia or Galicia, however.
The Aragonese variant of the Hispanic social revolts of the period--several
small peasant uprisings between 1507 and 1517--were simply suppressed. The
dominance of the Aragonese aristocracy in its realm was even less questioned than
that of the nobility in Castile, so long as no effort was made to contest
specifically royal prerogatives.
The major problem was still Catalonia. During
the last six years of the reign of Juan II, the crown had lacked the time or
the energy and will to effect a complete settlement of the Catalan civil war.
This complex problem was left to Fernando, and by the time he became king,
nearly all factions were so exhausted that the entire principality looked to
its able young sovereign for a lasting solution to the constitutional and
social questions of the century. He did not disappoint these expectations.
Fernando explicitly reaffirmed Catalan
constitutional rights and the limitations on royal power in his Observança of
1481. Many property disputes had been left unresolved at the end of the Catalan
civil war, and Fernando finally settled them in 1481, largely on the basis of
the status quo ante. Military jurisdiction over the principality was also
ended. Fernando's original settlement, however, tended to confirm the rights of
the landlords over those of the peasants, provoking a final remença uprising in
1484-1485. This was crushed, but its virulence convinced Fernando that
fundamental reforms were needed in the Catalan countryside. His Sentence of
Guadalupe in 1486 finally ended the remença controversy once and for all by
establishing the juridical freedom of all peasants and abolishing all redemption
payments and malos usos. The property rights of landlords were reaffirmed, but
so were the usufructuary guarantees of the peasants. The result was a broad
establishment of hereditary emphyteutical tenure for the majority of Catalan
peasants and an acceptable social equilibrium in the Catalan countryside.
After many complaints about oligarchic
domination of the Catalan Generalitat, Fernando decreed in 1488 the suspension
of elections for Generalitat deputies and judges, henceforth to be named by
royal order. Similarly, in 1490, he suspended further elections to the
Barcelona city council and established the procedures of insaculació: the
establishment of lists of qualified representatives for each sector of the
population, from which councillors were to be selected by lot. Both these
measures enjoyed general approval, because of the broadly felt need for royal
intervention to break oligarchic and corrupt domination by sectors of the upper
classes.
In the 1480s and l490s, Catalonia began to find
a new social stability that was to last for a century and a half. It was a
stability based upon retrenchment and greater security, and upon a high degree
of bureaucratization politically and economically. New arrangements had been worked out that
satisfied most groups in the society, and almost every subject had a defined
place. The result was a kind of neomedieval corporatization, not a renewal of
the risktaking, expansive Catalan society of the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries.
During
the reign of Fernando the economic recovery of Catalonia began, supported by
strong protective legislation that restricted foreign imports and guaranteed
the market of the Mediterranean possessions of the crown for Catalonia and
Valencia. However, Catalan [178] merchants and financiers were unable to regain
the vigor of one hundred and fifty years earlier. The modest prosperity of the sixteenth
century did not provide them with the resources which they would have needed to
participate in the major expansive ventures of the crown.
The
Predominance of Castile in the United Monarchy
By the end
of the fifteenth century, Castile had a population approximately seven times
greater than that of all the Aragonese principalities combined. The
predominance of Castile was apparent in the united crown from the very
beginning, for Fernando was obliged by his marriage to spend most of his time
there. The expanded commerce of late medieval Castile far surpassed even the
potential of the smaller Aragonese principalities. Moreover, the greater
authority of the crown in Castile, compared with its circumscribed position in
the Aragonese lands, enabled it to marshal resources more effectively.
No single
factor was more important in this than the increase of the royal income in
Castile. New taxes were not levied, but the royal patrimony was extended and
the tax collection system improved. Without seriously imposing on the domestic
economy, the royal income--not allowing for a certain degree of inflation--increased
some thirtyfold between 1474 and 1504. This made possible the conquest of Granada
and a vigorously expansive policy overseas.
Castile
thus became the base of Spanish monarchy, and its strength was gratefully
acknowledged by Catalans, who now had less reason to fear French pressure.
Catalans themselves sometimes addressed Fernando not as king of Aragón, or king
of Aragón and Castile, but as rei d'Espanya-"king of Spain," meaning
nearly all the peninsular principalities. At the same time, the institutional
influence of Aragón and Catalonia did to some extent make itself felt in Castile.
Certain aspects of the Catalan viceregal, consular, guild, and labor regulation
systems were adopted by Castilian law in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth
centuries.
SOURCE: http://libro.uca.edu/payne1/spainport1.htm
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