XVII - History Lab

Philip III’s words about Alicante

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:33:46 +0000

According to María Asunción Rogles Hernández, the city of Alicante gradually became a city of reference in Mediterranean trade from the mid-17th and 18th centuries onwards. In addition, it was characterised by a powerful agricultural sector which was also commercialised, taking advantage of the city’s privileged location in the Mediterranean context. Added to this was the ease with which the city of Alicante could communicate with Castile and the interior, something that was achieved by roads that did not have major orographic obstacles. This led Philip III to reaffirm its importance in the Valencian Cortes held in 1601. His words can be placed in the context prior to the Moorish expulsion, where a possible invasion from Istanbul or Algiers continued to be a cause for concern

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Criticism of the theatre by Antonio López de Vega

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:33:46 +0000

In this text dated 1641, Antonio López de Vega defends the censorship of the theatre for presenting a whole series of problems linked to its style. Guillermo Carnero explains the Spanish poet’s motivations, basing them on his rejection of the mixture of the comic and the tragic, as well as the multiplicity of plots lacking a logical unity. In the same way, it is a space in which characters of such high social value as kings are ridiculed, while others of low social standing are exalted. On the other hand, he was repulsed by gestural exaggerations and the use of verisimilitude as opposed to truth. Lope de Vega’s statements would constitute a precedent and would be followed in time by those who would advocate the censorship of the theatre.

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Town Charter of Anna in 1611

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:33:40 +0000

The expulsion of the Moors in 1609-1614 mainly affected the Valencian nobility, who tried to compensate for this human loss with new repopulators of Old Christians. The cartas pueblas were documents that established the privileges and properties of the new settlers who settled in the new lands. In this case, not only the land and the type of cultivation imposed were distributed, but also a part of the harvest was granted, given the poverty of the settlers. In many cases, the lords also offered farming tools so that the settlers could start to generate yields. However, in many cases, such as the present one, the conditions for repopulation were harsh and the charters had to be reconsidered, as well as agreeing to concordats, in which some points were modified in order to ensure that the lordship was not abandoned.

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Valencian Cortes of 1626

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:33:40 +0000

The Alfonsine charter originated in the 14th century, when it was institutionalised by Alfonso II of Valencia. The aim of the Alfonsine charter was to encourage repopulation in the context of the Christian conquest, so that anyone who managed to gather 15 Christian houses with a criminal discharge (Primitivo Pla Alberola) was encouraged to do so. With this privilege, many territories in the Valencian area were populated, and it was also an opportunity for a person who had not been a nobleman to become a lord of that territory. The expulsion of the Moors in 1609 posed a major problem, mainly because in many cases, the lords no longer had 15 houses, so they could no longer formally enjoy the advantages of the Alfonsino privilege. To this end, during the Valencian courts of 1626, the lords asked for the privilege to be maintained as an exception to the drastic demographic decline caused by the Moorish expulsion.

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The felling of the Olivares

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:33:35 +0000

In the mid-17th century the Spanish Monarchy attempted to reassert its supremacy in Europe. For this purpose, the Count Duke of Olivares, the valide of Philip IV, was at the head of the government. Spain’s entry into the Thirty Years’ War began with some success. However, from 1640 onwards, the monarchy was showing signs of exhaustion. This weakness was compounded by the entry of France in 1635, which was determined to break the Augsburg pincer and thus establish itself as the hegemonic power in Europe. Attempts to make the Catalan Generalitat contribute to the war effort, together with the uncomfortable presence of the tercios, ended up causing a huge problem. The Catalan territory was seduced and placed under the sovereignty of Louis XIII. Attempts to recover this territory failed in 1642, which spelled the end for Olivares. With the fall of such a powerful figure, his enemies took advantage of the situation to make fun of his fall from grace. This led to the popularity of pasquines that satirised the disaster the Valide had committed, calling into question the reputation of the monarchy.

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Louis XIV to d’Embrun, 1 January 1662

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:33:35 +0000

The pre-emption of one nation’s diplomatic corps over another was a gesture denoting the hegemony of one power over another/s during the modern age. For a century and a half the hegemonic power had been in Spain. After 1659, however, France had succeeded in unseating Spanish hegemony, which required a more tangible demonstration of the new French strength. A diplomatic meeting in the English capital between the diplomats of Philip IV and Louis XIV ended in a brawl over the Catholic King’s ambassadors denying precedence to their French counterpart. On hearing of the events, Louis XIV demanded reparation from Philip IV, which was answered by giving precedence to the French diplomatic corps. It was a question of recognising the new power of the France of the Sun King.

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AHN: Councils. 22.243/4, fí° 73 v°-74 r

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:33:35 +0000

The repopulation that took place after the expulsion of the Moors posed many problems that were difficult to solve. The situation of this marginalised population before the expulsion was that of an overpopulation on which enormous taxes were levied. In such a way that, in order to pay them, they were forced to do strenuous work that still did not allow them to improve their standard of living, entering into a dynamic of proletarianisation as Fernand Braudel put it. The saying attributed to this population that said they lived as Christians, but paid as Moors, was therefore true. The truth is that, in order to survive, the Moors had to cultivate different types of cereals and rice was one of them. Their expulsion was not met with the same volume of population. But to this we had to add that with the Moors had disappeared the great experience in different types of cultivation that the repopulators did not know. Crops such as rice, apart from having a bad reputation due to the diseases it caused (malaria), demanded an effort that the repopulators were not prepared to make.

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Viceroy to the Prothonotary of Aragon

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:33:35 +0000

The Spanish Monarchy had many armed conflicts for which the crown-led recruitment system proved ineffective. As we entered the 17th century, economic and demographic recession was compounded by difficulties in recruiting armies. From then on, there was a tendency to decentralise recruitment systems, and even bandits were enlisted as part of this dynamic. This satisfied the military demands of the crown, but also, for a time, reduced the conflicts that had previously been caused by these bandits. Enlisting in the army was at the same time an opportunity for exemption from punishment, which generated interest in some of these bandits. However, as they were men who enlisted of their own free will, they had a preference for the places they were assigned to. Normally, the Italian instances tended to be quiet and well paid. On the contrary, destinations like Oran were truly despised. Apart from being far away, the supplies and provisions of the garrisons in North Africa were very limited, and the constant prowling of the Algerian dey made it a very dangerous posting.

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Royal letters

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:33:35 +0000

In the modern age, trade flows were often separated from political issues. At such a delicate time as 1630, the city of Valencia was in great trouble due to a shortage of wheat and rising prices. Amparo Felipo Orts states that this situation, which in reality responded to a European situation, had been occurring since 1628. Outbreaks of plague prevented supplies from Catalonia or France, so urgent decisions had to be taken. At that time, the Catholic Monarchy was at war with the Low Countries and England, so apparently the trade routes had broken down. The city’s need led Philip IV to agree to Dutch ships supplying the city of Valencia with wheat, despite the fact that legislation forbade trade with enemies. From a historical perspective, the supply of fish, so important for the Catholic rite, had not been interrupted since the time of Philip II with England, nor had trade with France. This makes it necessary to consider trade issues not necessarily linked to the political situation.

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The educated missionary and the other church workers

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:33:35 +0000

The Catholic Church was characterised by an enormous capacity to adapt to different ways of transmitting the religious message of Christianity. On many occasions, it had to resort to resources that were attractive to the faithful because of the difficulty of insisting on books as the source of transmission of the faith. For example, in the Middle Ages, given the very low literacy rate, the religious message was transmitted through figurative art, converting the biblical story into a sequence of images representing the content of the text. In this case, theatrical performances were used as a way of conveying certain religious messages to an audience located in the rural hinterland and, like almost the entire social spectrum of the time, needed to adapt the medium in order to get the message across. It is not surprising that Baroque art was used in this context, given the power transmitted by the image in this artistic typology, which is as ornate as it is expressive.

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