Catholic Spain
Overview
Catholic Spain
Spain under the reign of the Hapsburg monarch, Philip II was the champion of the Catholic Reformation or Counter-Reformation.
Learning Objectives
- Discuss the religious and political developments in Spain under Philip II.
Key Terms / Key Concepts
the Catholic Monarchs: the joint title used in history for Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon (They were both from the House of Trastámara and were second cousins descended from John I of Castile; after marriage they were given a papal dispensation to deal with consanguinity by Sixtus IV. They established the Spanish Inquisition around 1480.)
Alhambra Decree: an edict issued on March 31, 1492, by the joint Catholic Monarchs of Spain (Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon) ordering the expulsion of practicing Jews from the Kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, along with its territories and possessions, by July 31 of that year
Consanguinity: the property of being from the same kinship as another person; the quality of being descended from the same ancestor as another person (The laws of many jurisdictions set out degrees of consanguinity in relation to prohibited sexual relations and marriage parties.)
Spanish Armada: a Spanish fleet of 130 ships that sailed from A Coruña in August 1588 with the purpose of escorting an army from Flanders to invade England, with the strategic aim to overthrow Queen Elizabeth I of England and the Tudor establishment of Protestantism in England
Catholic League: a major participant in the French Wars of Religion, formed by Henry I, Duke of Guise, in 1576 (It intended the eradication of Protestants—also known as Calvinists or Huguenots—out of Catholic France during the Protestant Reformation, as well as the replacement of King Henry III. Pope Sixtus V, Philip II of Spain, and the Jesuits were all supporters of this Catholic party.)
Eighty Years’ War: a revolt of the Seventeen Provinces against the political and religious hegemony of Philip II of Spain, the sovereign of the Habsburg Netherlands, between 1568 and 1648, also known also as the Dutch War of Independence
Morisco: a term used to refer to former Muslims who converted to Christianity, or were coerced into converting, after Spain outlawed the open practice of Islam by its Mudejar population in the early 16th century (The group was subject to systematic expulsions from Spain’s various kingdoms between 1609 and 1614, the most severe of which occurred in the eastern Kingdom of Valencia.)
Catholic Spain
Around 1480, decades before the start of the Protestant Reformation, Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, known as the Catholic Monarchs, established what would be known as the Spanish Inquisition. It was intended to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in their kingdoms and to replace the Medieval Inquisition, which was under Papal control. It covered Spain and all the Spanish colonies and territories, which would eventually include the Canary Islands, the Spanish Netherlands, the Kingdom of Naples, and all Spanish possessions in North, Central, and South America.
People who converted to Catholicism were not subject to expulsion, but between 1480 and 1492 hundreds of those who had converted (conversos and moriscos) were accused of secretly practicing their original religion (crypto-Judaism or crypto-Islam) and arrested, imprisoned, interrogated under torture, and in some cases burned to death, in both Castile and Aragon. In 1492 Ferdinand and Isabella ordered segregation of communities to create closed quarters that became what were later called “ghettos.” They also furthered economic pressures upon Jews and other non-Christians by increasing taxes and social restrictions. In 1492 the monarchs issued a decree of expulsion of Jews, known formally as the Alhambra Decree, which gave Jews in Spain four months to either convert to Catholicism or leave Spain. Tens of thousands of Jews emigrated to other lands such as Portugal, North Africa, the Low Countries, Italy, and the Ottoman Empire. Later in 1492, Ferdinand issued a letter addressed to the Jews who had left Castile and Aragon, inviting them back to Spain if they would become Christians. The Inquisition was not definitively abolished until 1834, during the reign of Isabella II, after a period of declining influence in the preceding century.
Most of the descendants of the Muslims who submitted to Christian conversion during the early periods of the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisition rather than exile were known as the Moriscos; they were later expelled from Spain after serious social upheaval, when the Inquisition was at its height. The expulsions were carried out more severely in eastern Spain (Valencia and Aragon) due to local animosity towards Muslims and Moriscos who were perceived as economic rivals; local workers saw them as cheap labor undermining their bargaining position with the landlords. Those that the Spanish Inquisition found to be secretly practicing Islam or Judaism were executed, imprisoned, or expelled. Nevertheless, all those deemed to be “New Christians” were perpetually suspected of various crimes against the Spanish state, including continued practice of Islam or Judaism.
The Hapsburgs
Over the 16th and 17th centuries Spain was ruled by the major branch of the Habsburg dynasty. In this period, “Spain” or “the Spains” covered the entire peninsula and were politically a confederacy comprising several nominally independent kingdoms in personal union: Aragon, Castile, León, Navarre and from 1580 Portugal.
The term “Monarchia Catholica” (Catholic Monarchy) remained in use for the monarchy under the Spanish Habsburgs. However, Spain as a unified state technically came into being after the death of Charles II in 1700, the last ruler of Spain of the Habsburg dynasty.
Under the Habsburgs, Spain dominated Europe politically and militarily, but experienced a gradual decline of influence in the second half of the 17th century under the later Habsburg kings. The Habsburg years were also a Spanish Golden Age of cultural efflorescence.
The Global Power
When Spain’s first Habsburg ruler, Charles I became king of Spain in 1516, the country became central to the dynastic struggles of Europe. After becoming king of Spain, Charles also became Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, and because of his widely scattered domains was not often in Spain. In 1519 Charles V, at the age of 19, inherited an immense realm in Europe from his ancestors.
Charles' paternal grandfather Maximilian I was the Archduke of Austria and Holy Roman Emperor. Charles' paternal grandmother was Mary of Burgundy, the heiress of the Duchy of Flanders (The Netherlands and Belgium today). Maximilian married Mary in 1477 to prevent her archenemy, Louis XI of the Valois Dynasty of France, from seizing Flanders for himself. In 1496 the son of Maximilian and Mary, Philip the Handsome, married Joanna, the eldest daughter of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile. The marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella in 1479 had united their two kingdoms into the kingdom of Spain. The marriage of their daughter, Joanna to Philip sealed an alliance against a common enemy, the Valois Dynasty of France. Ferdinand was also the king of the island of Sicily and his family, the House of Aragon, also claimed the kingdom of Naples in Southern Italy. However, the Valois king of France, Charles VIII—son of Louis XI—had claimed Naples for himself and invaded Italy in 1495 to make good this claim. The union of Philip and Joanna resulted in the birth of the future Charles V in 1500. In 1506 after the death of Philip, Charles, age six, inherited Flanders from his father. Charles grew up in Flanders and French was his native language. Since Ferdinand had no sons and Charles was the son of Ferdinand's and Isabella's eldest daughter, Joanna, Charles became his heir apparent. In 1516, after the death of his maternal grandfather, Ferdinand, Charles inherited, at the age of 16, the thrones of Aragon and Castile, as well as the kingdom of Sicily. In 1519, Maximilian died, and Charles inherited the Duchy of Austria from his paternal grandfather. The Electors of the Holy Roman Empire then elected Charles to succeed his grandfather as Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, which was not surprising as one of the Electors was Charles' younger brother, Ferdinand, who was the king of Bohemia. As he approached the end of his life, Charles made provision for the division of the Habsburg inheritance into two parts. On the one hand was Spain, its possessions in Europe, North Africa, the Americas, and the Netherlands. On the other hand, there was Austria and the Holy Roman Empire. This was to create enormous difficulties for his son Philip II of Spain.
During Charles’s reign, Spanish settlements were established in the New World. The Aztec and Inca Empires were conquered from 1519 to 1521 and 1540 to 1558, respectively. Mexico City, which became the most important colonial city, was established in 1524 and became the primary center of administration in the New World. Buenos Aires was established in 1536. New Granada (modern Colombia) was colonized in the 1530s. And Florida was colonized in the 1560s—shortly after Charles’s death. The Hapsburg family also inherited the throne of Portugal. In 1526 Charles married Isabella, the daughter of Manuel I of Portugal. Charles' sister Catherine in 1526 married John III of Portugal, the son of Manuel I. In 1578, the grandson of John III, Sebastian of Portugal died in battle in his war against the Sultan of Morocco. Since Sebastian died young without any children, the throne passed to his nearest male relative, Philip II of Spain, the son of Charles and Isabella. Philip II thus inherited the kingdom of Portugal and its far-flung overseas empire, which included territories in India, east and west Africa, and Brazil in South America.
The Spanish Empire abroad became the source of Spanish wealth and power in Europe. But as precious metal shipments rapidly expanded late in the century, this contributed to the general inflation that was affecting the whole of Europe. Instead of fueling the Spanish economy, American silver made the country increasingly dependent on foreign sources of raw materials and manufactured goods.
Philip II became king on Charles I’s abdication in 1555. During Philip II’s reign there were several separate state bankruptcies, which were partly the cause for the declaration of independence that created the Dutch Republic. A devout Catholic, Philip organized a huge naval expedition against Protestant England in 1588, known usually as the Spanish Armada, which was unsuccessful, mostly due to storms and grave logistical problems. Despite these problems, the growing inflow of New World silver from the mid-16th century, the justified military reputation of the Spanish infantry, and even the quick recovery of the navy from its Armada disaster made Spain the leading European power—a novel situation of which its citizens were only just becoming aware.
Philip II and the Spanish Armada
Extreme commitment to championing Catholicism against both Protestantism and Islam shaped both the domestic and foreign policies of Philip II, who was the most powerful European monarch in an era of religious conflict. Philip saw himself as a champion of Catholicism and faced challenges withing his realm in his quest to defend Catholicism.
The Spanish Empire was not a single monarchy with one legal system but a federation of separate realms, each jealously guarding its own rights against those of the House of Habsburg. In practice, Philip often found his authority overruled by local assemblies and his word less effective than that of local lords. He also grappled with the problem of the large Morisco population in Spain, who were forcibly converted to Christianity by his predecessors. In 1569, the Morisco Revolt broke out in the southern province of Granada in defiance of attempts to suppress Moorish customs, and Philip ordered the expulsion of the Moriscos from Granada and their dispersal to other provinces. Despite its immense dominions, Spain was a country with a sparse population that yielded a limited income to the crown (in contrast to France, for example, which was much more heavily populated). Philip faced major difficulties in raising taxes, the collection of which was largely farmed out to local lords. He was able to finance his military campaigns only by taxing and exploiting the local resources of his empire. The flow of income from the New World proved vital to his militant foreign policy; nonetheless, his exchequer faced bankruptcy several times. During Philip’s reign there were five separate state bankruptcies.
Philip’s foreign policies were determined by a combination of Catholic fervor and dynastic objectives. He considered himself the chief defender of Catholic Europe, both against the Ottoman Turks and against the forces of the Protestant Reformation. Philip achieved a decisive victory against the Turks at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, with the allied fleet of the Holy League (Genoa, Venice, and the Papal States), which he had put under the command of his illegitimate brother, John of Austria. This victory ended Ottoman domination of the Mediterranean Sea.
He never relented from his fight against Protestantism. which he saw as heresy, defending the Catholic faith and limiting freedom of worship within his territories. These territories included his patrimony in the Netherlands, where Protestantism had taken deep root. Following the Revolt of the Netherlands in 1568, Philip waged a campaign against Dutch secession. The plans to consolidate control of the Netherlands led to unrest, which gradually led to the Calvinist leadership of the revolt and the Eighty Years War. This conflict consumed much Spanish expenditure during the later 16th century.
Philip’s commitment to restoring Catholicism in the Protestant regions of Europe resulted also in the Anglo-Spanish War (1585 – 1604). This was an intermittent conflict between the kingdoms of Spain and England that was never formally declared. The war was punctuated by widely separate battles. In 1588, the English defeated Philip’s Spanish Armada, thwarting his planned invasion of the country in order to reinstate Catholicism. But the war continued for the next sixteen years, in a complex series of struggles that included France, Ireland, and the Netherlands, which was the main battle zone. Two further Spanish armadas were sent in 1596 and 1597, but they were frustrated in their objectives mainly because of adverse weather and poor planning. The war would not end until all the leading protagonists, including Philip, had died.
Philip financed the Catholic League during the French Wars of Religion (primarily fought between French Catholics and French Protestants, known as Huguenots). He directly intervened in the final phases of the wars (1589–1598). His interventions in the fighting—sending the Duke of Parma to end Henry IV’s siege of Paris in 1590—and the siege of Rouen in 1592 contributed to saving the French Catholic League’s cause against a Protestant monarchy. In 1593, Henry agreed to convert to Catholicism. Weary of war, most French Catholics switched to his side against the hardline core of the Catholic League, who were portrayed by Henry’s propagandists as puppets of the foreign Philip. By the end of 1594 certain league members were still working against Henry across the country, but all relied on the support of Spain. In 1595, therefore, Henry officially declared war on Spain, to show Catholics that Philip was using religion as a cover for an attack on the French state and to show Protestants that he had not become a puppet of Spain through his conversion, while also hoping to take the war to Spain and make territorial gain.
The war was only drawn to an official close with the Peace of Vervins in May 1598, when Spanish forces and subsidies were withdrawn. Meanwhile, Henry issued the Edict of Nantes, which offered a high degree of religious toleration for French Protestants. The military interventions in France thus ended in an ironic fashion for Philip: they had failed to oust Henry from the throne or suppress Protestantism in France and yet they had played a decisive part in helping the French Catholics gain the conversion of Henry, ensuring that Catholicism would remain France’s official and majority faith, which was of paramount importance for the devoutly Catholic Spanish king.
The Gradual Decline
In the century following Philip II’s reign, economic and administrative problems multiplied in Castile and Spain, revealing the weakness of the native economy. Rising inflation, financially draining wars in Europe, the ongoing aftermath of the expulsion of the Jews and Moors from Spain, and Spain’s growing dependency on the gold and silver imports combined to cause several bankruptcies that caused an economic crisis in the country, especially in heavily burdened Castile.
Faced with wars against England, France, and the Netherlands, the Spanish government found that neither the New World silver nor steadily increasing taxes were enough to cover their expenses and went bankrupt again in 1596. Furthermore, the great plague of 1596 – 1602 killed 600,000 to 700,000 people, or about 10% of the population. Altogether more than 1,250,000 deaths resulted from the extreme incidence of plague in 17th century Spain. Economically, the plague destroyed the labor force, as well as created a psychological blow to an already problematic Spain.
Philip II died in 1598 and was succeeded by his son Philip III (reigned 1598 – 1621). During his reign a ten-year truce with the Dutch was overshadowed by Spain’s involvement in the European-wide Thirty Years’ War in 1618. Philip III had no interest in politics or government, preferring to engage in lavish court festivities, religious indulgences, and the theater. His government resorted to a tactic that had been resolutely resisted by Philip II: paying for the budget deficits by the mass minting of increasingly worthless vellones (the currency), which caused inflation. In 1607, the government faced another bankruptcy.
Philip III was succeeded in 1621 by his son Philip IV of Spain (reigned 1621 – 1665). During Philip IV’s reign much of the policy was conducted by the minister Gaspar de Guzmán, Count-Duke of Olivares. In 1640, with the war in Central Europe having no clear winner except the French, both Portugal and Catalonia rebelled. Portugal was lost to the crown for good; in Italy and most of Catalonia, French forces were expelled, and Catalonia’s independence was suppressed.
Charles II (1665 – 1700), the last of the Habsburgs in Spain, was three years old when his father, Philip IV, died in 1665. The Council of Castile appointed Philip’s second wife and Charles’s mother, Mariana of Austria, regent for the minor king. As regent, Mariana managed the country’s affairs through a series of favorites (“validos”), whose merits usually amounted to no more than meeting her fancy. Spain was essentially left leaderless and was gradually reduced to a second-rank power.
Inbreeding
The Spanish branch of the Habsburg royal family was noted for extreme consanguinity. Well aware that they owed their power to fortunate marriages, they married between themselves to protect their gains. Charles’s father and his mother, Mariana, were actually uncle and niece. Charles was physically and mentally disabled and infertile, possibly in consequence of this routine inbreeding. Due to the deaths of his half-brothers, he was the last member of the male Spanish Habsburg line. He did not learn to speak until the age of four nor to walk until the age of eight. He was treated as virtually an infant until he was ten years old. His jaw was so badly deformed (an extreme example of the so-called Habsburg jaw) that he could barely speak or chew. Fearing the frail child would be overtaxed, his caretakers did not force Charles to attend school.
The Habsburg dynasty became extinct in Spain with Charles II’s death in 1700, at which time the War of the Spanish Succession ensued; during this time, the other European powers tried to assume control over the Spanish monarchy. As a result, the management of Spain was allowed to pass to the Bourbon dynasty.
Attributions
Title Image
Philip II of Spain - workshop of Titian, circa 1550, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Adapted from:
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-worldhistory/chapter/spain-and-catholicism/