SPAIN, FLAG OF

horizontally striped red-yellow-red national flag with an off-centre coat of arms. Within Spain private citizens may display the flag without the coat of arms. The flag's width-to-length ratio is 2 to 3. Many symbols used today by Spain have origins that, according to tradition, stretch back for centuries. Even when not documented, the myths associated with these symbols are powerful forces for national pride. For example, the lion symbol of Len is supposed to have been used by a Roman legion in the 1st century AD, and the gold shield with four red bars of the kingdom of Aragon and modern Catalonia is associated with a 9th-century event in which the grandson of Charlemagne honoured the count of Barcelona for his heroism. Under the Bourbon dynasty in the 17th and 18th centuries, Spanish flags were generally white and bore versions of the coat of arms that included the Pillars of Hercules with its motto proclaiming Plus ultra (More beyond) to reflect the discoveries by Spanish explorers. King Charles III decided that Spain should have a flag that was clearly distinguishable from those of other countries. From among the proposals submitted to him he chose unequal horizontal stripes of red-yellow-red with the national arms on the yellow near the hoist. Introduced in 1785, it has continued ever since to be the core flag of Spain. (The only exception was the 193139 flag of the Spanish Republic, which had equal horizontal stripes of red-yellow-purple.) While the basic flag has remained the same, the arms have been altered a number of times to reflect political conditions. The simple crowned shield of Castile and Len disappeared from the Spanish flag in 1931; in its place an elaborate coat of arms was added to the flag in 1938, during the early days of the fascist regime of General Francisco Franco. It included the eagle of St. John and the yoke and arrow symbols of Franco's Falange supporters under the slogan Una, grande, libre (One, great, free). That basic design was modified in 1945 and 1977, but the death of Franco and the resurgence of Spanish democracy under King Juan Carlos called for a new coat of arms. The current design dates from December 18, 1981. The basic shields of the old Spanish kingdoms and the Pillars of Hercules are retained, but a crown is prominently displayed to honour the role of the monarchy in the modern Spanish state. The red and gold colours are traditional but have no official symbolic interpretation. Whitney Smith Government and social conditions Historical background From 1833 until 1939 Spain almost continually had a parliamentary system with a written constitution. Except during the First Republic (187374) and the Second Republic (193139), Spain was also always a monarchy. From the end of the Spanish Civil War in April 1939 until November 1975, Spain was ruled by General Francisco Franco. The principles on which his regime was based were embodied in a series of Fundamental Laws passed between 1942 and 1967. These laws declared Spain a monarchy and established a legislature known as the Cortes. Yet Franco's system of government differed radically from Spain's modern constitutional traditions. Under Franco, the members of the Cortes, the procuradores, were not elected on the democratic principle of one person, one vote but on the basis of what was called organic democracy. Rather than representing individual citizens, the procuradores represented what were considered the basic institutions of Spanish society: families, the municipalities, the universities, and professional organizations. Moreover, the Cortes did not have the power to control government spending, and the government was not responsible to it. The government was appointed and dismissed by the head of state alone. In 1969 Franco selected Juan Carlos de Borbn, the grandson of King Alfonso XIII, to succeed him as head of state. When Franco died in 1975, Juan Carlos came to the throne as King Juan Carlos I. Almost immediately the king initiated a process of transition to democracy that within three years replaced the Francoist system with a democratic constitution. The Constitution of 1978 The new constitution, the product of negotiations among the leading political groups, came into effect in December 1978. It declared that Spain was a constitutional monarchy. The monarch is the head of state and the highest representative of the state in international affairs. The monarch's role, however, is defined as being strictly neutral and apolitical in nature. He is also commander in chief of the armed forces, although without actual authority over them, and he is the symbol of national unity. His most important functions include the duty to formally summon and dissolve the legislature, appoint and accept the resignation of the prime minister and Cabinet ministers, and ratify laws, declare wars, and sign treaties decided upon by the government. The legislature, known as the Cortes Generales, is composed of two houses, the Congress of Deputies (Congreso de los Diputados) and the Senate (Senado). The former generally takes precedence over the latter. The number of deputies in the Congress of Deputies varies from 300 to 400. They are elected by universal suffrage of all citizens 18 years of age or over. Their term of office is four years, although it may be less if the legislature is dissolved early. Each of the 50 provinces is an electoral district, with the actual number of deputies from each province being determined by its population. Ballots are cast for a provincewide party list, not for individual candidates in individual districts. Seats are distributed on the basis of proportional representation. The Senate is described in the constitution as the chamber of territorial representation, but only about 20 percent of senators are actually chosen as representatives of the autonomous communities. The rest are elected from the 47 mainland provinces (with each province having four), the islands (the larger ones having four and the smaller ones having one each), and Ceuta and Melilla (with two each). The executive consists of the prime minister and deputy prime minister and the members of the Cabinet. The monarch formally appoints the prime minister, after consultation with the Cortes; the Cabinet ministers, chosen by the prime minister, are also appointed by the king. Since the executive is responsible to the legislature and must be approved by a majority vote, the prime minister is usually the leader of the party that has the most deputies. The Congress of Deputies can dismiss a prime minister through a vote of nonconfidence. History Visigothic Spain to c. 500 Large-scale invasions during the 5th century by the Germanic tribes settled along the imperial frontiers undermined Roman rule in Spain. The Visigoths, a people located along the Danube River and converted to Arian Christianity, were authorized by the emperor Valens to settle in the empire in 376. However, they soon turned against the Romans. Their triumph over Valens in the Battle of Adrianople in 378 signaled the beginning of the barbarian onslaught against Rome. Under their king Alaric the Visigoths invaded Italy and in 410 sacked Rome, sending shock waves throughout the empire. Taking advantage of the Visigothic threat to Italy, the Vandals, Alans, and Suebi (Suevi) crossed into Gaul and then into Spain. After ravaging the country for two years, the Suebi and the Asding Vandals settled in the northwestern province of Galicia (Gallaecia). The Siling Vandals occupied Baetica in the south, and the Alans, an Iranian people, settled in the central provinces of Lusitania and Carthaginiensis. For the time being, only Tarraconensis remained entirely under Roman control. After abandoning Italy, the Visigothic king Athaulf moved into southern Gaul, but, failing to win recognition for his people as federati, or allies, of the empire, he was forced into Tarraconensis, where he was assassinated in 415. Under his successor, Wallia (415418), the Romans acknowledged the Visigoths as allies and encouraged them to campaign against the other barbarian tribes in the peninsula. Those Alans and Siling Vandals who survived Visigothic attacks sought refuge with the Asdings and the Suebi in Galicia. The Roman emperor Honorius, in 418, authorized the Visigoths to settle in Gaul in the provinces of Aquitania Secunda and Narbonensis. The Suebi and the Asding Vandals meanwhile continued to lay waste Spain. Led by King Gaiseric (Genseric), the Vandals crossed the Strait of Gibraltar into North Africa in 429. They subjugated that province and governed it and the Balearic Islands until the Byzantine reconquest in 534. In Spain, the Suebi, initially pagans, accepted Arianism, but in the middle of the 6th century they were converted to orthodox Christianity by St. Martin of Dumio, bishop of Braga. Their independent kingdom in Galicia survived until the Visigoths subdued it in 585. The Visigoths, as allies of Rome, aided in the defense of Gaul against Attila and the Huns. The unchecked deterioration of the Western empire, however, resulted in the rupture of the fragile alliance between Rome and the Visigoths. Under the rulership of Euric (466484) the Visigoths founded an independent kingdom in southern Gaul, centred at Toulouse. In Spain the Visigoths drove the Suebi back into Galicia and occupied Tarraconensis and part of Lusitania. For the moment the provinces of Baetica and Carthaginiensis were left to take care of themselves. Despite the collapse of imperial rule in Spain, Roman influence remained strong. The majority of the population, probably about 6,000,000, were Hispano-Romans, as compared to 200,000 barbarians. Hispano-Romans held many administrative positions and continued to be governed by Roman law embodied in the Theodosian Code. Euric's Code, completed about 475, was written in Latin but was probably intended for the use of the Visigoths. In 506 Euric's son Alaric II (484507) published a compilation, known as the Breviary of Alaric, which was based on the Theodosian Code and meant to serve the needs of the Roman population. Visigothic dominance over southern Gaul came to an end when Clovis and the Franks defeated Alaric II at Vouill in 507. As a consequence of Frankish expansion, the Visigoths were compelled to penetrate more deeply into Spain, where their kings eventually established themselves at Toledo (Toletum). In the meantime the Byzantine emperor Justinian took advantage of struggles among the barbarians to regain control of the southern and eastern coasts of Spain. For about 70 years the Byzantines maintained a foothold in that part of the peninsula. Although the Visigoths had been in contact with the Roman world for more than a century before their effective settlement in Spain and had acquired a veneer of Romanization, significant legal, cultural, social, and religious differences kept them apart from the Hispano-Roman population. Aside from different languages and disparities in education, these diverse peoples were subject to distinct bodies of law. The Visigoths, while Christian, held to the Arian heresy against the orthodoxy of the Hispano-Romans. The Visigothic king was theoretically ruler of only his own people whereas the Hispano-Romans continued to profess allegiance to a rapidly vanishing imperial authority. A Roman law that prohibited intermarriage between the two peoples was, however, abolished in the late 6th century. Still, the task of bringing the two peoples together and of achieving some sort of political and cultural unity was a formidable one. The Visigothic Kingdom The Hispano-Roman population did not easily absorb the Visigoths. As the Suebi maintained an independent kingdom in Galicia and the Basques steadfastly opposed all attempts to subjugate them, the Visigoths did not have control of the entire peninsula. To the great satisfaction of the Hispano-Romans, Byzantine authority was restored in the southeast early in the 6th century. However, in the second half of the century Leovigild (568586), the most effective of the Visigothic monarchs, advanced the unification of the peninsula by conquering the Suebi and subduing the Basques. Ruling from Toledo in the centre of the peninsula, he transformed Visigothic kingship by adopting the throne and other Roman symbols of monarchy. The Hispano-Romans, provoked by his demand that they convert to Arianism, revolted in the southern province of Baetica under the leadership of Leovigild's son Hermenegild, who had accepted Catholicism and hoped, perhaps, to become king. Yet Byzantine failure to aid the rebels enabled Leovigild to suppress them. Leovigild's son Recared (586601), recognizing that the majority of the people adhered to the Catholic faith, repudiated his father's religious policy and announced his conversion to Catholicism. As the Gothic nobles and bishops followed his lead, a principal obstacle to the assimilation of Visigoths and Hispano-Romans was lifted. Thereafter, the Hispano-Romans, no longer expecting deliverance by Byzantium, developed a firm allegiance to the Visigothic monarchy. As a consequence, Swinthila (621631) was able to conquer the remaining Byzantine fortresses in the peninsula and to extend Visigothic authority throughout Spain. Not only was the conversion of the Visigoths a sign of the predominance of Hispano-Roman civilization, but it also brought the bishops into a close relationship with the monarchy. Kings, imitating Byzantine practice, exercised the right to appoint bishops, the natural leaders of the Hispano-Roman majority, and to summon them to the Councils of Toledo. Although the Councils of Toledo were essentially ecclesiastical assemblies, they had an exceptional impact on the government of the realm. The bishops, once they had heard a royal statement concerning current issues, enacted canons relating to church affairs, but they also touched on secular problems, such as royal elections or cases of treason. Through their councils the bishops provided essential support for the monarchy, but, in striving to achieve a peaceful and harmonious public order, the bishops sometimes compromised their independence. The hostility of the nobility to hereditary succession and an absence of natural heirs tended to preserve the elective character of the monarchy. As the Visigoths had a reputation for assassinating their kings, the bishops tried to safeguard the ruler by means of the ceremony of anointing. The holy oil manifested to all that the king was under God's protection and now had a sacred character. The bishops, hoping to eliminate the violence associated with a royal election, also devised the procedures to be followed. The royal household (officium palatinum), which imitated the Roman imperial model, assisted the king in governing, but when necessary the king also consulted assemblies of magnates and notables (aula regia). Dukes, counts, or judges were responsible for the administration of provinces and other territorial districts surviving from Roman times. Self-government had long since disappeared in the towns. Agriculture and animal husbandry were the mainstays of the economy. Evidence suggests that commercial and industrial activity were minimal. The predominance of the law of the Hispano-Roman majority over that of the Visigoths was another manifestation of the ascendancy of Roman civilization. The form and content of the Liber Iudiciorum, a code of law promulgated about 654 by the Visigothic king Recceswinth (649672), was fundamentally Roman. Although Germanic elements (such as the test of innocence by the ordeal of cold water) were included, the code consistently accepted the principles of Roman law, and, unlike Germanic customary law, it was meant to have territorial rather than personal application. The Liber Iudiciorum was a principal part of the Visigothic legacy received by medieval Spain. The extraordinary cultural achievements of the 7th century also testify to the continuing impact of the Roman heritage. The most prolific author was St. Isidore, bishop of Seville (Hispalis) from about 600 to 636, a friend and counselor of kings. Aside from his history of the Visigoths, a monastic rule, and theological treatises, his chief contribution to medieval civilization was the Etymologies, an encyclopaedic work that attempted to summarize the wisdom of the ancient world. A critical time in Visigothic history began toward the end of the 7th century. A sign of future troubles was the deposition, through deception, of King Wamba (672680), a capable ruler who tried to reform the military organization. As agitation continued, his successors made scapegoats of the Jews, compelling them to accept the Christian religion and threatening them with slavery. After the death of Witiza (700710), the persistent turbulence of the nobility thwarted the succession of his son and allowed Roderick, duke of Baetica (710711), to claim the throne. Determined to oust Roderick, Witiza's family apparently summoned the Muslims in North Africa to their aid. Thus Tariq ibn Ziyad, the Muslim governor of Tangier, after landing at Calpe (Gibraltar) in 711, routed King Roderick and the Visigoths near what is today the Guadalete River on July 19. The triumphant Muslims rapidly overran Spain, meeting only feeble resistance from the leaderless Visigoths. Although the kingdom of the Visigoths was no more, its memory inspired the kings of Asturias-Len to begin the reconquest of Spain. History Muslim Spain The conquest In the second half of the 7th century AD (1st century AH), Byzantine strongholds in North Africa gave way before the Arab advance. Carthage fell in 698. In 705 al-Walid I, caliph of the Umayyad dynasty, the first great Muslim dynasty centred in Damascus, appointed Musa ibn Nusayr governor in the west; Musa annexed all of North Africa as far as Tangier (Tanjah) and made progress in the difficult task of Islamizing the Berbers. The Christian ruler of Ceuta (Sabtah), Count Julian (variously identified by the Arab chroniclers as a Byzantine, a native Berber, or a Visigoth), eventually reached an agreement with Musa to launch a joint invasion of the Iberian Peninsula (see also North Africa, history of; Islamic world). The invasion of Spain was the result both of a Muslim readiness to invade and of a call for assistance by one of the Visigothic factions, the Witizans. Having become dispossessed after the death of King Witiza in 710, they appealed to Musa for support against the usurper Roderick (see above). In April or May of 711 Musa sent a Berber army headed by Tariq ibn Ziyad across the passage whose modern name, the Strait of Gibraltar, derives from Tariq; in July they were able to defeat Roderick in a decisive battle at an uncertain location. Instead of returning to Africa, Tariq marched north and conquered Toledo (Tulaytulah), the Visigothic capital, where he spent the winter of 711. In the following year Musa himself led an Arab army to the peninsula and reduced Mrida (Maridah) after a long siege. He reached Tariq in Toledo in the summer of 713. From there he advanced northeast, taking Saragossa (Saraqustah) and invading the country up to the northern mountains; he then moved from west to east, forcing the population to submit or flee. Both Musa and Tariq were recalled to Syria by the caliph, and they departed in 714 at the end of the summer; by then most of the Iberian Peninsula was under Muslim control. This rapid success can be explained by the fact that Hispano-Visigoth society had not yet succeeded in achieving a compact and homogeneous integration. The Jews, harassed by the legal ordinances of Toledo, were particularly hostile toward the Christian government. Moreover, the Muslim conquest brought advantages to many elements of society: the burden of taxes was on the whole less onerous than it had been in the last years of the Visigoth epoch; serfs who converted to Islam (mawali; singular: maula) advanced into the category of freedmen and enrolled among the dependents of some conquering noble; Jews were no longer persecuted and were placed on an equal footing with the Hispano-Romans and Goths who still remained within the Christian fold. Thus, in the first half of the 8th century, there was born a new society in Muslim Spain. The Arabs were the ruling element; a distinction was made between baladiyyun, that is, Arabs who had entered Spain in 712 under Musa, and Syrians, who arrived in 740 under Balj. Below them in status were the Berbers, the majority of the invading troops, whose numbers and influence continued to grow over the course of centuries because of their steady influx from Africa. Then came the native population who had converted to Islam, the musalimah, and their descendants, the muwallads; many of them were also mawali, that is, connected by patronage with an Arab, or even themselves of Berber lineage. This group formed the majority of the population because during the first three centuries social and economic motives induced a considerable number of natives to convert to Islam. Christians and Jews who kept their religion came next in the social hierarchy, but their numbers decreased in the course of time. Finally, there was a small group of slaves (Saqalibah)captives from the northern peninsula and other European countriesand Negro captives or mercenaries. The period between 711 and 756 is called the dependent emirate because Muslim Spain, or Al-Andalus, was dependent on the Umayyad caliph in Damascus. These years were marked by continuous hostilities between the different Arab factions and between the various social groups. Nonetheless, Muslim expansion beyond the Pyrenees continued until 732, when Franks, under Charles Martel, defeated the Muslims, led by the emir 'Abd ar-Rahman al-Ghafiqi, near Tours. This battle marked the beginning of the gradual Muslim retreat. A major Berber uprising against the Arabs in North Africa had powerful repercussions in Muslim Spain; it caused the depopulation of the northwestern peninsula, occupied at that time mainly by Berbers, and brought the Syrian army of Balj to Al-Andalus, which introduced a new motive for discord. This situation changed with the establishment of an independent emirate (756) by 'Abd ar-Rahman I ad-Dakhil, an Umayyad prince who, having succeeded in escaping from the slaughter of his family by the 'Abbasids, and in gaining power in Al-Andalus, became politically independent of them (not religiously; he did not adopt the title of caliph). The independent emirate Christian and Islamic states in Spain in 910. The dynasty of the Andalusian Umayyads (7561031) marked the growth and perfection of the Arabic civilization in Spain. Its history may be divided into two major periodsthat of the independent emirate (756929) and that of the caliphate (9291031)and may be interpreted as revolving around three persons of like name'Abd ar-Rahman I (756788), II (822852), III (912961)and the all-powerful hajib (chief minister) al-Mansur (9761002). 'Abd ar-Rahman I was the organizer of the new Arab state. Vigorously checking all dissident elements, he endeavoured to base his power on the Eastern aristocracy affiliated with his house and heaped upon it property and riches, though he nonetheless treated it ruthlessly when it showed signs of rebellion. He protected the religious authorities who represented orthodoxy, and, through a series of punitive campaigns, he held in check the Christians of Asturias. In the eastern part of the country he was troubled by intrigues of the 'Abbasids, and in the north he had to cope with the ambitions of Charlemagne, who menaced the valley of the Ebro (Ibruh). As stated above, Charlemagne failed ignominiously; he was forced to raise the siege of Saragossa, and in the course of his retreat he suffered a defeat at Roncesvalles (778), which is celebrated in the great medieval epic La Chanson de Roland. The Franks had to be content with occupying the upper valleys of the Pyrenees. The Frankish advance ended with the Muslim seizure of Gerona (Jerunda) in 785, Barcelona (Barjelunah) in 801, and Old Catalonia. 'Abd ar-Rahman I's successors, Hisham I (788796) and al-Hakam I (796822), were confronted with severe internal dissidence among the Arab nobility. A rebellion in Toledo was put down savagely, and the internal warfare caused the emir to increase the numbers of Slav and Berber mercenaries and to impose new taxes to pay for them. 'Abd ar-Rahman II inaugurated an era of political, administrative, and cultural regeneration for Muslim Spain, beginning a sharp Orientalization, or, more precisely, of an Iraqization. 'Abd ar-Rahman's greatest problems sprang from his restless vassals in the Ebro valley, namely, the convert Banu Qasi family, and, before his death, above all, from the Mozarabs. Incited by the extremist chiefs Alvaro and Eulogio (the latter being canonized after his death), they sought to strengthen their faith through the aura of martyrdom and began to revile publicly the Prophet Muhammad, an action punishable by death from 850 onward (this is reported only by Mozarabic sources). The emir sought to persuade the blasphemous to retract, but failing in his attempts, he imposed the death penalty. The vogue of seeking martyrdom was a reaction of the conservative Mozarabic party against the growing Arabization of their coreligionists. The conflict ended in 859860, and, in spite of official tact, this provocation by the Christians led to the capital punishment of 53 people and was finally disavowed by the ecclesiastical authorities. In foreign policy 'Abd ar-Rahman II conducted intensive diplomatic activity: he exchanged ambassadors with the Byzantine Empire and with the Frankish king Charles II the Bald and maintained friendly relations with sovereigns of Tahart, which lent military support to Spain. He was able to confront the constantly growing incursions of the Northmen, or Vikings, whom he defeated in the vicinity of Seville. Furthermore, he established permanent defenses against the Viking invaders by the creation of two naval bases, one facing the Atlantic at Seville and another on the Mediterranean shore at Pechina near Almera. His successors, Muhammad I (852886), al-Mundhir (886888), and 'Abd Allah (888912), were confronted with a new problem, which threatened to do away with the power of the Umayyadsthe muwallads. Having become more and more conscious of their power, they rose in revolt in the north of the peninsula, led by the powerful Banu Qasi clan, and in the south (879), by 'Umar ibn Hafsun. The struggle against them was long and tragic; Ibn Hafsun, well protected in Bobastro and in the Mlaga mountains, was the leader of muwallad and even Mozarabic discontent in the south of Al-Andalus, but his defeat at Poley, near Cordova (891), forced him to retreat and hide in the mountains. 'Abd Allah, however, was not able to subdue the numerous rebels and thus left a weak state for his grandson, the great 'Abd ar-Rahman III, who, from 912, was able to restore order. He subdued all Al-Andalus, from Jan (Jayyan) to Saragossa (Saraqustah), from Mrida (Maridah) to Seville (Ishbiliyah) and the Levant. He even challenged Ibn Hafsun successfully, especially after the latter's political error of reverting to the Christianity of his Spanish ancestors, a step that caused the desertion of numerous muwallads, who regarded themselves as good Muslims. When Ibn Hafsun died in 917, his sons were forced to capitulate, and in 928 'Abd ar-Rahman III was able to capture the theretofore impregnable fortress of Bobastro. History United Spain under the Catholic monarchs The union of Aragon and Castile When Ferdinand II (14791516, also Ferdinand V of Castile from 1474) succeeded to the crown of Aragon in 1479, the union of Aragon (roughly eastern Spain) and Castile (roughly western Spain) was finally achieved, and the Trastmara became, after the Valois of France, the second most powerful monarchs in Europe. The different royal houses of the Iberian Peninsula had long thought in terms of a union of their crowns and had practiced intermarriage for generations. Nevertheless, the union of the crowns of Castile and Aragon was far from inevitable in the last quarter of the 15th century. A union between Castile and Portugal was equally feasible, and it has been argued that it would have made more sense, for it would have allowed the two western Hispanic kingdoms to concentrate on overseas exploration and expansion, and it would not have involved Castile in Aragon's traditional rivalry with France. The reasons that led John II of Aragon to arrange the marriage of his son and heir, Ferdinand, with Isabella of Castile, in 1469, were essentially tactical: he needed Castilian support against French aggression in the Pyrenees. In Castile an influential party of magnates, led by Alfonso Carillo, archbishop of Toledo (who later reversed himself) and opposed to King Henry IV, supported the succession claims of the princess Isabella, the king's half sister, against those of his daughter, Joan. They were anxious for the help and leadership of the Aragonese prince and content with the alliance of a country in which the magnates had such far-reaching privileges as the Aragonese nobility. It needed a forged papal dispensation for the marriage, the blackmailing of Henry IV into (wrongly) denying the paternity of his daughter (Joan), and, finally, several years of bitter civil war before Ferdinand and Isabella defeated Joan's Castilian supporters and her husband, Afonso V of Portugal. Aragon and Catalonia Ferdinand and Isabella ruled jointly in both kingdoms and were known as the Catholic Monarchs (Reyes Catlicos). It was, however, a union of crowns and not of kingdoms. In size, institutions, traditions, and, partly, even language, the two kingdoms differed greatly. Within the kingdom of Aragon, Aragon and Valencia each had about 270,000 inhabitants, of whom some 20 percent and more than 30 percent, respectively, were Muslims and Moriscos (Muslims officially converted to Christianity). Catalonia had about 300,000 inhabitants. In each of these kingdoms the powers of the crown were severely limited. The barons ruled their estates like kings, dispensing arbitrary justice over their peasants. In Catalonia they had the right to wage private war. In Aragon anyone arrested by order of the king could put himself under the jurisdiction of a justicia who held his office for life and was therefore independent of the king's pleasure. It was this highest judge who crowned the kneeling king and made him swear to observe the fueros, the laws and privileges, of the kingdom. It is now known that the formula We who are as good as you swear to you who are no better than we, to accept you as our king and sovereign lord, provided you accept all our liberties and laws; but if not, not is a forgery, most probably of the mid-16th century. It does, however, summarize very well the relations between the kings of Aragon and the Aragonese nobility. Ferdinand made no attempt to change this position; nor did he do so in Catalonia, where the crown had just emerged successfully from a long and confused civil war. The nobility and the urban aristocracy of Barcelona had been faced by violent social movements of the peasants and the lower classes of the cities and were themselves riven by family and factional strife. The crown intervened, mainly on the side of the lower classes but, inevitably, in alliance with some of the noble factions and against the French who had taken the opportunity to occupy Cerdagne and Roussillon. In 1486 Ferdinand settled the Catalan problem by a compromise, the Sentencia de Guadalupe, which effectively abolished serfdom and the more oppressive feudal obligations of the peasants in return for monetary payments to the lords. Otherwise, the political and legal privileges of the rural nobility and the urban aristocracy were left intact. Effectively, therefore, Ferdinand made no attempt to strengthen the powers of the crown and to give the principality a more efficient system of government. But Ferdinand had given Catalonia peace and the opportunity to make good the ravages of the civil wars and the losses of commercial markets to Italian competitors. This opportunity was only partially taken by the Catalans. They failed completely to prevent the Genoese from establishing a dominant position in the economy of Castile and, more especially, in the vital and rapidly expanding Atlantic trade of Seville. The union of the crowns of Aragon and Castile therefore led to neither a political and institutional union nor to an economic integration of the Iberian Peninsula. History Spain under the Habsburgs Charles I Ferdinand died on Jan. 23, 1516, and the crowns of the Spanish kingdoms devolved on his grandson, Charles I (151656), the ruler of the Netherlands and heir to the Habsburg dominions in Austria and southern Germany. This new union had not been planned in Spain, and, at first, it was deeply resented. Francisco Cardinal Jimnez, the regent until Charles's arrival in Spain, had to battle against the old antagonisms between nobles and towns that were flaring up again when the magnates took the opportunity of the regency to try to regain their old power. When Jimnez tried to raise a militia, nobles and cities both sabotaged the plan. The old hostilities between the different Spanish kingdoms were as bitter as ever, with the men of Navarre, for instance, claiming that they would rather accept a Turk than an Aragonese as governor of the fortress of Pamplona. Although the court at Brussels had been careful to hold its hand in the distribution of patronage, the Spaniards, nevertheless, accused the Netherlanders of greed and place hunting. It took Charles's Netherlandish ministers a year and a half to settle the Netherlandish government and to make agreements with France and England that would allow the boy-king to take possession of his new kingdom without outside interference. It was a considerable achievement, but for Spain the time was still too long. When Charles arrived in Spain, in September 1517, his supporters were already disillusioned, and the country was apprehensive of the rule of a foreigner. Charles himself, ugly, inexperienced, speaking no Spanish, and surrounded by Burgundian councillors and courtiers, did not initially make a good impression. The different Cortes of Castile, Aragon, and Catalonia granted his financial demands but attached to them much pointed advice and criticism. The comunero movement On June 28, 1519, Charles was elected Holy Roman emperor as Charles V and prepared to go to Germany. His chancellor, Mercurino Gattinara, summoned the Castilian Cortes to Santiago in northwestern Spain (April 1520) to demand more money, even though the former grant had not yet expired. The towns immediately made difficulties. The Toledans refused to appear; the others demanded the discussion of grievances before supply. By a mixture of bribery and concessions, the government finally induced a majority of the delegates (who had transferred from Santiago to La Corua on the northwest coast of Spain) to vote the new grant. Many of the delegates were immediately disowned in their hometowns, and one from Segovia was murdered by an enraged mob. As Charles set sail (May 20, 1520), the Castilian revolution had already begun. The towns, led by Toledo, formed a league and set up a revolutionary government. They claimedmore boldly even than the Third Estate during the French Revolution in 1789that they were the kingdom and that the Cortes had the right to assemble without a royal summons and to discuss all matters relating to the welfare of the realm. There was talk of dethroning Charles in favour of his mother, Joan the Mad. The comunero leader, Juan de Padilla, actually captured the castle of Tordesillas (100 miles northwest of Madrid), where Joan was kept as prisoner, but the queen, whether out of madness or calculation of the interests of the monarchy, would not commit herself to Padilla's proposals. The comunero movement spread rapidly through Castile, and the nobles did nothing to check it. They had not forgiven Charles his quest for the imperial title (which they thought inferior to that of king of Castile) nor his foreign councillors and courtiers. They resented above all his bestowal of the archbishopric of Toledo on a young Burgundian, Guillaume de Croy, and the appointment of his former tutor, Adrian of Utrecht (later Pope Adrian VI), as regent of Castile. Even the appointment of the admiral Fadrique Enrquez and the constable of Castile, Iigo de Velasco, as Adrian's co-regents did little to mollify the offended grandees. Only when the more radical and popular elements in the cities were gaining control of the comunero movement and beginning to spread it to the nobles' estates did the nobles combine to raise an army and defeat the comunero forces at Villalar (April 23, 1521). The power of monarchy was thus restored in Castile, never to be seriously shaken again under the Habsburg kings. But in practice it was far from absolute. The towns kept much of their autonomy, and the corregidors were often unable to exert effective royal control over determined town councils. The 18 royal towns that were summoned to the Cortes never again challenged the ultimate authority of the crown; but they continued to quarrel with the king about their claim that they were entitled to delay granting taxes until after their grievances had been dealt with, and they frequently managed to sabotage the government's demand that their deputies be given full powers to vote on government proposals. Moreover, when the crown found it convenient to convert the alcabala (a medieval sales tax) into the encabezamiento (global sums agreed by the Cortes and raised by the individual towns as they wished), the towns achieved a great measure of control over the administration of parliamentary taxation. Nor did the estate of the nobles in the Cortes prove easier to handle. When, in 1538, Charles proposed a tax from which the nobles should not be exempt, there were immediate rumblings of revolt. The king had to give way, but he never summoned the nobility again to the meetings of the Cortes. The monarchy had thus won its political victory in Castile only at the cost of letting the nobility contract out of the financial obligations of the state and the empire. The rising burden of taxes fell, therefore, on those least able to bear them and on the only classes whose activities and investments could have developed the Castilian economy. History The early Bourbons, 170053 The wars of the 17th century, though they had weakened Spain's power in Europe, had left it still the greatest imperial power in the world. Spain's central problem in the 17th century had been to maintain what remained of its European possessions and to retain control of its American empire. In 1700 both tasks appeared to be beyond the military and economic resources of the monarchy. In the 17th century the greatest threat had come from a land power, France, jealous of Habsburg power in Europe; in the 18th it was to come from a sea power, England, while the Austrian Habsburgs became the main continental enemy of Spain. The War of the Spanish Succession In 1700 (by the will of the childless Charles II) the Duke d'Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV of France, became Philip V of Spain. Austria refused to recognize Philip, a Bourbon, and thereby concede the defeat of its hopes of placing an Austrian candidate on the throne of Spain. To England, a Bourbon king in Spain would disrupt the balance of power in Europe in favour of French hegemony. Louis XIV conceived of Spain under a Bourbon king as a political and commercial appendage of France to be ruled by correspondence from Versailles; he wished to regenerate and strengthen his ally by a modern centralized administration. This task was both complicated and facilitated by the War of the Spanish Succession (170114) when the allied armies of Britain and Austria invaded Spain in order to drive out Philip V and establish the Austrian candidate, the archduke Charles, on the throne. An efficient administration had to be created in order to extract resources from Spain for the war effort and thus relieve pressure on the French treasury; at the same time financial shortages imperiled administrative reform while war taxation and war levies drove Catalonia and Aragon to revolt against the demands of the Bourbon dynasty. The instruments of centralizing reform were French civil servants (Jean-Jacques Amelot, Louis XIV's ambassador, and Jean-Henri-Louis Orry, a financial expert) and a handful of Spanish lawyer-administrators such as Melchor de Macanaz. They were supporte