SESSION 6 PRESENTATION

The Enlightenment Period: Political, Social and

Economic Reforms

SPANISH CIVILIZATION AND

CULTURE

CEA BARCELONA GLOBAL CAMPUS

SPRING 2007 PROGRAMME

1
 From Habsburg to Bourbon
rule
► CharlesII dies without a direct heir
presented a problem for the Spanish
empire. Wills Spain to the Bourbons.

► Pretenders from both the House of

Habsburg and Bourbon claim the right
to the throne.

2
► Atthe reading of Charles II’s will, with
ministers from both France and Austria
present, the duke of Abrantes
approached the Austrian minister,
embracing him warmly and stating,
“Sir, it is with the greatest pleasure –
Sir, it is with the greatest satisfaction –
for my whole life – I take my leave of
the most illustrious House of Austria!”

3
 The Pretenders
► Candidate # 1 - Philip V, grandson of
Infanta Maria Teresa (eldest daughter
of Philip IV) and Louis XIV of France.
► Candidate #2 - Austrian Archduke
Charles (later Holy Roman Emperor
Charles VI), son of Emperor Leopold I
and a younger daughter of Philip IV.
► Contested - War of Spanish Succession
(1700-1714).
4
Bourbon Kings through the 18th
century
► Philip V 1700-1724

► Louis I 1724 (dies and is replaced by father again)

► Philip V 1724-1746

► Ferdinand VI 1746-1759

► Charles III 1759-1788

► Charles IV 1788-1808
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 SESSION 6 The Enlightenment Period

Who backs whom?

Castile joined Philip, who would be
known as the V, they believed that he
would be the best choice to preserve
the Empire in Europe and in America.

What about in the Aragonese

territories?

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 SESSION 6 The Enlightenment Period

► Aragon initially supported Philip V but

they changed their support to the
Archduke Charles, fearing the
absolutist ideals of the Bourbons.

► Habsburgs supported by England, the

Netherlands and Portugal. They did
not like the idea of France and Spain
uniting under same dynasty.
7
 Aragon and Valencia fall: Royal
decree of June 29, 1707
► Inconsideration of the fact that by their
rebellion and complete disloyalty to the oath
of fidelity they made to me as their rightful
king and lord, the realms of Aragon and
Valencia and all their inhabitants have
forfeited all the fueros, privileges,
exemptions and liberties which they used to
enjoy and which with so liberal a hand had
been granted to them both by me and by the
kings my predecessors, distinguishing them
in this respect from the other realms of this
crown and touching me in my absolute
dominion over the said two realms of Aragon 8
 SESSION 6 The Enlightenment Period

► Habsburgallies abandon the Catalans.

Bought out. Barcelona falls
September 11th 1714.

► Thisis still the most important day of

the year for many Catalans. Why?

9
The first act passed by the new autonomous
Parliament of Catalonia when it was created in
1980 declared September 11th as the Catalan
national holiday

10
 Bourbon changes –
Enlightened?
► Elimination of nearly all fueros (Catalans in
1716 under the Nueva Planta decrees)
► Use of Castilian in all state-related business
and judiciary
► Elimination of internal customs (Spain and
colonies slowly becomes a vast free-trade
area).
► Monetary unification
► Sows seeds of Catalonia’s industrial takeoff
► Losing many European territories allowed
concentration on Americas. 11
 Bourbon’s Social Changes
Regulating the Arts and Sciences:

► Royal Academy of Language (1714)

► Royal Academy of History (1738)
► Royal Academy of Fine Arts (1744)
► Royal Academy of Medicine and
Surgery (1737)

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 SESSION 6 The Enlightenment Period

► Althoughharsh - modernization of the

bureaucracy of the state was a needed
change, at least economically.

► Thus, Philip V is often considered as one of

the first of the Enlightenment-influenced
leaders in Spain, ilustrados.

► Thetheme of the Enlightenment, ilustrados

was: “everything for the people, but without
the people” what do you get from this? What 13
does it mean?
 SESSION 6 The Enlightenment Period

► 18thCentury Enlightenment meant

absolute power used in a
(theoretically) altruistic way; it is used
to change and improve the living
conditions of the people but without
considering their opinions.
► Creates a slight distance from Church -
Inquisition-banned books circulated
(Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau)
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 SESSION 6 The Enlightenment Period

Some of the reforms are popular:

► Creation of a sewer system in Madrid

► Publicly lit streets
► paved streets
Others were progressive:
► Philosophy began to incorporate
modern physics and astronomy
(heretofore rejected)
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But enlightenment meant doing
what the king thought best…
► On the one hand, the cultural elites
want to modernize the country from a
rationalist and secular perspective
► On the other hand, the popular masses
were traditionalists, Catholics but with
a superstition pagan touch, poor and
uneducated.
► This includes bumping heads with the
Church.
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 SESSION 6 The Enlightenment Period

Relationship between
monarchy and the Church I
► Philip V wanted to increase the control not just over
the people but over the Church too.

► The concept of separation of powers or of

submission of the Church to the laws of the states
was not yet reality.

► Campaign begins with Philip V and culminates with

Ferdinand VI – Concordat of 1753. Crown now
nominates bishops, taxes ecclesiastical property,
and reduced fees paid by Spaniards to Vatican. 17
 Relationship between absolute
monarchy and the Church II
► The social function of the Church was
proportional to its financial role. About a fifth
of the agrarian income in Castile came from
their lands. This, also implied power.

► Controversy came most pointedly with the

orders, particularly the Jesuits. They fall out of
favor with the Crown - supposedly insidious
plots against the Crown in the Americas and
on the peninsula

► Butthese were political and economic

conflicts rather than a theological controversy 18

– sending a message
 Reforms continue – Charles III
(1759-1788) and Floridablanca
► Tried to break the rural oligarchies -
caciques
► expelled the Jesuits for their supposedly
insidious plots against the Crown in the
Americas and on the peninsula
► deregulated the grain market
► reigned in the Mesta by allowing people to
enclose their fields for agriculture
► He divided the Spanish state into 31
provinces in 1789
► remove the ‘wasted’ land from the Church
and nobility and to put it to more
economical use 19
 SESSION 6 The Enlightenment Period

► With Charles III, Spain progressed

economically.
► Freed of the European wars of
Habsburgs and strengthened by an
economy in expansion.
► Partly due to political rationalization,
including applying concepts in
economics and trade.
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Legacy of the Carolinian reformers I

► Precursors to the liberals of the 19th

century. NOT democrats, but were
precursor of liberal reforms of the 19th
century
► Like their predecessors and the
liberals who came after them,
however, their reforms largely
remained unfinished. Many reforms
also were more in theory that in
practice 21
 Legacy II Spain at the end of the
18th c. – Effects on Empire
► The War of American Independence (1775)

► Why Spain should have supported Britain?

► WhySpain should have supported the

American colonies?

Who did they support?

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 Legacy III
I Spain at the end of the
18th c. – Effects on Empire
► The War of American Independence (1775)

► Why Spain should have supported Britain:

 the colonial rebellion in the US could lead to a
similar outbreak of secessionist unrest in Spain’s
own colonies in America.

► Why Spain should have supported the American

colonies:
 Alliance with France (both Bourbons; a question
of family) + opportunity to reverse the power of
the British Empire

Who did they support? 23

 Spain supports France and
American Colonies
► 1779-83 Spain supports France and
American Colonies
► Spain obtains Florida and Menorca
from Britain in Treaties of Paris (1783)
► So, by the time of the death of Charles
III in 1788, Spain’s credentials as
imperial power seemed restored

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 SESSION 6 The Enlightenment Period

Legacy III
I Spain at the end of the 18th
c.
Economically: Overall Spain is growing, but
divided:
► An underdeveloped interior
► Agrarian and oligarchic Andalusia
► Prosperous periphery of North and East.
Politically: Freed of Habsburg Baggage, but…
► Spain is now Bourbon, and therefore an ally
of France
► The problem, though, comes from abroad:
what is going on in 1789? We’ll look at that
after we look at the pre-1789 culture. 25
 Enlightement – Cultural
Legacies
► The Enlightenment emphasized reason more than
the feeling, thus it eliminates the excess of the
baroque art and an art simpler and rational, similar
to Greek and the Roman is valued.

► Thus, the Literature and the arts of this period

comprise of which later the Neoclassical would be
called. Ignacio de Luzán (1702-1754) sets down in
his Poética (1737) several rules that art must
follow.

► For Luzán, all literary work must be educative and

useful to the society. Therefore, the Neoclassical
values are reflected in fables (fables), and have a
didactic and educative function. 26
 Baroque and churrigueresco
design
► Baroque: The Baroque Spanish period was
during the 18th century, limited in most of
the cases religious buildings. It is a severe
art and but included complicated
ornamental designs. The architect Pedro
de Ribera is most representative of this style
In the interiors of these buildings the
churrigueresco style predominates (thus
called by archirecto Madrilenian Jose de
Churriguera [1665-1725]) that characterizes
by its exaggerated ornamentation 27
 Altarpiece of the cathedral of
Cathedral of Toledo Badajoz (churrigueresco style)
(1721-32)

28
Palace of Versailles
Palace of La Granja of San
(Versailles, France) Ildefonso (Segovia, Spain)

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The Rococo style appears in the interiors and the furniture. It is
not a sober or severe style but a full style of grace and elegance.
This style uses curved lines, ovals and asymmetric forms.

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 The Neoclassical style uses less ornamentation than
Baroque as well as the Greek subjects or adornments. This

it is the preferred style of Carlos III.

Puerta de Alcala (Madrid)

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 Francisco de Goya y Lucientes
(1746-1828)
► Like Velázquez, Goya was a Spanish court painter.

► Goya served as director of painting at the Royal

Academy from 1795 to 1797 and was appointed first
Spanish court painter in 1799. He expressed his
horror of armed conflict in The Disasters of War, a
series of starkly realistic etchings on the atrocities of
war. They were not published until 1863, long after
Goya's death.

► His uncompromising portrayal of his times marks the

beginning of 19th-century realism. A serious illness in
1792 left Goya permanently deaf. Isolated from
others by his deafness, he became increasingly
occupied with the fantasies and inventions of his 32
imagination and with critical and satirical
El parasol  (1777)

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El coloso 1810-1812

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Saturno devorando a sus hijos
1820-23

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 SESSION 6 The Enlightenment Period
The French Revolution (1789-1799) was a
period of major political and social change
in the political history of France and Europe
as a whole.

Most importantly for our purposes - the

French governmental structure, previously
an absolute monarchy with feudal
privileges for the aristocracy and Catholic
clergy, underwent radical change to forms
based around Enlightenment ideals of
democracy, citizenship, and inalienable
rights. 36
►How will the French Revolution
affect Spain?

37