Imperial Spain 1469-1716 by J.H. Term Paper

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Also, he notes that the piety of Isabella and Ferdinand was not altogether negative. For example, when Columbus sent home "shiploads of Indians" from the New World, the court's theologians and Isabella in particular strongly protested such an action. (Elliot, p.70)

After the reign of Isabella, as he had no heir, Ferdinand was forced by the laws of succession to transfer the rule of Spain over to the Habsburg dynasty. This transfer of power lead to the control of Spain by an equally devout and expansionist leader, Charles V. Charles declared a global war against heresy, the Protestantism that was overtaking Europe. Charles failed in his quest, as was evident in the eventual domination of Calvinism and Lutheranism in Northern Europe. However, for some time Spain managed to continue its hold upon its far-reaching colonies in the Americas, despite the increasing opposition of the Protestant powers it had declared Spain's sworn enemies.

Perhaps the most unexpected part of the text is its illumination of important financial aspects in Spain's coming to dominate Europe, such as its importance in sheep farming. In a land with "hard and barren" soil, "sheep-farming" proved more important than sustained agricultural production. (Elliot, p.33) The medieval wool trade made Spain's export market yet another financial source for its expansion, as well as the considerable amount of goods that it was harvesting from its colonies in the New World.

Eventually, however, Charles V's territorial ambitions began to exhaust even Spain's coffers. Elliot details the final financial troubles of the reign of Charles, as a result of his frequent absenteeism as well as his militarism, which nearly bankrupted the nation, despite its great wealth upon the eve of his succession. Charles' own successor, his son Phillip II, was more of a diplomat and a scholar and a military leader.

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Phillip was also, by virtue of necessity, forced to curtail Spain's dominions because of the financial excesses of Charles.

Elliot's final analysis of Spain's decline helps explain the artistic flourishing of such literary works, that have since become part of the Western cannon, most notably that of Cervantes' comedic masterpiece Don Quixote. There was, during the latter half of the 16th and 17th century a kind of artistic nostalgia for the greatness of the past, and a determination to make sense of why Spain's once vaunted power had been lost. Of course, there was a practical reason for this decline -- Elliot traces Spain's decline to the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, which required Spain to cede Gibraltar. However, painters like Velasquez and authors like Cervantes saw Spain's defeats as having moral as well as practical reasons, and hence the "national disillusionment" that pervaded their works. (Elliot, p.241)

These artists, during the final flourishing of Spain's rule, took an elegiac, mournful perspective upon the once-great power. Perhaps because Imperial Spain used morality to justify so much of her conquest, from the defeat of the Moors, to the dominance of the colonies, to the unity demanded of Spaniards under the Inquisition, and Charles V's war for the Holy Roman faith, the common populace sought a more persuasive reason for Spain's defeat that stretched beyond mere politics. It is in this that there is some parallel between Imperial Spain and the current moral struggles of her colony of long ago, America. A nation that uses morality, regardless of the form, to justify its ambition, and has leaders that believe its rhetoric, will become equally soul-searching for the moral reasons to justify its defeat......

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