European territorial expansion: the Habsburg connection
It is of great significance for world history that the Habsburg dynasty came
to rule all of the monarchies of the Iberian Peninsula. I will discuss the
nature of Habsburg dynastic expansion, with particular attention to the social
and cultural environments of seigniorial administration. Both as a point of
comparison and as a partial explanation of Habsburg policy, I also want to say
something about the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century.
Reading: Elliott, chs. IV & V.
- What is the proper unit of analysis for an examination of the interactive
networks that characterized the exercise of political authority?
- What differences do you notice between the behavior of leaders of
sixteenth-century polities and those of twentieth-century ones? How do you
account for the differences you find?
- Why were the attempts of the Aviz and Trastámara rulers to pursue a
marriage alliance that would produce a common ruler for all their kingdoms
frustrated?
- Why did Ferdinand and Isabella marry their daughter Joanna to Philip of
Habsburg, the son of the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I?
- Why did Ferdinand and Isabella marry their daughter Catherine to the heir
to the English Tudor dynasty, the future Henry VIII?
- Why were there major rebellions in the kingdoms of Castile and Valencia
when Charles of Habsburg was brought into the Iberian Peninsula as joint ruler
with his mother Joanna of Trastámara?
- What impact did the development of gunpowder weapons have on the social
and cultural environments of the Iberian Peninsula and of Europe as a whole?
- What was the social and intellectual significance of the technological
innovation of printing with movable type?
- What was the impact of Renaissance humanism on the social and cultural
environments of the sixteenth century?
- What effects did the knowledge of the peoples, geography, and natural
environment of the Americas have on European religious and intellectual life?
- What was the impact of the growing divisions among European Christians
over matters of doctrine, devotional practices, and institutions on the
ability of Habsburg rulers to exercise their authority in their various
domains?
- What were the major factors that shaped the policies of Charles of
Habsburg (the Emperor Charles V) in each of the European territories he ruled?
- Why was the Ottoman empire such a dangerous and successful rival to the
Habsburgs?
- What role did the artillery fortress have in stabilizing the boundaries
between Habsburg and Ottoman territories?
- Why did military discipline become such an increasingly important factor
in European and Mediterranean warfare?
- Why did Charles V maintain the Inquisition in his Iberian lands once the
covert Judaism of the Converso community had been crushed?
- Why didn't the Iberian governments of Charles V pursue the forced
conversion of their practicing Muslim subjects?
- Why wasn't the Iberian Peninsula the scene of the terrible witch
persecutions that periodically convulsed other regions of western and central
Europe?
- Why did the Iberian Peninsula emerge in the sixteenth century as one of
Europe's leading areas for the development of political and ethical
philosophy?
- Why were Iberian intellectuals among the first Europeans to articulate
theories of human rights?
- Why did Iberian intellectuals emerge in the sixteenth century as major
proponents of constitutional theories about limitations on the exercise of
political authority? Why did law and judicial administration have primacy of
place in sixteenth-century political thought?
- What impact did the establishment of administrative control over overseas
territories have on government and political thought?
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J. B. Owens
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Revised: 28 July 1999
URL: http://www.isu.edu/~owenjack/spemp/reading.14.html