This page presents information related to the twelfth class session of J. B. Owens's fall 2002 upper-division undergraduate and graduate course, History 360/560, The Spanish Empire. This course is part of the core curriculum in comparative and world history of the Department of History, Idaho State University. The sole purpose of this page is to provide an orientation to the reading assignments and class session for those students enrolled in History 360/560. See the source page for the complete Dublin Core standard metadata.

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Roots of a "Golden Age"; roots of "decline"

The period from the late sixteenth century to the mid seventeenth is often described as the Golden Age of the Habsburg "Spanish Monarchy." Yet it is also discussed as the age in which "Spain" had lost its hegemonic position in Europe and the world. This fascinating lack of conceptual clarity suggests an interpretative problem a major importance, which will be the subject of this session. A consideration of how Iberian rulers managed to retain under their authority so much of the world, despite pressure from other polities and peoples.

Reading: Payne, vol. I, ch. 15; Payne, vol. II, ch. 18 (to p. 403).

  1. What were the consequences of population growth and urbanization from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century in the Iberian Peninsula, and in Europe and the Mediterranean in general?
  2. What effects did the knowledge of the peoples, geography, and natural environment of the Americas have on European religious and intellectual life?
  3. What was the impact on Iberian social and cultural environments of the growing importance of wage labor?
  4. In what ways did the Catholic Reformation have an impact on the social and cultural environments of the Iberian kingdoms and the territories of Castilian and Portuguese America?
  5. What was the impact on Iberian kingdoms of Europe's religious wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries?
  6. Why did the Dutch, English, and French emerge as major naval, commercial, and political powers in the Atlantic basin in the late-sixteenth and seventeenth centuries?
  7. Why did anti-Habsburg revolts break out in the 1640s in Catalunya, Portugal, Naples, and Sicily?
  8. Why weren't France and the "Spanish Monarchy" able, despite serious internal problems, to end the war between them in 1648 when so many other European military conflicts were terminated?
  9. Why did both Philip III and Philip IV so often govern through unpopular validos (favorites)?
  10. Why was there so little enthusiasm and much opposition to the Union of Arms proposed by the Count-Duke of Olivares in the mid 1620s? In general, why weren't Olivares's reform proposals well received, even in Castile? What is the significance of the inclusion of the Netherlands and the Italian domains in the Union of Arms?
  11. Why did the government of Philip III decide to expel all the peninsula's Moriscos? How was it possible to accomplish such a huge project?
  12. Why were Jewish financiers abroad, many of them of Iberian origin, willing to provide some of the loans necessary to prop up the Habsburg monarchy after the Crown's suspension of payments to its creditors in 1627?
  13. What were the political implications of the heavy investment by Castilian elites in juros (government bonds)?
  14. In the years of recession between 1620 and 1660, why did the economies of the Iberian periphery perform so much better than those of the interior?
  15. In light of the popular conception of Habsburg "Spain" as authoritarian and oppressive, how do you account for the lively, diverse culture and intense public political debates of seventeenth-century Castile, Catalunya, and Portugal?
  16. How did Castile's great aristocratic Houses manage to sustain themselves in the seventeenth century?
  17. Why did so many wealthy merchants move ever-increasing percentages of their family capital out of trade and manufacturing and into investments in status, government securities (juros), and loans (censos)?
  18. Why did a concern about limpieza de sangre (clean blood) become a significant aspect of Castile's social and cultural environments?
  19. Why did New Christian merchants of Jewish origin become increasingly important in providing loans that made it possible for the Habsburg monarchy to function? Because the most important period of such support was between 1627 and 1647, why did the Inquisition increase its investigations of New Christians in Castilian and Portuguese territory in the 1630s and 1640s?
  20. What external factors played an important role in the shrinking Portuguese role in the Indian Ocean and Asia after 1610?
  21. What impact did the expansion of the Mughal empire in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have on Portuguese activities in India?
  22. Why didn't the Mughal empire join with the Ottomans in "a direct maritime challenge to Portuguese power" (Subrahmanyam 1993: 147) in the middle years of the sixteenth century?
  23. What implications did the rise of Persian power under Shah Abbas I (r. 1587-1629) have for the Portuguese in Asia? What motivated the Shah to distance himself from his dynasty's traditional supporters among the Turkoman qizilbash peoples?
  24. What were the implications for Castilian and Portuguese interests in East Asia of the successes of Japan's "Great Unifiers" Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu?
  25. What was the impact of the sale of public offices in Habsburg domains?
  26. Why were Portuguese fortifications in East Africa and Asia so poorly provided with artillery?
  27. Why did the Dutch and English governments decide to rely on the system of chartered companies to penetrate Indian Ocean commerce? Does this choice suggest that the Dutch and English governments weren't interested in trade because they chose not to be involved directly?
  28. Why did the project of a Portuguese East India Company fail?
  29. Why were the 1630s the crucial years in the seventeenth-century decline of the Portuguese Estado da India?
  30. Why was the count of Linhares, viceroy of Portuguese Asia, especially concerned about the Dutch presence along the Fishery and Coromandel coasts of India?
  31. What was the significance of the Portuguese defense of Melaka against the attack in 1629 of the sultan of Aceh (Atjah)? Of their loss of Hughli to the Mughal empire in 1632? Of the loss during the 1630s of so much Portuguese territory in Sri Lanka to the ruler of Kandy?
  32. What was the overall significance of the 1639 ban by the bakufu of Portuguese trade with Japan?
  33. What factors led to the collapse of the Portuguese position in the Persian Gulf region?
  34. What factors contributed to Portuguese successes and failures in their military competition with the Dutch in India and Southeast Asia?
  35. What factors permitted the Mediterranean-American Habsburg dynasty (to distinguish it from the Central European one) to retain control of so much of its territory in the second half of the seventeenth century?
  36. What was the impact on the social and cultural environments of the empire of the establishment of a Spanish Bourbon dynasty in the early eighteenth century?
  37. How was the Portuguese empire able to survive after the seizure of the throne by the duke of Braganza (as king João IV) in 1640?
  38. What was the relationship between Portuguese Asian trade and the continuing development of trade between Angola and Brazil?
  39. How did the Portuguese viceroys use alliances with East African and Asian rulers to maintain the financial viability of the Estado da India after 1640?
  40. What impact did the rise of the Marathas in the late seventeenth century have on the European position in South Asia?
  41. Why were the Portuguese able to expand their control over territory in the Zambezi region of East Africa during the second half of the seventeenth century?
  42. Why would settlements of private Portuguese outside the territory of the Estado da India continue to seek contacts with the viceregal government in Goa?
  43. What impact did the seventeenth-century Manchu-Ming conflicts have on the residents of Portuguese Macau?
  44. What factors contributed to growing Dutch and then English success in the Indian Ocean?
  45. What factors led some Portuguese to abandon Christianity in Asia?
  46. What opportunities did Portuguese find outside of the territories of the Estado da India?
  47. Why were there Christian communities in India even before the Portuguese arrived?
  48. What factors contributed to the success or failure of Christian missionary efforts in Asia in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries?
  49. Why was it so difficult for Asians who converted to Christianity, learned Portuguese, and adopted Portuguese practices to gain full acceptance as Portuguese? What do these difficulties tell us about the social and cultural environments of Portuguese-governed territories in Asia?

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J. B. Owens
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Revised: 1 September 2002




URL:  http://www.isu.edu/~owenjack/spemp/readver5.12.html