Spain

Spain
/spayn/, n.
a kingdom in SW Europe. Including the Balearic and Canary islands, 39,244,195; 194,988 sq. mi. (505,019 sq. km). Cap.: Madrid. Spanish, España.

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Spain

Introduction Spain
Background: Spain's powerful world empire of the 16th and 17th centuries ultimately yielded command of the seas to England. Subsequent failure to embrace the mercantile and industrial revolutions caused the country to fall behind Britain, France, and Germany in economic and political power. Spain remained neutral in World Wars I and II, but suffered through a devastating civil war (1936-39). In the second half of the 20th century, Spain has played a catch-up role in the western international community. Continuing concerns are Basque Fatherland and Liberty (ETA) terrorism and further reductions in unemployment. Geography Spain -
Location: Southwestern Europe, bordering the Bay of Biscay, Mediterranean Sea, North Atlantic Ocean, and Pyrenees Mountains, southwest of France
Geographic coordinates: 40 00 N, 4 00 W
Map references: Europe
Area: total: 504,782 sq km water: 5,240 sq km note: there are 19 autonomous communities including Balearic Islands and Canary Islands, and three small Spanish possessions off the coast of Morocco - Islas Chafarinas, Penon de Alhucemas, and Penon de Velez de la Gomera land: 499,542 sq km
Area - comparative: slightly more than twice the size of Oregon
Land boundaries: total: 1,917.8 km border countries: Andorra 63.7 km, France 623 km, Gibraltar 1.2 km, Portugal 1,214 km, Morocco (Ceuta) 6.3 km, Morocco (Melilla) 9.6 km
Coastline: 4,964 km
Maritime claims: contiguous zone: 24 NM exclusive economic zone: 200 NM (applies only to the Atlantic Ocean) territorial sea: 12 NM
Climate: temperate; clear, hot summers in interior, more moderate and cloudy along coast; cloudy, cold winters in interior, partly cloudy and cool along coast
Terrain: large, flat to dissected plateau surrounded by rugged hills; Pyrenees in north
Elevation extremes: lowest point: Atlantic Ocean 0 m highest point: Pico de Teide (Tenerife) on Canary Islands 3,718 m
Natural resources: coal, lignite, iron ore, uranium, mercury, pyrites, fluorspar, gypsum, zinc, lead, tungsten, copper, kaolin, potash, hydropower, arable land
Land use: arable land: 28.6% permanent crops: 9.56% other: 61.84% (1998 est.)
Irrigated land: 36,400 sq km (1998 est.)
Natural hazards: periodic droughts Environment - current issues: pollution of the Mediterranean Sea from raw sewage and effluents from the offshore production of oil and gas; water quality and quantity nationwide; air pollution; deforestation; desertification Environment - international party to: Air Pollution, Air
agreements: Pollution-Nitrogen Oxides, Air Pollution-Sulphur 94, Air Pollution- Volatile Organic Compounds, Antarctic-Environmental Protocol, Antarctic-Marine Living Resources, Antarctic Treaty, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Endangered Species, Environmental Modification, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Marine Dumping, Marine Life Conservation, Nuclear Test Ban, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Tropical Timber 83, Tropical Timber 94, Wetlands, Whaling signed, but not ratified: Air Pollution-Persistent Organic Pollutants, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Desertification
Geography - note: strategic location along approaches to Strait of Gibraltar People Spain
Population: 40,077,100 (July 2002 est.)
Age structure: 0-14 years: 14.5% (male 2,993,747; female 2,812,498) 15-64 years: 68.1% (male 13,699,383; female 13,592,717) 65 years and over: 17.4% (male 2,922,452; female 4,056,303) (2002 est.)
Population growth rate: 0.09% (2002 est.)
Birth rate: 9.29 births/1,000 population (2002 est.)
Death rate: 9.22 deaths/1,000 population (2002 est.)
Net migration rate: 0.87 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2002 est.)
Sex ratio: at birth: 1.07 male(s)/female under 15 years: 1.06 male(s)/female 15-64 years: 1.01 male(s)/female 65 years and over: 0.72 male(s)/ female total population: 0.96 male(s)/ female (2002 est.)
Infant mortality rate: 4.85 deaths/1,000 live births (2002 est.) Life expectancy at birth: total population: 79.08 years female: 82.76 years (2002 est.) male: 75.63 years
Total fertility rate: 1.16 children born/woman (2002 est.) HIV/AIDS - adult prevalence rate: 0.58% (1999 est.) HIV/AIDS - people living with HIV/ 120,000 (1999 est.)
AIDS:
HIV/AIDS - deaths: 2,000 (1999 est.)
Nationality: noun: Spaniard(s) adjective: Spanish
Ethnic groups: composite of Mediterranean and Nordic types
Religions: Roman Catholic 94%, other 6%
Languages: Castilian Spanish (official) 74%, Catalan 17%, Galician 7%, Basque 2%
Literacy: definition: age 15 and over can read and write total population: 97% male: NA% female: NA% Government Spain
Country name: conventional long form: Kingdom of Spain conventional short form: Spain local short form: Espana
Government type: parliamentary monarchy
Capital: Madrid Administrative divisions: 19 autonomous communities (comunidades autonomas, singular - comunidad autonoma); Andalucia, Aragon, Asturias, Baleares (Balearic Islands), Ceuta, Canarias (Canary Islands), Cantabria, Castilla-La Mancha, Castilla y Leon, Cataluna, Communidad Valencian, Extremadura, Galicia, La Rioja, Madrid, Melilla, Murcia, Navarra, Pais Vasco (Basque Country) note: three small Spanish possessions are located off the coast of Morocco: Islas Chafarinas, Penon de Alhucemas, and Penon de Velez de la Gomera
Independence: the Iberian peninsula was characterized by a variety of independent kingdoms prior to the Moslem occupation that began in the early 8th Century A. D. and lasted nearly seven centuries; the small Christian redoubts of the north began the reconquest almost immediately, culminating in the seizure of Granada in 1492; this event completed the unification of several kingdoms and is traditionally considered the forging of present-day Spain
National holiday: Hispanic Day, 12 October
Constitution: 6 December 1978, effective 29 December 1978
Legal system: civil law system, with regional applications; has not accepted compulsory ICJ jurisdiction
Suffrage: 18 years of age; universal
Executive branch: chief of state: King JUAN CARLOS I (since 22 November 1975); Heir Apparent Prince FELIPE, son of the monarch, born 30 January 1968 head of government: President of the Government Jose Maria AZNAR Lopez (since 5 May 1996); First Vice President (and Minister of Interior) Mariano RAJOY (since 27 April 2000) and Second Vice President (and Minister of Economy) Rodrigo RATO Figaredo (since 5 May 1996) cabinet: Council of Ministers designated by the president note: there is also a Council of State that is the supreme consultative organ of the government election results: Jose Maria AZNAR Lopez (PP) elected president; percent of National Assembly vote - 44.54%; note - the Popular Party (PP) obtained an absolute majority of seats in both the Congress of Deputies and the Senate as a result of the March 2000 elections elections: the monarch is hereditary; president proposed by the monarch and elected by the National Assembly following legislative elections; election last held 12 March 2000 (next to be held NA March 2004); vice presidents appointed by the monarch on the proposal of the president
Legislative branch: bicameral; General Courts or National Assembly or Las Cortes Generales consists of the Senate or Senado (259 seats - 208 members directly elected by popular vote and the other 51 appointed by the regional legislatures to serve four- year terms) and the Congress of Deputies or Congreso de los Diputados (350 seats; members are elected by popular vote on block lists by proportional representation to serve four-year terms) election results: Senate - percent of vote by party - PP 44.6%, PSOE 34.1%, CiU 4.2%, PNV 1.5%, CC 1.1%, PIL 0%; seats by party - PP 127, PSOE 61, CiU 8, PNV 6, CC 5, PIL 1; Congress of Deputies - percent of vote by party - PP 44.5%, PSOE 34%, CiU 4.2%, IU 5.4%, PNV 1.5%, CC 1%, BNG 1.3%; seats by party - PP 183, PSOE 125, CiU 15, IU 8, PNV 7, CC 4, BNG 3, other 5 elections: Senate - last held 12 March 2000 (next to be held NA March 2004); Congress of Deputies - last held 12 March 2000 (next to be held NA March 2004)
Judicial branch: Supreme Court or Tribunal Supremo Political parties and leaders: Basque Nationalist Party or PNV [Xabier ARZALLUS Antia]; Batasuna [Arnaldo OTEGI]; Canarian Coalition or CC (a coalition of five parties) [Paulino RIVERO]; Convergence and Union or CiU [Jordi PUJOL i Soley, secretary general] (a coalition of the Democratic Convergence of Catalonia or CDC [Jordi PUJOL i Soley] and the Democratic Union of Catalonia or UDC [Josep Antoni DURAN y LLEIDA]); Galician Nationalist Bloc or BNG [Xose Manuel BEIRAS]; Party of Independents from Lanzarote or PIL [Dimas MARTIN Martin]; Popular Party or PP [Jose Maria AZNAR Lopez]; Spanish Socialist Workers Party or PSOE [Jose Luis RODRIGUEZ ZAPATERO]; United Left or IU (a coalition of parties including the PCE and other small parties) [Gaspar LLAMAZARES] Political pressure groups and business and landowning interests;
leaders: Catholic Church; free labor unions (authorized in April 1977); Socialist General Union of Workers or UGT and the smaller independent Workers Syndical Union or USO; university students; Workers Confederation or CC.OO International organization AfDB, AsDB, Australia Group, BIS,
participation: CCC, CE, CERN, EAPC, EBRD, ECE, ECLAC, EIB, EMU, ESA, EU, FAO, IADB, IAEA, IBRD, ICAO, ICC, ICFTU, ICRM, IDA, IEA, IFAD, IFC, IFRCS, IHO, ILO, IMF, IMO, Interpol, IOC, IOM (observer), ISO, ITU, LAIA (observer), NATO, NEA, NSG, OAS (observer), OECD, OPCW, OSCE, PCA, UN, UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNHCR, UNIDO, UNMEE, UNMIBH, UNMIK, UNU, UPU, WCL, WEU, WHO, WIPO, WMO, WToO, WTrO, ZC Diplomatic representation in the US: chief of mission: Ambassador Francisco Javier RUPEREZ chancery: 2375 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20037 consulate(s) general: Boston, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, New York, San Francisco, and San Juan (Puerto Rico) FAX: [1] (202) 833-5670 telephone: [1] (202) 452-0100, 728- 2340 Diplomatic representation from the chief of mission: Ambassador George
US: L. ARGYROS embassy: Serrano 75, 28006 Madrid mailing address: APO AE 09642 telephone: [34] (91) 587-2200 FAX: [34] (91) 587-2303 consulate(s) general: Barcelona
Flag description: three horizontal bands of red (top), yellow (double width), and red with the national coat of arms on the hoist side of the yellow band; the coat of arms includes the royal seal framed by the Pillars of Hercules, which are the two promontories (Gibraltar and Ceuta) on either side of the eastern end of the Strait of Gibraltar Economy Spain -
Economy - overview: Spain's mixed capitalist economy supports a GDP that on a per capita basis is 80% that of the four leading West European economies. Its center-right government successfully worked to gain admission to the first group of countries launching the European single currency on 1 January 1999. The AZNAR administration has continued to advocate liberalization, privatization, and deregulation of the economy and has introduced some tax reforms to that end. Unemployment has been steadily falling under the AZNAR administration but remains the highest in the EU at 13%. The government intends to make further progress in changing labor laws and reforming pension schemes, which are key to the sustainability of both Spain's internal economic advances and its competitiveness in a single currency area. Adjusting to the monetary and other economic policies of an integrated Europe - and further reducing unemployment - will pose challenges to Spain over the next few years.
GDP: purchasing power parity - $757 billion (2001 est.)
GDP - real growth rate: 2.8% (2001 est.)
GDP - per capita: purchasing power parity - $18,900 (2001 est.) GDP - composition by sector: agriculture: 4% industry: 28% services: 68% (2000 est.) Population below poverty line: NA% Household income or consumption by lowest 10%: 2.8%
percentage share: highest 10%: 25.2% (1990) Distribution of family income - Gini 32.5 (1990)
index: Inflation rate (consumer prices): 3.8% (2001 est.)
Labor force: 17.1 million (2001) Labor force - by occupation: services 64%, manufacturing, mining, and construction 29%, agriculture 7% (2001 est.)
Unemployment rate: 13% (2001 est.)
Budget: revenues: $105 billion expenditures: $109 billion, including capital expenditures of $12.8 billion (2000 est.)
Industries: textiles and apparel (including footwear), food and beverages, metals and metal manufactures, chemicals, shipbuilding, automobiles, machine tools, tourism Industrial production growth rate: 1% (2001 est.) Electricity - production: 211.64 billion kWh (2000) Electricity - production by source: fossil fuel: 56.78% hydro: 12.49% other: 2.9% (2000) nuclear: 27.83% Electricity - consumption: 201.159 billion kWh (2000)
Electricity - exports: 7.832 billion kWh (2000)
Electricity - imports: 12.166 billion kWh (2000)
Agriculture - products: grain, vegetables, olives, wine grapes, sugar beets, citrus; beef, pork, poultry, dairy products; fish
Exports: $118.6 billion (f.o.b., 2001 est.)
Exports - commodities: machinery, motor vehicles; foodstuffs, other consumer goods
Exports - partners: EU 71.2% (France 19.6%, Germany 11.8%, Portugal 9.9%, Italy 9%, UK 9%), US 4.4%, Latin America 4% (January-October 2001)
Imports: $150.5 billion (f.o.b., 2001 est.)
Imports - commodities: machinery and equipment, fuels, chemicals, semifinished goods; foodstuffs, consumer goods (1997)
Imports - partners: EU 63.1% (France 16.4%, Germany 15.5%, Italy 9%, UK 6.9%, Benelux 3.5%), OPEC 5%, US 4.5%, Japan 2.5%, Latin America 2% (January-October 2001)
Debt - external: $90 billion (1993 est.)
Economic aid - donor: ODA, $1.33 billion (1999)
Currency: euro (EUR); Spanish peseta (ESP) note: on 1 January 1999, the European Monetary Union introduced the euro as a common currency to be used by the financial institutions of member countries; on 1 January 2002, the euro became the sole currency for everyday transactions with the member countries
Currency code: EUR; ESP
Exchange rates: euros per US dollar - 1.1324 (January 2002), 1.1175 (2001), 1.0854 (2000), 0.9386 (1999); pesetas per US dollar - 149.40 (1998), 146.41 (1997)
Fiscal year: calendar year Communications Spain Telephones - main lines in use: 17.336 million (1999) Telephones - mobile cellular: 8.394 million (1999)
Telephone system: general assessment: generally adequate, modern facilities; teledensity is 44 main lines for each 100 persons domestic: NA international: 22 coaxial submarine cables; satellite earth stations - 2 Intelsat (1 Atlantic Ocean and 1 Indian Ocean), NA Eutelsat; tropospheric scatter to adjacent countries Radio broadcast stations: AM 208, FM 715, shortwave 1 (1998)
Radios: 13.1 million (1997) Television broadcast stations: 224 (plus 2,105 repeaters) note: these figures include 11 television broadcast stations and 88 repeaters in the Canary Islands (1995)
Televisions: 16.2 million (1997)
Internet country code: .es Internet Service Providers (ISPs): 56 (2000)
Internet users: 7.38 million (2001) Transportation Spain
Railways: total: 15,171 km broad gauge: 12,781 km 1.668-m gauge (6,434 km electrified) standard gauge: 525 km 1.435-m gauge (525 km electrified) narrow gauge: 1,837 km 1.000-m gauge (617 km electrified); 28 km 0.914- m gauge (28 km electrified) (2001)
Highways: total: 346,858 km paved: 343,389 km (including 9,063 km of expressways) unpaved: 3,469 km (1997)
Waterways: 1,045 km (of minor economic importance)
Pipelines: crude oil 265 km; petroleum products 1,794 km; natural gas 1,666 km
Ports and harbors: Aviles, Barcelona, Bilbao, Cadiz, Cartagena, Castellon de la Plana, Ceuta, Huelva, La Coruna, Las Palmas (Canary Islands), Malaga, Melilla, Pasajes, Gijon, Santa Cruz de Tenerife (Canary Islands), Santander, Tarragona, Valencia, Vigo
Merchant marine: total: 144 ships (1,000 GRT or over) totaling 1,364,751 GRT/1,962,764 DWT ships by type: bulk 10, cargo 31, chemical tanker 10, container 10, liquefied gas 2, livestock carrier 1, passenger 2, petroleum tanker 24, refrigerated cargo 8, roll on/roll off 35, short-sea passenger 8, vehicle carrier 3 note: includes some foreign-owned ships registered here as a flag of convenience: Croatia 1, Cuba 2, Denmark 1, Germany 7, Italy 1, Netherlands 1, Norway 6, Uruguay 3 (2002 est.)
Airports: 133 (2001) Airports - with paved runways: total: 85 over 3,047 m: 15 2,438 to 3,047 m: 10 914 to 1,523 m: 19 under 914 m: 23 (2001) 1,524 to 2,437 m: 18 Airports - with unpaved runways: total: 48 1,524 to 2,437 m: 1 914 to 1,523 m: 14 under 914 m: 33 (2001)
Heliports: 5 (2001) Military Spain
Military branches: Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Civil Guard, National Police, Coastal Civil Guard Military manpower - military age: 20 years of age (2002 est.) Military manpower - availability: males age 15-49: 10,520,561 (2002 est.) Military manpower - fit for military males age 15-49: 8,403,430 (2002
service: est.) Military manpower - reaching males: 281,043 (2002 est.)
military age annually: Military expenditures - dollar $8.6 billion (2002)
figure: Military expenditures - percent of 1.15% (2002)
GDP: Transnational Issues Spain Disputes - international: Spain and UK are discussing "total shared sovereignty" over Gibraltar, subject to a constitutional referendum by Gibraltarians, who have largely expressed opposition to any form of cession to Spain; Spain controls the coastal enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, which Morocco contests, as well as the islands of Penon de Alhucemas, Penon de Velez de la Gomera, and Islas Chafarinas; Morocco rejected Spain's unilateral designation of a median line from the Canary Islands in 2002 to explore undersea resources and to interdict illegal refugees from Africa
Illicit drugs: key European gateway country for Latin American cocaine and North African hashish entering the European market; destination and minor transshipment point for Southwest Asian heroin

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I
officially Kingdom of Spain

Country, southwestern Europe.

One of Europe's largest countries, it is located on the Iberian Peninsula and also includes the Balearic and Canary islands. Area: 195,364 sq mi (505,990 sq km). Population (2002 est.): 40,998,000. Capital: Madrid. The people are predominantly Spanish, though there are populations of Basques, Catalans, and Roma (Gypsies). Languages: Castilian Spanish (official), Catalan, Galician, and Basque. Religion: Roman Catholicism. Currency: euro. Spain's large central plateau is surrounded by the Ebro River valley, the mountainous Catalonia region, the Mediterranean coastal region of Valencia, the Guadalquivir River valley, and the mountainous region extending from the Pyrenees to the Atlantic coast. Spain has a developed market economy based on services, light and heavy industries, and agriculture. Mineral resources include iron ore, mercury, and coal. Agricultural products include grains and livestock. Spain is one of the world's major producers of wine and olive oil. Tourism is also a major industry, especially along the southern Costa del Sol. Remains of Stone Age populations dating back some 35,000 years have been found throughout Spain. Celtic peoples arrived in the 9th century BC, followed by the Romans, who dominated Spain from с 200 BC until the Visigoth invasion in the early 5th century AD. In the early 8th century most of the peninsula fell to Muslims (Moors) from North Africa, and it remained under their control until it was gradually reconquered by the Christian kingdoms of Castile, Aragon, and Portugal. Spain was reunited in 1479 following the marriage of Ferdinand II (of Aragon) and Isabella I (of Castile). The last Muslim kingdom, Granada, was reconquered in 1492, and about this time Spain established a colonial empire in the Americas. In 1516 the throne passed to the Habsburgs, whose rule ended in 1700 when Philip V became the first Bourbon king of Spain. His ascendancy caused the War of the Spanish Succession, which resulted in the loss of numerous European possessions and sparked revolution within most of Spain's American colonies. Spain lost its remaining overseas possessions to the U.S. in the Spanish-American War (1898). (See Cuba; Guam; Philippines; Puerto Rico.) Spain became a republic in 1931. The Spanish Civil War (1936–39) ended in victory for the Nationalists under Gen. Francisco Franco, who ruled as a dictator until his death in 1975. His successor as head of state, Juan Carlos I, restored the monarchy with his accession to the throne; a new constitution in 1978 established a constitutional monarchy. Spain has two legislative houses; the chief of state is the king, and the head of government is the prime minister. Spain joined NATO in 1982 and the European Community in 1986. The 1992 quincentennial of Christopher Columbus's first voyage from Spain to the Americas was marked by a fair in Sevilla and the staging of the Olympic Games in Barcelona. In the 1990s Spain developed closer ties to other European countries but continued to suffer internally, as Basque separatists pressed their claims for independence and some continued a campaign of violence.
II
(as used in expressions)
Kingdom of Spain
New Spain Viceroyalty of

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▪ 2009

Area:
505,990 sq km (195,364 sq mi)
Population
(2008 est.): 45,661,000
Capital:
Madrid
Chief of state:
King Juan Carlos I
Head of government:
Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero

      Almost exactly four years after the terrorist attacks on Madrid that helped to bring the Socialist Workers' Party to power in 2004, Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero won a second term in the general elections held on March 9, 2008. The Socialists claimed 43.6% of the vote and 169 of the 350 seats in the Congress of Deputies. Many commentators attributed their convincing win to negative as much as positive voting. While many voters were convinced by the Socialists' good record on the economy and the promotion of civic and social rights, as well as by Zapatero's consensual style of political leadership, others voted above all against the conservative Popular Party (PP) and its very aggressive form of opposition. Nonetheless, the PP and its leader, Mariano Rajoy, could take some solace from the increase in the party's share of the vote to 40.1%, up from 37.6% in 2004, and in the number of its parliamentary seats from 148 to 153.

      In light of the election results, Zapatero forswore the option of negotiating stable parliamentary alliances with the regional nationalist parties and the United Left, choosing instead to form a minority government dependent on ad hoc agreements with individual parties to legislate. While continuity was the predominant note in policy terms, one exception was a tougher line on immigration. This was exemplified by the introduction of a scheme designed to encourage unemployed migrants to return to their countries of origin—a policy shift that immigrant organizations branded as mere pandering to voters' concerns about unemployment.

      Electoral defeat brought even more significant changes in the PP. Almost overnight, Rajoy affirmed his commitment to the “reformist centre” and exhibited a newfound willingness to engage in bipartisan policies. Despite vociferous opposition from far-right-wing members of the party and their allies in the media, Rajoy was reelected leader of the PP at a national congress in June, when he took advantage of the occasion to oust those figures most closely associated with the party's hard-line past.

      The new, less-confrontational tone of Spanish political life soon brought tangible results. In September, after a nearly two-year deadlock, the two main parties finally reached an agreement on the renewal of the judiciary's governing body. Even more significant, the Socialists and the PP also found common ground in the fight against the Basque separatist organization Euskadi Ta Askatasuna ( ETA). The return to a cross-party antiterrorist policy was made possible not just by the PP's tactical shift but also by the Socialists' heightened resolve to defeat rather than negotiate with ETA following the end of the organization's 14-month cease-fire in June 2007. In December 2007, 47 people were sentenced to up to 20 years in prison in the largest-ever trial of ETA suspects. Two months later two political parties associated with ETA were suspended (followed later by their illegalization) and thereby prevented from standing in the March general elections. French police detained the alleged top leader of ETA in May, the organization's alleged military chief in November, and, just weeks later, the man reported to have succeeded as military chief. The arrests confirmed the benefits of closer cooperation between French and Spanish authorities that was facilitated by a meeting between Zapatero and French Pres. Nicolas Sarkozy at the beginning of 2008.

      For the first time in years, however, the economy replaced terrorism as the main concern among Spaniards. This was hardly surprising, given the speed and depth of the slump, which saw GDP growth rates of 0.3% in the first quarter and 0.1% in the second give way to negative GDP growth (−0.2%) in the third quarter. By the end of the year, after another quarter of negative GDP growth and with unemployment running at nearly 13%, Spain was officially in a recession. The European Commission predicted year-on-year growth of just 1.3% for the Spanish economy in 2008 and –0.2% in 2009. Unlike in many other countries, the epicentre of Spain's crisis was not in the financial sector—which was spared in part by close regulation by the central bank—but in construction. With the collapse of the real-estate bubble, the sector was expected to shrink by more than 5% over the course of the year, forcing many construction companies and developers into receivership and putting hundreds of thousands of employees out of work. Virtually the only good news on the economic front was a sharp fall in inflation toward the end of the year from 4.5% in September to an estimated 2.4% in November.

      Sports provided some much-needed cause for celebration. The summer saw Spain's surprise association football (soccer) triumph in Euro 2008 as well as tennis ace Rafael Nadal's triumphs at the French Open, Wimbledon, and the Olympic Games in Beijing. Nadal attained the world number one tennis ranking in August.

Justin Byrne

▪ 2008

Area:
504,645 sq km (194,845 sq mi)
Population
(2007 est.): 45,321,000
Capital:
Madrid
Chief of state:
King Juan Carlos I
Head of government:
Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero

      In economic terms Spain continued to outperform most of its European Union partners in 2007, with impressive job creation and an estimated growth of 3.8% in GDP. In the second half of the year, however, the slowdown in the all-important construction industry was accompanied by evidence of reduced consumer spending and export growth as well as a worrying rise in inflation, which was running in November at 4.1% annually. In December the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development cut its prediction for 2008 growth to 2.5%.

      The most worrying development for the Socialist government of Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero came on June 5, when the Basque separatist organization Euskadi Ta Askatasuna ( ETA) broke off its 14-month cease-fire, dashing hopes of an end to the organization's 40-year armed struggle. Intensified police and judicial activity aborted a number of bombings and resulted in dozens of arrests of suspected terrorists on both sides of the French border and in the roundup in October of more than 20 leaders of ETA's banned political wing, Batasuna. These measures failed to prevent a surge in street violence in the Basque Country or the deaths on December 1 of two Civil Guard officers who, while conducting surveillance duty in southern France, were shot and killed after a chance encounter with three ETA members.

      A joint statement condemning this attack was signed by all the mainstream political parties and thus constituted a rare display of political unity between the ruling Socialist Workers' Party and the conservative opposition Popular Party (PP), which fiercely opposed talks with ETA. Earlier in the year, hundreds of thousands of PP flag-waving demonstrators protested the early release, on humanitarian grounds, of an ETA hunger striker who was allowed to serve out his sentence under house arrest.

      The PP's belligerent mobilization around terrorism and the regional question was echoed on other emotive issues. Even after the October conviction of 18 Islamic fundamentalists of mainly North African origin and three Spanish accomplices for the March 2004 train bombings, leading members of the PP continued to suggest the possibility of a politically motivated cover-up of ETA involvement in the attack (which killed 191 people and injured more than 1,500). The PP stood alone too in its frontal opposition to the Law of Historical Memory (approved by the parliament in November 2007), which condemned Francisco Franco's dictatorship (1939–75) and provided for the rehabilitation of its political opponents, the removal of surviving public symbols of the Francoist regime, and public support for the excavation of unmarked Civil War graves. The PP denounced the bill as divisive and charged the Socialists with reopening the wounds of the war and breaking the consensus “pact of silence” over the past that had facilitated the transition to democracy in the 1970s. For the Socialists this was further evidence of the PP's alarmist and opportunistic strategy of total opposition to the government.

      The voters' response to the political tension was inconclusive. Regional and local elections held on May 27 left the political map largely unchanged. The PP was encouraged by sweeping triumphs in Madrid and its larger share of the national vote in the municipal elections (35.6%, compared with the Socialists' 34.9%), while the Socialists pointed out that they won more town council seats. An opinion poll taken in October indicated that the gap between the two parties was narrowing; the Socialists led the PP by an estimated 2.3%. With general elections scheduled for March 2008, the Socialists could take some consolation from the fact that respondents were even less enthusiastic about PP leader Mariano Rajoy and his opposition strategy than they were about the Socialists' performance in government.

 The usually discrete monarchy became the object of controversy. In July the seizure of a satiric magazine containing a sexually explicit cartoon featuring Crown Prince Felipe and Princess Letizia sparked antimonarchical protests in Catalonia. In November Morocco recalled its ambassador in response to a royal visit to the Spanish North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla. (See Morocco .) In November Spain became embroiled in a dispute with Venezuela at the 17th Ibero-American Summit. King Juan Carlos told Hugo Chávez to “shut up” after the Venezuelan president called former Spanish president José María Aznar a “fascist” and “worse than a snake,” denounced the neocolonialism of Spanish companies in his country, and interrupted Zapatero when he spoke out in their defense.

      In the international arena, meetings in Madrid and in Washington between Foreign Minister Miguel Moratinos and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice improved bilateral relations, but the two countries continued to differ over policies concerning Iraq, Cuba (with which Spain reestablished full cooperation in April), and Afghanistan. Zapatero refused the U.S. request to increase the 700-strong Spanish military presence in Afghanistan.

Justin Byrne

▪ 2007

Area:
504,645 sq km (194,845 sq mi)
Population
(2006 est.): 44,561,000
Capital:
Madrid
Chief of state:
King Juan Carlos I
Head of government:
Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero

 On March 22, 2006, the Basque separatist organization Euzkadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) declared the first “permanent cease-fire” in its 40-year armed struggle against Spain. Coming after three years without any fatalities (the last of ETA's more than 800 victims died in May 2003), the announcement inevitably raised hopes of an end to the conflict.

      The Socialist government led by Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero reacted with cautious optimism, convinced that the cease-fire represented a unique opportunity to resolve the Basque conflict with ETA, which was militarily weakened and politically isolated. Zapatero's confidence remained intact, despite the lack of tangible progress in preliminary talks over the content and format of the “peace process.” Progress was blocked by the refusal of Batasuna, ETA's banned political wing, to condemn ETA violence, as well as the continued street violence in the Basque Country. Further doubt was cast on ETA's commitment to peace in November when French police concluded that the organization was the main suspect in the theft of 350 pistols from an arms warehouse in southern France. In the wake of this incident—and the later arrest of a number of leading ETA activists—the government and Batasuna each blamed the other for the deadlock in the peace process.

      All of this played perfectly into the hands of the centre-right opposition party, the Popular Party (PP), which vehemently opposed any negotiations. The PP censured the Socialists for breaking the cross-party consensus on terrorism and for their alleged willingness to make unacceptable political concessions in return for peace. Public opinion was divided. In November tens of thousands of voters joined with the PP and the main associations of victims of terrorism to protest at the negotiations. That month also saw the Socialists' lead in the polls drop to just 2%, its lowest level since the 2004 elections. Other polls, however, suggested that most Spanish voters were supportive of the government's position, although they were increasingly skeptical about ETA's willingness to give up its arms. Doubts about ETA's intentions were reinforced on December 30, when an ETA bomb exploded in the carpark of Madrid airport and caused two deaths and more than a dozen injuries.

       Catalonia, Spain's other historically nationalist region, acquired a new autonomy statute, approved by 74% of voters in the June 18 referendum in the region. The resounding victory for the “yes” vote was marred only by the low (49%) turnout, variously explained as the result of popular fatigue with the issue, divisions between the Catalan parties, and the scant enthusiasm among more nationalist voters for the text of the charter. The Catalan regional elections in November produced similarly ambiguous results. The left-green-nationalist tripartite coalition was returned to power with a reduced majority, but the opposition nationalists and the PP made no real headway. The big winner was the newly created antinationalist Citizens' Party, which won its first three seats in the regional assembly.

      During one of the hottest summers in Spain's recorded history, attention focused on events at the northern and southern extremes of the country. In Galicia, in the northwest, almost 2,000 forest fires, many treated as arson, destroyed more than 77,000 ha (about 190,000 ac) of woodland in just two weeks in August, raising fears of lasting environmental damage. In the Canary Islands, police and welfare services were overwhelmed by a major increase in the number of sub-Saharan African refugees who arrived in small fishing boats from southern Morocco, Mauritania, and Senegal. This localized humanitarian crisis fueled considerable public alarm at the scale and impact of immigration, whether legal or illegal. The government responded with intensified calls for a common European immigration policy, as well as high-level diplomacy to secure the cooperation of the African countries to stem the exodus and the dispatch of navy boats to patrol their shores. These measures looked unlikely to stop either the flow of migrants or voters' concerns. In an official poll published in October, Spaniards for the first time identified immigration as the main problem facing the country.

      It was a year of quiet continuity in international affairs. Spain reinforced its contingent in the NATO mission in Afghanistan and committed more than 1,000 troops to the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon. Relations with the U.S.—which were severely damaged after the Socialist government in April 2004 withdrew Spanish troops from Iraq—remained a priority. There were repeated high-level political contacts between Madrid and Washington and visits to the U.S. by both Crown Prince Felipe and Princess Elena. The creation of a new cabinet-level post of secretary of state for Latin America confirmed that region's importance for Spain, as did the government's firm warnings to the Bolivian government about its plans to renationalize the country's oil and gas reserves, a key sector for Spanish energy giant Repsol. Meanwhile, the Spanish clothes manufacturer Zara and the cultural Cervantes Institute both opened their first branches in China.

Justin Byrne

▪ 2006

Area:
505,988 sq km (195,363 sq mi)
Population
(2005 est.): 44,079,000
Capital:
Madrid
Chief of state:
King Juan Carlos I
Head of government:
Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero

 On Feb. 20, 2005, Spaniards became the first Europeans to vote in a referendum on the proposed EU constitution. The overwhelming “yes” vote (77%) came as no surprise in a country that had long been one of the largest net recipients of EU funds, where support for European integration had always been high, and where all of the major parties supported the constitutional text. The very predictability of the result and a lacklustre campaign, however, helped keep participation down to a mere 42% of the electorate, the lowest turnout at the polls in Spain's recent democratic history.

      The European referendum constituted a rare instance of political consensus during a year in which the conservative Popular Party (PP) headed a series of demonstrations against the governing Socialist Party's policies. On two of these occasions, the PP enjoyed the support of the Roman Catholic Church. Twenty bishops joined hundreds of thousands of demonstrators in the streets of Madrid in protest against same-sex marriage, but it was nevertheless legalized on June 30. In November some 500,000 people joined church and PP leaders to protest alleged antireligious and pro-public-school biases in the Socialists' educational reforms.

      The government breathed a sigh of relief in the wake of regional elections in the Basque Country in April. The centre-right Basque Nationalists regained power—but without sufficient support in the regional assembly to press ahead with controversial plans to move unilaterally toward semi-independence through “freely associated state” status with Spain. Hopes also spread of an end to almost four decades of violence at the hands of the armed Basque separatist organization Euzkadi Ta Askatasuna ( ETA). While the organization continued its campaign of low-intensity urban warfare, the year ended without any fatalities (the last of more than 800 victims of ETA attacks since 1968 died in May 2003). Several developments provided grounds for cautious optimism, including unconfirmed reports of contacts between the Socialists and ETA, ambiguous but favourable statements by the organization's banned political wing, Batasuna, and a parliamentary declaration inviting negotiations with ETA if it definitively abandoned the armed struggle. The PP led demonstrations in January and June in support of the victims of terrorism and in opposition to any idea of dialogue with ETA.

      The real headache for Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, however, involved Catalonia, where the Socialist-dominated regional parliament approved a major overhaul of the statute of autonomy. Accepted for consideration by the Madrid parliament in November, the text defined Catalonia as “a nation” and provided for a substantial increase in self-government and fiscal independence for the region. The problem was that the text was considered unconstitutional by many Spaniards and unacceptable by many more, including a number of Zapatero's own ministers. Intense efforts continued at the end of the year to come up with a text that would satisfy both the Socialists and the Catalan proponents of the proposal. Most analysts attributed the Socialists' dramatic slump in opinion polls to widespread hostility both to the proposal and to Zapatero's vacillating handling of the issue.

      In the international arena, the Socialists made halfhearted attempts to patch up relations with the U.S., which had been severely strained after Spanish troops were pulled out of Iraq in April 2004. The government dispatched a stream of senior ministers to Washington and more troops to join NATO peacekeeping forces in Afghanistan, where 17 Spanish soldiers died in a helicopter crash in August. Any goodwill generated by these gestures, however, was offset by the active role that Spain played in persuading the EU to reestablish normal diplomatic relations with Cuba, by its signing of a high-profile arms deal with the government of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, and by Zapatero's championing of an “Alliance of Civilizations.” Conceived as an alternative to the U.S.-led war on terrorism, the Spanish initiative advocated dialogue and cooperation between the world's major religions and political powers as the only effective long-term solution to international conflict and violence.

      It was a year of celebrations for the Spanish royal family. The 30th anniversary of the coronation of King Juan Carlos in November came just weeks after Crown Princess Letizia gave birth to her first child, a daughter, Leonor. While Spain's 1978 constitution allowed a woman to inherit the throne only if she had no brothers, a broad consensus immediately emerged in support of a constitutional amendment that would one day enable Leonor to succeed her grandfather and father, Crown Prince Felipe, even if she were to have younger male siblings.

Justin Byrne

▪ 2005

Area:
505,988 sq km (195,363 sq mi)
Population
(2004 est.): 43,768,000
Capital:
Madrid
Chief of state:
King Juan Carlos I
Head of government:
Prime Ministers José María Aznar López and, from April 17, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero

      Spain suffered its worst terrorist attack ever on the morning of March 11, 2004, when 13 bombs exploded on four packed commuter trains heading toward Atocha station in central Madrid, leaving more than 190 dead and more than 1,500 injured. Coming just three days before the general elections, the attack was bound to have major political consequences. The nature of these consequences, however, depended on the identity of the terrorists and the way that the conservative Popular Party (PP) government of Prime Minister José María Aznar handled the situation.

      Understandably, after more than 30 years of violence and at least 800 deaths at the hands of the armed Basque separatist organization Euzkadi Ta Askatasuna ( ETA), both the government and the media immediately attributed the bombings to ETA. The following day an estimated 11 million Spaniards turned out to nationwide government-sponsored demonstrations. This display of national unity rapidly broke down, however, as the police investigation began to focus on the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda. On March 13, as the first arrests of Islamist suspects were being made, the government continued to point the finger at ETA. That evening spontaneous, illegal protests took place in Madrid, Barcelona, and other cities as demonstrators chanted, “We want to know the truth before we vote.” With some 90% of Spaniards opposed to Aznar's support for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the Islamic connection inevitably put Iraq back on top of the political agenda, which thereby favoured the opposition Socialist Party (PSOE), which had strongly opposed the war.

      The March 11 attack and the government's bungled response to it undoubtedly contributed to the Socialists' surprise electoral victory on March 14. The PSOE took 42.6% of the vote and 164 of the 350 seats in the Congress of Deputies, compared with the PP's 37.6% and 148 seats. The Socialists easily negotiated the support of various minority leftist and nationalist parties for the investiture of their young leader, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (see Biographies (Zapatero, Jose Luis Rodriguez )), as prime minister. Zapatero was formally sworn in by King Juan Carlos on April 17.

      Police investigations and a subsequent parliamentary inquiry confirmed the al-Qaeda connection and identified possible intelligence and security failings prior to March. More suspects, mainly Moroccans and Algerians, were arrested in October, and plans were uncovered for additional attacks on other targets in Madrid.

      The new government lost no time in carrying out one of its main electoral pledges, withdrawing the 1,300 Spanish troops stationed in Iraq. This and the Socialists' realignment with the “Old Europe” of France and Germany inevitably damaged relations with Washington. The breach appeared to widen in September when Zapatero gave a speech in Tunisia encouraging other countries to follow Spain's example. In October the U.S. ambassador's failure to attend the military parade and reception held to celebrate Spain's national holiday confirmed the strains in bilateral relations. The government put on a brave face after the reelection of U.S. Pres. George W. Bush on November 2, emphasizing Zapatero's desire for renewed cooperation between the two countries.

      Amid signs of coordination problems, the Socialists also moved rapidly on a wide range of internal issues. Responding to public concern about domestic violence, the first bill the new government presented to the parliament introduced tougher sentences for perpetrators (although, controversially, only in the case of men) and increased support and protection for victims. The government froze the PP's educational reforms, which among other things had boosted the status of religious teaching in schools, and announced laws introducing gay marriage and adoption as well as measures to facilitate the regularization of Spain's estimated 800,000 illegal immigrants.

      In October Zapatero hosted a summit of the presidents of Spain's 17 regional governments. The first such occasion in the history of Spain's young democracy, the meeting symbolized the Socialists' more conciliatory approach to the demands of Basque and Catalan nationalists, including a willingness to modify the constitution to permit effective cooperation between the central and regional governments. In part ideological, the Socialists' position was also pragmatic, given their need for the votes of nationalists both in the Congress in Madrid and in the Catalan regional parliament.

      Neither the obdurate opposition of a disconcerted PP nor the Roman Catholic Church's protests against changes in education and marriage laws as well as talk of reviewing state funding for the church seemed to dent support for the new government. With inflation in Spain running at around 3%, however, the European Commission reduced the optimistic Spanish estimates of 2.8% GDP growth in 2004 and 3.2% in 2005 to 2.6% in both years. The lowered projections provoked fears of increased unemployment and a possible collapse in rocketing house prices. The issue of Basque independence also remained a pressing issue, especially after the Basque parliament approved a plan in December that would give the region greater autonomy.

Justin Byrne

▪ 2004

Area:
506,030 sq km (195,379 sq mi)
Population
(2003 est.): 42,600,000
Capital:
Madrid
Chief of state:
King Juan Carlos I
Head of government:
Prime Minister José María Aznar López

      Amid the stagnant European economies, estimated GDP growth of 2.3% made Spain the second fastest-growing economy in the European Union in 2003. Continued expansion enabled the Spanish government to proclaim proudly that it would end the year with a budget surplus for the first time in recent history. There was little cause for complacency, however; inflation was running at 2.7% (compared with the EU's 1.7%) in November, unemployment stood at more than 10%, almost one-third of the workforce had temporary contracts, and housing prices were spiraling. The European Commission shared analysts' concerns that a hike in interest rates or unemployment could send housing prices tumbling, with disastrous consequences for families that were burdened with unprecedented levels of debt and for the financial institutions that had given them loans.

      The war in Iraq inevitably dominated Spain's international agenda. Prime Minister José María Aznar and his centre-right Popular Party (PP) unequivocally backed Washington. Aznar defended the legitimacy of armed intervention even without a UN mandate, sent Spanish medical units to the war zone, and, once Saddam Hussein had fallen, dispatched some 1,300 troops to reinforce the U.S.-led occupying forces. In October Aznar suggested a fundamental redefinition of Spain's defense policy and adhered to the doctrine of preventive attacks put forth by the administration of U.S. Pres. George W. Bush. Aznar was rewarded with a series of well-publicized meetings with Bush, an invitation to the U.S.-British-Spanish summit held in the Azores on the eve of the war, and the choice of Madrid to host the Iraq donors conference in October. Days earlier he had visited New York City to collect the Appeal of Conscience Foundation's World Statesman Award “for his courageous leadership and as an indefatigable champion of democracy.”

      At home Aznar's uncritical pro-American stance was highly unpopular. In the parliament all the main opposition parties were against the war, as were no fewer than two-thirds of voters, which made Spain one of the least pro-war of all European countries. Over two million people took to the streets on February 15 for the international day of protest, an event followed by additional smaller demonstrations against government and U.S. policies later in the year. Aznar, a Roman Catholic, was lucky to escape a public reprimand for his pro-war stance from Pope John Paul II, who was in Madrid in early May to canonize five 20th-century Spanish saints.

      The official explanations for this break with Spain's traditionally more European- and UN-oriented foreign policy wavered erratically between a principled commitment to the war on terrorism and more pragmatic considerations such as the need to ensure U.S. support in Spain's struggle against the armed Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) Basque separatists. Some analysts also pointed to a strategic realignment toward a North Atlantic axis with Britain and the U.S., founded on ideological affinities and the shift in the balance of power in the EU toward Germany and the East, as well as the desire to strengthen ties with the world's only superpower.

      Despite the government's inept handling of the Prestige oil-tanker disaster in November 2002 and the public opposition to the war, the PP did better than expected in municipal and regional elections in May; the PP polled just 1% fewer votes than the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE). A scandal reeking of sleaze and corruption robbed the Socialists of their star prize, the Madrid regional government, which went to the PP after a rerun of the elections in October. All this did nothing to favour the PSOE's prospects in the 2004 general elections.

      In September the PP's National Committee, by a vote of 503–0, with just one abstention, elected Aznar's chosen successor, Deputy Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, party leader and candidate for the premiership. Though Rajoy promised to maintain Aznar's policies, some observers predicted that he would bring a less-aggressive and less-autocratic style to politics.

      Once again the most conflictive issue in Spanish domestic politics was the Basque question. The relative lull in terrorist activity was offset by the heightened tension between Madrid and the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV)-controlled regional government. In rare agreement, all the parliamentary statewide parties rejected the proposal of the regional premier, Juan José Ibarretxe, to take the Basque Country, if necessarily unilaterally, toward “freely associated state” status with Spain. The PNV disingenuously maintained that this merely required the amendment of the region's existing autonomy statute. In accord with most constitutional experts, the government disagreed and considered the so-called Plan Ibarretxe the greatest challenge yet to the 1978 constitutional settlement. When in October the regional assembly agreed to consider a bill to this effect, the government immediately announced an appeal to the Constitutional Tribunal to block discussion of the proposal.

      In November the announcement of the engagement of 35-year-old Crown Prince Felipe to TV journalist Leticia Ortiz Rocasolano brought a lighter note to a tense 12 months.

Justin Byrne

▪ 2003

Area:
506,030 sq km (195,379 sq mi)
Population
(2002 est.): 40,998,000
Capital:
Madrid
Chief of state:
King Juan Carlos I
Head of government:
Prime Minister José María Aznar López

      Though still outperforming most of its European Union (EU) partners, Spain failed to escape the global economic downturn in 2002. Falling exports, near 4% inflation, declining domestic consumption, and a sharp drop in tourist revenue helped bring annual gross domestic product growth down to an estimated 2%, the lowest level since 1996.

      In addition, rising crime rates and soaring house prices (up almost 50% since 1998) were the object of widespread public concern, providing opposition parties with powerful ammunition against Prime Minister José María Aznar's Popular Party (PP) government.

      The centre-right majority government ran into even deeper trouble in its attempt to reform the unemployment benefit system. A controversial decree-law issued on May 27 introduced new restrictions on entitlement to benefits, made it harder for those receiving welfare to turn down jobs offered by the public employment agency, and phased out the special subsidy for agricultural workers in the south. The labour unions reacted by calling a 24-hour general strike on June 20, embarrassing the government on the eve of the EU summit in Seville. The stoppage proved a largely unexpected success. Government spokesman Pío Cabañillas, who had initially dismissed the impact of the strike, and Labour Minister Juan Carlos Aparicio lost their jobs in a cabinet reshuffle in early July. On October 7, just two days after a major national demonstration in Madrid to protest the law, new Labour Minister Eduardo Zaplana announced an abrupt U-turn, accepting nearly all of the unions' demands and leaving only the reform of the subsidy for farm labourers on the statute book.

      A major secondary-education bill also proved controversial. Intended to raise educational standards, the proposed Law of Quality lowered the age at which students were streamed into different educational tracks, allowed special schools in the state sector to select on merit, and introduced a new secondary-school-leaving exam. Opposition to the bill's allegedly socially divisive effects and inadequate funding for the public educational system brought student organizations, trade unions, and left-wing parties into the streets as the bill was being debated in the parliament in October.

      In November Spain suffered the ecological repercussions of the breaking in two and sinking of the oil tanker Prestige, which was carrying twice the amount of fuel that spilled in 1989 from the Exxon Valdez. The new spill, which occurred some 210 km (130 mi) off the coast of Galicia, created an oil slick about 240 km (150 mi) long by 24 km (15 mi) wide and threatened fishing and related industries.

      Once again, however, it was the Basque country that dominated national politics in 2002. With the support of the Socialist opposition, the PP government intensified its fight against terrorism, combining successful police operations against the armed Basque separatists in Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) with legal action against the organization's political wing, Batasuna. At the end of June, the parliament passed a new Law of Political Parties that enabled the Supreme Court to ban organizations that defended the use of violence; it was clearly drafted with Batasuna in mind. Two months later the PP and the Socialists again united to pass a motion calling on the government to initiate the procedure to have Batasuna banned. Meanwhile, “Superjudge” Balthasar Garzón used existing antiterrorist legislation to suspend the organization for three years. Though this two-pronged legal assault on Batasuna enjoyed broad political and popular support in Spain as a whole, opinion was much more divided in the Basque country. There the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV)-dominated regional government denounced Garzón's ruling and the new law as counterproductive if not actually illegal, and it announced that it would challenge both measures in the courts.

      The rift between Basque nationalists and nonnationalist forces deepened in the fall when Basque Regional Pres. Juan José Ibarretxe unveiled plans to call a referendum on self-determination and convert the Basque country into a “freely associated state” with Spain. The nonnationalist parties and population rallied in defense of the region's existing Autonomy Statute and denounced Ibarretxe's proposals as anticonstitutional and divisive, arguing that ongoing terrorist violence and intimidation of nonnationalist opinion would condition the outcome of any ballot or peace process.

      The Spanish presidency of the EU dominated the international agenda during the first six months of the year. The final balance for Spain was mixed. Government satisfaction with the successful introduction of the euro, agreements on energy liberalization, and the Galileo satellite-navigation system contrasted with frustration over the watering down of Spain's hard-line proposals on illegal immigration and the limited progress made toward EU enlargement.

      On July 11, just days after the end of Spain's EU presidency, rumbling tensions with Morocco flared up when a small detachment of Moroccan armed police landed on Leila/Perejil, a barren rock a few hundred metres off the North African mainland over which both countries claimed sovereignty. After a weeklong standoff, on July 17 Spanish troops seized the islet without encountering resistance from the six Moroccan soldiers there. The Spanish forces withdrew three days later after the two countries reached an agreement, brokered by the U.S., to return to the status quo and initiate talks on the various issues souring bilateral relations (including fishing rights, immigration, territorial claims, and the Western Sahara). Despite continued tension, the message sent by Morocco's King Muhammed VI to King Juan Carlos I on October 12, the Spanish National Holiday, raised hopes of a thaw in relations between these two mutually important neighbours.

Justin Byrne

▪ 2002

Area:
505,990 sq km (195,364 sq mi)
Population
(2001 est.): 40,144,000
Capital:
Madrid
Chief of state:
King Juan Carlos I
Head of government:
Prime Minister José María Aznar López

      Spain was one of the fastest-growing economies in the European Union (EU) in 2001. Despite inflation nearing 4% and the clear signs of slowdown, the strong economy helped Prime Minister José María Aznar López through a rather troubled year for his centre-right Popular Party (PP) government.

      The government's problems involved politics as much as policies. A number of issues were handled clumsily, including implementation of immigration legislation passed in January and a health scare over low-quality olive oil in July. In the autumn complaints that the government was steamrolling controversial university reforms through the parliament inflamed the opposition. At the end of the year students all over the country joined in strikes, demonstrations, and sit-ins, often alongside their rectors and professors.

      A number of senior officials were implicated in financial scandals during the year. In July Foreign Minister Josep Piqué only narrowly escaped prosecution for his role in alleged irregularities committed in 1991 by the chemicals group Ercros, of which he was then a director. Just days later the collapse of the stockbroking house Gescartera with debts amounting to over $82 million spelled more trouble for the government. The junior finance minister, Enrique Giménez-Reyna, whose sister was managing director of Gescartera, and Pilar Valiente, president of the stock market regulator, resigned amid accusations of official incompetence and favouritism. The PP's parliamentary majority ensured that the congressional inquiry exonerated the government from all responsibility in the case, but opposition parties called for the dismissal of the ministers of the economy and finance. These scandals also conjured up the spectre of corruption that had cost the previous government under the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) so dearly in the 1996 elections.

      The PP's disappointing performance in the Basque regional elections on May 13 was another setback. Following the signing of an antiterrorist pact with the PSOE in December 2000, the two “constitutional” parties had fought the campaign hand-in-hand. Preelectoral polls suggested they might be able to oust the moderate Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) after 21 years in power, but the PNV won a resounding victory, taking 33 seats in the 75-seat parliament (up from 27). The main loser was Euskal Herritarrok (EH), the political wing of the Basque separatist organization Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA), which apparently was punished by voters for having ended its unilateral cease-fire six months earlier.

      These elections were widely seen as a personal triumph for Basque regional president Juan José Ibarretxe, as well as an endorsement for his demands for both greater regional autonomy and self-determination. The latter was rejected out of hand by the PP government, which accused the nationalist regional government—which the Basque federation of the left-wing United Left (IU) coalition joined in September—of being soft on terrorism.

      ETA continued its campaign of street violence, arson, and assassination, undeterred by the evident electoral costs and successful police antiterrorist operations. The organization claimed 13 mortal victims in 2001, taking its death toll to well over 800 in just over three decades. Victims included bystanders as well as local politicians and members of the police, press, military, and judiciary. Late in the year José Javier Arizkurn Ruíz, who was believed to be the former military leader of the ETA, was extradited from France to face charges of plotting to kill King Juan Carlos I in 1995; Arizkurn also faced 12 murder charges.

      Spain's domestic terrorist problem framed its response to the September 11 attacks in the U.S. Seeing an opportunity to consolidate ties with U.S. Pres. George W. Bush's administration as well as to secure closer international cooperation against ETA, Aznar immediately offered sympathy and full support to the U.S. Spanish bases and troops were put at the disposition of Washington, and on November 13 the Spanish police arrested 11 suspected members of the terrorist organization al-Qaeda. Spain also strongly supported initiatives to tighten the EU's antiterrorist legislation. With the exception of the IU, there was a broad consensus behind the government's response to the international crisis. An official poll conducted in late September found that more than 70% of Spaniards approved of the government's response and almost 65% favoured Spanish participation in military action.

      A number of long-running tensions between Spain and Morocco surfaced in 2001. Madrid's response to the events of September 11 included tightening entry controls in the North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, which helped trigger a diplomatic crisis with Morocco in November. Moroccan resentment of Spanish occupation of these “colonies” was inflamed by signs of progress on Spain's claims to the British colony of Gibraltar. The collapse of talks between the EU and Morocco over European fishing rights in Moroccan waters in April was followed in September by suggestions from Madrid that Rabat could do more to stem the flow of illegal immigration into Spain across the Strait of Gibraltar. Press criticism of the pace of political reform in Morocco also irritated that country, as did Spain's perceived opposition to Rabat's plans for Western Sahara, the former Spanish colony occupied by Morocco in 1975. The tension came to a head on October 27, days before Moroccan King Muhammad VI began his first official visit to Western Sahara, when Rabat unexpectedly recalled its ambassador to Madrid “for consultations” and canceled a high-level bilateral summit scheduled for December.

Justin Byrne

▪ 2001

Area:
505,990 sq km (195,364 sq mi)
Population
(2000 est.): 40,128,000
Capital:
Madrid
Chief of state:
King Juan Carlos I
Head of government:
Prime Minister José María Aznar López

      Spain in 2000 was one of Europe's most politically stable countries as well as one of its most prosperous. These facts served to underline the sudden and vicious return to Spanish civil life of the Basque terrorists and an uncharacteristic outbreak of ethnic intolerance.

      The March 12 general elections served to ratify the right-wing administration of the Popular Party (PP), led by Prime Minister José María Aznar López. Aznar was reelected with an unexpected outright majority, defeating the leftist electoral coalition of former communists and socialists. This defeat prompted a reshuffle within the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE); the more centrist José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero succeeded Joaquín Almunia as secretary-general.

      With 52% of the vote, the PP won 183 seats (up from 156 seats) in the lower house of the parliament and therefore gained an absolute majority. The second party, the PSOE, earned 125 seats (down from 141). The second member of the leftist coalition, the United Left, earned only 8 seats (down from 21). The other seats were distributed among an array of regionalist and regional nationalist parties, particularly in Catalonia, the Basque region, and Galicia.

      Unquestionably the most dramatic event of the year was the return to terrorism by Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA), the Basque separatist organization, breaking a self-declared cease-fire that had held for more than one year. On January 21 Spanish Army Lieut. Col. Pedro Antonio Blanco García was murdered, and the following day nearly one million Spaniards took to Madrid's streets to protest the killing. A number of assassinations and acts of violence ensued, including the murders of a journalist and several PP and PSOE local politicians.

      On August 7 four ETA members were blown up in a car loaded with guns and explosives in an industrial neighbourhood in Bilbao. One of the victims, Patxi Rementeria, was the chief of ETA's sanguinary Commando Vizcaya. The near-instinctive reaction among radical nationalists was to blame the state security forces for the bombing. In an effort to prove that this blow had not impaired its organizational capacity, ETA embarked on a dramatic crescendo of violence. A wave of vandalism and arson spread across the northern Basque provinces. On August 8 Basque business executive José María Korta was killed in Zumaya, near San Sebastián. A few hours later nine people were injured near Madrid's Chamartin train station. The spate of assassinations and other attacks dramatically increased in the ensuing months.

      The deadliest episode took place on October 30, when Supreme Court Judge José Francisco Querol Lombardero, together with his driver and bodyguard, were killed in Madrid. More than 60 passersby were also wounded, including one who later died. On November 2 two people were injured in a public garden in Barcelona, where Aznar had planned to attend an award ceremony. In most of these instances, bombs were planted in parked cars and detonated by remote control. On November 7 police arrested several suspected ETA members after two had been refused asylum in Madrid by the Cuban embassy. Ernest Lluch, health minister under the first Spanish socialist government (1982–86), was assassinated in Barcelona on November 21. This killing was timed to mark the 25th anniversary of the monarchy, which the terrorists had regarded as one of their main targets.

      Aznar's military crackdown on ETA and refusal to negotiate had resulted in a number of arrests over the years, but they had apparently not deterred the organization or impaired its capacity to reinvent itself in ever more radical manifestations. ETA had repeatedly shown that it could survive the loss of senior leaders, perhaps compensating through further radicalization. ETA's leadership reportedly now included many women. Earlier random killings of police officers, members of the armed forces, and, more recently, politicians passed a new threshold when such persons as journalists and other public figures became “legitimate” targets for ETA violence. The organization carried out more than 20 assassinations during the year, the highest toll since 1992. The strength of civil society, both in the Basque country and Spain at large, was demonstrated, however, by gargantuan protest marches against terrorism, with crowds swelling up to a million strong.

      Also disturbing was the upsurge of xenophobic violence culminating with anti-immigrant street riots on February 13 in the prosperous Andalusian town of El Ejido, where North African immigrants made up about 10% of the population. This was one of the most serious instances of racial violence in modern Spain, perhaps reflecting an infection of the global disease of increased intolerance of foreigners. The attacks occurred only two days after the parliament passed a bill allowing 70,000 illegal immigrants to take up residency.

      The consequences of terrorism on the political system included intense polarization. Most importantly, an anti-terrorism pact signed by the PP, the PSOE, and a few minor parties had been repudiated as profoundly illegitimate by both Catalan and Basque nationalists, as well as by the United Left.

Daniele Conversi

▪ 2000

Area:
505,990 sq km (195,364 sq mi)
Population
(1999 est.): 40,017,000
Capital:
Madrid
Chief of state:
King Juan Carlos I
Head of government:
Prime Minister José María Aznar López

      The start of 1999 was marked by the launch of the euro. (See World Affairs: European Union: Sidebar (Euro's First Birthday ).) The introduction of Europe's common currency was the culmination of a tremendous effort by Spain's policy makers and was considered a major success for Prime Minister José María Aznar López and his government.

      The right-wing government of the Popular Party (PP) could also point with some satisfaction to a falling unemployment rate (though at 16% still the highest in the European Union) and a record of steady economic growth. Rather disappointingly, however, three years of smooth government and a favourable economic climate had not translated into PP success in the opinion polls. Throughout the year the party could not manage to build a sufficient lead over the opposition Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), which was all the more remarkable considering the leadership turmoil within the PSOE. José Borrell's election as the Socialist candidate in the next general election (at the expense of Joaquín Almunia, the PSOE secretary-general) was thrown into confusion when Borrell resigned in the summer. This left Almunia in a vulnerable position, with only slim backing from his own party and with other key Socialists eager to raise their own profiles at his expense. Almunia went on the offensive at the end of 1999, however, after it was revealed that the ranks of top Spanish civil servants had increased 15% over the previous year despite PP promises to cut the bureaucracy. Yet another recognition of the Spanish Socialists' high standing was the election of Almunia to a vice presidency of the Socialist International Organization.

      Elections to the European Parliament produced only minimal changes, the most significant being the ongoing slide of the United Left's support. Leaving open the possibility of a switch to the PSOE by millions of voters, Spain's third largest national party remained troubled by in-fighting and unresolved questions of party identity.

      Javier Solana, another leading Socialist, continued to play an active international role, first in his capacity as NATO secretary-general during the Kosovo conflict and later following his appointment to manage the EU's foreign policy. (See Biographies (Solana Madariaga, Javier ).) Spain's solidarity with NATO over the Balkan conflict was not underwritten by the country's voters; a poll for El País, a leading Madrid daily, shortly before the ground war found that 49% of Spaniards opposed the commitment of ground troops. This, however, did not prevent the sending of over 1,000 Spanish legionnaires to garrisons in the Italian sector.

      Relations with Latin America were marred by the case of former Chilean president Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, with Spain still awaiting his extradition from London at year's end. The commitment and tenacity of Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón to pursue the issue of human rights abuses carried out during the Chilean military dictatorship, despite intense diplomatic pressure by Chile to secure Pinochet's release, were notable. In late November Garzón also indicted 98 former Argentine officials for civil and human rights violations during the military dictatorship in that country during the 1970s and '80s.

      Spain's relations with Cuba also remained tense, and the planned visit of the king and queen was postponed, ostensibly over concern about human rights issues. Cuban Pres. Fidel Castro denounced Spain's pursuit of Pinochet and caused some diplomatic embarrassment with his denunciation of Solana as a war criminal following the NATO bombings in Yugoslavia.

      Relations with North Africa were unresolved following the death of Morocco's King Hassan II (see Obituaries (Hassan II )), although Spain quickly supported the new king, Muhammad VI. (See Biographies (Muhammad VI ).) The issue of a referendum in the disputed territory of Western Sahara, as well as the related question of the status of Ceuta and Melilla (two Spanish enclaves on the Moroccan coast), also occupied foreign policy makers in Madrid during the year.

      The 14-month cease-fire between the Spanish government and the Basque separatist movement Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) held until November 28, when the Basques declared an end to it. Earlier, government policy had faced a reversal when the Constitutional Court overturned the conviction of 23 politicians of the Herri Batasuna (ETA's political wing) who had been sent to prison over a pro-ETA election broadcast.

      As the year came to an end, elections in the autonomous community of Catalonia proved disappointing for the PP. While Catalonian Pres. Jordi Pujol's Convergence and Union won by a narrow margin, the PP performed poorly. The Socialists made out well, which raised interesting questions about the prospects for the PP in the next general election, due before spring 2000.

      Spain pursued the professionalization of its armed forces, a popular move in all political camps. Professionalization entailed ending compulsory conscription and bringing the Spanish forces closer to the British model of a highly specialized but reduced military. The last contingent of conscripts, however, were given the choice of remaining on duty as professional soldiers.

Benny Pollack

▪ 1999

      Area: 505,990 sq km (195,364 sq mi)

      Population (1998 est.): 39,371,000

      Capital: Madrid

      Chief of state: King Juan Carlos I

      Head of government: Prime Minister José María Aznar López

      Spain experienced an eventful year in 1998, as significant developments took place at both international and national levels. One that had a far-reaching effect was the extradition request by the Spanish government of the former Chilean dictator, Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, who was arrested in October in London on a warrant signed by Spanish and British judges. The case became a cause célèbre, prompting extradition requests from France, Switzerland, and Sweden. Pinochet stood accused of a host of crimes, ranging from individual cases of citizens of the prosecuting countries being killed or "disappeared" to the widespread use of torture and kidnapping, crimes against humanity, and even genocide.

      The Pinochet affair polarized Spain between those who approved of the extradition request (70%) and those who opposed it on the grounds that it would destabilize the fragile Chilean democracy. The case proved the maturity of the relatively young democratic regime in Spain; the right-wing government headed by Prime Minister José Aznar López decided not to interfere with the decisions of the judiciary (even though legally able to do so) and sanctioned the official extradition warrant with Cabinet approval.

      Spanish foreign policy during 1998 concentrated on Latin America and Europe, but the traditional links with the Maghreb nations (Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia) remained, exemplified by bilateral agreements and mutual cultural and economic visits. Prime Minister Aznar and a delegation of business leaders visited several Latin-American countries, which allowed Spain to establish closer relations there, especially with Peru and Colombia. The visit by the foreign minister to Cuba ended a period of tension affecting relations between Madrid and Havana. This improved relationship had been in evidence when Pres. Fidel Castro of Cuba met Prime Minister Aznar at the Ibero-American conference in Portugal, a periodic major diplomatic and political event that all of the countries of Latin America, plus Portugal and Spain, attended.

      The year marked a turning point in the internal politics of Spain. The October regional elections in the Basque country consolidated the influence and power of two major nationalist parties, the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) and Herri Batasuna (HB). The former, the mainstream moderate nationalist organization, confirmed its position as the largest group in the Autonomous Parliament, and the latter (to the left within the nationalist spectrum) made important gains. A reinforced self-confidence resulting from these triumphs allowed the Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) separatist group (generally regarded as the military wing of HB) to confirm a cease-fire that had been declared in September. The example of the cease-fire and the subsequent peace agreement in Northern Ireland played a substantial role in helping to ease the Basque-Spanish conflict. Spain, in turn, further facilitated this process by promising generous compensation for the victims of ETA terrorism and thereby helping to neutralize potential opposition to the ensuing negotiations. The open-minded attitude of the Aznar government on the issue seemed to be rewarded by an increased share of the vote for the centre-right Popular Party (in charge of the national government in Madrid) in the Basque elections. Nationalist fervour culminated in a "summit" of the major nationalist parties of Catalonia, the Basque country, and Galicia, which ended with the "Barcelona Declaration," stating common goals and strategies to achieve increased autonomy but within the Spanish state.

      Ecological issues came to the fore in Spain during the year. A vigorous public debate created a new awareness of topics such as environmental pollution and deforestation, and a host of organizations competed to spread the ecological message. The government, conscious of the political implications of this new concern, was also party to the debate and promised active cooperation.

      The economy suffered the effects of the global recession unleashed by the financial crisis in Asia, and the Ministry for the Economy reduced its estimate of economic growth for 1999 from 3.9% to 3.7%. The sharp decline of share prices on the Madrid and Barcelona stock exchanges (on average about 20%) created cause for concern among both business associations and trade unions. The latter voiced their concern at the risk of increased unemployment, which remained around 18%.

      As a reaction against attempts to liberalize the current abortion laws, Roman Catholic groups renewed their antiabortion campaigns. In other developments former interior minister José Barrionuevo was imprisoned for his role in the 1983 kidnapping of a businessman; salaries increased an average of 2.3%; and illegal immigration from North Africa continued to be a problem that fed worries about racism and xenophobia. A study published during the year revealed deep-seated antagonism toward immigrants and foreigners in general in Spain as well as the existence of well-organized, though small, neo-Nazi groups.

BENNY POLLACK

▪ 1998

      Area: 505,990 sq km (195,364 sq mi)

      Population (1997 est.): 39,323,000

      Capital: Madrid

      Chief of state: King Juan Carlos I

      Head of government: Prime Minister José María Aznar López

      The Popular Party (PP) in 1997 demonstrated that it was adept at leading the coalition it had formed with the various nationalist parties. It was successful despite comments made by the parties during the March election campaign that reinforced the belief that poor relations between the centre-right parties and the centre-left Convergence and Union (Catalan) coalition would preclude any form of cooperation. The fact that the PP plurality in the 1996 election was small gave hope to the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) that it would not be out of power for long.

      The PSOE continued to be adversely affected by its connection to the Antiterrorist Liberation Groups (GAL) investigation. GAL, a shadowy organization that carried out a number of extrajudicial killings in the 1980s, was perhaps the turning point in the PSOE electoral defeat. A judicial investigation into the Cesid (state intelligence agency) papers on the case dominated the PSOE's retreat from government. Felipe González Márquez's party leadership was brought into such question over the affair that he was weakened and the PSOE appeared directionless and in disrepute with the judiciary.

      Despite GAL's being very useful to the PP in its campaigning against the PSOE, there was pressure on the new government to release sensitive information regarding the case. This fueled further speculation about the role of the civil leadership in Spain. Whereas the scandal suited the PP in opposition, by the end of the year it was turning into an issue that both parties would prefer settled.

      In November the benefits of Javier Solana's 1995 appointment to the position of secretary-general of the NATO alliance appeared to reap dividends. These were realized by the promise of considerable progress in the incorporation of Spain into the Integrated Military Command of NATO. The national legislature overwhelmingly supported the PP's position favouring incorporation, which thus seemed to resolve a problem that had dogged Spain's defense planners since the 1980s. The final resolution of the issue, however, hinged upon the status of Gibraltar within NATO and, more significantly for the PP, the status of the Canary Islands. The latter existed within the Portuguese mandate of the Eastern Atlantic and were of concern to the Canarian coalition, a partner in the governing bloc.

      Relations with Cuba suffered some deterioration in 1997 when the government inflamed Cuban and Spanish commercial interests by warning Spanish tourists away from the island. This appeared to be retaliation for the poor legal treatment of a Spanish tourist by the Cuban judiciary. An attempt to distance itself from the previous government's position on Cuba raised a number of problems for the PP. Cuba represented one of Spain's most lucrative opportunities for investment, and commercial interests were obviously wary of any interruption to the trade that appeared set to expand.

      Latin America also emerged as a judicial question. After many unsuccessful years in the Chilean courts, Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, head of state of Chile from 1973 to 1990, was indicted in Spain on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity in connection with the deaths of Spanish nationals following the military coup of September 1973. The issue then shifted to Argentina and the behaviour of military officers there during the "dirty war" of the late 1970s, when thousands of citizens were killed, were imprisoned, or disappeared.

      The Basque separatists group Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) continued to strain the political process, and popular revulsion grew throughout the year against ETA and its political wing, Herri Batasuna. By March a large increase in murders by the organization had heightened tension within the Basque provinces and pressured the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) to support the government's position of nonnegotiation. Following the July kidnapping and fatal wounding by Basque separatists of a young PP politician, Miguel Ángel Blanco, millions demonstrated in the streets as the parties united to condemn the fatal attack. Finally, on December 1, 23 members of the top leadership of Herri Batasuna were found guilty of aiding ETA and were each sentenced to seven years in prison.

      After the PP's first year in office, the goodwill between it and the major nationalist parties in the legislature, the Catalan and the PNV, appeared to have lost strength. Both parties had enjoyed leverage over the previous PSOE government, and the PNV in particular stepped back from colluding too closely with the government.

      Perhaps the most significant domestic event of the year was the replacement of González as secretary-general of the PSOE. At the 34th congress of the party, he resigned after 23 years in the post. His replacement, Joaquín Almunia, represented continuity, however, as he was the favoured candidate of González.

      The United Left group, led by Julio Anguita, finally succumbed to factionalism. The leadership of Anguita was called into question by the defection of the New Left and of groupings in Galicia and Catalonia. The third largest party in Spain and the inheritors of the communist tradition, the United Left suffered an identity crisis that was intensified by a weak electoral performance in 1996. Some observers considered it possible that the new leadership of the PSOE could move toward increased cooperation with the United Left.

BENNY POLLACK

▪ 1997

      A constitutional monarchy of southwestern Europe with coastlines on the Bay of Biscay, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Mediterranean Sea, Spain shares the Iberian Peninsula with Portugal; it includes the Balearic and Canary island groups, in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, respectively, and enclaves in northern Morocco. Area: 505,990 sq km (195,364 sq mi). Pop. (1996 est.): 39,270,000. Cap.: Madrid. Monetary unit: Spanish peseta, with (Oct. 11, 1996) a free rate of 128.79 pesetas to U.S. $1 (202.88 pesetas = £1 sterling). King, Juan Carlos I; prime ministers in 1996, Felipe González Márquez and, from May 6, José María Aznar López.

      The much-anticipated victory of the conservative Popular Party in the general elections on March 3 brought about a major shift in Spanish politics during 1996 after 13 years of Socialist rule. Prime Minister José María Aznar López (see BIOGRAPHIES (Aznar Lopez, Jose Maria )) appointed a Cabinet, which took office in May. It reflected the range of his party's views—from Thatcherite free-marketers to more paternal, state interventionists in line with traditional Spanish conservatism.

      Like his predecessor, Felipe González Márquez, Aznar was obliged to bargain with several regional parties in order to win a vote to install his minority government. Throughout the year backing for legislation came from the Basque Nationalist Party, the Canarian Coalition, and the Convergence and Union coalition from the northeastern Catalonia region. The kingmaker of Spanish politics became Jordi Pujol, the leader of the Catalan coalition and president of Catalonia, whose pro-business party won important concessions for greater autonomy for all Spanish regions.

      The Aznar government maintained the outgoing Socialists' commitment to joining the European Union's single currency and showed itself willing to take political risks in order to qualify for membership. In the summer it announced a decision to freeze the wages of civil servants in 1997 and stood by that decision throughout the fall, despite a series of union-led demonstrations that culminated in a march by tens of thousands of Spaniards throughout the nation on December 11.

      The government, with the backing of regional parties, passed a strict 1997 budget on December 27, four days before time would have run out for a vote. The opposition Socialists and communist-led United Left coalition argued that the spending cuts and tax adjustments would hurt the disadvantaged and benefit the rich. The budget aimed to enable Spain to lower its deficit to within 3% of gross domestic product, a requirement for joining the EU's single currency.

      The Basque separatist group Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) continued its battle for Basque independence and became a major problem for the new government. In January the ETA kidnapped José Antonio Ortega Lara, a prison employee from the northern city of Pamplona; at the year's end he had not been released. Ortega, the ETA's longest-held captive, became the focus of weekly demonstrations and candlelight vigils demanding his freedom.

      The ETA said that it would not release Ortega until the government had moved some 450 ETA convicts to prisons in the Basque region. The convicts were spread throughout Spain to prevent them from working together. The government repeatedly refused the ETA's demand, which was also endorsed by a broad range of parties in the Basque region. In November the ETA also kidnapped Cosme Delclaux, heir of a prominent Basque business family, presumably to obtain the ETA's "revolutionary tax" ransom money, which would be used to finance the organization's campaign of terrorism.

      In December the daily newspapers El País and El Mundo published what they claimed were excerpts of documents from the state intelligence agency, Cesid, concerning the government's secret war on Basque separatists in the 1980s. Defense Minister Eduardo Serra Rexach confirmed, then later denied, the authenticity of the reports.

      In September a National Court judge began hearing evidence against dozens of Argentine officers accused of human rights violations during the 1976-83 military dictatorship in Argentina, including the torture and killing of Spaniards.

      Spain marked the 60th anniversary of its civil war with the return in November of 370 members of the International Brigades, which fought for the Republic against Francisco Franco's Nationalists. The Cortes (parliament) voted to grant citizenship to any who requested it.

      The government was forced to back down on a plan to reduce Spanish dependence on its own high-priced coal when hundreds of coal miners blocked highways and demonstrated in November. The miners persuaded the government to adjust a national electricity plan that would have phased out the subsidy of Spanish coal, which made it more expensive than imports.

      On December 3 a judge granted parole to Civil Guard Lieut. Col. Antonio Tejero Molina, who led a failed 1981 coup attempt in which the Cortes was stormed during the swearing-in ceremony of Prime Minister Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo. Tejero had served slightly more than half of his 30-year sentence.

      Aznar's government distanced Spain from Fidel Castro's Cuba by trying to toughen the EU's policy toward the island. In November Cuba rejected Spain's proposed new ambassador after the Spaniard criticized Castro's human rights record. In late November Spain agreed to name a new ambassador.

      As the year came to a close, the government announced the sale early in 1997 of the nation's remaining minority stake in the Telefónica telecommunications company and the petroleum group Repsol. The conservatives said all state enterprises were potentially for sale, markets permitting. (GARY ABRAMSON)

▪ 1996

      A constitutional monarchy of southwestern Europe with coastlines on the Bay of Biscay, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Mediterranean Sea, Spain shares the Iberian Peninsula with Portugal; it includes the Balearic and Canary island groups, in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, respectively, and enclaves in northern Morocco. Area: 504,783 sq km (194,898 sq mi). Pop. (1995 est.): 39,188,000. Cap.: Madrid. Monetary unit: Spanish peseta, with (Oct. 6, 1995) a free rate of 123.75 pesetas to U.S. $1 (195.63 pesetas = £ 1 sterling). King, Juan Carlos I; prime minister in 1995, Felipe González Márquez.

      Expectations that after 13 years Prime Minister Felipe González Márquez was rapidly nearing the end of his tenure in office dominated politics in 1995 as an increasingly wobbly Socialist government lost key parliamentary support amid growing scandals. González, Europe's second longest governing leader, after Helmut Kohl of Germany, pledged to call elections on March 3, 1996, a year ahead of schedule, while steadfastly defending his record and that of his government. González agreed to lead the party again himself.

      The widely shared perception that the Socialist era would soon give way to a government led by the conservative Popular Party had a major impact on the lingering conflict in Spain's three northeastern Basque provinces. The armed Basque separatist group, Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA), showed signs of changing strategy with the assassination on January 23 of Gregorio Ordóñez, a leader of the Popular Party in Guipúzcoa province. Of the roughly 800 deaths during ETA's 27-year-old independence campaign, all but a handful had been military or police officers. ETA's failed assassination attempt on April 19 against José María Aznar, the Popular Party's intended candidate for prime minister, was followed by ETA demands to negotiate Basque self-determination. Violence flared up anew in December as bombings attributed to ETA killed six civilian naval employees in Madrid on December 11, a shopper in a department store in Valencia on December 16, and an army major in León on December 22.

      While both the government and the opposition roundly rejected talks with ETA, the country's fight against the separatists gave rise to continuing scandal. A former Socialist official in the Basque country, Ricardo García Damborenea, and a former chief of state security, Rafael Vera, were jailed and questioned on February 17 in connection with the shadowy Anti-Terrorist Liberation Group (GAL), which judicial investigations tied to Spanish security forces. Damborenea later told a court that González himself had been responsible for GAL, which killed 27 people in southern France between 1983 and 1987 in the so-called dirty war against ETA. The newspaper El Mundo published documents in October indicating that French border officials had been paid by the Spanish Ministry of the Interior to help track down ETA guerrilla squads across the border. In late November the Cortes (parliament) lifted the immunity of José Barrionuevo, a former minister of the interior, so he could be questioned about GAL.

      Spaniards' attention was shifted abroad when Canadian authorities seized the Spanish trawler Estai on March 9 on the high seas off Newfoundland, claiming to be defending stocks from overfishing to the point of depletion. After Spanish warships had been sent to defend the fishing fleet, weeks of bitter dispute between Canada and the European Union (EU) ended in an agreement to lower the Spanish fishermen's halibut catch in the Grand Banks.

      On March 18 Spain's first royal wedding in 89 years, the marriage in Seville of the Infanta Elena to banker Jaime de Marichalar, captivated the country and highlighted the popularity of the restored Bourbon monarchy. King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia welcomed the heir to the throne, Prince Felipe, back from two years of graduate study in the United States to assume an increasingly prominent role in the family's official engagements.

      Benefiting from the Socialists' troubles, the Popular Party comfortably won regional and municipal elections on May 28, taking charge of 10 of 13 regional governments and winning a plurality in 42 of 52 provincial capitals. An increase of 10% in the PP's results over the previous election (1991) put the conservatives five points ahead of the Socialists and in the lead for the first time.

      Long-standing efforts to direct more of Europe's attention southward reached their zenith during Spain's six-month presidency of the EU that began July 1. Throughout the spring and summer, unrest hit Spanish ports as some 600 fishing boats were idled because of stalled negotiations on an EU fishing treaty with Morocco. In Madrid a political rather than economic decision was made to accept Rabat's demands for severe cuts in the EU's catch in Moroccan waters. Concessions were also made on granting Morocco access to EU agricultural markets, which thereby would put it in competition with Europe's home-grown fruit and vegetables, in order to help strengthen ties between North Africa and southern Europe.

      Spain's most ambitious initiative under its EU presidency was the Mediterranean Conference held November 28-29 in Barcelona, in which 12 North African and Middle Eastern countries met with the 15 EU nations to discuss aid, trade, and cultural and political relations. González' principal political passion had always been foreign affairs, and the prime minister repeatedly cited Spain's incumbency in the EU presidency as a key reason why the country should not schedule early elections during 1995. He was willing to hold the elections, he said, following an EU-U.S. summit in December to redefine transatlantic relations and the final EU summit in Madrid that month, in which Spain hoped to influence the future course of the union.

      Opposition parties, however, saw Spain's prospects differently, particularly its economic ones. Though the economy had been recovering strongly since late 1994, investors remained doubtful about Spain's ability to meet criteria for the EU's single currency by 1997, as government spending and inflation remained wide of its targets. Market pressure on the peseta forced a 7% devaluation on March 6. Unemployment barely declined from a European high of over 21%, and inflation seemed unlikely to come in within the government's 3.5% target.

      By the time the Socialists came to sound out other parties about the upcoming budget in the summer, pressure on González from the GAL case, as well as other scandals, was leading even his allies to conclude there was little to gain from supporting him. The Catalan nationalist grouping Convergence and Union, which had provided the minority Socialists with a working parliamentary majority since González' party won 159 of 350 seats in the most recent national election in June 1993, withdrew its support from the government in July. Rather than lend their votes to a no-confidence motion that would bring down the government, the Catalans decided in October to join with the Popular Party in defeating the government's proposed 1996 budget. It was the Socialists' first parliamentary defeat since taking office in 1982 and the first time a budget had been rejected under Spain's post-Franco democracy.

      In December Foreign Minister Javier Solana Madariaga was appointed NATO secretary-general; he was replaced by Carlos Westendorp, a career diplomat.

      (GARY ABRAMSON)

▪ 1995

      A constitutional monarchy of southwestern Europe with coastlines on the Bay of Biscay, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Mediterranean Sea, Spain shares the Iberian Peninsula with Portugal; it includes the Balearic and Canary island groups, in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, respectively, and enclaves in northern Morocco. Area: 504,783 sq km (194,898 sq mi). Pop. (1994 est.): 39,193,000. Cap.: Madrid. Monetary unit: Spanish peseta, with (Oct. 7, 1994) a free rate of 127.62 pesetas to U.S. $1 (202.98 pesetas = £ 1 sterling). King, Juan Carlos I; prime minister in 1994, Felipe González Márquez.

      The Socialist government of Prime Minister Felipe González Márquez survived major challenges to its economic policy and a wave of scandals in 1994. Despite widespread disenchantment, it held on to power thanks to the sustained support of the Catalan nationalist grouping Convergence and Union, which provided the minority Socialists with a working legislative majority.

      Labour unions shut down much of the country in a general strike on January 27 to protest a loosening of labour laws that the Socialists described as essential to Spain's economic competitiveness. The legislature approved the reforms, which made it easier to hire, fire, and transfer workers, in several stages through June.

      The first of several public figures closely linked to the Socialists came under scrutiny in April by a legislative commission investigating allegations of fraud. Mariano Rubio on April 15 denied that he had earned nearly $1 million from insider trading during his 1984-92 term as governor of the Bank of Spain and had failed to declare the earnings to tax authorities. He was subsequently jailed on those charges, along with former Madrid Stock Exchange chairman Manuel de la Concha, who ran an investment firm in which Rubio held an account.

      In his April 19 state of the nation address, Prime Minister González vowed to fight corruption. He discussed allegations against Rubio and Luis Roldán, the Civil Guard chief accused of having made a fortune in kickbacks from construction contracts. Interior Minister Antoni Asunción resigned on April 30 after Roldán escaped arrest on embezzlement and tax fraud charges and fled Spain. Judge Juan Alberto Belloch was named Asunción's successor and also became minister of justice. Roldán's whereabouts remained unknown at the end of 1994.

      The fall of the most prominent financier of Spain's late 1980s economic boom, Mario Conde, absorbed the attention of Spaniards in the early months of 1994 as the Bank of Spain supervised the restructuring and sale of Banco Español de Crédito (Banesto) after having removed Conde as chairman on Dec. 28, 1993. A legislative commission investigated possible wrongdoing by Conde's team in the spring. Conde was jailed on Dec. 23, 1994, on charges of fraud in the resale of Banesto subsidiaries and affiliated companies.

      The arrest on October 18 of Javier de la Rosa, a man who had gained immense wealth representing Kuwaiti and other interests during the same boom period, led nearly all Spanish media and politicians to conclude that the country's "fast-buck culture" of the 1980s was finally over. De la Rosa stood accused of stealing the assets of his Grand Tibidabo real estate company. At the year's end he remained imprisoned without bond while awaiting trial.

      The strongest challenge to González during his 12 years in power emerged in December as a judge reopened an inquiry into death squads that hunted down suspected Basque separatists from 1983 to 1987. González insisted that no proof would be uncovered to substantiate allegations that two Cabinet members knew that the Anti-Terrorist Liberation Groups, or GAL, had been run and funded by mid-level Interior Ministry officials. A former national security chief, Julián Sancristobal, and two other former officials were in jail at the end of the year, pending a possible trial on charges of running GAL. Opposition politicians called for González to resign and call early elections, but the government's key backers in the legislature maintained their support.

      Yet another political scandal proved a challenge to the government in early November as González faced accusations that a business linked to his brother-in-law, Francisco Palomino Romero, was favoured in the awarding of public works contracts. González denied the charges.

      Scandal reached into regional government as well. On November 5, two weeks after his conviction on corruption charges, the regional premier of Cantabria, Juan Hormachea, became the first head of one of Spain's 17 autonomous communities to resign from office.

      The economy emerged more strongly than predicted from 1993's severe recession, with gross domestic product estimated to have risen by more than 2% for the year. Growth was fueled by a near-record tourist season and strong exports, both the result of several devaluations of the peseta in late 1993. Unemployment continued to rise slightly despite the recovery and at the year's end stood at more than 22%, the highest rate in the European Union. The government said that its labour-reform package, which included contracts designed to promote jobs for young people and the unskilled, was nevertheless meeting with success.

      While private-sector firms showed improved results, labour conflict at the government-run Iberia Air Lines erupted in October as management announced plans for several thousand layoffs in order to avoid bankruptcy. The government appealed to the European Union to authorize a 130 billion-peseta bailout after unions and managements reached agreement on a restructuring plan in November.

      The armed Basque separatist organization Euzkadi ta Azkatasuna (ETA) continued its campaign for independence of Spain's three Basque provinces throughout 1994, killing 12 people, mainly security force members and police. ETA's reputed number two leader, Felix Alberto López de la Calle, was arrested November 17 in southern France, which remained ETA's traditional haven despite growing cooperation between Spanish and French antiterrorism units. On December 24 Julián Sancristobal and two other former top police officials were arrested in connection with alleged involvement in Anti-Terrorist Liberation Groups in the Basque lands in the 1980s.

      The Basque Nationalist Party, which had dominated the region's politics for a century, won a plurality in elections on October 23 and formed a coalition government in December with the Basque branch of the Socialist Party and a splinter Basque party, Eusko Alkartasuna. ETA's political arm, Herri Batasuna, won 11 seats in the 75-seat Basque parliament.

      Algeria's civil war spilled over into Spain in the autumn with two hijackings of domestic Air Algerie flights to Algeria's nearest European neighbour. Hijackers surrendered peacefully in both incidents, in Palma de Mallorca and Alicante airports. (GARY ABRAMSON)

▪ 1994

      A constitutional monarchy of southwestern Europe with coastlines on the Bay of Biscay, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Mediterranean Sea, Spain shares the Iberian Peninsula with Portugal; it includes the Balearic and Canary island groups, in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, respectively, and enclaves in northern Morocco. Area: 504,783 sq km (194,898 sq mi). Pop. (1993 est.): 39,141,000. Cap.: Madrid. Monetary unit: Spanish peseta, with (Oct. 4, 1993) a free rate of 130.86 pesetas to U.S. $1 (198.25 pesetas = £ 1 sterling). King, Juan Carlos I; prime minister in 1993, Felipe González Márquez.

      In the June 1993 elections, the Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) of Prime Minister Felipe González Márquez won a plurality (159) of the 350 seats in the Congress of Deputies but fell 17 seats short of winning an overall parliamentary majority. A strong showing by the conservative Popular Party (PP), which won 141 seats and was led by José María Aznar, demonstrated the vulnerability of the ruling PSOE, which had been wracked by party infighting, a corruption scandal, and voter discontent over the country's intractable social and economic problems. (For tabulated results, see Political Parties, above.) Following a July 9 parliamentary vote of confidence, González, backed by his own party and Basque and Catalan nationalists, was returned to office for a fourth consecutive term. It was the first time since sweeping into office in 1982 that he had found himself heading a minority government.

      The fragile state of the PSOE was underscored in October when regional presidential elections were held in the northwestern autonomous region of Galicia. Manuel Fraga Iribarne of the PP scored an overwhelming victory over the Socialists. It was the PSOE's worst defeat there since González came to power nationally. Fraga was also the founder of the PP (originally the Popular Alliance) and was widely believed to be the power behind Aznar, to whom he had relinquished leadership.

      The early elections, initially scheduled for the fall, had been called by González partly in an effort to mend a fracture in the PSOE. Relations between supporters of González and the left-wing followers of Alfonso Guerra, deputy secretary-general of the PSOE, had worsened following the March release to the Supreme Court of a government auditors' report, which confirmed that in 1989-91 two senior party officials had operated front companies known as Filesa and Time Export and had been paid some 1 billion pesetas for consultancy services that were never rendered. The two had accepted tax-free payoffs from both domestic and foreign companies, apparently in exchange for government contracts. González accepted the resignations of the two officials and assumed direct control of the PSOE hierarchy in an attempt to reestablish himself as party leader. The PSOE had traditionally operated with González controlling the government and Guerra the PSOE structure. The prime minister's continuing political drift toward the centre, however, soured the arrangement. As a result, Guerra had been forced out of the government in 1991. González also insisted that the PSOE take full responsibility for the "Filesa Affair." José María Benegas, the PSOE organizational secretary and an ally of Guerra, offered to shoulder the blame as the third-highest-ranking official, but he was miffed by the lack of party loyalty. In a compromise agreement with the PSOE executive committee, González was given wider powers over the running of the election campaign in exchange for withdrawing his threat to step down unless a senior party official took responsibility for the party corruption and resigned.

      During an emergency debate in the lower house on March 2, González presented a $2.5 billion package designed to combat unemployment. The provisions included spending on infrastructure, investment in small- and medium-scale enterprises, and measures to relax employment laws to help create new jobs. During the elections all the political parties and leading unions endorsed the creation of a pact for moderate salaries and labour reforms in exchange for employer guarantees not to initiate firings or massive layoffs. Prior to the July 27 first round of talks on the proposed accord, González struck a deal with the unions. He agreed not to amend the recently passed strike law if the unions would support the pact. Agreement on the measures, which included complex proposals for wages, pensions, labour reforms, and cuts in unemployment, could not be reached by the September 20 deadline. There was hope, however, that the pact would go into effect in 1994 as planned.

      There was concern that the extra spending called for in the accord would boost the budget deficit, and reports of such deterioration circulated in early 1993. During the first four months, the budget deficit grew 13.7% over the 1992 figure. On May 13 the peseta was devalued 8%, the third depreciation of the currency in eight months. The move allowed the government to reduce official interest rates by 1.5 points to 11.5% on May 14 and to make further reductions to 11.25% on May 25 and 11% on July 2. A month later the government abandoned the remnants of its strong-currency, high-interest-rate policy. By September 3 official interest rates had fallen to 10%, the lowest level since the 1970s.

      The country's unemployment rate of 22% was the worst in Western Europe. As a result of a looming budgetary crisis, the government was forced to call an emergency session of the Cortes (parliament) on August 5 to confront the crisis. Later that month the government was again urged to present a coherent economic policy and a credible budget by September 30.

      The Basque terrorist organization Euzkadi ta Azkatasuna (ETA) continued to attack military and civilian targets during the year. ETA's July 5 kidnapping and holding for ransom of Julio Iglesias Zamora, the head of the Ikusi engineering company, gave impetus to a peace movement in the Basque country and Catalonia. Supporters of ETA clashed with peace campaigners during the mid-August annual fiestas in San Sebastian and Bilbao. Eighty persons were injured and 16 others were arrested. Bombs found in Barcelona on August 15 had allegedly been left by ETA. They represented the first such bomb attacks in the region since shortly before the 1992 Olympic Games. Though one bomb was deactivated, two others exploded in crowded restaurants, and five persons were wounded. In response, thousands of people in the region, including former U.S. president George Bush, who was on vacation in Catalonia, protested the action by wearing a special blue ribbon that had become the official badge of the peace movement. In early August, French and Basque police worked in coordination to arrest eight suspected ETA members for blackmailing 30 Basque companies and collecting over 1 billion pesetas in so-called revolutionary taxes to finance ETA's operations. Later that month the press reported that a new four-person ETA leadership had begun operations under the protection of radical left-wing groups based in Paris. In October ETA was suspected in the death of a Spanish air force general, who was shot while approaching his car.

      In mid-October González announced that his government had reached an agreement with Catalan nationalists over concessions for the autonomous region. The accord meant that the prime minister could expect parliamentary backing for his austerity budget. (MICHAEL WOOLLER)

* * *

Introduction
Spain, flag of   country located in extreme southwestern Europe. It occupies about 85 percent of the Iberian Peninsula, which it shares with its smaller neighbour Portugal.

  Spain is a storied country of stone castles, snowcapped mountains, vast monuments, and sophisticated cities, all of which have made it a favoured travel destination. The country is geographically and culturally diverse. Its heartland is the Meseta (Meseta Central), a broad central plateau half a mile above sea level. Much of the region is traditionally given over to cattle ranching and grain production; it was in this rural setting that Miguel de Cervantes (Cervantes, Miguel de)'s Don Quixote tilted at the tall windmills that still dot the landscape in several places. In the country's northeast are the broad valley of the Ebro River, the mountainous region of Catalonia, and the hilly coastal plain of Valencia. To the northwest is the Cantabrian Mountains, a rugged range in which heavily forested, rain-swept valleys are interspersed with tall peaks. To the south is the citrus-orchard-rich and irrigated lands of the valley of the Guadalquivir River, celebrated in the renowned lyrics of Spanish poets Federico García Lorca (García Lorca, Federico) and Antonio Machado (Machado, Antonio); over this valley rises the snowcapped Sierra Nevada. The southern portion of the country is desert, an extension of the Sahara made familiar to Americans through the “spaghetti western” films of the 1960s and early '70s. Lined with palm trees, rosemary bushes, and other tropical vegetation, the southeastern Mediterranean coast and the Balearic Islands enjoy a gentle climate, drawing millions of visitors and retirees, especially from northern Europe.

  Spain's countryside is quaint, speckled with castles, aqueducts, and ancient ruins, but its cities are resoundingly modern. The Andalusian capital of Sevilla (Seville) is famed for its musical culture and traditional folkways; the Catalonian capital of Barcelona for its secular architecture and maritime industry; and the national capital of Madrid for its winding streets, its museums and bookstores, and its around-the-clock lifestyle. Madrid is Spain's largest city and is also its financial and cultural centre, as it has been for hundreds of years.

      The many and varied cultures that have gone into the making of Spain—those of the Castilians, Catalonians, Lusitanians, Galicians, Basques, Romans, Arabs, Jews, and Roma (Gypsies), among other peoples—are renowned for their varied cuisines, customs, and prolific contributions to the world's artistic heritage. The country's Roman conquerors left their language, roads, and monuments, while many of the Roman Empire's greatest rulers were Spanish, among them Trajan, Hadrian, and Marcus Aurelius. The Moors, who ruled over Spain for nearly 800 years, left a legacy of fine architecture, lyric poetry, and science; the Roma contributed the haunting music called the cante jondo (a form of flamenco), which, wrote García Lorca, “comes from remote races and crosses the graveyard of the years and the fronds of parched winds. It comes from the first sob and the first kiss.” Even the Vandals, Huns, and Visigoths who swept across Spain following the fall of Rome are remembered in words and monuments, which prompted García Lorca to remark, “In Spain, the dead are more alive than the dead of any other country in the world.”

 In 1492, the year the last of the Moorish rulers were expelled from Spain, ships under the command of Christopher Columbus (Columbus, Christopher) reached America. For 300 years afterward, Spanish explorers and conquerors traveled the world, claiming huge territories for the Spanish crown, a succession of Castilian, Aragonese, Habsburg, and Bourbon rulers. For generations Spain was arguably the richest country in the world, and certainly the most far-flung. With the loss of its overseas empire throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, however, Spain was all but forgotten in world affairs, save for the three years that the ideologically charged Spanish Civil War (1936–39) put the country at the centre of the world's stage, only to become ever more insular and withdrawn during the four decades of rule by dictator Francisco Franco (Franco, Francisco). Following Franco's death in 1975, a Bourbon king, Juan Carlos, returned to the throne and established a constitutional monarchy. The country has been ruled since then by a succession of elected governments, some socialist, some conservative, but all devoted to democracy.

Land (Spain)
 Spain is bordered to the west by Portugal; to the northeast it borders France, from which it is separated by the tiny principality of Andorra and by the great wall of the Pyrenees Mountains. Spain's only other land border is in the far south with Gibraltar, an enclave that belonged to Spain until 1713, when it was ceded to Great Britain in the Treaty of Utrecht at the end of the War of the Spanish Succession (Spanish Succession, War of the). Elsewhere the country is bounded by water: by the Mediterranean Sea to the east and southeast, by the Atlantic Ocean to the northwest and southwest, and by the Bay of Biscay (Biscay, Bay of) (an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean) to the north. The Canary (Canarias) Islands (Canary Islands), in the Atlantic Ocean off the northwestern African mainland, and the Balearic (Baleares) Islands (Balearic Islands), in the Mediterranean, also are parts of Spain, as are Ceuta and Melilla, two small enclaves in North Africa (northern Morocco) that Spain has ruled for centuries.

Relief
  Spain accounts for five-sixths of the Iberian Peninsula, the roughly quadrilateral southwestern tip of Europe that separates the Mediterranean Sea from the Atlantic Ocean. Most of Spain comprises a large plateau (the Meseta Central) divided by a mountain range, the Central Sierra (Sistema Central), which trends west-southwest to east-northeast. Several mountains border the plateau: the Cantabrian Mountains (Cordillera Cantábrica) to the north, the Iberian Cordillera (Sistema Ibérico) to the northeast and east, the Sierra Morena to the south, and the lower mountains of the Portuguese frontier and Spanish Galicia to the northwest. The Pyrenees run across the neck of the peninsula and form Spain's border with France. There are two major depressions, that of the Ebro (Ebro River) River in the northeast and that of the Guadalquivir River in the southwest. In the southeast the Baetic Cordillera (Sistema Penibético) runs broadly parallel to the coast to merge with the mountains of the Iberian Cordillera. Along the Mediterranean seaboard there are coastal plains, some with lagoons (e.g., Albufera, south of Valencia). Offshore in the Mediterranean, the Balearic Islands are an unsubmerged portion of the Baetic Cordillera. The Canary Islands in the Atlantic are of volcanic origin and contain the highest peak on Spanish territory, Teide Peak, which rises to 12,198 feet (3,718 metres) on the island of Tenerife.

      Spain has some of the oldest as well as some of the youngest rocks of Europe. The entire western half of Iberia, with the exception of the extreme south, is composed of ancient (Hercynian (Hercynian orogenic belt)) rocks; geologists refer to this Hercynian block as the Meseta Central. It constitutes a relatively stable platform around which younger sediments accumulated, especially on the Mediterranean side. In due course these sediments were pushed by major earth movements into mountain ranges. The term meseta is also used by geographers and local toponymy to designate the dominating relief unit of central Iberia. As a result, the Meseta Central defined by relief is subdivided by geology into a crystalline west (granites and gneisses) and a sedimentary east (mainly clays and limestones). The northern Meseta Central, which has an average elevation of 2,300 feet (700 metres), corresponds to the tablelands, or plateau, of Castile and León (Castile-León), although it is in fact a basin surrounded by mountains and drained by the Douro (Duero) River. The southern Meseta Central (the Meseta of Castile–La Mancha) is some 330 feet (100 metres) lower. Its relief is more diverse, however, owing to heavy faulting and warping caused by volcanic activity around the Calatrava Plain and to two complex river systems (the Guadiana and the Tagus) separated by mountains. Its southern plains rise gradually to the Sierra Morena. The southeastern side of this range drops almost vertically by more than 3,300 feet (1,000 metres) to the Guadalquivir depression. Dividing the northern and southern Mesetas are the Central Sierras, one of the outstanding features of the Iberian massif. Their highest points—Peñalara Peak at 7,972 feet (2,430 metres) and Almanzor Peak at 8,497 feet (2,590 metres)—rise well above the plains of the central plateau. In contrast, the granitic Galician mountains, at the northwestern end of the Hercynian block, have an average elevation of only 1,640 feet (500 metres), decreasing toward the deeply indented ( ria) coast of the Atlantic seaboard.

 Part of Alpine Europe, the Pyrenees form a massive mountain range that stretches from the Mediterranean Sea to the Bay of Biscay, a distance of some 270 miles (430 km). The range comprises a series of parallel zones: the central axis, a line of intermediate depressions, and the pre-Pyrenees. The highest peaks, formed from a core of ancient crystalline rocks, are found in the central Pyrenees—notably Aneto Peak at 11,168 feet (3,404 metres)—but those of the west, including Anie Peak at 8,213 feet (2,503 metres), are not much lower. The mountains fall steeply on the northern side but descend in terraces to the Ebro River trough in the south. The outer zones of the Pyrenees are composed of sedimentary rocks. Relief on the nearly horizontal sedimentary strata of the Ebro depression is mostly plain or plateau, except at the eastern end where the Ebro River penetrates the mountains to reach the Mediterranean Sea.

      A series of sierras trending northwest-southeast forms the Iberian Cordillera, which separates the Ebro depression from the Meseta and reaches its highest elevation with Moncayo Peak at 7,588 feet (2,313 metres). In the southeast the Iberian Cordillera links with the Baetic Cordillera, also a result of Alpine earth movements. Although more extensive—more than 500 miles (800 km) long and up to 150 miles (240 km) wide—and with peninsular Spain's highest summit, Mulhacén Peak, at 11,421 feet (3,481 metres), the Baetic ranges are more fragmented and less of a barrier than the Pyrenees. On their northern and northwestern sides they flank the low-lying and fairly flat Guadalquivir basin, the average elevation of which is only 426 feet (130 metres) on mainly clay strata. Unlike the Ebro basin, the Guadalquivir depression is wide open to the sea on the southwest, and its delta has extensive marshland ( Las Marismas).

Drainage
 Although some maintain that “aridity rivals civil war as the chief curse of [historic] Spain,” the Iberian Peninsula has a dense network of streams, three of which rank among Europe's longest: the Tagus (Tagus River) at 626 miles (1,007 km), the Ebro (Ebro River) at 565 miles (909 km), and the Douro (Douro River) at 556 miles (895 km). The Guadiana (Guadiana River) and the Guadalquivir (Guadalquivir River) are 508 miles (818 km) and 408 miles (657 km) long, respectively. The Tagus, like the Douro and the Guadiana, reaches the Atlantic Ocean in Portugal. In fact, all the major rivers of Spain except the Ebro drain into the Atlantic Ocean. The hydrographic network on the Mediterranean side of the watershed is poorly developed in comparison with the Atlantic systems, partly because it falls into the climatically driest parts of Spain. However, nearly all Iberian rivers have low annual volume, irregular regimes, and deep valleys and even canyons. Flooding is always a potential hazard. The short, swift streams of Galicia and Cantabria, draining to the northwestern and northern coasts, respectively, have only a slight or, at most, modest summer minimum. The predominant fluvial regime in Spain is thus characterized by a long or very long summer period of low water. This is the regime of all the major arteries that drain the Meseta as well as those of the Mediterranean seaboard, such as the Júcar (Júcar River) and the Segura (Segura River): for example, from August to September the Guadiana River usually has less than one-tenth of its average annual flow. Only the Ebro River has a relatively constant and substantial flow—19,081 cubic feet (540 cubic metres) per second at Tortosa—coming from snowmelt as well as rainfall in the high Pyrenees. In comparison, the flow of the Douro is only 5,050 cubic feet (143 cubic metres) per second. The flow of many Iberian streams has been reduced artificially by water extraction for purposes such as irrigation. Subterranean flow is well-developed in limestone districts.

Soils
      There are five major soil types in Spain. Two are widely distributed but of limited extent: alluvial soils, found in the major valleys and coastal plains, and poorly developed, or truncated, mountain soils. Brown forest soils are restricted to humid Galicia and Cantabria. Acidic southern brown earths (leading to restricted crop choice) are prevalent on the crystalline rocks of the western Meseta, and gray, brown, or chestnut soils have developed on the calcareous and alkaline strata of the eastern Meseta and of eastern Spain in general. Saline soils are found in the Ebro basin and coastal lowlands. Calcretes (subsoil zonal crusts [toscas], usually of hardened calcium carbonate) are particularly well-developed in the arid regions of the east: La Mancha, Almería, Murcia, Alicante (Alacant), and Valencia, as well as the Ebro and Lleida (Lérida) basins.

      Soil erosion resulting from the vegetation degradation suffered by Spain for at least the past 3,000 years has created extensive badlands, reduced soil cover, downstream alluviation, and, more recently, silting of dams and irrigation works. Particularly affected are the high areas of the central plateau and southern and eastern parts of Spain. Although the origins of some of the spectacular badlands of southeastern Spain, such as Guadix, may lie in climatic conditions from earlier in Quaternary time (beginning 2.6 million years ago), one of the major problems of modern Spain is the threat of desertification—i.e., the impoverishment of arid, semiarid, and even some humid ecosystems caused by the joint impact of human activities and drought. Nearly half of Spain is moderately or severely affected, especially in the arid east (Almería, Murcia), as well as in much of subarid Spain (the Ebro basin). The government has adopted policies of afforestation, but some authorities believe that natural vegetation regrowth would yield more speedy and more permanent benefits.

Climate
      Spain is characterized by the overlap of one fundamental climatic division (between humid and semiarid and arid zones) by another (the threefold division of the peninsula into maritime, continental, and mountain climates). This complexity results from the peninsula's size, which is large enough to generate a continental thermal regime; its location close to the Atlantic Ocean and North Africa, exposing it to both maritime and Saharan influences; and its mountainous relief, which not only produces its own climatic zones but also exaggerates local aridity through the creation of rain shadows on the mountains' leeward sides.

      The Pyrenees and the Cantabrian ranges play an important role in the Spanish climate, holding the warm, dry subtropical airstream over Spain during the summer months. In general, westerly winds from the North Atlantic are dominant most of the year, while the warm, dry Saharan airstream blows less frequently. Some local or seasonal winds are notable: the easterly levante ( levanter) can bring as many as 15 consecutive days of dry, clear weather to the coastal strip in the region of the Strait of Gibraltar; the leveche brings a hot, dry, dust-laden wind that blights vegetation in spring from the southern sector to the Spanish Levantine lowlands (the provinces of Castellón, Valencia, and Alicante); and in spring and summer a wind from the same sector, the solano, carries unbearably hot, dry, suffocating weather over the Andalusian plain. Northern Spain, from Galicia to northern Catalonia (Catalunya, or Cataluña), is characterized by a temperate humid or maritime type of climate, having high rainfall and an average temperature in January of 43 °/F (6 °/C) near the coast but less than that inland and in the mountains. A Coruña (Coruña, A) (La Coruña) has a moderate annual temperature, ranging from 48 °/F (9 °/C) in winter to 64 °/F (18 °/C) in summer, and the annual rainfall is about 38 inches (965 mm). The rest of the peninsula has a Mediterranean type of climate with continental tendencies—i.e., hot toward the coast, relatively cold in the interior, humid only in the mountains, and dry elsewhere. Thus Albacete, in the southeastern part of the southern Meseta, varies between 40 °/F (4 °/C) in the winter and 75 °/F (24 °/C) in the summer, while the annual rainfall is less than 15 inches (380 mm). The valleys of the Ebro and the Guadalquivir also have a continental climate, the Ebro drier and colder and the Guadalquivir warmer and more humid. Catalonia, Valencia, and the Balearic Islands enjoy more temperate weather, with higher rainfall in Catalonia, while the Canary Islands have a subtropical Atlantic climate.

Plant and animal life
      Nearly half of Spain is covered by spontaneous vegetation of some sort, but only a small proportion (largely confined to the mountains) is classified as dense woodland. Northern Spain has heath and deciduous woodland (oak, beech). The mountains of the northern Meseta and the Iberian and Baetic cordilleras carry deciduous Portuguese oak; those of the central Pyrenees, the Iberian ranges, and the Central Sierras have diverse pine species. The rest, more than half of Spain, has a Mediterranean vegetation characterized by evergreen oak (Quercus ilex) and other drought-resistant plants commonly reduced to scrub status (matorral). An esparto grass (Lygeum spartum) is found in the steppes of La Mancha and the southeast; the esparto products of Spain (paper, rope, basketry), however, come from an associated alfa grass (Stipa tenacissima). Poplar and eucalyptus have become widespread since the 19th century.

      The proximity of Africa has given Spain more African species of wildlife than are found in the other Mediterranean peninsulas, while the Pyrenean barrier and the general extent of the country explain the number of indigenous species. The European wolf and the brown bear survive in the scarce wild areas of the northeast. The Barbary ape (Barbary macaque) is possibly indigenous but is more likely an import from North Africa. It survives only under protection, at Gibraltar. The wild boar, ibex (wild goat), and red and fallow deer are more common. More than half of the bird species of Europe are found in Coto Doñana National Park, at the mouth of the Guadalquivir; the Spanish imperial eagle and other large species such as the eagle owl, the buzzard, and several varieties of pheasant are native to the high Pyrenees. Desert locusts have been known to invade southern Spain from North Africa.

      The country's waters contain a diversity of fish and shellfish, especially in the southeast where Atlantic and Mediterranean waters mix (the Alborán Sea). Species include red mullet, mackerel, tuna, octopus, swordfish, pilchard (Sardinia pilchardus), and anchovy (Engraulis encrasicholus). Demersal (bottom-dwelling) species include hake and whiting. Striped dolphin and the long-finned whale inhabit the waters off southeastern Spain, and the bottlenose dolphin is found off the Ebro delta. Overfishing has tended to alter the balance of species.

Catherine Delano Smith Vicente Rodriguez

People (Spain)

Ethnic groups
      Spain has been invaded and inhabited by many different peoples. The peninsula was originally settled by groups from North Africa and western Europe, including the Iberians, Celts, and Basques. Throughout antiquity it was a constant point of attraction for the civilizations of the eastern Mediterranean. From c. 1100 BC the Phoenicians, the Greeks, and the Carthaginians began to establish settlements and trading posts, especially on the eastern and southern coasts. These outsiders found a mosaic of peoples, collectively known as the Iberians (Iberian), who did not have a single culture or even share a single language. A kingdom called Tartessus, which flourished between 800 and 550 BC, ruled much of the valley of the Guadalquivir. Elsewhere political organization was less sophisticated, consisting of a number of city-states in the coastal regions and of clans in the interior and the northwest.

The Romans (ancient Rome)
      The Phoenician and Greek presence was limited to small coastal regions. The Carthaginians were the first to move inland; late in the 3rd century BC they set out to conquer as much of the peninsula as they could. Yet their success led to intervention in Iberia from the Romans, who quickly drove out the Carthaginians and conquered much of the peninsula. The Romans, however, had to deal with a number of revolts, and it was only in 19 BC, after almost 200 years of warfare, that they secured their rule over all of Iberia. The Romans brought Iberia under a single political authority for the first time but did not try to impose a single culture on the inhabitants. Nevertheless, much of the indigenous elite adopted Roman culture and became Roman citizens, particularly in the south and east, where the Roman presence was strongest.

The Visigoths (Visigoth)
      Roman power in Spain collapsed during the 5th century AD when a number of Germanic peoples—the Suebi, the Alani, the Vandals (Vandal), and finally the Visigoths (Visigoth)—invaded the peninsula. At the end of the 6th century, King Leovigild brought all of Spain under Visigothic rule, and his son Reccared imposed a single religion, Catholic Christianity, on the country.

The Muslims (Islāmic world)
      Visigothic rule did not last long. In 711 Muslim Arabs invaded Spain from North Africa and defeated the Visigothic ruler, King Roderick. They quickly conquered almost the entire peninsula and established Muslim states in Spain that were to last until 1492.

Recent arrivals
      The Muslims were the last new peoples to arrive in Spain in large numbers for many centuries. Indeed, from the 16th century on and especially during the 100 years after 1860, Spain was a country of emigration rather than immigration. This began to change in the 1980s when Spain's new position as a highly industrialized and relatively prosperous country made it attractive to people from the developing world. For the first time since the Middle Ages, Spain received large numbers of immigrants. By the early 21st century there were several million legal foreign residents and illegal immigrants in Spain, the latter concentrated mainly in Andalusia (Andalucía), in metropolitan Madrid and Barcelona, and in the Balearic and Canary islands. Most foreign residents came from other countries of the European Union (EU) and from Latin America. Many also arrived from Morocco, often crossing the Strait of Gibraltar in small boats, and from sub-Saharan Africa, arriving often at the Canary Islands; there also are significant numbers of Asians and Europeans from non-EU countries. Since 1985 Spanish governments have passed several laws on foreigners, which have made it more difficult for people to enter Spain and easier for the authorities to deport them. Promulgated in 2000 (and subsequently modified), the Law on the Rights and Freedoms of Foreigners in Spain and Their Social Integration sought to end the restrictive policies of the previous 15 years, terminating the practice of repatriating illegal immigrants and giving legal status to any employed illegal immigrant who resided in Spain for at least two years. In 2005 legislation legalized the status of many immigrant workers. The law also gave immigrants most of the same rights as Spanish citizens (except the right to vote).

The Gitano minority
      The one ethnic minority of long standing in Spain is the Roma (Rom) (Gypsies), who are known in Spain as Gitanos. Their traditional language is Caló. Many of them have assimilated into the mainstream of Spanish society, but others continue to lead their traditional nomadic way of life. The Gitanos were at one time most numerous in southern Spain, and, while there continue to be large populations in Andalusian cities such as Almería, Granada, and Murcia, large communities now exist in Madrid and Barcelona as well. flamenco, an expressive song-dance form, has long been associated with the Gitanos.

      Considerable prejudice and discrimination have existed against the Gitanos in Spain and are still prevalent today. But Gitanos have begun to create their own political organizations, such as the Union of the Gitano People (Unión del Pueblo Gitano; also known as the Unión Romaní), and some have been elected to parliament. There also are government programs that promote Gitano culture.

Languages
      The official language of Spain is Castilian (Castilian dialect). It is the country's most widely spoken language, and outside Spain it is generally known as Spanish (Spanish language). The constitution of Spain allows for its autonomous communities to recognize their dominant regional languages and dialects as having official status along with Castilian. The statutes of 6 of the 17 autonomous communities stipulate the following “co-official” languages: Catalan (Catalan language) in Catalonia and in the Balearic Islands, Valencian in Valencia, Galician (Gallego) in Galicia, and Euskera (Basque (Basque language)) in the Basque Country and in some Euskera-speaking territories of Navarra. Although not named a co-official language of Asturias, Bable (Asturian) is protected and promoted under the community's statutes, as are local Aragonese dialects in Aragon. In addition, Aranese, spoken in the Aran Valley, is safeguarded in a provision by the region's government, the autonomy of Catalonia. All of these languages except Euskera are Romance languages (i.e., they evolved from Latin). With no relation to any other language of the world, Euskera is what is known as a language isolate. Within their respective regions of dominance, many of the languages of Spain are taught regularly in school and are used in newspapers and radio and television broadcasts.

      Castilian, which contains many words of Arabic (Arabic language) origin, began as a dialect spoken in northern Spain. It became the language of the court of the kingdoms of Castile and León in the 12th century, and the dominance of Castile within Spain allowed it to become the official language of the state.

      There are differences in accent and, to a lesser extent, in vocabulary in Castilian as it is spoken in various regions of the country. The most significant difference is in the pronunciation of c before i or e. In northern Castile, where the language is said to be spoken in its purest form, this is pronounced as an English th; in southern and western Spain it is pronounced as an English s. The prominence of people from these latter regions in the colonization of Latin America led to their pronunciation becoming the standard in American Spanish. The Cervantes Institute promotes the Spanish language and Spanish culture in many countries.

      Catalan (Catalan language) is closely related to Occitan (Occitan language) (Provençal), a language spoken in southern France. It is spoken by more than four-fifths of the population in Catalonia, Valencia, and the Balearic Islands. But there are differences in the way Catalan is spoken in these three regions, and in the 1980s there were politically motivated disputes as to whether Valencian was a Catalan dialect or a distinct language. Catalan literature, which has a long and distinguished history, flourished especially during the Middle Ages. However, it declined after the 15th century before reviving again in the period known as the Renaixença (“Renaissance”), which began in the mid-19th century.

      Spoken in Galicia, in the northwestern corner of Spain, the Galician language (Gallego) is closely related to Portuguese (Portuguese language), although it has been influenced by Castilian Spanish throughout the modern period. It was the language of courtly literature until the 14th century, when it was displaced by Castilian. From then until the late 19th century, when a literary revival began, its use was limited to everyday speech, and it was more common in the countryside than in the cities due to a tradition of spoken Galician at home. Most of the population of Galicia is bilingual in Galician and Castilian.

      Euskera is the most distinctive language spoken in Spain. Neither a Romance nor an Indo-European language (Indo-European languages), it predates the arrival of the Romans in Spain. Until the end of the 19th century, Euskera was spoken mostly in the countryside, and, unlike the other peninsular languages, it had no significant literary tradition. In the 20th century, especially after it became the official language of the Basque Country (Euskera: Euskadi; Spanish: País Vasco) in 1978, Euskera grew in popularity and was increasingly used in literature, journalism, and the electronic media. Moreover, it has been the regional government's policy to extend its use in education and public administration. About one-third of the region's population speaks Euskera, and another one-sixth comprehends it. The largest proportion of Euskera speakers live in the province of Guipúzcoa.

Religion
  Roman Catholicism became the official religion of Spain in 589 and has been closely identified with the country ever since. The advent of political liberalism at the beginning of the 19th century led to a series of conflicts between church and state, especially over land ownership and the control of education. Even so, Catholicism remained the official religion of the state until the Second Republic (1931–36). After the Spanish Civil War, General Francisco Franco (Franco, Francisco) restored it as the state religion, and it retained that status until the proclamation of the constitution of 1978. Since then Spain has had no official religion, but the Roman Catholic Church continues to receive financial support from the state. The legalization of divorce and abortion along with educational reforms in the 1980s brought the church into conflict with the government once again but with less intensity than previously.

      The vast majority of the population is Roman Catholic, yet for many—and especially for those born after 1950—this has little meaning beyond being baptized, married, and buried within the church. There are several hundred thousand non-Catholic Christians in Spain. American-based Evangelical sects such as the Jehovah's Witnesses (Jehovah's Witness) and the Seventh-day Adventists (Seventh-day Adventist) as well as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons (Mormon)) have been active in the country since the 1970s. In addition, there are hundreds of thousands of adherents of Islam (Islām), whose numbers have grown rapidly because of immigration. Some 100,000 Jews (Jew) fled Spain during the Spanish inquisition in the late 15th century, when the inquisitor general Tomás de Torquemada (Torquemada, Tomás de) persuaded the country's rulers to expel any Jew who refused to be baptized. To remain in the country, many Jews converted to Christianity (becoming known as conversos (converso)); those known as Marranos (Marrano) converted to Christianity but continued surreptitiously to practice Judaism. Restrictions on Judaism were eased only in the 20th century, and by the early 21st century there were some 15,000 Jews in Spain.

Adrian Shubert Vicente Rodriguez

Settlement patterns
Human landscape
 The impact on the Spanish landscape of some 35,000 years of human occupation has been both diverse and profound. Human activity in prehistoric times undoubtedly led to changes in vegetation, soils, microrelief, and microclimate. However, influences from northern Europe (Celtic), the eastern Mediterranean (Phoenician, Ligurian, and eventually Roman), and North Africa (Iberian) contributed more obviously to what was to become the “traditional landscape” of Spain. Thus, most of Spain's major towns have ancient origins: they began as Celtiberian (Celtiberia) settlements ( Soria); as Phoenician (Phoenicia) colonies ( Cádiz) and Phoenician or Greek trading emporiums ( Tarragona, Ampurias, and Málaga); and as Roman commercial centres along the Mediterranean coast or military and administrative centres in the north and west, at nodal points in the road system ( Mérida, León, and Zaragoza [Saragossa]). Such towns were surrounded by zones of intensive, irrigated agriculture (the barros of Évora, Portugal, the vegas of Mérida and Zaragoza, the huertas of the east coast).

 The Roman legacy of a gridiron town plan is preserved in many northern centres (e.g., in Barcelona and Zaragoza) but has been largely obliterated in the cities of the south and east by Muslim urban elements. In towns such as Valencia, Córdoba (Cordova), Toledo, Almería, Granada, and Sevilla (Seville), the marketplace, mosque, and high-walled domestic compounds, often with watered gardens, dominate an intricate alley network. Like their Roman antecedents, these early medieval Muslim centres were surrounded by rich agricultural huertas; in both towns and huertas water usage was rigorously controlled by institutions such as the Tribunal de las Aguas de la Vega de Valencia.

      After the Reconquista (Reconquest), the establishment of isolated single farms (alquerías) within the huertas increased. In Castile and León (Old Castile), medieval urban settlement developed from Christian military foundations in an open landscape of extensive dry farming. Centres such as Pamplona, Burgos, Soria, Valladolid, and Salamanca comprised a series of walled nuclei until new squares and broad streets were laid out in the 17th century. Rural settlement in León and in the mountains of northern Andalusia focused on the ecclesiastical granges of the Reconquista, developing into small villages. In Castile and León, castles similarly gave rise to clusters of hamlets. Much of this rural settlement was the result of spontaneous peasant colonization based on a now largely lost communal farming (open-field) system. In contrast, in Castile–La Mancha (Castilla–La Mancha), lower Aragon, Andalusia, Extremadura, and parts of the Alentejo, Portugal, the rural settlement pattern testifies to the more-organized resettlement schemes of the Reconquista in the southern Meseta. Here the four great Christian military orders (the Hospitallers, the Templars (Templar), the Order of Santiago (Santiago, Order of), and the Order of Calatrava (Calatrava, Order of)) acquired vast territories, which they defended with fortresses and huge, widely spaced villages, the latter sometimes now so large as to take on an urban aspect (agrotowns). Among these, in parts of Andalusia and Alentejo, are the courtyard farms (cortijos, montes) of the latifundios (latifundium) (very large estates).

Catherine Delano Smith Vicente Rodriguez

      Spaniards participated fully in the massive 19th- and early 20th-century European immigration to the Americas. Between 1846 and 1932 nearly five million Spaniards went to the Americas, mostly to South America in general and to Argentina and Brazil in particular. Only Britain, Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Germany had more emigrants. Significant numbers of Spaniards also immigrated to Algeria and France.

      The pattern of Spanish emigration changed after World War II. Continental Europe, especially France, West Germany, and Switzerland, displaced Latin America as the favoured destination for Spanish emigrants. Between 1962 and 1976 almost two million Spaniards, mainly from Andalusia and Galicia, went to other European countries. Since the 1980s, however, as the Spanish economy improved, there has been very little permanent emigration from Spain. Indeed, there was a reverse in migration flows, as more than 20,000 Spanish citizens, many of them retired, returned from other European countries each year.

      The number of emigrants has been dwarfed by the number of people moving within Spain itself. Almost 10 million Spaniards moved from one province to another between the early 1970s and mid-1990s, significantly affecting the distribution of population within the country. Until the mid-1970s, most internal migrants left rural areas seeking industrial jobs in the larger cities, especially Madrid and Barcelona, and in the Basque Country and Valencia. During the 1980s the decline of Spain's traditional industries prompted a return migration to the less-industrialized provinces. In the 1990s the focal points for migration were medium-sized cities (with 10,000 to 50,000 inhabitants), regions with strong service sectors, and the fringes of large and medium metropolitan areas.

      During the first half of the 20th century, most Spaniards lived in villages or in towns of fewer than 10,000 people, but by the end of the century about three-fourths of the population lived in urban areas. The most intense growth took place in a handful of the largest cities: Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Sevilla, Zaragoza, Málaga, and Murcia. Spanish cities recorded some of the highest population densities in the Western world. This explosive urban growth occurred with very little planning, and many migrants to the cities could find housing only in cheaply constructed apartment blocks in outlying districts that lacked adequate municipal services.

      Since 1978 democratically elected municipal governments in many cities have tried to alleviate some of the worst effects of the uncontrolled urban boom of the 1960s. They acquired more parkland and began to provide a variety of public cultural facilities. Meanwhile, growth in the larger metropolitan areas has shifted from the central cities to the suburbs. Even smaller cities, such as Valladolid, León, and Granada, have begun to suburbanize.

Demographic trends
 Spain experienced the traditional preindustrial pattern of high birth and death rates throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, but both began to decline shortly after 1900. The slow but continuous fall of birth rates stalled during the 20 years after the Spanish Civil War, when the Franco regime (1939–75) followed policies that encouraged large families. In the late 1960s the decline resumed. The low birth rate, which was especially marked among young women, contributed to a rate of natural increase that was near zero at the end of the 20th century, though in the beginning of the 21st century there was an upturn fuelled by the birth rate among the immigrant population.

      Death rates declined steadily after 1940, although they rose slightly during the 1990s as the population aged. However, life expectancy in Spain increased dramatically, and by the end of the 20th century it was among the highest in the world. The greatest improvement was in the area of infant mortality. The striking overall change was a result of the higher standard of living made possible by the economic “miracle” of the 1960s and by the general availability of high-quality medical care through the government-sponsored system.

      By the 1990s Spain's major demographic indicators were similar to those of other industrialized countries of western Europe. As birth rates and death rates declined and life expectancy increased, the Spanish population aged significantly during the final decades of the 20th century, posing a growing challenge to the Spanish economy and society.

      The Spanish population grew rapidly in the 30 years after the Civil War, in part because the death rate fell more quickly than the birth rate but also because of changes in marriage patterns. In the years immediately after the war, economic hardship discouraged people from marrying, and the average age at first marriage rose. By the mid-1940s, however, the percentage of those who married grew significantly (especially among women), reaching its highest level between 1955 and 1960 and remaining high until the mid-1970s, when it began to decline markedly. Likewise the average age at first marriage decreased until the 1990s, when it began climbing again. By the end of the 20th century the average age of first marriage for women had risen again (to between 25 to 29), and the average age at which women had their first child was about 30.

      Beginning in the 1970s, Spaniards also began to have fewer children, and at the turn of the 21st century the total fertility rate was one of the lowest in Europe and well below the rate of replacement. The size of the average household also declined during this period, and the number of Spaniards living in traditional households, composed of a married couple and their children, also dropped.

Economy
      The Spanish economy began to industrialize in the late 18th century, and industrialization and economic growth continued throughout the 19th century. However, it was limited to a few relatively small areas of the country, especially to Catalonia (where textile manufacture took hold) and the Basque Country (where iron and steel were made). The overall pace of economic growth was slower than that of the major western European countries, so that by the early 20th century Spain appeared poor and underdeveloped compared with countries such as Great Britain, Germany, France, and even Italy.

      The Spanish Civil War and its aftermath left Spain even farther behind, and the economic policies of the Franco regime failed to revitalize the economy. For nearly two decades after the war, the government followed a policy of autarky, or national economic self-sufficiency, similar to the policies of the pre-World War II fascist regimes in Germany and Italy. This approach entailed high levels of government intervention through highly protective tariffs, currency regulation, marketing boards for agriculture, and import controls. There was also a high degree of government ownership, realized through the National Industrial Institute (INI), which was created in 1941 to develop defense-related industries and other industries ignored by the private sector. The self-imposed economic isolation was reinforced by the Western democracies, which shunned Spain after 1945 because of its “fascist” government. Spain did not receive Marshall Plan aid from the United States and was excluded from a number of international organizations.

      Spain's autarkic policies were a failure, and by the late 1950s the country was on the verge of economic collapse. This crisis led to a major change in economic policy, and in 1959 a team of technocrats announced the Economic Stabilization Plan. This plan allowed a less-restrained market economy and the fuller integration of Spain into the international capitalist economy. The Stabilization Plan set the stage for the period of rapid economic growth known as the Spanish economic miracle. From 1960 until 1974 Spain's economy grew an average of 6.6 percent per year, more quickly than that of any country in the world except Japan, and agriculture fell from being the most important sector of the economy in terms of employment to the least.

      Spain's economic miracle occurred during a period of high prosperity in the West, and it was largely dependent on these favourable external circumstances. Three factors were especially important. The first was foreign investment in Spain. Limited under the policy of autarky, it increased rapidly once the economy had been liberalized. The United States was the most important source, followed by West Germany. The second significant factor was tourism. General prosperity made foreign travel possible for many Europeans and North Americans. With its many beaches, warm climate, and bargain prices, Spain became an attractive destination, and tourism quickly became the country's largest industry. The third factor was emigrant remittances. From 1959 to 1974 more than one million Spaniards left the country. The vast majority went to Switzerland, West Germany, and France, countries whose growing economies were creating a massive demand for unskilled labour. There they joined Portuguese, Italians, Yugoslavs, and Turks as “guest workers.” These emigrants sent large sums of money back to Spain—more than $1 billion in 1973 alone.

      The great dependence on external conditions, however, made Spain's economic growth vulnerable to economic changes elsewhere as the Franco era ended. The oil crisis of 1973, which initiated an extended period of inflation and economic uncertainty in the Western world, brought Spain's economic growth to a halt. Political instability following Franco's death in 1975 compounded these problems. The clearest sign of change was the dramatic increase in unemployment. The unemployment rate rose from 4 percent in 1975 to 11 percent by 1980, before peaking at more than 20 percent in 1985.

      Economic growth returned, however, during the late 1980s, spurred by industrial restructuring and integration into the European Economic Community (EEC). Although growth rates were well below those of the 1960s, they were still among the highest in western Europe. Unlike the earlier boom, this one was accompanied by high inflation and continuing high unemployment, which, though lower than in previous years, were nonetheless significantly higher than the EEC averages. Although unemployment began to drop, at 16 percent in 1990 it was almost double the average for the EEC. Young people trying to join the workforce for the first time were hit particularly hard.

      During the 1990s, Spain's economy stabilized, unemployment declined (largely because of the rapid expansion of the services sector), and inflation eased. This economic recovery resulted partly from continuing integration into the single European market and from the government's stability plan, which reduced budget deficits and inflation and stabilized the currency. The government pursued this policy of economic stabilization to enable Spain to qualify for the European economic and monetary union outlined in the 1991 Maastricht Treaty (formally the Treaty on European Union). The government also began privatizing state-owned enterprises. Moreover, Spain succeeded in qualifying for the euro, the EU's common currency; in 1999 the euro was introduced as a unit of exchange, although the Spanish peseta (the value of which was locked to that of the euro) remained in circulation until 2002. In the early 21st century, Spain had one of the strongest economies in the EU. Foreign direct investment in the country tripled from 1990 to 2000. Moreover, since 2000, a large number of South Americans, eastern Europeans, and North Africans have immigrated (migrant labour) to Spain to work in the construction industry, which contributes about one-tenth of the gross domestic product (GDP).

Agriculture, forestry, and fishing
 Because of the relative decline of agriculture since the 1960s, Spain's rural population decreased and many farms disappeared. Spanish agriculture has remained relatively backward by western European standards: capital investment per hectare is about one-fifth the average for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (Economic Co-operation and Development, Organisation for) (OECD), and the vast majority of farms are small. Since Spain joined the EEC in 1986, the Spanish agricultural sector has had to respect Europe-wide policies. As a result, many small-scale operations, especially in grape growing and dairying, had to cease. Since the mid-1990s, however, the amount of agriculturally productive land (especially land dedicated to organic farming) in Spain has increased through irrigation and the conversion of fallow lands.

      Vegetables, fruits, and cereals are the principal crops, accounting for about three-fourths of Spain's agricultural production (in terms of value), with cereals the principal crops. Barley and wheat, the major crops in Spain, predominate on the plains of Castile-León, Castile–La Mancha, and Andalusia, while rice is grown in coastal Valencia and southern Catalonia. Corn (maize), grown in the north, is a major fodder product. Other crops include cotton; tobacco (grown in Extremadura); sugar beets (grown mainly in the Duero and Guadalquivir valleys); olives (produced in the south), a large portion of which are used for oil; and legumes (beans, lentils, and chickpeas). Fruit growing is also significant, with citrus fruits, especially oranges (grown in the regions of Valencia and Murcia), being of greatest importance. Other fruit crops include apples, apricots, bananas, pears, peaches, and plums. Spain also produces vegetables (especially tomatoes, onions, and potatoes) and nuts (almonds).

      Because Spain is one of the world's largest producers of wine, grape growing is of considerable importance. The main wine-producing areas are La Rioja, the Penedès in Catalonia, Valdepeñas in Castile–La Mancha, the Duero valley in Valladolid, and Málaga and Jerez de la Frontera in Andalusia, which is also the centre of sherry production.

      The raising of livestock accounts for just under half the value of Spain's total agricultural output. Pigs are raised mainly in Castile-León, Aragon, and Catalonia, and pork leads meat production in Spain, followed by poultry, beef, and lamb. In the Atlantic coastal regions and the dry southern interior, sheep and dairy cows are raised.

      Forests cover more than one-fourth of the total land area of Spain, with much of this woodland in the Cantabrian Mountains. Forestry contributes only a tiny fraction to Spain's agricultural production. Important forestry products are cork, eucalyptus, oak, pine, and poplar. Because centuries of erosion, harvesting of firewood, and the creation of pastureland had resulted in the disappearance of many of the country's forests, the government initiated reforestation efforts in the 1940s that are still in progress.

      With about 5,000 miles (8,000 km) of coastline, Spain has long had an important fishing industry, which relies on fishing grounds off its coast and as far away as the Pacific and Indian oceans. The main fishing ports are in the northwest, especially Vigo and A Coruña. The activities of the commercial fishing fleet led to conflicts between Spain and a number of other countries, especially Morocco and Canada. On a number of occasions Spanish fishermen have been arrested for fishing illegally in these countries' waters. Spain's total catch declined during the 1980s and '90s, but the fishing sector still accounted for about 1 percent of GDP, and fish remain an important component of the Spanish diet. Moreover, as the catch from sea fishing has declined, Spanish producers have increasingly developed coastal fish farming as an alternative.

Resources and power
      Spain has one of Europe's most important and varied mining industries. Coal (coal mining)—produced mainly in the Cantabrian Mountains, the eastern Iberian Cordillera, and the Sierra Morena (Morena, Sierra)—accounts for a significant proportion of the country's total mineral production. Other major products include metals such as iron, copper, lead, zinc, tungsten, uranium, mercury, and gold. In order to compete with other EU countries, however, the Spanish mining industry has been forced to restructure. This need has been most urgent in Asturias, where it has led to strong protests by coal miners against government policies.

      Despite the long-standing prominence of the mining industry, in general, Spain's mineral resources are limited, and the country's once-plentiful coal reserves are no longer sufficient for its energy needs. Moreover, Spain has virtually no petroleum of its own, and the commercial potential of its natural gas fields is limited. As a result, Spain, once a mineral-exporting country, now imports minerals on a large scale, including both coal and petroleum.

 Thermal power plants, located near coal fields or ports that receive imported oil, supply about half of Spain's electricity needs. The country also relies heavily on hydroelectric power, mainly provided by its northern rivers, which create about one-fifth of its electricity. To address its energy shortage, the Spanish government adopted an ambitious nuclear energy program in the 1960s. The first nuclear power plant began operating in 1968, and several additional plants went online in the 1980s. In 2006 the 1968 plant was closed, and the government sought to move toward renewable energy. In fact, in the early 21st century, Spain became one of the EU's leading exponents of renewable energy, including solar and wind power. In 2007 solar thermoelectric power plants opened near Sevilla, and there are wind parks throughout the country.

Manufacturing
      Spain's early industrialization took place behind high tariff walls, and most industries remained small in scale, partly because of a lack of adequate raw materials and investment capital and partly because of weak domestic demand. Historically, industrial production has been concentrated on the northern coast and in the Basque Country, Catalonia, and the Madrid area while other parts of Spain underwent little industrial development. The liberalization of the economy in the 1960s and the influx of foreign investment, however, added a number of large firms. It also helped Spanish industry to diversify. The most striking example of this change was the automobile industry (automotive industry). Before 1960 Spain built few motor vehicles, but by the end of the 1980s it was producing 1.5 million vehicles in factories owned by Ford, Renault, General Motors, and the Spanish firm SEAT (largely owned by Volkswagen). During the 1990s, further liberalization of Spanish industry took place as the government privatized state-owned industrial enterprises, and telecommunications deregulation spurred an expansion of infrastructure. Meanwhile, Spanish firms, encouraged by government policy, began to address their traditional reliance on imported technologies by increasing their budgets for research and development.

      Iron, steel, and shipbuilding have long been the dominant heavy industries in Asturias and the Basque Country, but in the 1970s and '80s they began to decline because of outdated technology and rising energy costs. Much of this heavy industry was replaced by firms specializing in science and technology, a reflection of the government's large-scale investment in the development of biotechnology, renewable energy sources, electronics, and telecommunications. The production of cotton and woolen textiles, paper, clothing, and footwear remains significant in Catalonia and neighbouring Valencia. Other leading industries include the manufacture of chemicals, toys, and electrical appliances (televisions, refrigerators, and washing machines). Consumer-oriented industries, such as food processing, construction, and furniture making, are located either close to their consumer markets in the larger cities or in rural areas where agricultural products and timber are close at hand. At the beginning of the 21st century, Madrid, Catalonia, and the Basque Country continued to dominate metallurgy, capital goods, and chemical production, but industrial production in a variety of sectors had expanded to new regions, such as Navarra, La Rioja, Aragon, and Valencia.

Finance
      During the Franco regime, Spanish banks played a primary role in industrial growth and came to control much of the country's industry. The banking sector was so highly regulated that even the number of branches a bank could maintain was controlled. It was only at the very end of the regime, in 1974, that banking experienced the same kind of liberalization that had been applied to the economy as a whole in the 1960s. In 1978 foreign banks were permitted to operate in Spain, and by the 1990s dozens of foreign banks had established branches. By the late 1990s, however, the foreign share of the banking market had declined as some foreign banks left the country and others were acquired by Spanish banks.

      The central bank is the Banco de España (Bank of Spain). Having complied with the criteria for convergence, Spain joined the economic and monetary union of the EU in 1998, and the Banco de España became part of the European System of Central Banks. In addition to being the government's bank, the Banco de España supervises the country's private banks. It is responsible to the Ministry of the Economy. In 1999 Spain adopted the euro as its official monetary unit, and in 2002 the euro replaced the peseta as the national currency.

      Although Spain has a large number of private banks, the banking industry has long been dominated by a handful of large institutions. During the 1990s, in preparation for incorporation into the European monetary union, the government encouraged bank mergers to create more competitive financial institutions. This process produced two large banking groups: the Banco de Santander Central Hispano and the Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria. Even the strongest Spanish banks, however, are of only moderate size by global standards, and at the beginning of the 21st century only the Banco de Santander Central Hispano ranked among the world's leading financial institutions.

      Spain has a second distinct set of banks known as cajas de ahorros (savings banks), which account for about half of the country's total savings deposits and about one-fourth of all bank credit. These not-for-profit institutions originally were provincially or regionally based and were required to invest a certain amount in their home provinces, but now they are open to all parts of the country. Surpluses are put into reserves or are used for local welfare, environmental activities, and cultural and educational projects. The largest of the savings banks is the Barcelona-based La Caja de Ahorros y de Pensiones (the Bank for Pensions and Savings), popularly known as “La Caixa.”

      Spain has stock exchanges in Madrid, Bilbao, Barcelona, and Valencia. Yet even the largest, the Madrid exchange, is quite small by international standards. The stock exchanges were deregulated in 1989, and during the 1990s their importance increased.

Trade
      Spain's foreign trade grew rapidly during the late 20th century. The long-established pattern of imports outweighing exports continued, though earnings from tourism and other services balanced the country's trade deficit in tangible goods. The largest share of Spain's foreign trade is conducted within the EU; its two largest trading partners are France and Germany, and there is significant trade with Portugal, the United Kingdom, and Italy. Outside of Europe the largest and most important trading partner is the United States. Spain also engages in significant trade with Japan.

      During the mid-20th century, Spain was mainly an exporter of agricultural products and minerals and an importer of industrial goods. By the early 21st century, this pattern had changed, reflecting the increasing sophistication of the country's economy. The main imported goods continued to be largely industrial in nature, including machinery and electrical equipment, motor vehicles, chemical and petroleum products, base metals, seafood, and paper products. But the principal exports included not only agricultural products but also motor vehicles, machinery and electrical equipment, processed iron products, chemical products, and clothing and footwear.

Services
      Compared with many western European countries, Spain's service sector is less developed, but it is still a major sector of the Spanish economy. Tourism is among Spain's leading industries, and the country is one of the world's top tourist destinations. Spain receives more than 55 million visitors annually—more than 10 million more people than the country's entire population. Most visitors are European, with British, French, and German tourists making up the majority. At the beginning of the 21st century, the tourism sector accounted for about one-tenth of Spain's GDP and employment. Spain's central government is responsible for tourism policies and for promoting tourism overseas, while regional authorities promote tourism in their own provinces.

Labour (organized labour) and taxation
      Spain's 1978 constitution recognized the right of unions to exist and the right of all citizens, except those in the military, to join them. Both collective bargaining and the right to strike are guaranteed. The constitutional provisions regarding unions were fleshed out in the Workers' Statute of 1980 and the Organic Law of Trade Union Freedom, which went into effect in 1985. The Workers' Statute eliminated government involvement in labour relations, leaving negotiations to unions and management. Within firms, elected delegates or workers' committees deal with management on issues of daily working conditions, job security, and, in some cases, wages. Worker representatives are elected for four-year terms.

      There are a number of trade union federations, but the union movement as a whole is dominated by two: the General Union of Workers (Unión General de Trabajadores; UGT), which is affiliated with the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (Partido Socialista Obrero Español; PSOE) and is organized by sections (economic branches) and territorial unions; and the Workers' Commissions (Confederación Sindical de Comisiones Obreras; CC.OO.), which is affiliated with the Communist Party and is also structured by sectional and territorial divisions. Other unions include the Workers' Syndical Union (Unión Sindical Obrera; USO), which has a strong Roman Catholic orientation; the Independent Syndicate of Civil Servants (Confederación Sindical Independiente de Funcionarios); the Basque Workers' Solidarity (Euzko Langilleen Alkartasuna–Solidaridad de Trabajadores Vascos; ELA-STV), which is independent but has ties to the Basque Nationalist Party; and the General Confederation of Labour (Confederación General del Trabajo; CGT), the tiny remnant of the once-powerful anarcho-syndicalist union organization. Overall, with about one-sixth of its workforce belonging to unions, Spain has one of the lowest levels of unionization in Europe.

      The outstanding feature of union activity after the demise of the Franco regime was the willingness of the major union organizations to sign agreements with the government and the employers' organizations regarding employment, wage restraint, and social policy. Many such pacts were agreed upon between the late 1970s and the late 1990s.

      The unions became less accommodating under the Socialist governments of Felipe González (González Márquez, Felipe). The thrust of González's economic policies was to make the Spanish economy more competitive in preparation for the full economic integration of the EU in the 1990s. This program included the reconversion through reprivatization or closing of money-losing state corporations, especially in the country's “rust belt” of Asturias and the Basque Country, and the reduction of public spending in order to control the deficit.

      The major unions refused to agree to further pacts with employers and the government. The UGT became much more critical of the PSOE, with which it had always been affiliated, and began to cooperate more closely with the CC.OO. In 1983 the government's reconversion program prompted a series of strikes, mass demonstrations, and riots, especially in the north. In December 1988 the UGT and CC.OO. jointly called a widely supported national one-day general strike to protest the government's policies. Plans for the downsizing of the coal, iron, and steel industries in Asturias also led to a one-day general strike in the region in October 1991. At the beginning of the 21st century, Spanish unions were working for increased job opportunities and greater job security for all workers. They also supported the idea of a more equitable distribution of wealth among regions and social groups, though unionization in Spain is still quite low.

      There are three levels of taxation in Spain. Taxes may be imposed by the national government, the regional governments, and local authorities. Tax rates are progressive, ranging from about three-tenths of income to more than half. Spain has a corporate tax and a value-added tax.

Transportation and telecommunications
      Well into the 19th century, movement within much of Spain was difficult. The rivers were inadequate for transportation, and the many mountain ranges formed major barriers to overland travel. The situation improved with the construction of railroads. The first line, between Barcelona and Mataró, was built in 1848 and the second, between Madrid and Aranjuez, was built three years later. Most of the railroads were constructed by foreign investors, although the Spanish government provided major subsidies and other inducements. At the end of the 19th century, two groups of French investors controlled four-fifths of the railways in Spain.

      In 1941 the rail system was nationalized, and virtually all the lines were incorporated into the National Network of Spanish Railroads (Red Nacional de los Ferrocarriles Españoles; RENFE). There are also regionally operated lines in the Basque Country, Valencia, and Catalonia. Lines generally start in Madrid and radiate outward in all directions. Transverse lines serve the Mediterranean and Ebro valley corridors. New equipment—including the Talgo, a light train designed by a Spaniard—was introduced in the 1960s and '70s, and much of the track was electrified. However, the system constantly ran up huge losses, and in the 1980s a number of lines were eliminated. In 1990 the government announced a massive, long-term investment program for RENFE, the main goal of which was the introduction of superspeed trains, Alta Velocidad Española (AVE). These high-speed trains, first used on the Madrid-Sevilla line for the Expo '92 world's fair, make the journey from Sevilla to Madrid in less than three hours. An AVE train route between Madrid and Barcelona opened in 2008.

Roads
      The construction of a modern road network came after the building of the railways and was mostly achieved in the second half of the 20th century. The first motorway was begun in 1967. Like the railways, the road system is radial in design, with Madrid as its hub. Traffic on Spanish roads increased dramatically in the late 20th century, and both highways and city streets became heavily congested as the number of vehicles increased dramatically. In response, during the 1990s and the beginning of the 21st century, the central governments advanced plans to cover the country with an almost complete network of roads, some of which would be financed through private investment, and a toll system was proposed to fund highway maintenance.

Air travel
      The busiest of Spain's many commercial airports, and one of the busiest in Europe, is Madrid's Barajas Airport. Barcelona too has a major airport, and areas of tourism also serve international flights. The largest Spanish airline, the formerly government-owned Iberia, flies both domestic and international routes. Several other domestic and foreign airlines operate both regularly scheduled and charter flights, the latter accounting for a significant proportion of traffic to tourist destinations. By the end of the 20th century, increases in air travel made air traffic congestion a concern.

Maritime transport
      Largely surrounded by water, Spain has extensive coastlines and is heavily dependent on maritime transport, especially for international trade: more than four-fifths of imports and more than two-thirds of exports pass through the ports. Spain has one of the largest merchant marines in the world as well as one of the world's most important fishing fleets. General traffic is very heavily concentrated in relatively few of Spain's many ports, most notably in Algeciras (province of Cádiz), Barcelona, Bilbao, Las Palmas, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Tarragona, and Valencia. Other important ports include Huelva, Cartagena, A Coruña, and Ceuta. A fishing fleet is concentrated mainly in Galicia and the Basque Country.

      During the 1980s and '90s the telecommunications and information technology sectors developed quickly, mainly in or near Madrid and Barcelona. Two major companies, Telefónica (reorganized in 2000 into several companies) and Retevisión, dominated the country's telephone and cable television markets, respectively. Although initially much of the telecommunications sector was government-controlled, from 1998 the sector was liberalized and fully deregulated. Consumer use of various telecommunications products generally lagged behind that of the rest of western Europe, but the growth in the sector during the 1990s raised use to the European average. Internet use also grew rapidly during the late 1990s and into the early 21st century.

Government and society
      From 1833 until 1939 Spain almost continually had a parliamentary system with a written constitution. Except during the First Republic (1873–74), the Second Republic (1931–36), and the Spanish Civil War (1936–39), Spain also always had a monarchy. For a complete list of the kings and queens regnant of Spain, see below (Spain).

      From the end of the Spanish Civil War in April 1939 until November 1975, Spain was ruled by Gen. Francisco Franco (Franco, Francisco). The principles on which his regime was based were embodied in a series of Fundamental Laws (passed between 1942 and 1967) that 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 government—appointed and dismissed by the head of state alone—was not responsible to the Cortes, which also lacked control of government spending.

      In 1969 Franco selected Juan Carlos de Borbón, 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 (Juan Carlos). Almost immediately the king initiated a process of transition to democracy that within three years replaced the Francoist system with a democratic constitution.

Constitutional framework
      The product of long and intense negotiations among the leading political groups, the Spanish constitution was nearly unanimously approved by both houses of the legislature (it passed 551–11 with 22 abstentions) in October 1978. In a December referendum, the draft constitution was then approved by nearly 90 percent of voters. The constitution declares that Spain is a constitutional monarchy and advocates the essential values of freedom, justice, equality, and political pluralism. It also provides for the separation of powers into executive, legislative, and judicial branches. Although the monarch is the head of state and the country's highest representative in international affairs, the crown's role is defined as strictly neutral and apolitical. The monarch is also commander in chief of the armed forces—though without actual authority over them—and the symbol of national unity. For example, when the new democratic constitution was threatened by a military coup in 1981, Juan Carlos in military uniform addressed the country on national television, defusing the uprising and saving the constitution. The monarch's most important functions include the duty to summon and dissolve the legislature, appoint and accept the resignation of the prime minister and cabinet ministers, ratify laws, declare wars, and sign treaties decided upon by the government.

      The legislature, known as the Cortes Generales, is composed of two chambers (cámaras): a lower chamber, the Congress of Deputies (Congreso de los Diputados), and an upper chamber, the Senate (Senado). As with most legislatures in parliamentary systems, more power is vested in the lower chamber. The Congress of Deputies has 350 members, who are elected to four-year terms by universal suffrage. The Senate is described in the constitution as the “chamber of territorial representation,” but only about one-fifth of the senators are actually chosen as representatives of the autonomous communities. The rest are elected from the 47 mainland provinces (with each province having four senators), the islands (the three largest having four and the smaller ones having one each), and Ceuta and Melilla (having two each).

      The executive consists of the prime minister, the deputy prime minister, and the members of the cabinet. After consultation with the Cortes, the monarch formally appoints the prime minister; the cabinet ministers, chosen in turn by the prime minister, are also formally appointed by the monarch. The executive handles domestic and foreign policy, including defense and economic policies. 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 no confidence.

Regional government
      For most of the period after 1800, Spain was a highly centralized state that did not recognize the country's regional diversity. Decades of civil unrest followed Isabella II's accession to the throne in 1833, as factions warred over the role of the Roman Catholic Church, the monarchy, and the direction of Spain's economy. The constitution of the short-lived First Republic called for self-governing provinces that would be voluntarily responsible to the federal government; however, decentralization led to chaos, and by 1875 the constitutional monarchy was restored. For the rest of the 19th century, Spain remained relatively stable, with industrial centres such as the Basque region and Catalonia experiencing significant economic growth while most of the rest of Spain remained poor. Following Spain's defeat in the Spanish-American War (1898), many Spaniards viewed their country's political and economic systems as unworkable and antiquated. Groups in Catalonia, the Basque region, and Galicia who wanted to free their regions from the “Castilian corpse” began movements for regional autonomy, and a number of influential regional political parties consolidated their strength. One of the stated goals of the Second Republic was to grant autonomy to the regions, as it did to Catalonia and the Basque provinces; however, self-government for these regions was not reinstated after the Civil War.

      During the Franco years the democratic opposition came to include regional autonomy as one of its basic demands. While the 1978 constitution reflected this stance, it also was the product of compromise with the political right, which preferred that Spain remain a highly centralized state. The result was a unique system of regional autonomy, known as the “state of the autonomies.”

      Article 2 of the constitution both recognizes the right of the “regions and nationalities” to autonomy and declares “the indissoluble unity of the Spanish nation.” Title VIII states that “Adjoining provinces with common historic, cultural and economic characteristics, the islands and the provinces with a historical regional identity” are permitted to form autonomous communities.

      The constitution classifies the possible autonomous communities into two groups, each of which has a different route to recognition and a different level of power and responsibility. The three regions that had voted for a statute of autonomy in the past—Catalonia, the Basque provinces, and Galicia—were designated “historic nationalities” and permitted to attain autonomy through a rapid and simplified process. Catalonia and the Basque Country had their statutes approved in December 1979 and Galicia in April 1981. The other regions were required to take a slower route, although Andalusia was designated as an exception to this general rule. It was not a “historic nationality,” but there was much evidence, including mass demonstrations, of significant popular support for autonomy. As a result, a special, quicker process was created for it.

      By May 1983 the entire country had been divided into 17 comunidades autónomas (autonomous communities): the Basque Country, Catalonia, Galicia, Andalusia, Asturias, Aragon, Balearic Islands, Canary Islands, Cantabria, Castile and León (Castile-León), Castile-La Mancha (Castile–La Mancha), Extremadura, Navarra, La Rioja, and the regions of Madrid, Murcia, and Valencia. In 1995 two autonomous cities, Ceuta and Melilla, were added.

      The basic political institutions of each community are similar to those of the country as a whole. Each has a unicameral legislature elected by universal adult suffrage and an executive consisting of a president and a Council of Government responsible to that legislature.

      The powers (competencias) to be exercised by the regional governments are also stated in the constitution and in the regional statute of autonomy. However, there were differences between the “historic nationalities” and the other communities in the extent of the powers that were initially granted to them. For the first five years of their existence, those communities that had attained autonomy by the slow route could assume only limited responsibilities. Nevertheless, they had control over the organization of institutions, urban planning, public works, housing, environmental protection, cultural affairs, sports and leisure, tourism, health and social welfare, and the cultivation of the regional language (where there was one). After five years these regions could accede to full autonomy, but the meaning of “full autonomy” was not clearly defined. The transfer of powers to the autonomous governments has been determined in an ongoing process of negotiation between the individual communities and the central government that has given rise to repeated disputes. The communities, especially Catalonia and Andalusia, have argued that the central government has dragged its feet in ceding powers and in clarifying financial arrangements. In 2005 the Cortes granted greater autonomy to Catalonia, declaring the region a nation in 2006.

      By the beginning of the 21st century, the Spanish state had yet to achieve a form of regional government that was wholly acceptable to all its communities, but, whenever that happens, it will almost inevitably be an asymmetrical form in which the range of powers held by the regional governments will vary widely from one community to another.

Local government
      There are two further levels of government below the national and regional—provincias and municipios (provinces and municipalities). Their powers and responsibilities are set out in the Basic Law on Local Government (1985).

      The provinces, in existence since 1833, originally served as transmission belts for the policies of the central government. Although they still perform this function, the provinces now also bring together and are dependent on the governments of the municipalities.

      There are more than 8,000 municipal governments (ayuntamientos). Each has a council, a commission (a kind of cabinet), and a mayor ( alcalde). Municipal councillors are elected by universal adult suffrage through a system of proportional representation. As in elections to the national parliament, votes are cast for party lists, not for individual candidates.

      Municipal governments may pass specific local regulations so long as they conform to legislation of the national or regional parliament. While municipal governments receive funds from the central government and the regions, they can also levy their own taxes; in contrast, provincial governments cannot.

      A provincial council (Diputación Provincial) is responsible for ensuring that municipalities cooperate with one another at the provincial level. The main function of these councils is to provide a range of services not available to the smaller municipalities and to develop a provincewide plan for municipal works and services. There are no provincial councils in the autonomous regions that comprise one province (Asturias, Navarra, La Rioja, Cantabria, Madrid, and Murcia). In the Basque Country, provincial councils are elected directly by universal adult suffrage. The islands, too, choose their corporate body by direct election; each of the seven main Canary Islands and the main Balearic Islands elect island councils (Cabildo Insular and Consell Insular, respectively).

Justice
      The judicial system, known as the poder judicial, is independent of the legislative and executive branches of government. It is governed by the General Council, which comprises lawyers and judges.

      There are a number of different levels and types of courts. At the apex of the system is the Supreme Court, the country's highest tribunal, which comprises five chambers. The National Court (Audiencia Nacional) has jurisdiction throughout Spain and is composed of three chambers (criminal, administrative, and labour). Each autonomous community has its own high court of justice (Tribunal Superior de Justica), and all the provinces have high courts called the audiencias that try criminal cases. Below these are courts of first instance, courts of judicial proceedings (which do not pass sentences), penal courts, and municipal courts. Created by law in 1981 and reporting to the Cortes, the ombudsman (defensor del pueblo) defends citizens' rights and monitors the activities of all branches of government.

      The Constitutional Court (Tribunal Constitucional), which is not part of the judiciary, is responsible for interpreting the constitution and the constitutionality of laws and for settling disputes between central and regional powers regarding constitutional affairs. The Constitutional Court is composed of 12 members who are formally appointed by the monarch after being elected by three-fifths of both the Congress of Deputies and the Senate (four members each) and by the executive and the General Council (two members each).

Political process
      Voting is open to all citizens age 18 years or older. For elections to the Congress of Deputies, held every four years, each of the 50 provinces serves as an electoral district, with the number of deputies representing it determined by its population. Under a proportional representation electoral system governed by the d'Hondt formula, ballots are cast for a provincewide party list rather than for candidates representing individual constituencies. This formula favours large parties and less-populated areas.

      About four-fifths of the members of the Senate are directly elected via a plurality system at the provincial level. Each province is entitled to four representatives; voters cast ballots for three candidates, and those with the most votes are elected. Because representation is not based upon population, in the Senate smaller and more-rural provinces generally are overrepresented in relation to their overall population. The remainder of the senators are appointed by the regional legislatures. For elections to the European Parliament, held every five years, and local elections, residents who are citizens of other EU countries are eligible to participate. Spain is among the countries with the highest proportion of women members of parliament, with women generally constituting about three-tenths of the Chamber of Deputies and about one-fourth of the Senate.

      Electoral participation declined markedly after the initial enthusiasm of the transition to democracy, and by the early 1980s political commentators spoke of a desencanto (disenchantment) with the political system. Indeed, although support for democracy remained solid, the voting abstention rate increased throughout the 1980s, especially in local and regional elections. The trend was reversed in the 1990s, when about four-fifths of the electorate voted in national elections; however, in 2000 nearly one-third of the electorate abstained. Voter participation increased again in 2004, when about three-fourths of the electorate voted, only slightly greater than the heavy turnout for the 2008 election.

      The constitution recognizes political parties as “the major instruments of political participation.” The Law of Political Parties (1978) provided them with public funding based on the number of seats they held in parliament and the number of votes received.

National parties
      The Spanish political scene is at once simple and complex. The simplicity rests in the fact that, since the beginning of democratic elections in 1977, national politics have been dominated by a small number of parties. From 1977 until 1982 Spain was governed by the Union of the Democratic Centre (Unión de Centro Democrático; UCD), and the major opposition party was the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (Partido Socialista Obrero Español; PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party)). The only other national parties of importance were the right-wing Popular Alliance (Alianza Popular; AP) and the Spanish Communist Party (Partido Comunista de España; (Communist Party of Spain) PCE).

      In 1982 the PSOE came to power and governed until 1996. The UCD subsequently split into a number of smaller parties and was replaced as the leading opposition force by the Popular Party (Partido Popular; PP), which in 1989 became the successor to the AP. After faring badly in the national elections of 1982, the PCE became one of the founding members of the United Left (Izquierda Unida; IU) coalition in 1986.

      The PP won a plurality in the elections of 1996 and formed a government with the support of Basque and Catalan nationalist parties. The PSOE assumed leadership of the opposition. By 2000 the PP controlled the majority of provincial and autonomous governments, and in that year it solidified its position by winning an absolute majority in the Cortes. In March 2004, however, following a series of terrorist bombings in Madrid—originally attributed by the government to the Basque separatist group ETA but subsequently linked to Islamic militants—the PSOE ousted the PP from national government. In 2008 the PSOE government won a second term.

Regional parties
      There also are parties that exist at the regional level only, with at least one in each of the 17 autonomous communities. Of these, the two most important are Convergence and Union (Convergència i Unió; CiU), a coalition of liberal and Christian democratic parties in Catalonia, and the Basque Nationalist Party (Basque: Euzko Alderdi Jeltzalea [EAJ]; Spanish: Partido Nacionalist Vasco [PNV]), commonly referred to as the EAJ-PNV, which espouses a traditionally rooted moderate Christian nationalist ideology. The CiU has governed Catalonia for most of the period since 1979. The EAJ-PNV has led the regional government of the Basque Country since it was established in 1980 (ruling on its own or in coalition), and it has won a number of the region's seats in the Congress of Deputies and the Senate. Other regional parties include the Canary Islands Coalition (Coalición Canaria; CC), with a centre-right ideology; the Galician Nationalist Bloc (Bloque Nacionalista Galego; BNG), a left-wing group; Basque Solidarity (Eusko Alkartasuna; EA), a left-wing party composed of former EAJ members; the Republican Left of Catalonia (Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya; ERC), which advocates independence for Catalonia; and the Valencian Union (Unió Valenciana; UV), a centre-right nationalist party.

Minor parties
      The complexity of Spanish political life since the transition to democracy lies in the existence of a very large number of minor political parties. In the early 21st century there were several minor parties operating at the national level: the Spanish Green Party (Partido Verde Español; PVE), the Liberal Party (Partido Liberal; PL), and the Spanish Workers' Party–Communist Unity (Partido de los Trabajadores de España–Unidad Comunista; PTE-UC).

      One interesting feature of Spanish politics is that the authoritarian or nondemocratic right has remained almost totally insignificant. During the last quarter of the 20th century, no political group claiming to be the heir to Francoism ever won more than 1 percent of the vote in a national election.

Security
      Traditionally, Spain had compulsory nine-month military service for all adult males. However, beginning in 2002, conscription was ended and the military became professionalized. Spain's national defense is supplemented by its membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and the United States maintains a naval base at Rota and an air base at Morón de la Frontera.

      Domestic order is maintained by the National Police Corps (Cuerpo Nacional de Policía), which is primarily responsible for national investigations and security in urban areas, and the Civil Guard, established in 1844, which maintains security in rural areas and on the highways and controls the borders. These bodies were unified under the Ministry of the Interior to provide more efficiency in responding to security issues.

      The state of the autonomies, a product of negotiation and compromise at the time of the transition to democracy, has come to be widely accepted by the Spanish people and by their political organizations, with one significant exception—the militant Basque nationalist movement, which has sought total independence and used terrorism as its principal method. As a result, domestic terrorism is a major concern of the Spanish police.

      The nationalist movement in the Basque provinces before the Spanish Civil War was nonviolent. The inflexible centralism of the Franco regime and its repression of any expression of regional difference, however, were instrumental in stimulating the development of a more radical nationalism among Basque youth in the 1950s. Euzkadi Ta Azkatasuna (Basque Homeland and Liberty), best known by its Basque acronym, ETA, was created in 1959 and, influenced by anti-imperialist struggles in the developing world, quickly took up armed opposition. In December 1973 ETA assassinated Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco, Franco's handpicked successor as head of the government.

      So long as ETA was seen to be fighting against the Franco dictatorship, it received considerable sympathy both inside and outside the Basque provinces. Its continued use of violence during and after the transition to democracy cost it whatever support it had enjoyed in the rest of Spain. In the Basque Country itself the continuing use of terror led to much public revulsion and to demonstrations demanding the end to violence. Nevertheless, Batasuna, the political party generally considered to be the political wing of ETA, has continually won between 15 and 20 percent of the votes cast in the Basque Country in regional and national elections. As of the early 21st century, Basque terrorism had claimed more than 800 lives. In addition to combatting ETA's violence, the Spanish government in the early 21st century dedicated considerable resources to investigating and thwarting the activities of groups in Spain linked to al-Qaeda (Qaeda, al-)'s international terrorist network.

      Other autonomous communities have had similar but much smaller and less significant illegal organizations whose terrorist activities have ceased, including the Terra Lliure (Free Country) in Catalonia and Exército Guerrilheiro do Pobo Galego Ceibe (Free Galician Guerrilla People's Army) in Galicia.

Health and welfare
      Since the 1960s Spain's increasing prosperity and the generalized availability of government-sponsored health care have combined to cause dramatic improvements in levels of health and well-being. By the beginning of the 21st century, life expectancy in Spain was among the highest in the world. Spain also had more doctors per capita than most other countries of the EU.

      The health system is administered by the national Ministry of Health through a department known as the National Institute of Health (Insalud). However, as the system of regional autonomy developed, much of the responsibility for health care devolved to the regional governments, first to Andalusia, Galicia, the Basque Country, Catalonia, Valencia, the Canary Islands, and Navarra and later to other regions. The system provides a full range of services in clinics and in general and specialized hospitals. By the 1970s most villages had a doctor who received a salary from the Ministry of Health. During the 1980s a reform allowed people to attend any public clinic they wished; previously they had to go to the one that served their neighbourhood.

      Health care is not a government monopoly, though all but a very small percentage of the population seeks treatment at state-run clinics. Many doctors have their own offices and clinics outside the government-funded system, and many private insurance plans are available. In addition, as part of planned health-care reform measures, some public hospitals and clinics are to be transferred from state to private administration.

      The government, through its ad hoc social security office, provides a number of other social services, including unemployment insurance, old-age pensions, maternity and sickness benefits, and disability payments. These services are financed through deductions from workers' pay, employer contributions, and general tax revenues from the state. Additional services by local authorities attempt to meet urgent health care needs of underserved groups.

Housing
      During the Franco era, housing shortages and standards were a major problem. In 1961 the government passed a National Housing Plan, which resulted in the construction of millions of homes over the next two decades. However, many of these homes were geared to affluent middle-class families; thus, by the 1980s, housing shortages were severe and conditions were still considered poor. After the election of the socialist government in 1982, significant resources were directed at housing. However, population growth continued to outstrip housing construction, and at the beginning of the 21st century many considered housing to be the country's most pressing social problem.

      More than three-fourths of housing stock is owner-occupied. House types vary from region to region, but by and large multistory dwellings are characteristic of mountain and pastoral districts, while single-story or low houses with courtyards arranged in different ways according to the local economy are typical of the lowlands. Land reform, industrialization, and depopulation have significantly changed the character of many rural districts. In rural areas in particular, the housing stock is relatively old, with more than half of all units built prior to 1960. Increasingly population concentration in urban areas created difficult housing conditions and resulted in the rapid increase in housing prices, exacerbating problems for individuals with low incomes.

Education
      Spain's first comprehensive public education plan was contained in the Moyano Law of 1857. It remained basically unchanged until 1970, when the General Law on Education was passed. Since then many other education reforms have taken place.

      The school system has a number of levels: preschool (to age 6), primary school for ages 6 or 7 to 11, secondary school for ages 12 to 16 (which includes technical and vocational schools), baccalaureate school for ages 17 and 18, and university. Education is free and compulsory for children between the ages of 6 and 16. Literacy exceeds 95 percent of the population.

      Historically, the state and the Roman Catholic Church have clashed over education. Spain still has a large private education sector, almost all of which is Catholic, but since the 1960s the predominance of the state has been clearly established, especially in secondary education. In the 1980s the Catholic schools, most of which received substantial subsidies from the state, were subjected to closer government control, and religious education was removed as an obligatory subject. With regional autonomy, control over education in some parts of the country was transferred from the central to regional governments. As a result, the study of Catalan, Galician, and Euskera became obligatory in their respective regions, whereas in the past these languages had not been taught at all.

      After 1960 there was a dramatic increase in the availability of schooling at all levels. The change was greatest with regard to universities. Until 1960 there were only 12 universities in the country, and higher education was the privilege of a very small elite. By the end of the 20th century, there were more than 60 public and private universities, some of which were operated by the Catholic church. Access to a university education became more democratic as well: in the 1980s almost half of Spain's university students had parents who had received no more than an elementary school education. By the late 1990s about half of Spain's college-age population was attending a university. Among the largest and most-prestigious universities in Spain are the Complutensian University of Madrid (Madrid, Complutensian University of) (founded 1508), the University of Barcelona (1450), the University of Granada (1526), the University of Sevilla (Sevilla, University of) (1502), the University of Salamanca (Salamanca, University of) (1218), the University of Valencia (1499), and the University of the Basque Country (1968).

Cultural life

Cultural milieu
 As in much of western Europe, the culture of Spain was marked decisively by the period of Roman rule. In language, religion, even architectural traditions, the Romans left a lasting legacy. However, the subsequent course of Spanish history added elements to the country's cultural development that were missing or much weaker in other European countries. The most important differences stem from the Arabic-speaking Muslims from the Middle East and North Africa who invaded Spain in AD 711 and dominated much of the country for almost 800 years. The Muslim cultural influence was very strong, especially in the area of language; indeed, the Spanish language has taken more words from Arabic than from any other source except Latin. Through contact with Muslims, Christian Europe was able to recover much of the cultural and intellectual heritage of Classical antiquity. It also gained access to many scientific advances made by Muslims. Spain's cultural mix was further enriched by the presence of a large and influential Jewish population, and medieval Spain witnessed one of the periods of greatest cultural achievement in Jewish history.

      During the early modern and modern periods, Spain's culture was fairly homogeneous. The one significant exception was the presence and persistence of early languages other than Castilian in some parts of the country. Two of these, Catalan and Galician (Gallego), developed significant literary traditions during the Middle Ages. From the 16th century on, however, they lost ground to Castilian and increasingly became limited to everyday use, especially among the peasantry. This had always been the case with the third language, Euskera (Basque), which never had a significant literary tradition.

      Beginning in the 19th century, all three languages enjoyed a revival. In the 20th century the Franco regime prohibited the public use of languages other than Castilian, but this did not lead to their disappearance. Instead, the use of these languages, both in daily life and in high culture, increased greatly when they became the official languages in the autonomous regions established under the constitution of 1978. They are now taught in the schools and are used in the press and on television and radio.

      For much of its history, and especially after the Reconquista was completed in 1492, Spain has been strongly identified with the Roman Catholic Church. To a large extent this identification and the virtual religious monopoly that the church has enjoyed since the 16th century have been artificially imposed. Members of the two large religious minorities were forced to convert or leave the country: the Jews in 1492 and the Muslims in 1502. From 1478 until 1834 religious uniformity was enforced by the church court, the inquisition.

      In the 19th and 20th centuries the Roman Catholic Church sought to have, and for much of that time succeeded in having, the government declare Roman Catholicism as the state religion, even though a large part of the population was nonpracticing or even anticlerical. The church also encouraged the government to limit or even prohibit the practice of other faiths. State support for the Catholic church was strongest during the Franco regime, but since 1978 Spain has had no official religion. Today Spaniards enjoy complete freedom of religion, although Roman Catholicism remains an important cultural influence. Thus, at the beginning of the 21st century, the expression of cultural diversity is easier than it was for at least 500 years. Ironically, this came at the same time that Spain became increasingly drawn into a homogeneous global culture.

Daily life and social customs
Organization of the day
 Daily life in early 21st-century Spain looks little different from that in other industrialized countries of the West. There remain, however, some important practices that are peculiar to Spain. The most obvious, especially for foreign visitors, is the organization of the day and the scheduling of meals. Lunch, which is the main meal of the day, is eaten between 2:00 and 3:00 PM. Traditionally it was followed by a nap—the famous siesta—but, because most people now commute between home and work, this custom is in decline. Supper, a lighter meal, is also taken late, between 9:00 and 10:00 PM, or even later during the hot summer months.

      Business, shopping, and school hours reflect this pattern. There is a long break—generally two to five hours long—in the middle of the day, during which most businesses are closed and the streets are not very busy. (The few exceptions are bars, restaurants, and the large department stores, which do not close at midday.) The main daily television news is broadcast at this time, as are some of the most popular programs. The workday resumes in the late afternoon, between 4:30 and 5:00 PM, and continues until about 8:00 PM.

Food and drink
      Bars, which are open all day, generally serve food as well as drink, and it is a widespread custom to go for a snack before meals, especially on non-working days. The most well-known bar food, known as tapas, usually consists of prepared dishes, many of which are quite elaborate and are often smaller-sized versions of main-course dishes. There are hundreds of different tapas, but a few typical ones are mushrooms in garlic sauce, marinated seafood, Spanish omelette, lamb brochettes, and octopus in paprika sauce.

      Spanish cooking varies greatly from region to region, linked to local products and traditions. Galicia, for example, is famed for its seafood, including dishes of baby eels and Vizcayan-style codfish; Catalonia is renowned for meat and vegetable casseroles; and Valencia is the homeland of paella, a rice dish made with seafood, meats, and vegetables. From Andalusia comes gazpacho, a delicious cold soup made of tomatoes, garlic, and cucumber, while the cattle-producing region of Castile boasts succulent roasts and air-dried hams. Spanish food is frequently thought to be very spicy, but, apart from a few dishes that contain small amounts of a mild chili pepper, the most piquant ingredient in general use is paprika; otherwise, dishes are likely to be flavoured with such spices as tarragon and saffron. The most widely eaten meats are pork, chicken, and beef, but in much of the country lamb is eaten on special occasions. Very fond of both fish and shellfish, Spaniards are among the world's largest consumers of seafood. Legumes, especially lentils and chickpeas, also form an important part of the Spanish diet.

      Spaniards frequently drink wine and beer with their meals. They also commonly drink bottled mineral water, even though in most parts of the country the tap water is perfectly safe. At breakfast and after meals, strong coffee is the almost universal drink. Few people drink tea, but herbal infusions such as chamomile are popular. Soft drinks, both domestic and imported, are widely available.

Internationalization of culture
      The Franco regime sought to preserve what it understood as Spain's long-standing traditions and to impose a strict Roman Catholic morality on the country. However, the economic policies of the 1960s that opened Spain up to foreign investment and tourism and encouraged Spaniards to work in other European countries also invited foreign influences, which undermined the government's desire to protect or isolate Spanish culture. Since the 1960s Spanish culture, particularly the youth culture, has increasingly become part of a homogeneous, heavily American-influenced international culture.

      For young people the most significant aspects of international culture are rock and contemporary dance music, both of which make up a considerable portion of the music played on Spain's radio stations. Beginning with the Beatles (Beatles, the) in the 1960s, many leading foreign rock groups have given concerts in Spain's major cities. In the 1990s dance clubs on the island of Ibiza frequented by young British vacationers became a hotbed for techno music (techno), first called Balearic Beat by some (see Sidebar: Balearic Beat). There are also a large number of Spanish rock musicians, but few of these have achieved much recognition outside the country. The most successful of Spain's popular singers is undoubtedly Julio Iglesias, whose music appealed to an older audience.

      The internationalization of culture also can be seen in a variety of other ways. American fast-food chains have franchises in all the major cities, and much of the television programming and many of the popular films are foreign, the bulk of the programs and films being from the United States.

Festivals and holidays
      Traditionally, most holidays in Spain have been religious in origin. At the national level the most important of these are Holy (or Maundy) Thursday (Maundy Thursday), Good Friday, Easter Monday, Corpus Christi (Corpus Christi, Feast of), the Feast of Saint James (July 25), and All Saints' Day (November 1). The most important day of the Christmas period, and the day on which children receive presents, is the Day of the Three Kings, or Epiphany (January 6).

      By contrast, nonreligious, civic holidays have been relatively insignificant. The Franco regime declared July 18, the day on which the Spanish Civil War began, a national holiday, but that was abandoned after the demise of the regime. Since 1978 the official national holiday has been Constitution Day (December 6). Catalonia and the Basque Country have their own official “national” holidays, and each of the autonomous communities celebrates itself with a regional holiday.

      One important holiday is both religious and civic. October 12 is the Day of the Virgin of El Pilar and also the day on which the “discovery” of America is celebrated (a counterpart to the celebration of Columbus Day in the United States); it has been called at different times the Day of the Race (Día de la Raza) and Hispanic Day (Día de la Hispanidad).

 Every village and town has its own annual holiday fiesta, and these are probably the most important holidays in the daily lives of the Spanish people. These holidays are religious in origin, honouring the local patron saint or the Virgin Mary, but the religious component is often much less important than the dancing and bullfights that take place. Some of these celebrations, such as the Fiesta de San Fermín in Pamplona (with its famous running of the bulls), the Sevilla fair, and the Fallas of Valencia, have become internationally famous and have turned into major tourist attractions. A thoroughly secular, unique festival is held in the little town of Buñol, near Valencia, where each August thousands of residents and visitors gather to hurl tomatoes at one another. The festival, called La Tomatina, began as a symbolic repudiation of harsh rule during the Franco era. It now celebrates the summer tomato harvest, but it is also a fine excuse to drink red wine, eat paella, and enjoy one another's company.

The arts
      Spain has a long, varied, and distinguished artistic heritage, which includes some of the most important figures in the Western cultural tradition. A partial list would include novelists Miguel de Cervantes (Cervantes, Miguel de) (the most important figure of Spanish literature) and Benito Pérez Galdós (Pérez Galdós, Benito), dramatists Pedro Calderón de la Barca (Calderón de la Barca, Pedro) and Lope de Vega (Vega, Lope de), painters Diego Velázquez (Velázquez, Diego), Francisco de Goya, (Goya, Francisco de) and Pablo Picasso, and filmmaker Luis Buñuel (Buñuel, Luis).

      The period from about 1500 to 1681, known as the Golden Age, is considered the most brilliant era of Spain's artistic history, with enduring contributions made in the fields of literature, theatre, architecture, and painting. Still, at no time has Spain ceased to be a culturally vital country, and the 20th century in particular proved a highly productive and creative one; indeed, its first few decades came to be called the Silver Age.

      The Spanish Civil War marked a break in the development of the arts. Many leading artists and intellectuals went into exile at the end of the war. Within Spain the Franco regime practiced a sweeping censorship that limited artistic expression. Nevertheless, many Spanish artists made major contributions throughout the 20th century. Some sought inspiration in the country's history and folk traditions; others joined the most modern currents in their fields.

      Spain's contributions to world culture are many, but none has been so universally well-accepted as its musical heritage, especially that of music performed on stringed instruments. Noteworthy Spanish composers include Fernando Sor (1778–1839), Isaac Albéniz (Albéniz, Isaac), Enrique Granados (Granados, Enrique), Manuel de Falla (Falla, Manuel de), and Joaquín Rodrigo (Rodrigo, Joaquín), all of whom drew heavily on popular and regional music for their inspiration. In the hands of Spanish composers, the guitar moved from Rom (Gypsy) folk instrument to a staple of symphonies; from Spain have come such masters as Manitas de Plata, Andrés Segovia (Segovia, Andrés), Paco de Lucia, and countless flamenco and classical artists of great distinction. The flamenco tradition, derived from a marriage of Arabic and Spanish folk songs, carried over into southern Spain's unique “Rock Andaluz” movement of the 1970s and '80s, centred in Sevilla.

      Spain is also well represented in classical opera, with Plácido Domingo (Domingo, Plácido), José Carreras, Alfredo Kraus, and Montserrat Caballé among the most renowned singers. The leading classical instrumentalists of the century were cellist Pablo Casals (Casals, Pablo), pianist Alicia de Larrocha, and guitarist Narciso Yepes.

      Spain's loss of its empire in Latin America following the Spanish-American War (1898) provided the impetus for many Spanish writers, poets, and scholars to restore a sense of national pride. In their work, writers such as José Ortega y Gasset (Ortega y Gasset, José), Pío Baroja (Baroja, Pío), Vicente Blasco Ibáñez (Blasco Ibáñez, Vicente), and Antonio Machado y Ruiz (Machado, Antonio) examined Spain's heritage and its role in the modern world. They and others who took up similar concerns came to be known as the Generation of '98 (Generation of 1898). These writers helped revitalize Spanish letters and opened the doors for Spanish cultural development in the 20th century.

      Many of Spain's 20th-century authors have achieved international recognition, including five who won the Nobel Prize for Literature: dramatists José Echegaray (Echegaray y Eizaguirre, José) (1904) and Jacinto Benavente (Benavente y Martínez, Jacinto) (1922), poets Juan Ramón Jiménez (Jiménez, Juan Ramón) (1956) and Vicente Aleixandre (Aleixandre, Vicente) (1977), and novelist Camilo José Cela (Cela, Camilo José) (1989).

      The most famous writer of the century, however, was poet and playwright Federico García Lorca (García Lorca, Federico). Executed by the Nationalists in the early days of the Spanish Civil War, he became a symbol of art perishing at the hands of fascism. García Lorca's poetry is often couched in illusive symbolism and, like his plays, draws heavily on the folklore of his native Andalusia and especially on that of the Roma (Rom) (Gypsies), or Gitanos. The suppression of instinct by social convention and the repression of women are the major themes of his plays (perhaps influenced by his own homosexuality), some of which continue to be produced and which inspired two films by Spanish director Carlos Saura (Saura, Carlos) in the 1980s.

      Among the leading poets of the last half of the 20th century were Leopoldo Panero, Luis Rosales, Blas de Otero, Gabriel Celaya, Juan Luis Panero, Andrés Trapiello, Claudio Rodríguez, José Hierro, and Pedro Gimferrer, who wrote in Catalan as well as in Castilian. Contemporary Spanish poetry often uses colloquial language and explores intimate and social themes.

      During the early 20th century many novelists experimented with form and technique and put less emphasis on plot and character. In the post-Civil War period a new generation of novelists, including Rosa Chacel, Miguel Delibes, and Carmen Laforet (Laforet, Carmen), avoided such experimentation and returned to a more traditional approach. Several noted writers, including Camilo José Cela (Cela, Camilo José), Luis Martín-Santos (Martín-Santos, Luis), and Rafael Sanchez Ferlosio, focused on postwar social problems.

      The late 20th-century novel showed a variety of trends. One was the use of everyday language to tell realistic stories, often based on historical events. At the other extreme were highly intellectual novels by writers such as Juan Benet Goitia (Benet Goitia, Juan) and his small group of followers. In addition, some novelists, such as Terenci Moix and, later in his career, Juan Goytisolo (Goytisolo, Juan), were strongly drawn to non-Western cultures. Among the ranks of leading novelists were Eduardo Mendoza, Carmen Martín Gaite, José Luis Sampedro, Francisco Umbral, Javier Marías, Juan José Millàs, Antonio Muñoz Molina, and Antonio Gala. The detective novel (detective story) became a popular genre after the 1970s, largely through the influence of Manuel Vázquez Montalbán; the work of his younger contemporary Arturo Pérez-Reverte, who writes both intellectual thrillers and historical novels, has been widely translated.

      For further discussion, see Spanish literature.

      Spain has been an important centre of world theatre since the Roman era, when playwrights such as Lucius Annaeus Seneca (Seneca, Lucius Annaeus), a native of Córdoba, produced popular and enduring works that would exert great influence in the 16th and 17th centuries—the so-called Golden Age. Whereas medieval drama tended to be closely tied to the Roman Catholic Church, focusing on miracle and Passion plays and on religious themes, the pioneering 16th-century dramatist Juan del Encina (Encina, Juan del) helped revive classical theatrical forms. During this profoundly inventive period, a national theatre emerged, fuelled by the energies of artists such as Lope de Vega (Vega, Lope de), Guillén de Castro (Castro y Bellvís, Guillén de), Tirso de Molina, Pedro Calderón de la Barca, and Miguel de Cervantes (Cervantes, Miguel de).

      A time of relative quiet and cultural conservatism followed, as Spanish theatre became a shadow of the French—an irony, given that Pierre Corneille, Jean Racine, and Molière borrowed many themes and characters from Spanish Golden Age originals. To further the irony, it was a French dramatist and stage director, Juan de Grimaldi, who helped revive the Spanish theatre in the 1820s by both translating French plays into Spanish and commissioning new works by Spanish writers. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, playwrights José Echegaray (Echegaray y Eizaguirre, José), Gregorio Martínez Sierra (Martínez Sierra, Gregorio), and Jacinto Benavente (Benavente y Martínez, Jacinto) helped elaborate this identifiably Spanish theatre, which would arguably reach its zenith in the work of Federico García Lorca (García Lorca, Federico). Although, as with other aspects of art and culture, the long Franco era discouraged theatrical experimentation, García Lorca's work informed that of playwrights such as Antonio Buero Vallejo (Buero Vallejo, Antonio), Antonio Gala, Adolfo Marsillach, Josep María Flotats, and Fernando Fernán Gómez. These and other writers have produced a significant body of theatrical work in Spanish as well as in other national and regional languages, such as Catalan and Basque. Most modern playwrights are active as well in other literary genres and media, such as poetry and filmmaking.

      Spain's most important 20th-century painters and sculptors were all part of the international avant-garde. The most famous, Pablo Picasso (Picasso, Pablo), is considered by many to be the most influential European artist of the 20th century. Other leading figures were Juan Gris (Gris, Juan), Joan Miró (Miró, Joan), and Salvador Dalí (Dalí, Salvador). Among sculptors, the best-known figure internationally was Eduardo Chillida (Chillida, Eduardo). Among the leading artists of the late 20th century were the painters Antoni Tàpies (Tàpies, Antoni), Miguel Barceló, Rafael Canogar, Manuel Millares, and Antonio Saura, along with the sculptors Pablo Serrano, Julio González, Pablo Gargallo, and Alberto Sánchez.

 Antonio Gaudí (Gaudí, Antoni) was the most famous Spanish architect as well as one of the most unusual architects of the early 20th century. Through an eclectic approach, he created a unique style reminiscent of the Mudéjar (Mudejar), an architectural style blending Muslim and Christian design. Despite Gaudí's posthumous prominence, during his life he had no influence outside of Spain and little influence within it. Most of Gaudí's work was done in Barcelona. His most famous building is the unfinished Expiatory Temple of the Holy Family. Spain's leading architects of the 20th century—some of whom attained international renown—included Josep Lluís Sert (Sert, José Luis), Eduardo Torroja (Torroja, Eduardo), Sanz de Oiza, Ricardo Bofill, José Rafael Moneo, and Santiago Calatrava (Calatrava, Santiago).

      Spain's film industry has always been small and economically fragile. The large majority of the films shown in Spanish cinemas in the second half of the 20th century were imported, from other European countries and, above all, from the United States.

      The Spanish film director Luis Buñuel (Buñuel, Luis) is considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. Because he was in exile during the Franco regime, most of his films were made outside of Spain, first in Mexico and then in France.

      The cinema suffered greatly from the censorship of the Franco regime, and it began to recover only at the end of the 1950s with the work of Juan Antonio Bardem and Luis García Berlanga. After 1970 a number of Spanish directors, such as Carlos Saura (Saura, Carlos), Pilar Miró, Victor Erice, and Pedro Almodóvar, achieved critical success both in Spain and abroad. José Luis Garcí's Begin the Beguine (1982) won the Academy Award for best foreign-language film, as did Fernando Trueba's Belle Epoque (1992). However, Spanish films were not generally economically successful abroad, the one major exception being Almodóvar's comedies, especially Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988), Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1990), and All About My Mother (1999), the last of which won an Academy Award for best foreign-language film. By the late 1990s a new generation of directors, benefiting from government tax incentives and increased exposure on the international film festival circuit, had begun to attract attention outside Spain. In the first years of the 21st century, intellectually ambitious ghost stories such as Alejandro Amenábar's The Others (2001) emerged as a genre that easily found audiences outside the country.

Cultural institutions
      Foremost among Spain's many art museums is the Prado Museum in Madrid, which began construction at the end of the 18th century and was completed in the early 19th century. Many of its paintings came from royal collections of the 16th and 17th centuries. The Prado also has an annex housing 19th- and early 20th-century art.

      Other outstanding museums in Madrid include the Spanish Museum of Contemporary Art, the Joaquín Sorolla Museum, and the Thyssen Bornemisza Museum. The Queen Sofía Museum, which opened in the early 1980s and is dedicated to modern and contemporary art, houses Picasso's famous mural Guernica, named for the Basque town bombed in 1937 by the fascists. Important museums outside the capital include the Picasso Museum and the Museum of Art of Catalonia in Barcelona, the National Museum of Sculpture in Valladolid, the El Greco (Greco, El) Museum in Toledo, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, and the Museum of Spanish Abstract Art in Cuenca.

      There are a large number of special-interest museums. Some of them are national institutions, such as the National Archaeological Museum in Madrid and the Sephardic Museum in Toledo, but many more are provincial or local institutions. There are also numerous museums attached to cathedrals and other religious institutions.

Libraries and archives
      Spain has some 6,500 public and private libraries. Some important ones, such as the libraries of the palatial royal monastery of El Escorial near Madrid and of the University of Salamanca (Salamanca, University of), date back more than four centuries. Others are more recent, notably the National Library in Madrid, which was created in the 19th century.

      Spain has a vast number of public and private archives of various sorts: local, provincial, regional, and national. The most important are the National Historical Archive in Madrid, the General Archive of the Administration in Alcalá de Henares, the Archive of the Civil War in Salamanca, the General Archives of Simancas (established in 1540), and the Royal Archives of Aragon in Barcelona. Perhaps the most important for people outside Spain is Sevilla's Archives of the Indies, which hold an immense quantity of documentation about Spain's former empire in the Americas.

Academies and institutes
      Spain's oldest and most famous academy is the Royal Spanish Academy. Founded in 1713 under Philip V, the first Bourbon king, it was modeled on the French Academy in Paris. Its most important task is to “cultivate and set standards for the purity and elegance of the Castilian language”; since 1951 it has done this in cooperation with similar scholarly institutions in Latin American countries to promote the lexicographical corpus of Spanish in the world. As part of this work, it publishes a massive dictionary intended to be the definitive work of its kind for the language.

      There are a number of other cultural and intellectual academies and institutes, most of which date from the 18th and the 19th centuries. These include the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts, the Royal Academy of History, and the Royal National Academy of Medicine. The most prestigious institution for research is the Council for Scientific Research (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas; CSIC), an autonomous public research organization based in Madrid and affiliated with the government Ministry of Education and Science. It was created in 1940 by the Franco regime to promote and manage research. Today there are branches of the CSIC throughout Spain, with the largest number of research centres being located in Madrid.

      In its attempt to put itself at the centre of the international Spanish-language cultural world, Spain awards the Cervantes Prize, comparable to the Nobel Prize for Literature for all authors writing in Spanish. Among the recipients have been many of the leading Latin American writers. An agency for international cooperation maintains economic and cultural ties with the countries of Latin America and other countries with cultural links to Spain.

      One of the most interesting cultural initiatives was the creation in 1991 of the Cervantes Institute. This government agency, modeled on the British Council and the German Goethe Institute, is responsible for promoting the study of Spanish language and culture abroad. In the early 21st century, the Cervantes Institute operated in more than 60 cities in some 30 countries throughout the world.

Sports and recreation
      Sports play an important part in the daily life of the Spanish people, and each region has its favourite forms of play. In mountainous Catalonia, skiing and other winter sports are popular; along the Valencia coast, windsurfing, scuba diving, and surfing have countless enthusiasts; in the Basque provinces, jai alai (a kind of racquetball) is a favourite pastime; and in Asturias and Andalusia, equestrian events draw large numbers of spectators and participants alike.

      Despite the international controversy over bullfighting, the corrida de toros (“running of bulls”) is still fairly popular in Spain. A staple of Spanish culture dating back to antiquity, bullfighting is considered the national spectacle, a rich pageant more akin to a beautifully choreographed ballet than a sporting event. It is seen as a heroic, albeit bloody, test of wills involving courage, intelligence, grace, and elegance. Spain's foremost matadors (matador) have been national heroes of mythic stature, as Manolete was in the 1940s. The season runs from March to October, with bullfights typically occurring on Sunday afternoons in major cities and in almost every town during local festivals. The mecca of bullfighting in Spain is in Madrid, at the Las Ventas bullring.

      Spain's National Olympic Committee was founded and recognized in 1924. The 1992 Summer Olympic Games were held in Barcelona, where Spanish athletes earned 13 gold medals, including for football (soccer), swimming, running, and walking. Spaniard Juan António Samaranch (Samaranch, Juan António, marqués de Samaranch) served as president of the International Olympic Committee from 1980 to 2001.

      Football (football (soccer)) was introduced into Spain by the British at the end of the 19th century (British miners established the first Spanish football club, Recreativo, in Huelva in 1889), and a professional league was set up in the 1920s. By the 1950s football had surpassed bullfighting in popularity. Spain's leading clubs have a distinguished record in European competitions (indeed, Real Madrid and F.C. Barcelona are two of football's most famous organizations); however, after winning the UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) European championship in 1964, the national team was long saddled with a reputation for failing to win ‘‘big " international matches, until it again captured the European championship in 2008.

      At the end of the 1980s, football was challenged by basketball, whose popularity soared after Spain won the silver medal in the sport at the 1984 Olympics. Other popular spectator sports include hockey on roller skates, motorcycle racing, and tennis. Cycling also has a large following, and Spanish cyclist Miguel Indurain was a multiple winner of the Tour de France.

      Historically, the country has had a fairly poor record in protecting its natural resources, including Spain's rare wetlands Doñana National Park, from industrial development; despite this, Spaniards are avid users of their country's many parks and picturesque countryside.

Media and publishing
The press
      At the beginning of the 21st century, Spain had nearly 200 daily newspapers. By far the most widely read, and the most influential, is the liberal El País (País, El), published in Madrid and in other important cities and regions. ABC and El Mundo are also leading dailies. Published continuously in Barcelona since 1881, the conservative La Vanguardia (Vanguardia Española, La) has the widest Castilian-language readership in Catalonia. The leading regional daily newspapers are El Periódico in Catalonia, La Voz de Galicia in Galicia, and El Correo Español–El Pueblo Vasco in the Basque Country, all published in Castilian. There are other newspapers serving regional and local interests that are published in local languages. There are also several newspapers that specialize in areas such as sports and business. Marca, a sport daily, is the most widely disseminated daily newspaper in Spain. By the late 1990s most leading newspapers also published digital versions on the Internet. Yet, despite this large number of newspapers, overall readership in Spain is low by European standards. By the late 1990s Spaniards read about two-thirds fewer newspapers than did the average reader in the EU.

      There also are many weekly and monthly magazines published in Spain. The most popular and successful are those, such as ¡Hola!, that deal largely in gossip about the lives of celebrities, both national and international. On the other hand, there are also a number of serious political magazines. In general, the boom in publishing that occurred in the aftermath of Franco's death receded in the final two decades of the 20th century.

      Television was introduced into Spain in 1956. During the Franco regime and the first few years of the constitutional monarchy, there were only two television stations, both part of the government-owned and -controlled Radio-Televisión Española (RTVE). They still broadcast today, solely in Castilian, and have been split into separate organizations: Radio Nacional de España (RNE) and Televisión Española (TVE). Radio Exterior de España (REE) provides overseas services, broadcasting in 10 languages.

      In 1983 the Catalan and Basque autonomous governments established television stations that broadcast in the regional languages; a Galician-language station began operation two years later. At the end of the 1980s, the number of television stations available to Spaniards increased rapidly. Moreover, in 1989 the government introduced legislation permitting the establishment of privately owned television stations. Three of these began to broadcast in 1990, and in subseqent years several others began operations. There are now several hundred television stations serving national, regional, and local audiences. At the same time, the availability of satellite dishes, which many Spaniards acquired, gave them access to channels broadcasting in a variety of languages, especially English, French, German, and Italian.

      The most popular types of programs include game shows, soap operas, sports, movies, and dramatic series. Much of the programming comes from the United States, but a number of soap operas (telenovelas) from South America are very popular.

      Radio broadcasting began on a small scale in the 1920s. A government station, Radio Nacional de España (RNE), was set up by the Nationalists during the Spanish Civil War, but the government never established the same kind of monopoly over radio that it held over television. The number of privately owned radio stations increased markedly during the 1980s and '90s, such that there were more private than public stations in the early 21st century.

Adrian Shubert Vicente Rodriguez

History

Pre-Roman Spain
      Human fossils in Spain belong to modern humans (Homo sapiens), the Neanderthals (Neanderthal) (H. neanderthalensis), and even earlier members of the human lineage, possibly H. erectus or H. heidelbergensis. Bones of several individuals in the Cueva Mayor (“Main Cave”) at Atapuerca, Burgos, come from Middle Pleistocene sediments that are at least 280,000 years old. Other important sites are at Torralba and Ambrona (Soria), where elephants (Palaeoloxodon antiquus) were trapped accidentally in marshy ground and their remains scavenged. From these sites were excavated shouldered points fashioned from young elephant tusks, as well as hundreds of stone implements (hand axes, cleavers, and scrapers on flakes, made from chalcedony, quartzite, quartz, and even limestone) and wooden objects. Pieces of charcoal show that fire was known and used. But H. erectus or H. heidelbergensis humans were already living in Spain in the Early Pleistocene, as indicated by stone tools from beaches in the Algarve (Mirouço), Huelva (Punta Umbria), and Cadiz (Cádiz) (Algeciras) and the terraces of the lower Guadalquivir (Guadalquivir River), Tagus (Tagus River), Manzanares, and Ter rivers. Choppers, angular balls, and flakes from the terraces of the Jabalón River (Ciudad Real) are older than 700,000 years and perhaps more than 1,000,000 years.

      Fossils of Neanderthals (Neanderthal) were found at Bañolas ( Girona) and Cova Negra ( Valencia). Fully developed Neanderthals, some represented by well-preserved skulls, come from more than 10 different localities throughout Spain, including Los Casares, Carigüela, Gabasa, and Zafarraya, with a cluster in Gibraltar (Forbe's Quarry, Gorham's Cave, and La Genista).

 The appearance of modern humans (H. sapiens) in Spain after 35,000 BP opened a new era, when material culture acquired an innovating velocity it never lost. Flint tools became more varied and smaller, and bone and antler were used for harpoons, spears, and ornaments. Needles from El Pendo Cave ( Cantabria) hint at sewn clothing of furs and skins. Most remarkable were the intellectual achievements, culminating in the Paleolithic (Paleolithic Period) (Old Stone Age) caves found in the Cantabrian Mountains of northern Spain. These caves were painted, engraved, and sculpted and visited intermittently between 25,000 and 10,000 BC. On the walls and ceilings are images of cold-weather animals—such as bison, mammoths (mammoth), Przewalski's horse, aurochs (wild oxen), and woolly rhinoceroses (woolly rhinoceros). Predators such as bears, wolverines, and lions are rarely represented, and depictions of humans are extremely scarce. Many caves (such as the group of caves at El Castillo, Cantabria) show rows of coloured dots, arrowlike marks, negative impressions of human hands, and signs interpreted as vulvas. Animals may be drawn skillfully in black outlines, like the horses at Ekain ( Guipúzcoa), or painted in polychrome, as at Altamira (Cantabria), and in bichrome, as at Tito Bustillo (Asturias). These are scenes and standard compositions, but figures are also drawn singly (Puente Viesgo, Cantabria), engraved repeatedly, or drawn on top of other representations. Although the main animals hunted for food were red deer, ibex (mountain goat), and reindeer, the most common depictions are of aurochs, bison, and horses. Salmon, a seasonal food, was rarely drawn, and plants never appear. Similar themes occur on portable objects made of bone and antlers and on stone plaques. At the habitation site of the cave of Parpalló ( Valencia), thousands of engraved stone plaques accumulated; although their interpretation is difficult, it should be stressed that Paleolithic art follows conventions. Figures are placed formally within selected caves (probably sanctuaries), with meanings hidden from modern eyes. Paleolithic visitors left stone lamps and pine firebrands as well as footprints and hand marks on muddy surfaces in the French caves of Fontanet, Isturitz (Haristoi), and Lascaux (Lascaux Grotto). The complexity of the Paleolithic mental universe is demonstrated by the mortuary (burial) practice in two graves in the Cueva Morín (Cantabria), where four mutilated burials survived as casts formed by a compact, greasy sediment that had replaced the bodies. The dead were accompanied by meat offerings and ochre and buried below low mounds, on top of which ritual fires burned.

      After 10,000 BC the climatic changes accompanying the end of the last glaciation led to the disappearance of cold-tolerant game and the flooding of their grazing lands near the coasts. Hunters responded by widening their range of food and collecting quantities of marine shellfish. Such adaptations can be seen in caves as far apart as Santimamiñe (Guipúzcoa), Costalena (Zaragoza [Saragossa]), and Dos Aguas (Valencia). More than 7,500 figures painted by these hunters and gatherers are known from all over the eastern and southern Iberian Peninsula, dating from 7000 to 3500 BC and giving tantalizing glimpses of their society. Located in the open air, usually beneath rock overhangs or in protecting hollows, are animated representations of people dancing (two women in voluminous skirts at Dos Aguas; three women in skirts and two nude ithyphallic men at the Barranco del Pajarejo, Albarracín), fighting, robbing honey, stalking red deer, and hunting wild goats. Some scenes are constructed around a narrative. The Remigia Cave and the series of 10 cavities with outstanding paintings at the Cingle de La Gasulla ( Castellón) next to it show scenes of remarkable activities; in cavity IX two matched groups of archers, led by a man sporting a headdress, are engaged in hand-to-hand combat, while nearby in the rock shelter of Les Dogues another combat pits two bands of archers rhythmically against each other at close range. Bees (bee) are depicted more than 200 times, often near hives, and in cavity IV of the Cingle de la Ermita del Barranc Fondo (La Valltorta, Castellón) a scene shows a long fibre ladder with men climbing it to reach a hive defended by oversized bees. Other well-preserved groups of paintings are found at Minateda and Alpera (Albacete) and around Bicorp (Valencia).

      The craft of pottery making and the cultivation of domestic cereals and livestock that characterize the Neolithic (Neolithic Period) (New Stone Age) economy in Europe reached Spain from the central Mediterranean, and perhaps from northwestern Africa, after 6000 BC. Although agriculture and husbandry were known early in eastern and southern Spain, they were assimilated extremely slowly and irregularly. Caves and sites conveniently located for hunting, like those around Montserrat (Barcelona) and at La Sarsa (Valencia) and Carigüela (Granada), were still preferred, and people lived in extended families or small bands. A different pattern prevailed in southwestern Spain and Portugal, where the advent of the Neolithic Period came later, between 4500 and 3800 BC. By 4000 BC the first big collective tombs (tomb) were built from boulders, and by 3500 BC funerary monuments were prominent in the landscapes of Alentejo (Portugal), Extremadura, and the Atlantic littoral. Veritable megalithic cemeteries arose around Pavia and Reguengos de Monsaraz (Alentejo).

      Significant changes in technology and social organization occurred after 3200 (Copper Age) BC. Skills in copper working (copper work) were accompanied by a tendency to live in larger village communities. Differences in natural resources and population density meant that regions developed unequally, and centres of innovation are known all around the southern and southwestern coasts of Spain and Portugal. Particularly impressive is the settlement at Los Millares (Almería), which extends over five acres (two hectares) and is protected by triple walls of stone reinforced with towers at regular intervals. A formidable barbican with arrow slits and guard chambers projected from the gateway. These defenses stretch over 330 yards (300 metres) and cut off a triangle of land high above the Andarax River, with a cemetery of more than 70 collective tombs lying just outside the walls. On the nearby hills, 10 or 15 smaller citadels watched over the natural approaches to the village. Modest dwellings lay inside, and an especially large building was used as a workshop to melt copper and to cast objects in simple molds; the metal (metallurgy) wastes and crucibles show that pure copper and copper mixed with a small amount of arsenic as a hardening agent were regularly selected. Mines and copper smelting slags of this date are known from the Alhamilla highlands, less than 12 miles (20 km) to the east. Smaller, undefended villages are known from El Barranquete and Almizaraque (Almería). The agricultural economy was based on growing wheat and barley, raising common domestic animals such as cattle, pigs, sheep, and goats, and probably tilling small areas of river bottomland, the only land plentifully watered in this arid region. Varied grave goods such as copper implements, personal ornaments, and decorated vessels for drinking and feasting (called bell beakers from their distinctive shape) indicate a stratified tribal society at Los Millares with marked inequality of riches and access to the good things in life. The defenses and multiple forts suggest social instability and the raiding and fighting that went with it. Similar villages and their megalithic tombs are known in the western outskirts of Sevilla (Seville), eastward at the Cabezo del Plomo (Murcia), and at Vila Nova de São Pedro and Zambujal north of Lisbon (Portugal).

      Many Copper Age villages were abandoned by 2000 BC, and Bronze Age settlement shifted to new sites, sometimes only a few hundred yards away. Steep hilltops were favoured for their inaccessibility, and in southeastern Spain the custom of burying people below the floors of their houses replaced the collective practices of the Copper Age societies. Social stratification is very marked at settlement sites like El Argar and El Oficio (Almería), where the richest women were adorned with silver diadems while their male consorts were equipped with bronze swords, axes, and polished pottery. At Fuente-Álamo (Almería) the elite lived apart from the village, in square stone houses with round granaries and a water cistern nearby. Such customs were practiced with less intensity on the southern Meseta, where fortified hamlets known as motillas dominated a flat landscape. In eastern and northern Spain people did not live in villages at all but in hamlets such as Moncín (Zaragoza) or on isolated family farms such as El Castillo (Frías de Albarracín, Teruel). In the wetter regions of Spain and Portugal, along the Atlantic coast and Bay of Biscay, so-called castros—small settlements fortified with a deep ditch and inner bank—arose, with a flourishing bronze industry linked to southern Britain and France and a custom of burying hoards of metal tools and weapons. Mining for copper ores was practiced at El Milagro and Aramo (Asturias), where the last miners abandoned their antler picks and levers deep in the underground galleries. Such differences in settlement patterns and customs indicate that Bronze Age Spain was not homogeneous but a social mosaic that included centralized tribal societies as well as looser associations based on smaller units. Such Bronze Age societies were prospering when Phoenician (Phoenicia) sailors reached Spain about 800 BC.

Phoenicians
      Venerable historical traditions recount the Phoenician voyages to found new cities. Utica, on the Tunisian coast of North Africa, was reputedly founded in 1178 BC, and by 1100 BC the Phoenician city of Tyre supposedly had a Spanish colony (Phoenicia) at Gadir (Cádiz) (Cadiz). Although intriguing, these historical traditions are unsupported by evidence. Excavations confirm that the Phoenicians settled in southern Spain after 800 BC, shortly after the traditional founding of the greatest Phoenician colony, Carthage (now in Tunisia). Their search for new commodities led them ever farther westward and was the reason for their interest in southern Spain's mineral wealth. The untapped lodes of silver and alluvial deposits of tin and gold provided essential raw materials with which to meet the increasing Assyrian demands for tribute. By 700 BC silver exported from the Río Tinto mines was so abundant that it depressed the value of silver bullion in the Assyrian world. This is the background for Phoenician interest in the far west.

      Phoenician commerce was conducted by family firms of shipowners and manufacturers who had their base in Tyre or Byblos and placed their representatives abroad. This accounts for the rich tombs of Phoenician pattern found at Almuñécar, Trayamar, and Villaricos, equipped with metropolitan goods such as alabaster wine jars, imported Greek pottery, and delicate gold jewelry. Maritime bases from the Balearic Islands to Cadiz on the Atlantic were set up to sustain commerce in salted fish, dyes, and textiles. Early Phoenician settlements are known from Morro de Mezquitilla, Toscanos, and Guadalhorce and shrines from Gorham's Cave in Gibraltar and the Temple of Melqart on the island of Sancti Petri near Cadiz. After the fall of Tyre to the Babylonians in 573 BC and the subjugation of Phoenicia, the early prosperity faded until the 4th century. Many colonies survived, however, and Abdera (Adra), Baria (Villaricos), Carmona (Carmo), Gadir (Cadiz), Malaca (Málaga), and Sexi (Almuñécar) thrived under the trading system established by Carthage for the central and western Mediterranean. Eivissa (Ibiza) became a major Carthaginian colony, and the island produced dye, salt, fish sauce, and wool. A shrine with offerings to the goddess Tanit was established in the cave at Es Cuyram, and the Balearic Islands entered Eivissa's commercial orbit after 400 BC. In 237 BC, shortly after its defeat in the First Punic War (Punic War, First), Carthage launched its conquest of southern Spain under Hamilcar Barca, Hannibal's father, and founded a new capital at Cartago Nova (Cartagena) in 228 BC. After the death of Hamilcar, Hannibal continued Carthaginian expansion in Spain, reaching the Ebro River—the limit imposed by Rome in the settlement of the First Punic War. A diplomatic dispute over Seguntum, a Roman ally in Carthaginian Spain, led to the outbreak of the Second Punic War (Punic War, Second) in 218 BC. Despite Hannibal's invasion of Italy and near victory there, Carthage suffered a crushing defeat in Spain in 206 at the hands of Publius Cornelius Scipio (Scipio Africanus (Scipio Africanus the Elder) the Elder) and ultimately lost the war.

      Greeks from Phocaea reached Spain's shores, but by 575 BC they had established only two small colonies as offshoots of Massilia ( Marseille) in the extreme northeast, at Emporion (Ampurias) and Rhode (Rosas). There was, however, an older Archaic Greek commerce in olive oil, perfumes, fine pottery, bronze jugs, armour, and figurines carried past the Strait of Gibraltar (Gibraltar, Strait of) by the Phoenicians. It developed between 800 and 550 BC, peaking sharply from 600 to 550, and was directed along the southern coast in precisely the areas of most intense Phoenician influence and settlement.

      Connected with this early commerce in the late 7th century are the stories collected by Herodotus about the kingdom of Tartessos ( Tartessus) and its ruler, King Arganthonios, who befriended the Greek captain Kolaios after his vessel was blown off course. Tartessos was portrayed as a mineral emporium where Kolaios exchanged his merchandise for a fortune in silver bullion. The Greeks remembered this kingdom as a legendary world beyond their reach. Tartessos, in fact, was the late Bronze Age society in southwestern Spain that included the mines of the Tinto River in its territory; it flourished between 800 and 550 BC.

      After 450 BC there was renewed Greek interest in Spain, although directed to the eastern peninsula rather than to the west and south. Greek objects were widely traded by Carthaginian middlemen, as the shipwreck at El Sec (Palma de Mallorca) suggests. The vessel sank with a mixed cargo including millstones, ingots, and decorated Greek pottery, some scratched with personal Punic names such as “Slave of Melqart” (MLQRT'BD) or “Baal is Merciful” (B'HLM).

Iberians (Iberian)
      The indigenous Bronze Age societies reacted vigorously to the culture of the Phoenicians and then the Greeks, adopting eastern Mediterranean values and technologies. At first the process of assimilation was exclusive, affecting few people; then it gathered pace and volume, drawing entire societies into the transformation. Everywhere the process of change was rapid and intense, lasting a few generations between 700 and 550 BC. As old patterns of patronage were overturned with the arrival of new prestige goods outside the control of the former rulers, new adventurers came onto the scene. Their traces can be seen in rich tombs (tomb) around Carmona at cemeteries such as El Acebuchal, Setefilla, and in Huelva at the cemetery of La Joya. Princely wealth from La Joya included a chariot of walnut wood, an ivory casket with silver hinges, bronze mirrors, tiered incense burners, and ornate libation jugs. Gold jewelry is known from many spectacular treasures in southern Spain, of which the regalia from El Carambolo (Sevilla) and the mixture of jewels, engraved scarabs, and tableware of silver and glass from Aliseda (Cáceres) are good examples. Glass and ivory were imported, but the impressive goldwork of filigree and granulation was probably western Phoenician craftsmanship.

      By 550 BC a distinctive Iberian culture can be recognized throughout the entire south and east of the peninsula. The name Iberian was the one used by Classical writers, although it referred to a culture having an ethnic and linguistic diversity that remained politically distinctive until its incorporation into the Roman Empire. Iberian civilization had an urban base, and indigenous cities arose after 600 BC, imitating aspects of the Phoenician and Greek colonies. They were especially large and numerous in western Andalusia (Andalucía), at Ategua, Cástulo, Ibros, Osuna, Tejada la Vieja, and Torreparedones, and, somewhat later, also at the other end of the Iberian world, in northeastern Spain at Calaceite (Teruel), Olérdola, Tivissa (Tarragona), and Ullastret (Girona). Cities were political centres with territories; while some joined into confederacies, others were independent city-states. The urban heartland in western Andalusia prospered uninterruptedly from 550 BC, but many towns in southern and eastern Spain were destroyed in the middle of the 4th century amid political turbulence attributed to Carthaginian influence.

      The economy continued to be based on agriculture, though supplemented with cultivated grapes and olives of eastern origin. Ironworking (ironwork) was introduced by the Phoenicians, and iron was available everywhere for basic agricultural tools by 400 BC; forging inlaid and damascened weapons brought the blacksmiths' art to a peak. The fast potter (pottery)'s wheel allowed mass production of crockery and storage vessels. There were many regional centres of production, and the artistic repertoire grew from geometric designs in the early stages to complex figurative compositions after 300 BC. Important centres arose at Archena, Elx (Elche), Liria, and Azaila, whose artisans depicted scenes from Iberian myth and legend. Mining for silver (silver processing) continued at the Tinto River, expanding up the Guadalquivir valley to the area around Cástulo and to the coast around Cartagena. The scale of extraction at the Tinto River was enormous, and the Phoenician and Iberian workings built up more than six million tons of silver slag. Silver was abundant in Iberian society and was widely used for tableware among the upper class. An outstanding treasure from Tivissa has dishes engraved with religious themes.

      Figurative stone sculpture shows Greek influence in the sophisticated modeling of human forms—especially in the friezes from Porcuna—and of animals. Sculptures of deer, griffins, horses, and lions were used as emblems to decorate tombs and were either placed on top of freestanding columns, as at Monforte de Cid, or displayed on tiered monuments. There are sphinxes from Agost and Salobral and a tower tomb from Pozo Moro (Albacete), built by 500 BC, which is decorated with bas reliefs of the Lord of the Underworld in a style reminiscent of 8th-century sculpture from northern Syria. Temples at the Cerro de los Santos (Albacete) and Cigarralejo (Murcia) yielded hundreds of stone human and horse figurines, respectively, while bronze was favoured for statuettes at the sanctuary of Despeñaperros (Jaén). Striking funerary sculptures of enthroned ladies, bejeweled and robed, from Elx and Baza represent the Carthaginian goddess Astarte; the throne had a side cavity to receive cremations.

      Three native writing systems developed in Iberia. An alphabet derived from Phoenician signs was used in the southwest by 650 BC, and alphabets based on Greek models arose in the southeast and in Catalonia after 425 BC. Many inscriptions exist, including letters inscribed on rolled-up lead sheets found in houses at Mogente (Valencia) and Ullastret, but they cannot be read. Only the names of places and some personal names can be recognized. The Iberian writing systems remained in use until the Roman conquest.

      Inland Spain followed a different course. To the west and north developed a world that has been described as Celtic. Iron was known from 700 BC, and agricultural and herding economies were practiced by people who lived in small villages or, in the northwest, in fortified compounds called castros. The people spoke Indo-European languages (Celtic, Lusitanian) but were divided culturally and politically into dozens of independent tribes and territories; they left behind hundreds of place-names. Celts, living on the central mesetas in direct contact with the Iberians, adopted many Iberian cultural fashions, including wheel-made pottery, rough stone sculptures of pigs and bulls, and the eastern Iberian alphabet (inscriptions on coins and on the bronze plaque from Botorrita [Zaragoza]), but they did not organize themselves into urban settlements until the 2nd century BC. Metalworking flourished, and distinctive neck rings (torques) of silver or gold, along with brooches and bangles, attest to their technical skills. The Mediterranean way of life reached the interior only after the Romans conquered Numantia in 133 BC and Asturias in 19 BC.

Richard John Harrison

Roman (ancient Rome) Spain
The conquest
      The Romans became interested in Spain after the conquest of much of the region by Carthage, which had lost control of Sicily and Sardinia after the First Punic War. A dispute over Saguntum, which Hannibal had seized, led to a second war between Rome and Carthage.

      Although the Romans had originally intended to take the war to Spain on their own initiative, they were forced to do so defensively to prevent Carthaginian reinforcements from reaching Hannibal after his rapid invasion of Italy. Roman generals, however, had great success, conquering large sections of Spain before a disastrous defeat in 211 BC forced them back to the Ebro River. In 210 Scipio Africanus (Scipio Africanus the Elder) resumed Rome's effort to remove the Carthaginians from Spain, which was achieved following the defeat of the Carthaginian armies at Baecula (Bailén) in 208 and Ilipa (Alcalá del Río, near Sevilla) in 207. Scipio returned to Rome, where he held the consulship in 205, and went on to defeat Hannibal at Zama in northern Africa in 202.

      After the expulsion of the Carthaginians from Spain, the Romans controlled only that part of the peninsula which had been affected by the war: the eastern seaboard and the valley of the river Baetis (Guadalquivir). Although over the next 30 years the Romans fought almost continuously, chiefly against Iberian tribes of the northeast, against the Celtiberians in the northeastern Meseta, and against the Lusitanians (Lusitani) in the west, there is little sign that this opposition to Roman rule was coordinated, and, although the area under Roman control increased in size, it did so only slowly. The region was divided into the two military areas (provinciae) of Nearer and Further Spain (Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior) in 197, after which elected magistrates (praetors) were sent out, usually for two-year periods, to command the armies; the Romans, however, were more interested in winning victories over Spanish tribes (and so gaining the accolade of a triumph—a ceremonial victory march through the city of Rome) than in establishing any organized administration. After the campaigns of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus (father of the famous tribune of the same name) and Lucius Postumius Albinus in 180–178, treaties were arranged with the Celtiberians and probably with other tribes, as a result of which Roman taxation seems to have become more regular.

      In the middle of the 2nd century, during a period when Rome (ancient Rome) was not otherwise occupied by fighting in the eastern Mediterranean or Africa, large-scale wars broke out in Celtiberia in the northern part of the Meseta and in Lusitania, which resulted in a series of consuls (senior magistrates) being sent to Spain. These struggles continued sporadically for the next two decades, during which Roman armies were defeated on several occasions, notably in 137 when an entire army commanded by the consul Gaius Hostilius Mancinus was forced to surrender to the Celtiberians. The war against the Lusitanians was ended only by the assassination of their leader, Viriathus, in 139, and the Celtiberians were finally subdued in 133 by the capture of their main town, Numantia (near modern Soria), after a prolonged siege conducted by Publius Scipio Aemilianus ( Scipio Africanus the Younger), the grandson by adoption of Hannibal's opponent.

      In the 1st century BC Spain was involved in the civil wars afflicting the Roman world. In 82 BC, after Lucius Cornelius Sulla (Sulla, Lucius Cornelius) captured Rome from the supporters of Gaius Marius (Marius, Gaius) (who had died four years earlier), the Marian governor of Nearer Spain, Quintus Sertorius (Sertorius, Quintus), relying partly on his good relations with local Spanish communities, successfully frustrated the attempts of two Roman commanders, Quintus Metellus Pius (Metellus Pius, Quintus Caecilius) and the young Pompey (Pompey the Great), to regain control of the peninsula, until Sertorius's assassination in 72 resulted in the collapse of his cause. During the wars between Julius Caesar (Caesar, Julius) and Pompey, Caesar rapidly secured Spain by a victory over the Pompeians at Ilerda (Ilerda, Campaign of) (Lleida); but after Pompey's murder in Egypt in 48 his sons, Gnaeus and Sextus Pompey, raised the south of the peninsula and posed a serious threat until Caesar himself defeated Gnaeus at the Battle of Munda (Munda, Battle of) (in present-day Sevilla province) in 45. Not until the reign of Augustus, who, after the defeat of Mark Antony (Antony, Mark) at the Battle of Actium (Actium, Battle of) in 31, became master of the entire Roman Empire, was the military conquest of the peninsula complete. The last area, the Cantabrian Mountains in the north, took from 26 to 19 BC to subdue and required the attention of Augustus himself in 26 and 25 and of his best general, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa (Agrippa, Marcus Vipsanius), in 19. It was probably after this that the peninsula was divided into three provinces: Baetica, with its provincial capital at Corduba (Córdoba); Lusitania, with its capital at Emerita Augusta (Mérida); and Tarraconensis (still called Hispania Citerior in inscriptions), based on Tarraco ( Tarragona).

      It does not seem that the Romans pursued a policy of deliberate “Romanization” of their Spanish provinces, at least for the first two centuries of their presence there. Scipio left some of his wounded veterans at Italica (Santiponce, near Sevilla) in 206; the Roman Senate allowed a settlement of 4,000 offspring of Roman soldiers and native women to be established at Carteia (near Algeciras) in 171; and further veteran settlements were probably placed at Corduba and Valentia (Valencia) during the 2nd century BC. There had certainly been migration from Italy to the silver-mining areas in the south during this period, and in Catalonia Roman villas, whose owners were producing wine for export, appeared at Baetulo (Badalona) before the end of the 2nd century. It was not until the period of Julius Caesar and Caesar Augustus (Augustus), however, that full-scale Roman-style foundations (coloniae) were established for the benefit of Roman legionary veterans, some on already-existing native towns (as at Tarraco), some on sites where there was relatively small-scale habitation previously, as at Emerita Augusta. By the early 1st century AD there were nine such foundations in Baetica, eight in Tarraconensis, and five in Lusitania. An inscription from one of these colonies, the colonia Genetiva Iulia at Urso (Osuna), which contains material from the time of its foundation under Julius Caesar, shows a community of Roman citizens with their own magistrates and religious officials, a town council, and common land assigned to the town.

      During the reign of Augustus and through the period up to the overthrow of the emperor Nero in AD 68, native communities also began to model themselves on the Roman pattern, setting up public buildings (including a forum, buildings for local government, temples, and bathhouses); some acquired the status of municipium, by which the inhabitants gained the so-called Latin right (jus Latii), which afforded privileges under Roman law and allowed the magistrates of the town to become Roman citizens. This process was advanced rapidly during the reign of the Flavian emperors— Vespasian (AD 69–79), Titus (AD 79–81), and Domitian (AD 81–96). Vespasian is said to have granted the Latin right to all the communities of Spain, and, although this is almost certainly an exaggeration, epigraphic evidence from towns in Baetica (especially a long inscription on six bronze tablets from Irni [near Algámitas, Sevilla] unearthed in 1981) reveals the existence of a general charter for these Latin municipia issued in the reign of Domitian, requiring them to adopt the forms of Roman law and to organize themselves on lines not unlike those used by the coloniae of Roman citizens. It is likely that this particular interest in Spain resulted from the support given by Spanish communities to Servius Sulpicius Galba, who, while governor of Tarraconensis in AD 68, had participated in the uprising against Nero and had been emperor for a few months in 68–69.

      The extent to which the upper classes in the towns and cities of Spain, of both immigrant and native stock, were part of the elite of the Roman Empire as a whole in the 1st century AD can be seen by the appearance of men of Spanish origin in the life of Rome itself. These include the philosopher and writer Lucius Annaeus Seneca (Seneca, Lucius Annaeus) (c. 4 BC–AD 65) from Corduba, who was the tutor and subsequent adviser to Nero, and the poet Martial (c. AD 38–c. 103), born at Bilbilis (near Calatayud)—a municipium since the time of Augustus—who was active in Rome under the Flavian (Flavian dynasty) emperors. A growing number of Roman senators were natives of Spain, including Trajan and Hadrian, who later became emperors (AD 98–117 and 117–138, respectively); both came from Italica.

      The same period saw a progressive reduction in the number of Roman troops stationed in the peninsula. During the Cantabrian War under Augustus the number of legions had risen to seven or eight, but these were reduced to three by the reign of his successor, Tiberius, and to one by the time of Galba's accession. From Vespasian's time to the end of the empire the legionary force in Spain was limited to the VII Gemina Felix legion, stationed at Legio (León) in the north. Both this legion and the other auxiliary units in Spain seem to have been recruited increasingly from the peninsula itself, and recruits from Spain served throughout the Roman world, from Britain to Syria. From the time of Vespasian onward, military activity in Spain itself was restricted in scope and occasional, such as the repulsion of an attack by the Mauri (probably Imazighen [Berbers]) from Africa in the 170s and raids by barbarians during the chaotic period of the later 3rd century, which, according to some late sources, involved the sack of Tarraco. It seems probable that the legion VII Gemina was split in the late 3rd or 4th century, with one part being transferred to the comitatenses, the mobile army that accompanied the emperor. Certainly the remaining forces in Spain, further reduced by the removal of soldiers to fight in the civil war that followed the attempt by the usurper Constantine to seize power from the emperor Honorius in 406, were unable to provide much resistance to the Vandals, Suebi, and Alani, who swept across the Pyrenees in 409.

      From the time of Augustus, the work of the provincial governors, who under the Roman Republic had been commanders in military areas, became more focused on the administration of their provinces. Baetica, the most thoroughly pacified of the three Augustan provinces, was governed by a proconsul chosen by the Senate in Rome, while Tarraconensis and Lusitania had governors appointed directly by the emperor (legati Augusti). These provincial divisions continued to be used down to the time of the emperor Diocletian (AD 284–305), who subdivided Tarraconensis into three sections—Gallaecia, Tarraconensis, and Carthaginiensis. In Baetica, financial matters were handled by another magistrate (quaestor), as had been the case under the republic, while in Augustus's provinces this work was done by imperial agents (procuratores Augusti). The administration of law, which had always been the responsibility of the provincial commanders, was undertaken at a number of centres, each of which had a district (conventus) attached to it: in Baetica these were Corduba, which was the provincial capital, Astigi (Ecija), Gades (Cadiz), and Hispalis (Sevilla); in Tarraconensis, Tarraco itself, Caesaraugusta (Zaragoza), Nova Carthago (Cartagena), Clunia (Peñalba de Castro), Asturica (Astorga), Lucus Augusti (Lugo), and Bracara Augusta (Braga); and, in Lusitania, Scallabis (Santarém), Pax Iulia (Beja), and the provincial capital, Emerita Augusta. The larger number in Tarraconensis, the result of the larger geographic size of that province, led to the appointment of an additional official (the legatus iuridicus) to help with the work, at least from the time of the emperor Tiberius (AD 14–37) onward. The extent to which the governor was regarded as the source of law in the province can be seen from the requirement set forth in the charters issued to municipia that local magistrates should post, at the place where they dispensed justice, a copy of the governor's edict specifying which categories of legal suits he was prepared to hear.

      The economy of Roman Spain, as throughout the ancient world, was primarily agricultural. In addition to the food grown for local consumption, there was a considerable export trade in agricultural products, which has been demonstrated by the investigation of shipwrecks and amphorae (amphora) found in Spain and elsewhere in the Roman world. Particularly important are the amphorae from Monte Testaccio, a hill in Rome, still some 160 feet (50 m) high, that is composed mostly of the remains of amphorae in which olive oil had been carried from Baetica to Rome in the first three centuries AD. Wine from Baetica and Tarraconensis, even though not highly regarded in Rome, was shipped in quantity from the 1st century BC to the mid-2nd century AD. Spain also was famous for the production of piquant fish sauces, made especially from tuna and mackerel, of which the most reknowned was garum. Glass, fine pottery, and esparto grass (for making ropes and baskets) were also exported from Spain. Mining was another highly important economic activity; Spain was one of the most important mining centres in the Roman world.

      Religion in Spain was shaped by the spread of Roman control. Along the eastern coast and in the Baetis valley the anthropomorphic deities of the Romans absorbed or replaced earlier nonanthropomorphic gods, particularly in the Romanized towns and cities. In areas of Greek and Phoenician colonization, local gods were readily identified with Roman ones, the most striking example being the cult of Hercules/Melqart at Gades. In the north and west, native deities survived longer. In the imperial period the worship of the emperor was widespread, especially in the provincial capitals, where it provided a focus for expressions of loyalty to the emperor, and priesthoods in the imperial cult were an important part of the careers of local dignitaries. Mystery religions (mystery religion) from the eastern Mediterranean appeared in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, particularly that of the Egyptian goddess Isis. Christianity became established in the 2nd century, and the extent of its organization is attested not only by accounts of martyrdoms during the 3rd century but also by the records of one of the earliest councils at Elvira, about 306. It is noteworthy that Hosius (Ossius (Hosius Of Córdoba); c. 257–357), bishop of Corduba, acted as religious adviser to the emperor Constantine after his conversion in 312.

Roman remains
      Monumental remains of the Roman occupation can be seen throughout Spain, of which some of the most remarkable are the city walls of Tarragona and Lugo, the aqueducts at Segovia, Mérida, and Tarragona, the reservoir, theatre, and public buildings at Mérida, the bridges at Alcántara and Córdoba, and the towns of Italica and Ampurias (Emporion). Particularly fine collections of Roman art and remains can be seen in the National Archaeological Museums in Madrid and Tarragona and the provincial archaeological museums in Mérida, Sevilla, Zaragoza, and Barcelona, as well as in Conimbriga (in Portugal).

John S. Richardson

Visigothic (Visigoth) Spain to c. 500
      Roman rule in Spain, and elsewhere in the Western Empire, was undermined during the 5th century by the migrations of Germanic (Germanic peoples) tribes that had settled along the Roman frontier and that came under pressure from expansion by the Huns (Hun). One such group, subsequently known as the Visigoths (Visigoth), a people that lived along the Danube River and converted to Arian (Arianism) Christianity, was authorized by the emperor Valens to settle in the empire in 376. Mistreatment by local officials and the failue of the empire to uphold its end of the bargain caused the Goths to revolt. In the subsequent Battle of Adrianople (Adrianople, Battle of) in 378, Valens was killed and his armies were destroyed by the Goths. Despite the extent of their victory, the Goths came to terms with the emperor Theodosius I and settled in the empire as foederati (“federated allies”). Theodosius's heirs, however, were less successful at containing the various Germanic peoples that had moved into the empire. In 406 the Ostrogoths attempted to invade Italy, and the efforts to stop them allowed the Vandals (Vandal), Alans (Alani), and Suebi (Suevi) to enter Gaul and then 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.

      The Visigoths also posed difficulties for Theosodius's heirs. The new king, Alaric, rose in rebellion soon after the death of the emperor in 395 but was kept in check by the general Stilicho (Stilicho, Flavius). Rome's failure to make concessions to Alaric and the massacre of barbarian soldiers in the imperial army following Stilicho's execution in 408 led to Alaric's invasion of Italy and sack of Rome in 410, which sent shock waves throughout the empire. Alaric died soon after, however, and was succeeded by Athaulf (Ataulphus), who moved into southern Gaul. Failing to win recognition for his people as foederati, or allies, of the empire, he was forced into Tarraconensis, where he was assassinated in 415. Under his successor, Wallia (415–418), 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. In 418 the Roman emperor Honorius 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 to 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 Roman Catholic 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 (Hun). However, the unchecked deterioration of the Western Empire resulted in the rupture of the fragile alliance between Rome and the Visigoths. Under the rulership of Euric (466–484), 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 six million, were Hispano-Romans, as compared with 200,000 barbarians. Hispano-Romans held many administrative positions and continued to be governed by Roman law embodied in the Theodosian Code. The Codex Euricianus (“Code of Euric”), which was completed in 475 or 483 or under Euric's son a generation later, was written in Latin and designed as the personal law of the Visigoths. It also addressed relations between Euric's Roman and Visigothic subjects. In 506 Euric's son Alaric II (484–507) published a legal code, known as the Breviarium Alariciarum (“Breviary of Alaric”) or the Lex Romana Visigothorum (“Roman Law of the Visigoths”), 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 I and the Franks (Frank) defeated Alaric II at Vouillé 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). Meanwhile, as part of his effort to reconquer the Western Empire, the Byzantine emperor Justinian (Justinian I) 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. Although the Visigoths were Christian, they held to the Arian heresy against the Roman Catholic Christianity 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. Because the Suebi maintained an independent kingdom in Galicia and the Basques (Basque) steadfastly opposed all attempts at subjugation, the Visigoths did not control the entire peninsula. To the great satisfaction of the Hispano-Romans, Byzantine (Byzantine Empire) authority was restored in the southeast early in the 6th century. However, in the second half of the century Leovigild (568–586), 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. A committed Arian Christian, Leovigild sought to unify the kingdom by encouraging conversion of the Catholic Hispano-Roman population to his faith. Despite his efforts to bring the Arian faith more in line with Catholic teaching and his emphasis on conversion rather than compulsion, Leovigild's attempt was ultimately unsuccessful and may have contributed to the failed revolt of his son Hermenegild (Hermenegild, Saint) (later St. Hermenegild), who had accepted Roman Catholicism and hoped, perhaps, to become king. Hermenegild's rebellion, however, may have been incidental to his conversion, and Leovigild's policy of uniting this people through religion would be vindicated by his other son, Reccared.

      Recognizing that the majority of the people adhered to the Catholic faith, Reccared (586–601) repudiated his father's religion 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 (621–631) 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. Indeed, both Hermenegild and Reccared had close ties with St. Leander of Sevilla, who was involved with their conversions and was the brother of the encyclopaedist Isidore. 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 (Toledo, councils of). 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. Because the Visigoths had a reputation for assassinating their kings, the bishops tried to safeguard the ruler by means of an anointment ceremony. 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 Judiciorum, a code of law promulgated about 654 by the Visigothic king Recceswinth (649–672), was fundamentally Roman. Although Germanic (Germanic law) 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 Judiciorum 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 (Isidore of Sevilla, Saint), bishop of Sevilla (Hispalis) from about 600 to 636, a friend and counselor of kings. In addition to his history of the Visigoths and theological treatises, his chief contribution to medieval civilization was the Etymologiae (Etymologies), an encyclopaedic work that attempted to summarize the wisdom of the ancient world.

      Toward the end of the 7th century, a critical time in Visigothic history began. The deposition, through deception, of King Wamba (672–680), a capable ruler who tried to reform the military organization, was a portent of future problems. As agitation continued, Wamba's successors made scapegoats of the Jews, compelling them to accept the Christian religion and threatening them with slavery. After the death of Witiza (700–710), the persistent turbulence of the nobility thwarted the succession of his son and allowed Roderick, duke of Baetica (710–711), to claim the throne. Determined to oust Roderick, Witiza's family apparently summoned the Muslims (Islāmic world) in North Africa to their aid. Subsequently, Ṭāriq ibn Ziyād, the Muslim governor of Tangier, landed at Calpe (Gibraltar) in 711 and routed King Roderick and the Visigoths near 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 vanished, its memory inspired the kings of Asturias- León-Castile to begin the reconquest (Reconquista) of Spain.

Christian (Christianity) Spain from the Muslim invasion to about 1260
      Despite ongoing warfare among its various Christian kingdoms, a recurring theme in Christian Spain from the Islamic invasion of the 8th century to the coming of the Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand (Ferdinand II) and Isabella (Isabella I), in the late 15th century was the unification of the Iberian Peninsula under Christian rule. The Islamic conquest disrupted whatever measure of unity the Visigoths had achieved and raised new religious, cultural, legal, linguistic, and ethnic barriers to assimilation with the native population. A number of tiny Christian states eventually rose from obscurity in the northern mountains and, prompted by self-preservation and religio-cultural hostility toward Islam, initiated the Reconquista (Reconquest). Christian success was in direct proportion to the strength of Islamic Spain at any given time. When Islamic power waned, the Christians usually advanced their frontiers. The kings of Asturias-León-Castile, declaring themselves the heirs of the Visigoths, claimed hegemony over the entire peninsula. However, the rulers of Portugal, Navarre (Navarra) (Navarra), and Aragon- Catalonia (Spanish: Cataluña; Catalan: Catalunya), whose frontiers began to be delineated in the 11th and 12th centuries, repudiated and often undermined the aspirations of their larger neighbour. The Reconquista was nearly completed by the middle of the 13th century, by which time the Muslims retained only the small kingdom of Granada (Arabic: Gharnāṭah) in vassalage to Castile until 1492.

      The Trastámara dynasty, which came to power in Castile in the late 14th century, gave a new impetus to the search for peninsular unity by using marriage, diplomacy, and war to acquire dominion over the neighbouring Christian kingdoms. At the same time, the Trastámaras struggled to extend royal power against the resistance of the nobles. Ferdinand and Isabella linked Aragon and Castile by marriage and also brought the Reconquista to a conclusion by conquering Granada. However, as they were unable to incorporate Portugal into a family union by marriage, the unification of the peninsula was incomplete. The political union of Castile and Aragon could not by itself, of course, overcome the two realms' centuries-old diversity of languages, laws, and traditions.

The Christian states, 711–1035
      Soon after the Islamic invasion, fleeing Visigothic nobles and the mountaineers of Asturias united under the leadership of Pelayo (718–737), a Gothic lord, in opposition to the Muslim forces. Later generations acclaimed Pelayo's victory over the Muslims at Covadonga, about 718, as the beginning of the Reconquista and the “salvation of Spain.” Alfonso I (739–757) expanded the Asturian kingdom by occupying Galicia after the withdrawal of rebellious Imazighen garrisoned there. He also created an uninhabited no-man's-land between Christian and Islamic Spain by devastating the Duero River valley to the south. The Basques apparently recovered their independence in the western Pyrenees, while the Franks drove the Muslims from Septimania (southwestern France) and moved into northeastern Spain. Although Charlemagne failed to take Zaragoza (Saraqusṭah) in 778, his troops captured Barcelona in 801 and occupied Catalonia. This region, later known as the Spanish March, consisted of several counties under Frankish rule and long maintained strong political and cultural connections first to the Carolingian (Carolingian dynasty) empire and then to the kingdom of France. Thus, for several centuries Catalans looked to the north.

      By contrast, the Asturians turned to the south. After advancing his chief seat to Oviedo, Alfonso II (791–842) attempted to recreate Visigothic institutions. In the late 9th century Alfonso III (866–910) took advantage of internal dissension in Islamic Spain to plunder enemy territory and to seize notable strongholds such as Porto. He also initiated the repopulation of the lands reaching southward to the Duero that had been deserted for about a century. His construction of numerous castles to defend his eastern frontier against Muslim assaults gave that area its distinctive character and thus its name, Castile. During this time the earliest known Christian chronicles of the Reconquista were written, and they deliberately tried to demonstrate the historical connection between the Visigothic and Asturian monarchies. Portraying themselves as the legitimate heirs of Visigothic authority and tradition, the Asturians self-consciously declared their responsibility for the Reconquista of Islamic Spain.

      However, Asturian leadership did not go unchallenged: King Sancho I Garcés (905–926) began to forge a strong Basque kingdom with its centre at Pamplona in Navarre, and Count Wilfred of Barcelona (873–898)—whose descendants were to govern Catalonia until the 15th century—asserted his independence from the Franks by extending his rule over several small Catalan counties.

      The apparent weakness of Islamic Spain and the growth of the Asturian kingdom encouraged García I (910–914) to transfer the seat of his power from Oviedo southward to the city of León. Nevertheless, any expectation that Islamic rule was set to end was premature. During the 10th century the caliphs of Cordóba (Córdoba) (Qurṭabah) not only restored order and unity in Islamic Spain but also renewed their raids on the Christian north. Although the Christians suffered great destruction, they occasionally won some victories. The triumph of Ramiro II (931–951) over the great caliph Abd al-Raḥmān IIIʿ at Simancas in 939 was extraordinary, but within his own dominions Ramiro encountered increasing hostility from the Castilians. As a frontier people hardened by exposure to the dangers of daily Islamic raids, they were disinclined to bow to Leonese tradition and law. Fernán González (c. 930–970), the count of Castile, defied Ramiro and established the foundations for the later independence of Castile.

      With Islamic power steadily increasing in the later 10th century, the Christians suffered a corresponding decline. When ambassadors representing Ramiro III of León (966–984), Sancho II Garcés of Navarre (970–994), Count Borrell II of Barcelona (c. 940–992), and García Fernández, count of Castile (970–995), pledged homage and paid tribute to the caliph at Cordóba, the abject status of the Christian rulers was manifest for all to see. Yet, despite their acknowledgement of Islamic hegemony, the Leonese kings, adhering to Asturian custom, continued to assert their rights as heirs to the Visigothic tradition. Their claim to domination over the entire peninsula was now expressed in the idea of a Hispanic empire centred at León (Leon). As the century drew to a close, the imperial idea surely offered some comfort when Abū ʿĀmir al-Manṣūr (Manṣūr, Abū ʿĀmir al-) (Almanzor (Manṣūr, Abū ʿĀmir al-)), who exercised dictatorial authority in the caliph's name, regularly ravaged all the Christian states. His semiannual plundering expeditions in the north not only brought many slaves to Cordóba but also helped to divert the Muslims from his usurpation of power. After defeating Count Borrell in 985, he burned Barcelona and three years later plundered León; in 997 he sacked the great Christian shrine of Santiago de Compostela. However, with the death of al-Manṣūr, the caliphate of Cordóba disintegrated.

      The demise of Islamic rule allowed the Christian states to breathe easily again. The ensuing civil wars among the Muslims enabled Ramon Borrell, count of Barcelona (992–1018), to avenge past affronts by sacking Cordóba in 1010. Alfonso V of León (999–1028) exploited the situation to restore his kingdom and to enact the first general laws for his realm in a council held at León in 1017. Once the threat of Islam seemed to be removed, the Christian rulers resumed old quarrels. Sancho III Garcés (the Great), king of Navarre (1000–35), was able to establish an undisputed ascendancy in Christian Spain for some years. As communication with the lands of northern Christendom increased, French influence grew ever stronger. French pilgrims trod the newly developing route to Compostela; monastic life was reformed according to the Cluniac observance; and various northern social ideas and customs altered the life of the nobility. Already in control of the counties of Aragon, Sobrarbe, and Ribagorza, and including Count Berenguer Ramon I (Ramon Berenguer I) of Barcelona (1018–35) among his vassals, Sancho III continued his aggrandizement by overrunning the county of Castile and challenging Bermudo III of León (1028–37). Sancho completed his triumph by seizing the city of León and taking the title of emperor in 1034, but his death the next year brought an end to the unity he had achieved.

The medieval empire, 1035–1157
      By extending his rule over all the Christian states except Catalonia, Sancho III made an apparent advance toward the unification of Christian Spain. By choosing to treat his dominions as a private patrimony to be divided among his sons, however, he turned away from the Leonese tradition of a united, indivisible kingdom. He assigned the kingdom of Navarre to García III (García III (or IV)) (1035–54); Castile to Ferdinand I (1035–65); and Aragon to Ramiro I (1035–63), who annexed Sobrarbe and Ribagorza in 1045 after the murder of a fourth brother, Gonzalo. As each of the brothers assumed the title king, Castile and Aragon thenceforward were regarded as kingdoms. Bermudo III recovered León after Sancho III's death, but Ferdinand I defeated and killed him in 1037. Taking possession of the kingdom of León, he also assumed the imperial title. During the ensuing 30 years Ferdinand sought hegemony over all of Spain, triumphing over his brothers on the battlefield, capturing Coimbra, and reducing the Muslim rulers (reyes de taifas) of Toledo (Ṭulayṭulah), Sevilla (Ishbīliya), and Badajoz (Baṭalyaws) to tributary status.

      Meanwhile, Count Ramon Berenguer I of Barcelona (1035–76) was actively fostering Catalan interests and relationships among the lords of Languedoc in southern France. He also published the earliest legal texts included in the compilation of Catalan law later known as the Usatges de Barcelona (“Usages of Barcelona”).

      Adhering to his father's practice, just before his death Ferdinand I divided his realms between his sons: Sancho II (1065–72) received Castile, and Alfonso VI (1065–1109) obtained León. However, the two brothers quarreled, and, following Sancho's murder in 1072, Alfonso VI assumed the kingship of both Castile and León. Before acknowledging him as their monarch, the Castilian nobility forced Alfonso to swear that he had not caused his brother's death. Among Alfonso's new Castilian vassals was Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, known to history as El Cid (Cid, the) Campeador (from the Arabic sīdī, meaning “lord”). Driven into exile by jealousies at court, he entered the service of the Muslim king of Zaragoza and later provided protection for the king of Valencia.

      At first Alfonso VI took advantage of the disunity among the kingdoms of Islamic Spain to demand tribute from them, but he eventually determined to subjugate them. The surrender of Toledo in 1085 not only extended his frontiers to the Tagus River but also had great symbolic value. Possession of Toledo, the ancient seat of the Visigothic monarchy, enhanced Alfonso's claims to peninsular supremacy, which he expressed when he styled himself “Emperor of Toledo” as well as “Emperor of Spain.” According to Muslim sources, he described himself as “Emperor of the Two Religions,” thus underscoring his dominion over both Christians and Muslims. Thousands of Muslims and Jews, who in earlier times usually had retreated southward rather than submit to Christian rule, elected to remain within his kingdom. Also living in Toledo and the vicinity were many Mozarabs (Mozarab), or Arabic-speaking Christians. In succeeding generations the interaction among these differing religious and cultural traditions became especially tense.

      Frightened by the fall of Toledo, the other Muslim kings of Spain appealed for help to the Almoravids of Morocco, an ascetic Islamic sect of Amazigh (Berber) zealots. After routing Alfonso's army at Zalacca (Al-Zallāqah) in 1086, the Almoravids also overran Islamic Spain's petty kingdoms. By restoring Islamic Spain's unity, the Almoravids halted any further progress in the Reconquista and forced Alfonso to remain on the defensive thereafter. Although El Cid successfully repulsed the Almoravid attack on Valencia, his followers had to abandon the city after his death in 1099. Subsequently all of eastern Spain as far north as Zaragoza came under Almoravid domination.

      As Christians and Muslims contended for control of the peninsula, steadily increasing northern European influences emphasized the links of Christian Spain with the wider world of Christendom. The leading proponent of the general reform of the church, Pope Gregory VII (Gregory VII, Saint) (1073–85), demanded liturgical uniformity by requiring the acceptance of the Roman liturgy in place of the native Mozarabic rite that dated to earliest times. He also claimed papal (papacy) sovereignty over Spain, but, when the Spanish rulers ignored him, he did not pursue the issue. While French monks and clerics found opportunities for ecclesiastical advancement in Spain, numerous French knights came to take part in the wars of the Reconquista. The most fortunate among them, the cousins Raymond and Henry of Burgundy, married Alfonso VI's daughters, Urraca and Teresa, and thereby became the ancestors of the dynasties that governed León and Portugal until the late 14th century.

      After succeeding her father, Urraca (1109–26), then widowed, married Alfonso I (the Battler), who served as the king of Aragon and Navarre from 1104–34. The tension and conflict that plagued their marriage from the beginning finally caused Alfonso I to withdraw to Aragon. Alfonso VII (1126–57), Urraca's son by Raymond of Burgundy, restored the prestige of the Leonese monarchy. His coronation as emperor—the first and last imperial coronation in Spain—in the cathedral of León in 1135 was intended to assert Leonese claims to ascendancy throughout Spain; however, the newly formed federation of Aragon and Catalonia and the newly independent kingdom of Portugal soon offered a daunting challenge to Leonese predominance.

      After dissolving his marriage to Urraca, Alfonso I extended his frontiers to the Ebro River by seizing Zaragoza in 1118. Then, marching directly into the heart of Islamic Spain, he liberated the Mozarabs (Mozarab) of Granada (Gharnāṭah) and settled them in Aragon. Thereafter, the Mozarabic population left in Islamic Spain appears to have been minimal. Before he died, Alfonso willed his realms to the military orders of the Hospitallers (Knights of Malta) and Templars (Templar) and to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, but his people rejected this arrangement. The Navarrese, who had been ruled by the kings of Aragon since 1076, chose their own monarch, García IV (García IV (or V)) Ramírez (1134–50), and the Aragonese asked Ramiro II (1134–37), the deceased king's brother, to leave the monastic life and accept the kingship. After marrying and fathering a child, Petronila, who could inherit the kingdom, Ramiro returned to his monastery. Petronila was betrothed in 1137 to Count Ramon Berenguer IV of Barcelona (1131–62), who assumed responsibility for the governance of the kingdom. Alfonso II (1162–96), the child of this marriage, united under his rule the kingdom of Aragon and the county of Barcelona. Usually referred to as the Crown of Aragon, the federation of the kingdom and the county endured until the Middle Ages despite countless vicissitudes and disparate linguistic and cultural traditions. Catalonia soon emerged as a maritime power in the Mediterranean, while Aragon, an inland kingdom with an agricultural and pastoral economy, was controlled by a landed aristocracy. Both regions retained their characteristic customs and laws and vigorously opposed all efforts at assimilation.

      The county of Portugal—originally part of the kingdom of León—which Alfonso VI had assigned to Teresa and Henry of Burgundy, also began to move from autonomy to independence. Teresa and Henry's son, Afonso I Henriques (1128–85), repudiated Leonese suzerainty and took the royal title about 1139. By becoming a papal vassal and promising to pay a yearly tribute, he hoped to safeguard himself against Leonese reprisals. Only in 1179 did the pope formally address him as king.

      Meanwhile, internal dissension and the rise of the Almohads, a new Islamic Amazigh confederation based in Morocco, led to the disintegration of the Almoravid empire. The Christian rulers, seizing the opportunity offered by civil war among the Muslims, raided at will throughout Islamic Spain and conquered some important places. Afonso I, aided by a fleet of Crusaders from northern Europe, captured Lisbon in 1147, while Alfonso VII and Ramón Berenguer IV, supported by a fleet from Pisa (Italy), seized the great seaport of Almería (Al-Marīyah) on the southeastern coast. The fall of Tortosa (Ṭurṭūshah) and Lérida (Lāridah) to the count of Barcelona in the next year advanced the county's frontier to the mouth of the Ebro and concluded the expansion of Catalonia. Nevertheless, the Almohads, after crushing the Almoravids, invaded the peninsula and recovered Almería in 1157. By subjugating all of Islamic Spain, the Almohads were effectively able to halt any further Christian advance.

The rise of Castile and Aragon
      Alfonso VII subverted the idea of a Leonese empire, and its implied aspiration to dominion over a unified peninsula, by the division of his kingdom between his sons: Sancho III (1157–58) received Castile and Ferdinand II (1157–88) received León. Although the Christians remained on the defensive in the face of Almohad power, Alfonso VIII of Castile (1158–1214) and Alfonso II of Aragon concluded a treaty in 1179 apportioning their expected conquest of Islamic Spain between them. Castile retained the right of reconquest to Andalusia and Murcia (Mursīyah), while Aragon claimed Valencia. Nevertheless, Alfonso VIII's efforts to dominate the other Christian rulers provoked contention and warfare and thwarted any concerted effort against the Almohads. Thus, in 1195 the king of Castile suffered a disastrous defeat by the Almohads at Alarcos (Al-Arak), south of Toledo. The other Christian monarchs, acknowledging that the Almohads threatened them all, came to terms with Castile. With the collaboration of Sancho VII of Navarre (1194–1234) and Peter II of Aragon (1196–1213) and Portuguese and Leonese troops, in 1212 Alfonso VIII triumphed over the Almohads at Las Navas de Tolosa (Navas de Tolosa, Battle of Las) (Al-ʿIqāb). The victory by the Christian forces was significant, marking the beginning of the end of the Almohad empire and opening Andalusia to the Christians.

      While the kings of Aragon took an active role in the Reconquista, as counts of Barcelona they also had important relationships in southern France, where several lords were their vassals. When Pope Innocent III proclaimed a Crusade to check the spread of the Albigensian (Albigenses) heresy throughout that area, Peter II, though no friend of the heretics, realized that his feudal rights and interests there were endangered by the arrival of northern French knights. In 1213 Peter was defeated and killed by the Crusading army at Muret after he went to the aid of his brother-in-law, the count of Toulouse. In the generation after his death, Catalan ambition and power were steadily curtailed in southern France.

      As the Almohad empire fell apart in the second quarter of the 13th century, the Christian rulers reconquered nearly all of Spain. James I of Aragon (1213–76) utilized Catalan naval power in 1229 to conquer the kingdom of Majorca (Mayūrqah), the first significant step in Catalan expansion in the Mediterranean. The subjugation of the kingdom of Valencia was more difficult, especially as James was diverted temporarily by the expectation of acquiring Navarre. When Sancho VII died without children, the people of Navarre accepted his nephew, Count Theobald (Theobald I) of Champagne (1234–53), as their king. Thereafter, French interest in Navarre steadily increased. Forced to give up his aspirations there, James I resumed the war against the Muslims and captured Valencia in 1238, bringing thousands of Muslims under his rule.

      Meanwhile, Alfonso IX of León (1188–1230) drove southward to the Guadiana River (Wadi Ānā) and captured Mérida (Māridah) and Badajoz in 1230, clearing the way to Sevilla. When he died, his son Ferdinand III, already king of Castile (1217–52) by reason of inheritance from his mother, Berenguela, a daughter of Alfonso VIII, succeeded him as king of León. Henceforth Castile and León were permanently united. Using the combined resources of the two kingdoms, Ferdinand conquered Cordoba in 1236, Murcia in 1243, Jaén (Jayyān) in 1246, and Sevilla in 1248. The Muslims retained only the kingdom of Granada, whose rulers were obliged to pay an annual tribute to Castile. As a vassal kingdom, Granada by itself was not a threat, but, when supported by the Muslims of Morocco, this last outpost of Islamic power in Spain caused great difficulty for the Christians.

      The development of Christian society and culture in the first 300 years after the Islamic conquest was slow, but major changes occurred more quickly in the 12th and 13th centuries. The size of the population grew, communication with northern Europe intensified, commerce and urban life gained in importance, and the Reconquista was executed with greater success than ever.

      By the middle of the 13th century, the kingdoms of Castile-León, Aragon-Catalonia, Navarre, and Portugal reached the frontiers that they would keep, with minimal alteration, until the end of the Middle Ages. As a confederation of the kingdoms of Aragon, Valencia, and Majorca and the principality of Catalonia, the Crown of Aragon had a distinctive character among the Christian states.

      The idea of hereditary succession gained early acceptance, but the vestiges of election could still be detected in the acclamation of a new king. Following Visigothic custom, the king occasionally was anointed and crowned. Peter II of Aragon, who received his crown in Rome from the pope, became a papal vassal and held his kingdom as a papal fief. The principal officials of the royal household were the chancellor, usually an ecclesiastic, who was responsible for the issuance of royal letters and the preservation of records; the mayordomo, a magnate, who supervised the household and the royal domain; and the alférez (Catalan: senyaler), also a magnate, who organized and directed the army under the king's command. The merinos or, later, adelantados (adelantado), who functioned as provincial governors in Castile, were also drawn from the nobility. The Catalan counties initially were part of the Carolingian empire, but the various counts gradually achieved independence. The counts of Barcelona had gained an effective sovereignty over all of Catalonia by the 11th century. Under the count's direction, vicars (vegueres) and bailiffs (batlles), responsible respectively for justice and taxes, administered the Catalan territorial subdivisions. The privilege of immunity granted to bishops, magnates, monasteries, and military orders prohibited royal officials from dispensing justice or levying taxes in immune lands, except in cases of negligence. The immunities of the archbishop of Compostela in Galicia and those of the military orders south of Toledo were among the most important.

      Feudal (feudalism) ideas emphasizing private and personal relationships exerted great influence on the governmental and military organization of the Christian kingdoms—most fully in Catalonia, where French influence was strong. As vassals (vassal) holding fiefs (fief) of the count of Barcelona, the Catalan nobles owed him military and court service, and they often had vassals of their own. In the western states, royal vassals usually held land in full ownership rather than in fief. As vassals of the king or count, the magnates, called ricos hombres (i.e., rich or powerful men) in the west and barones in Catalonia, functioned as his chief counselors and provided the bulk of the royal military forces. Nobles of the second rank, known variously as infanzones, caballeros, or cavallers, generally were vassals of the magnates.

      Agriculture and pasturage were the principal sources of wealth in the Christian states, as the king, landlords, and nobles gained their income primarily through the exploitation of landed property. Peasants dwelling on noble estates cultivated the soil and owed various rents and services to their lords. The serfs (serfdom) (solariegos in Castile, payeses de remensa in Catalonia), who were effectively bound to the land, bore the heaviest burden. The rights (the so-called “evil usages”) of Catalan lords were such that they could abuse their serfs at will. Castilian peasants living on lands known as behetrías were free to choose their lord and to change their allegiance whenever they wished, but their right to do so was challenged in the 13th century. Life on the frontier attracted many peasants because, while it exposed them to risk and adventure, it also promised freedom. Like pioneers in all ages, they developed a strong sense of personal worth and independence.

      The progress of the Reconquista made possible the colonization of the Duero valley, where fortified urban centres (concejos), each surrounded by a broad dependent rural area, were established. Royal charters (fueros (fuero)) set down the rights and obligations of the settlers and allowed them to choose their own magistrates (alcaldes (alcalde)) and to govern themselves. The basis of the municipal economy was sheep and cattle raising and the booty won by the urban militia in the wars of the Reconquista. Industry and commerce were of secondary importance. The towns of Aragon and Catalonia had little autonomy, but some Catalan towns began to develop as important mercantile centres. The urban population increased significantly, and trade and industry began to develop substantially following the conquest of the Islamic cities of Toledo, Zaragoza, Lisbon, Cordova, Valencia, and Sevilla. Increasing numbers of craftsmen tried to protect their interests by organizing guilds. Merchants who made their living by large-scale commercial activity based on the use of money as a medium of exchange and credit instruments also became more numerous. A native overseas carrying trade began to develop as a result of the growth of shipbuilding at Santander, Barcelona, and other seaports.

      Many thousands of Muslims and Jews (Jew) came under Christian rule as a result of the Reconquista. The Mudéjares (Mudejar), as subject Muslims were called, were located mainly in country areas, but important Muslim quarters were also found in the towns. Jews, who were chiefly urban dwellers, engaged in trade and moneylending and often contracted to collect royal taxes. Both Muslims and Jews were required to pay a regular tribute, but otherwise they were allowed to worship freely and to administer their own affairs according to Islamic or Judaic law. On occasion, however, Christians assaulted their Jewish neighbours.

      The increasing administrative, military, and economic importance of the towns eventually led the crown to summon municipal representatives to attend the royal council along with prelates and magnates. Alfonso IX convened the first such council (curia plena) at León in 1188, but similar assemblies appeared in the other states early in the 13th century. Later known as the Cortes, these assemblies performed a variety of functions, one of the most important of which was to give consent to the levy of extraordinary taxes necessitated by the king's ever-increasing financial obligations as royal activities and responsibilities steadily expanded. The growth of parliamentary institutions was a common European phenomenon, though it is noteworthy that it occurred at such an early date in the peninsular kingdoms.

      Another consequence of the Reconquista was the restoration of former bishoprics (bishop) or the expansion of existing ones. The five metropolitan sees of Toledo (which claimed the primacy), Tarragona, Braga, Compostela, and Sevilla formed the principal ecclesiastical divisions in Spain. From the 12th century the papacy intervened more frequently in peninsular affairs. The reforms of the French monasteries of Cluny and Citeaux had a profound effect on monastic (monasticism) life in the 11th and 12th centuries. The mendicant orders of Franciscans (Franciscan) and Dominicans (Dominican) (the latter founded by the Spaniard Domingo de Guzmán) established themselves in the peninsula in the early 13th century. The military orders of the Templars (Templar) and the Hospitallers, both founded in the Holy Land, came to Spain in the 12th century, but in the second half of that century several native orders were organized—Calatrava, Alcántara, Santiago, and Avis. The knights followed a modified form of the monastic life, but they also played an increasingly important role in the military struggle against Islam.

      Ancient cultural traditions were preserved by the clergy, who also authored the few books that have survived from the early centuries of the Reconquista. In the 8th century Bishops Elipandus of Toledo and Felix of Urgel advocated the teachings of Adoptionism, a Christian heresy that maintained that Christ in his humanity was the adopted son of God. The dispute over this teaching gave rise to several polemical works and brought condemnations from Charlemagne and his court and Popes Adrian I and Leo III (Leo III, Saint). In the 9th century Eulogius and Alvarus of Córdoba produced many books defending their fellow Mozarabic Christians who had blasphemed Muhammad publicly in Córdoba and were then martyred by the Muslims of the city. Christians in Spain, however, not only involved themselves in writing polemics against Islam but participated in the important work of translating the Qurʾān and other Islamic religious texts in the 12th century for Peter The Venerable, the abbot of Cluny. Early in the 13th century Alfonso VIII of Castile and Alfonso IX of León founded the Universities of Palencia and Salamanca (Salamanca, University of), respectively, for the study of theology, philosophy, and Roman and canon law. Although Palencia ceased instruction by the middle of the century, Salamanca eventually attained international renown. The appearance in the mid-12th century of the first great epic in the Castilian tongue, Poema del Cid (The Poem of the Cid), signaled the beginning of the development of a significant vernacular literature. Although the literary production of Spanish authors was still limited, through his historical works Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada, archbishop of Toledo (died 1247), fixed the standard for Spanish historiography for centuries to come.

Christian Spain, c. 1260–1479
Castile and León, 1252–1479
      As the kings of Castile endeavoured to strengthen monarchical power in the late medieval centuries, they encountered a stiff challenge from the nobility, who tried to use the institutions of government for their own interests. The struggle for power commenced during the reign of Alfonso X (the Learned, 1252–84), who is perhaps best known for the literary and scientific achievements under his direction by scholars whom he summoned to his court. His aim to gain control of the Moroccan ports giving access to the Iberian Peninsula provoked a revolt in 1264–66 by the Mudéjares of Andalusia and Murcia, abetted by the king of Granada. Elected Holy Roman emperor in 1257, Alfonso spent the next 17 years engaged in a vain effort to counter a rival claimant and to secure papal acceptance. His expenditure of great sums of money on this enterprise and his innovations in taxation and legislation eventually brought about a grave challenge to his rule.

      Alfonso concluded that a uniform royal law was necessary to overcome the multiplicity and diversity of local and regional laws, such as the municipal fueros and the Liber Judiciorum used in León (which Ferdinand III had translated into Castilian as the Fuero Juzgo). The Espéculo, a code of law intended for use in the royal court, and the Fuero Real, a code of municipal law meant for the towns of Castile and Extremadura, were drawn up and likely promulgated in 1254. Between 1256 and 1265 royal jurists, drawing heavily on Roman law, revised and amplified the Espéculo, which in its new form came to be known as the Siete Partidas (Seven Divisions). The nobles and the towns objected to these changes in the law and in 1272 compelled the king to confirm their traditional laws and customs. To underscore their opposition to royal policy, the magnates went into exile in Granada for two years. Following this setback, the pope in 1274 refused to recognize Alfonso's imperial claims, and the king's eldest son and heir, Fernando de la Cerda, died in 1275 while hastening to repel a Moroccan invasion. A dispute over the succession then ensued between the adherents of Fernando de la Cerda's son, Alfonso, and the king's second son, Sancho (Sancho IV). Although the king recognized Sancho, their relationship deteriorated, in part because Alfonso X's ill health rendered him less able to carry out his duties and caused him to act arbitrarily. In 1282 an assembly of nobles, prelates, and townsmen transferred the responsibilities of government from the king to Sancho. While the Muslims continued to threaten the kingdom externally, Castile was torn apart by civil war until the king's death.

      During the reign of Sancho IV (1284–95), domestic and foreign supporters of his nephew maintained a steady opposition. At the same time, Sancho had to defend the realm against another Muslim invasion from Morocco. Thus began a long struggle to control the Strait of Gibraltar and to close that invasion route. During the minority of Ferdinand IV (1295–1312), new efforts were made in favour of Alfonso de la Cerda, but in 1304 he renounced all claims to any portion of the Crown of Castile. Although the king seized Gibraltar in 1309, the Muslims regained possession a quarter century later. The minority of Alfonso XI (1312–50) witnessed new disorders, but when Alfonso reached adulthood he brutally crushed his enemies among the nobility. Aided by his Christian neighbours, he gained a great triumph over the allied Islamic forces from Granada and Morocco at the Salado River in 1340 and thus ended for good all Moroccan attempts to establish a base in Spain. He captured Algeciras (Al-Jazīrah al-Khaḍrāʾ) four years later, but he was unable to take the nearby fortress of Gibraltar because he fell victim to the Black Death.

      During the reign of Peter the Cruel (1350–69), the monarchy and the nobility again came into violent conflict. Challenging the king's right to rule, his half brother, Henry of Trastámara (Henry II), an illegitimate son of Alfonso XI, appealed to France for support. Backed by a mercenary army commanded by the Frenchman Bertrand du Guesclin (Guesclin, Bertrand du), Henry was able to eject Peter from the kingdom in 1366. In order to recover his throne, the king enlisted the help of Edward (Edward The Black Prince), prince of Wales, and a combined Anglo-Castilian army defeated Henry of Trastámara at Nájera in 1367. After Edward's withdrawal, however, Henry and du Guesclin defeated and killed Peter at Montiel in 1369.

      As the first of the Trastámara dynasty, Henry II (1369–79) had to maintain his rights to the throne against his peninsular neighbours and domestic enemies. He eventually overcame his opponents and was even able to assist his French allies by providing a fleet to attack English shipping. As an ally of France, Henry's son John I (1379–90) acknowledged the Avignonese pope (Avignon papacy) during the Great Schism (Western Schism). The Trastámara family's aspirations to acquire the other peninsular kingdoms were first manifested when John claimed Portugal by right of marriage. His invasion in 1385 roused the Portuguese national spirit, and he suffered a grievous defeat at Aljubarrota. Then John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, claiming the Castilian throne as the husband of Peter I's daughter, landed in Galicia in 1386. Although John was aided by the Portuguese, he was unsuccessful and came to terms in 1388. The marriage of his daughter Catherine to Henry III, John I's oldest son, ended the hostility between the two branches of the Castilian royal family.

      The nobility took advantage of the minority of Henry III (1390–1406) to pursue their own gain at royal expense, but, once the king reached adult age, he strongly asserted his power. However, royal prestige and authority suffered terribly during the long reign of his son, John II (1406–54). The king's uncle, Fernando de Antequera (Ferdinand I), who acted as regent, maintained stability until he was elected king of Aragon in 1412. John II, a weak and disinterested monarch, allowed Álvaro de Luna (Luna, Álvaro de), the royal favourite, to dominate him and to direct royal policy. Fernando's sons, Henry and John of Navarre, tried to gain control of the king and the organs of government, but Luna successfully thwarted their schemes. Luna retained effective authority during most of the reign, but in 1453 he incurred the king's wrath and was summarily executed.

      The nobles continued to engage in an intense struggle for influence and power in the reign of Henry IV (1454–74). Although Juan Pacheco, marqués de Villena, initially gained ascendancy over the king, others vied for royal favour. The nobles, alleging Henry's impotence, refused to accept the legitimacy of the infanta Joan, who they declared was the child of the queen and of the king's most recent favourite, Beltrán de la Cueva. Because of that account, the young girl was derided as “La Beltraneja.” Henry IV repudiated her and recognized his sister Isabella (Isabella I) as heir to the throne in the Pact of Los Toros de Guisando in 1468. Although Villena and his supporters hoped to control Isabella, they soon learned that they could not. Without first seeking her brother's consent as she had promised, in 1469 Isabella married Ferdinand (Ferdinand II), son and heir of John II of Aragon. An angry Henry IV denounced her and tried to exclude her from the succession, but when he died she was proclaimed Queen Isabella I (1474–1504). Afonso V of Portugal, who was betrothed to Joan, invaded Castile on her behalf, but in 1479 Joan abandoned her rights to the throne. Ferdinand's accession to the Aragonese throne in the same year brought about a personal union of Aragon and Castile.

Castilian institutions, society, and culture
      In the 13th century the recovery of the idea of the state, as reflected in Roman law and Aristotle's Politics, profoundly influenced the development of the Castilian monarchy. As the one primarily responsible for maintaining the well-being of the state, the king (God's vicar on earth, according to the Siete Partidas and numerous other medieval texts) tended to concentrate power in his own hands. The royal bureaucracy, now largely directed by jurists, attempted to strengthen royal authority in every way. Although contemporaries were wary of Roman law, its influence continually expanded. The place of Roman law and legal procedure in the courts was secured when Alfonso XI promulgated the Ordenamiento de Alcalá in 1348. Henry II reorganized the royal tribunal ( audiencia), but its development was not completed until the end of the Middle Ages. In the pursuit of greater centralization of power, the crown took advantage of the persistent factionalism in the towns to intervene frequently in municipal administration. The lower classes were denied any civic role, as the urban knights, a non-noble aristocracy, controlled town affairs. The knights also struggled to win noble status for themselves, with its accompanying exemption from taxation. The crown dispatched corregidores (corregidor) (governors) to the towns to restrain violence and to supplant local governmental officials. Although this was initially a temporary expedient, by the 15th century it had become a permanent institution.

      Both the nobility and the representative assembly of the municipalities, the Cortes, challenged the royal inclination toward absolutism. In 1386 John I, responding to the demands of the Cortes, included representatives of the three estates (consisting of the nobility, the church, and the towns) in the royal council ( consejo real) where they could regularly monitor royal policy. That plan did not succeed, because in the 15th century the nobility came to dominate the council and used it to further their own interests. Throughout the realm the power and influence of the magnates continued to grow, as they were entrusted with various territorial administrative responsibilities, including the posts of adelantado mayor (governor) in Castile, Murcia, and Andalusia. In order to retain their favour, the Trastámara kings granted them vast territorial lordships as well as lordships over some of the principal municipalities. This was a serious loss for the monarchy, as the cities and towns had long been the chief supporters of royal authority. As a mentality favourable to the aristocracy came to the fore in the 15th century, the magnates became ever more brazen in arrogating royal rights to themselves.

      The role of the Cortes in the political life of the kingdom was especially important from about 1250 to 1350 and again during the reigns of Henry I and John I, who hoped to use it to strengthen their hold on the throne. The Cortes was convened frequently to consent to taxation (servicio) for fixed terms and for specific purposes. Both Ferdinand IV and Alfonso XI explicitly stated that they would not levy an extraordinary tax without the consent of the Cortes, and John I agreed to let the Cortes audit his accounts. The monarch often enacted ordinances in the Cortes, and if he accepted petitions presented by that body, they became the law of the land. John II and Henry IV curtailed the role of the Cortes and abused the rights that it had gained in the 14th century. At times the crown appointed municipal procurators and summoned fewer and fewer towns, so that eventually only 18 were called to represent the entire realm. Indeed, many towns held in lordship by the magnates, who claimed to speak for them, lost their right to attend the Cortes.

      The predominance of agriculture and pasturage in the Castilian economy continued. As the Reconquista opened vast pasturelands in Extremadura and Andalusia, sheep and cattle grazing acquired new importance. The Mesta, a kingdomwide organization of sheep owners chartered originally by Alfonso X, had great economic and political power. Although the manufacture of woolen cloth became important in the towns, the urban middle class was not especially strong, and an effective guild organization never really matured. Forged during the Reconquista, the urban aristocracy's military mentality impeded its participation in trade and crafts. While the ports of the Bay of Biscay maintained a substantial trade with England, Flanders, France, and Portugal, the Genoese, who were solidly established at Sevilla, the chief southern port, had a great share in the overseas trade originating there.

      Following the outbreak of the Black Death in the middle of the 14th century, the population declined sharply, and there was serious social and economic unrest. In 1351 Peter I (the Cruel) tried to guarantee stability by enacting the Ordenamiento de Menestrales, which required workers to accept the same wages as before the plague. Owing to popular agitation, a great pogrom (anti-Semitism) against the Jews (Jew) erupted in 1391 and rapidly spread throughout the peninsula. Forced to choose Christianity or death, many Jews converted. A number of these conversos (converso), freed of earlier legal restraints, now attained prominence in public life, but they were always suspected of continuing privately to observe Jewish practices. The demand that they demonstrate limpieza de sangre—i.e., that their ancestry was unsullied by Jewish or Muslim blood—was intended to exclude them from any important place in government or the church.

      The cultural integration of Castile into western Europe was now complete. The development of Castilian as a literary (Spanish literature) language owed much to Alfonso X, whose stimulus to learning has been described as having prompted an intellectual renaissance. Under his patronage both the General estoria (“General History”) and the Estoria de Espanna (“History of Spain”) were written; astronomical tables were arranged, and translations of Arabic scientific works were undertaken; and the Siete Partidas was compiled. The Cantigas de Santa María (“Songs to the Virgin”) is a collection of more than 400 poems written in Galician, a language considered appropriate for lyric poetry; the poems are generally assumed to be the work of Alfonso himself, and many of them constitute a royal autobiography. Alfonso's nephew, Don Juan Manuel (Juan Manuel, Don) (died 1348), authored many works, including El Conde Lucanor; o, el libro de Patronio (1328-35; “Count Lucanor; or, The Book of Patronius”, a collection of fables and folk tales with a didactic intent) and the Libro de los estados (a treatise on social classes). Juan Ruiz (Ruiz, Juan), the archpriest of Hita (died c. 1350) and one of the great medieval poets, took a satirical look at love; his Libro de buen amor (1330; expanded 1343; Book of Good Love) intersperses ribald and comic poems of love with beautiful hymns in praise of the Virgin Mary. The history of this period was recorded in a succession of royal chronicles. Pedro López de Ayala (López de Ayala, Pedro) (died 1407), a brilliant writer who searched for motives and realized the importance of social and institutional developments, wrote excellent chronicles of Peter I, Henry II, John I, and Henry III. During the reign of John II, who was a patron of poets and scholars, the Italian Renaissance influenced Castilian writers and thinkers, including the marqués de Santillana (Santillana, Iñigo López de Mendoza, marqués de) (died 1458), whose lyric poems have great beauty; Jorge Manrique (Manrique, Jorge) (died 1479), who reflected on the vanities of the world in the Coplas por la muerte de su padre (Verses on the Death of His Father); and Fernán Pérez de Guzmán (Pérez de Guzmán, Fernán) (died c. 1460), who sketched the characters and personalities in the court of Henry III in the Generaciones y semblanzas (Generations and Sketches).

Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia, 1276–1479
      In the late Middle Ages the Crown of Aragon experienced a confrontation between the monarchy and the nobility similar to that which occurred in neighbouring Castile. As Roman law and its practitioners gained in influence, there were protests in both Aragon and Catalonia, and James I confirmed the customary law of Aragon in an assembly at Ejea in 1265. He also agreed that the justicia, a judge appointed by the king from the ranks of the knights rather than from among the professional jurists, should adjudicate litigation involving the nobles. A critical stage in relations between the crown and the nobles was reached during the reign of Peter III (the Great; 1276–85), the heir to Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia (the kingdom of Majorca fell to the share of his younger brother James).

      Peter III's conquest of Sicily, where he reigned as Peter I, was the second major step in the Mediterranean expansion of Catalonia, marking the beginning of a long international struggle with serious domestic complications. Although the papacy had awarded Naples and Sicily to Charles of Anjou (Charles II), Peter's wife represented Hohenstaufen (Hohenstaufen dynasty) claims to them. Taking advantage of the Sicilian Vespers, a rebellion by Sicilians against Charles's rule, Peter occupied Sicily in 1282. Pope Martin IV not only excommunicated (excommunication) and deposed Peter but also offered Aragon to a French prince. Seizing the opportunity created by these difficulties, the Aragonese nobles organized a union to uphold their liberties and in 1283 compelled the king to grant their demands, which were set down in the document known as the General Privilege. Peter agreed to convene the Cortes each year and confirmed the right of the justicia to hear the lawsuits of the nobility. He made similar promises in Valencia and Catalonia, where the allegiance of his subjects was more secure. After the pope proclaimed a Crusade, King Philip III of France led the Crusading army against Peter but failed to achieve success. Thereafter the disposition of Sicily remained the chief concern of Peter's three sons.

       Alfonso III (1285–91), who inherited the mainland dominions, and his younger brother James, who received Sicily, valiantly tried to overcome the formidable opposition of the pope, the king of France, and the house of Plantagenet (Plantagenet, house of) (Anjou). Alfonso seized Majorca because his uncle James had aided the French during their Crusade against Aragon. Once again the Aragonese nobles challenged the king, forcing him in 1287 to confirm his father's General Privilege and to permit the nobles to control the appointment of certain royal councillors. After succeeding his brother as king of Aragon, James II (1291–1327) tried to secure an unchallenged title to that kingdom by yielding his rights to Sicily in 1295 and returning Majorca to his uncle James. Pope Boniface VIII awarded Sardinia to James II as compensation. In 1302 the pope reluctantly agreed to accept the third brother, Frederick (Frederick III (or II)), who had been proclaimed as king of Sicily. The Catalan Company, a mercenary troop idled by the end of the Sicilian wars, transferred its activities to the Byzantine Empire and in 1311 gained dominion over the duchy of Athens. Although neither Sicily nor Athens came under the direct rule of the king of Aragon, they remained bastions of Catalan influence and power in the Mediterranean.

      After securing a favourable alteration of his frontier with Murcia, James II occupied Sardinia in 1325. As Genoa disputed Aragonese rights there, his successors, Alfonso IV (1327–36) and Peter IV (the Ceremonious; 1336–87), were forced to wage a series of wars. Accusing his cousin, the king of Majorca, of disloyalty, Peter IV annexed Majorca permanently to the Crown of Aragon in 1343. In 1347 Peter provoked a constitutional crisis by naming his daughter as heir to the throne rather than his brother, the count of Urgel, who argued that women were excluded from the succession. The Aragonese union, which had been relatively inactive in the previous reign, again confronted the king and compelled him to confirm the privileges granted by his predecessors. The Valencian nobility also organized a union and exacted similar concessions. The devastation caused by the Black Death and the royalist victory over the Aragonese union at Epila in 1348 enabled Peter to dissolve the union and to annul its privileges. The union never again threatened the crown.

      After mid-century, Peter I of Castile invaded the Crown of Aragon, prompting Peter IV to back Henry of Trastámara's claims to the Castilian throne, but Henry subsequently refused to reward him with any territorial concessions. That disappointment was offset to some extent by the reincorporation of Sicily into the dominions of the Crown of Aragon in 1377. Peter IV remained neutral during the Great Schism, but his son John I (1387–95) acknowledged the pope of Avignon. Both John and his younger brother and successor, Martin (1395–1410), had to attend constantly to agitation and unrest in Sardinia and Sicily. When Martin died without immediate heirs, the Crown of Aragon faced an acute crisis. Claimants were not lacking, but none enjoyed wide popularity. The estates of Aragon, Valencia, and Catalonia appointed nine commissioners to meet at Caspe to resolve the issue. The Compromise of Caspe, announced in 1412, determined that Fernando de Antequera, brother of King Henry III of Castile, had the best claim to the throne by right of inheritance. The accession of Ferdinand I (1412–16), the first of the Trastámara dynasty to rule in Aragon, prepared the way for the eventual union of Aragon and Castile. By withdrawing obedience from the Avignonese pope Benedict XIII, Ferdinand helped to terminate the schism.

       Alfonso V (the Magnanimous; 1416–58) opted to pursue ambitions in Italy and generally neglected his peninsular domains. After occupying the Kingdom of Naples in 1442, he hoped to lord it over the rest of Italy and to extend his influence and power into the eastern Mediterranean. A spirit of discontent fostered by his long absence from Aragon provoked a crisis during the reign of his brother, John II (1458–79). John inherited the mainland kingdoms as well as Sicily, while Ferrante, Alfonso V's illegitimate son, obtained Naples. John had already added another kingdom to the Trastámara holdings when he married the queen of Navarre in 1420. By quarreling with his son, Prince Charles of Viana (Viana, Carlos de Aragon, Prince de), he antagonized many and provoked the open hostility of the Catalans. Charles's sudden death in 1461 led many to believe that he had been poisoned by John. Already restive because of economic and social uncertainties, the Catalans revolted and offered the principality to other potential rulers. Louis XI of France seized the opportunity to occupy Roussillon and Cerdagne, thereby laying the foundation for future enmity between France and Spain. By 1472 John II had suppressed the Catalan revolt; subsequently he aided his daughter-in-law Isabella in acquiring the Castilian crown. His son Ferdinand succeeded him as king of Aragon and Sardinia, and his daughter Eleanor inherited Navarre (Navarra).

Aragonese institutions and society
      Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia constituted the nucleus of the Crown of Aragon during the late Middle Ages. James II declared in 1319 that these three states formed an indissoluble union. At various times Majorca, Sicily, Sardinia, and Naples were added to, separated from, and finally reunited with the Crown of Aragon. Peter IV and the people of Valencia opposed a plan to dismember the kingdom of Valencia for the benefit of the king's younger brother. When the Catalans revolted against John II and unsuccessfully tried to secede, the Aragonese federation faced the threat of dissolution, but it was able to hold together. Ever since Peter II had offered his dominions in fief to the papacy in 1204 several popes had intervened directly in Aragonese affairs and had even tried to dispose of the throne.

      Dominated by jurists favouring royal absolutism, the bureaucracy of the Crown of Aragon became highly complex. Peter IV carefully structured the administration around four principal officials—the chancellor, the chamberlain, the mayordomo, and the mestre racional (chief financial officer). The employment of nonnatives in administrative positions was vigorously opposed in each of the federated states. Although Peter IV abolished the Aragonese union, the justicia, who were appointed and removed by the king at will, continued to adjudicate lawsuits concerning the nobility.

      As his father's lieutenant, the king's oldest son usually was appointed procurator general for all the realms. A procurator or governor-general permanently represented the crown in Valencia and Majorca, which the king visited only occasionally. A vicar or justicia also acted in the name of the crown in the towns, which enjoyed a greater degree of self-government than before. Executive authority in Barcelona was entrusted to a council of five who were responsible to a larger consell de cent, or council of 100.

      The fundamental law for Catalonia and Majorca continued to be the Usages of Barcelona, and in 1251 James I pledged that Roman law would not supplant them. He provided the newly conquered kingdom of Valencia with the Fori Regni Valentiae (1240), a code of law largely Roman in substance. In 1247 he promulgated the Code of Huesca (Huesca, Code of), a compilation of the customary law of Aragon; the code, which originally defined Aragon's territory, came to embody the criminal and civil legal code in Aragon. As new laws were added, the Aragonese legal code was reorganized as the Fueros de Aragón, which included the Code of Huesca and the General Privilege, in the 15th century.

      A vigorous parliamentary structure emerged in the Crown of Aragon. Each of the peninsular states (Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia) had a parliament, and the king occasionally assembled a general parliament of all three. The development of Catalan constitutionalism received a strong impetus from two significant pledges made by Peter III in the Corts (parliament) of Barcelona in 1283. He declared that he would convene an annual Corts “to treat of the good estate and reformation of the land” and that he would not make any general statute for Catalonia without its consent. The Corts did not meet annually thereafter, but the constitutions and capitols de Corts enacted during these meetings testify to its legislative role. The parliaments in Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia also voted on taxes. Not trusting the monarchy, the Catalans established a commission to control the collection and disbursement of taxes authorized by the Corts. In the late 14th century this commission, known as the Diputació del General de Catalunya or simply the Generalitat, became permanent. When the Corts was not in session, the Generalitat represented the Catalan community and defended Catalan liberties against royal encroachments. Early in the 15th century similar agencies were established in Aragon and Valencia.

      The Aragonese economy was dominated by agriculture and pasturage. A numerous class of Mudéjares, Muslims living under Christian rule and retaining many of their own institutions, farmed the land in lower Aragon and Valencia. The main industry in the Catalan towns, where a strong guild organization developed, was the manufacture of woollen cloth. Barcelona and Valencia—trading with Tunis, Alexandria, Sicily, Sardinia, the Holy Land, and the Black Sea area—ranked among the major Mediterranean seaports. To represent their interests, Catalan merchants and consuls resided in many of the principal African ports. Catalan maritime law, compiled about 1370 in the Llibre del consolat de mar (Book of the Consulate of the Sea (Consulate of the Sea, Book of the)), enjoyed wide European recognition and usage.

      Following the havoc caused by the Black Death, recurrent social and economic crises disturbed the peace and provoked the massacre of the Jews in Valencia and other cities in 1391, as well as other violent acts. Financial uncertainty, the failure of many private banks, and the decline of trade in the later 14th century compounded problems. In Barcelona the agitation of the popular party (the Busca) against the ascendancy of the wealthy urban aristocracy (the Biga) helped to foment the Catalan revolt against John II. Hoping to win their liberty, the serfs, or payeses de remensa, joined the rebellion.

Aragonese culture
      Culture flourished in the Crown of Aragon in the late Middle Ages. After James II founded the University of Lledia (Lérida) in 1300—the first in Aragon—other universities were established at Huesca, Barcelona, and Zaragoza. Two Dominicans—St. Raymond of Penyafort (Raymond of Peñafort, Saint) (died 1275), a great canonist, and St. Vincent Ferrer (Vincent Ferrer, Saint) (died 1419), a preacher of exceptional eloquence—were outstanding representatives of the university tradition. Several works of history, generally regarded as gems of Catalan literature, helped to shape the vernacular as a literary language: The Chronicle of James I, purportedly written by the king himself; Bernat Desclot's Chronicle of the Reign of King Peter III; Ramon Muntaner's Chronicle, reporting the adventures of the Catalan Company; and the Chronicle of Peter IV, of which the king claimed to be the author. Ramon Llull (Llull, Ramon) (died 1315), who was equally facile in Latin, Catalan, and Arabic, was the most prolific writer of the times. Primarily an active propagandist concerned with the recovery of the Holy Land and the conversion of the Muslims, Llull also was a philosopher, theologian, and mystic. Among his principal writings were the romantic Book of the Lover and the Beloved, Blanquerna, and Book of the Order of Chivalry. Lo Crestià, an encyclopaedic work dealing with moral and political theory, was the best-known work of Francesc Eiximenis (died 1409). The poet Ausiàs March (died 1459) explored the psychological dimensions of love.

Joseph F. O'Callaghan

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-Walīd I (Walīd, al-), the sixth caliph of the Umayyad Dynasty, the first great Muslim dynasty centred in Damascus, appointed Mūsā ibn Nuṣayr governor in the west; Mūsā annexed all of North Africa as far as Tangier (Ṭanjah) and made progress in the difficult task of propagating Islam among the Imazighen (Berber). The Christian ruler of Ceuta (Sabtah), Count Julian (variously identified by the Arab chroniclers as a Byzantine, a native Amazigh, or a Visigoth), eventually reached an agreement with Mūsā to launch a joint invasion of the Iberian Peninsula (see also North Africa; Islamic world (Islāmic 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 (Visigoth) factions, the “Witizans.” Having become dispossessed after the death of King Witiza in 710, they appealed to Mūsā for support against the usurper Roderick. In April or May of 711 Mūsā sent an Amazigh army headed by Ṭāriq ibn Ziyād across the passage whose modern name, the Strait of Gibraltar, derives from Jabal al-Ṭāriq; in July they were able to defeat Roderick in a decisive battle.

      Instead of returning to Africa, Ṭāriq marched north and conquered Toledo (Ṭulayṭulah), the Visigothic capital, where he spent the winter of 711. In the following year Mūsā himself led an Arab army to the peninsula and conquered Mérida (Māridah) after a long siege. He reached Ṭāriq in Toledo in the summer of 713. From there he advanced northeast, taking Zaragoza (Saraqusṭah) and invading the country up to the northern mountains; he then moved from west to east, forcing the population to submit or flee. Both Mūsā and Ṭāriq 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.

      The rapid success of the Islamic forces 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 generally less onerous than it had been in the last years of the Visigoth epoch; serfs who converted to Islam (mawālī; singular: mawlā) advanced into the category of freedmen and enrolled among the dependents of some conquering noble; and Jews, who were no longer persecuted, 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, a new society developed in Muslim Spain. The Arabs were the ruling element; a distinction was made between baladiyyūn (i.e., Arabs who had entered Spain in 712 under Mūsā) and Syrians (who arrived in 740 under Balj ibn Bishr). Below them in status were the Imazighen, who made up 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 musālimah, and their descendants, the muwallads; many of them were also mawālī (i.e., connected by patronage with an Arab) or even themselves of Amazigh 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 (slavery) (Ṣaqālibah)—captives from the northern peninsula and other European countries—and black 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 the Franks (Frank), under Charles Martel, defeated the Muslims, led by the emir ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Ghāfiqī, near Tours. This battle marked the beginning of the gradual Muslim retreat. A major Amazigh 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 Imazighen, 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 in 756 by Abd al-Raḥmān Iʿ al-Dākhil, an Umayyad (Umayyad Dynasty) prince who, having succeeded in escaping from the slaughter of his family by the ʿAbbāsids (Abbāsid Dynastyʿ) and in gaining power in Al-Andalus, became independent of them politically (not religiously; he did not adopt the title of caliph).

The independent emirate
      The dynasty of the Andalusian (Andalusia) Umayyads (756–1031) marked the growth and perfection of the Arabic civilization in Spain. Its history may be divided into two major periods—that of the independent emirate (756–929) and that of the Caliphate (929–1031)—and may be interpreted as revolving around three persons of like name—ʿAbd al-Raḥmān I (756–788), ʿAbd al-Raḥmān II (Abd ar-Raḥmān IIʿ) (822–852), Abd al-Raḥmān IIIʿ (912–961)—and the all-powerful ḥājib (chief minister) Abū ʿĀmir al-Manṣūr (Manṣūr, Abū ʿĀmir al-) (976–1002).

      ʿAbd al-Raḥmān I organized 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 ʿAbbāsid (Abbāsid Dynastyʿ)s, and in the north he had to cope with the ambitions of Charlemagne, who menaced the valley of the Ebro (Ibruh). As discussed above, Charlemagne failed; he was forced to raise the siege of Zaragoza, and in the course of his retreat the Basques attacked and destroyed his rear guard at Roncesvalles (778), an event which is celebrated in the great medieval epic The Song of Roland (Chanson de Roland, La). The Franks had to be content with occupying the upper valleys of the Pyrenees. The Frankish advance ended with the Muslim seizure of Girona (Jerunda) in 785, Barcelona (Barjelūnah) in 801, and Old Catalonia, which were later taken back by the Franks and formed part of the Spanish March.

      ʿAbd al-Raḥmān I's successors, Hishām I (788–796) and al-Ḥakam I (796–822), encountered 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 Amazigh mercenaries and to impose new taxes to pay for them.

      ʿAbd al-Raḥmān II (Abd ar-Raḥmān IIʿ) inaugurated an era of political, administrative, and cultural regeneration for Muslim Spain, beginning a sharp “Orientalization” or, more precisely, an “Iraqization.” ʿAbd al-Raḥmān's most severe problems sprang from his restless vassals in the Ebro valley, especially the convert Banū Qāsī family and the Mozarabs. Incited by the extremist chiefs Alvarus and Eulogius (the latter being canonized after his death), the Mozarabs sought to strengthen their Christian faith through the aura of martyrdom and began to publicly revile the Prophet Muhammad, an action punishable by death from 850 onward, according to 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 859–860, and, despite official tact, this provocation by the Christians led to the execution of 53 people and was finally disavowed by the ecclesiastical authorities.

      In foreign policy, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān II conducted intensive diplomatic activity, exchanging ambassadors with the Byzantine Empire and with the Frankish king Charles II (the Bald) and maintaining friendly relations with the sovereigns of Tāhart, who lent military support to Muslim Spain. He confronted the constantly growing incursions of the Vikings (Viking) (Norsemen), whom he defeated in the vicinity of Sevilla. Furthermore, he established permanent defenses against the Viking invaders by creating two naval bases, one facing the Atlantic at Sevilla and another on the Mediterranean shore at Pechina near Almería.

      His successors Muḥammad I (852–886), al-Mundhir (886–888), and ʿAbd Allāh (888–912) were confronted with a new problem, which threatened to do away with the power of the Umayyads—the muwallads. Having become more and more conscious of their power, they rose in revolt in the north of the peninsula, led by the powerful Banū Qāsī clan, and in the south (879), led by ʿUmar ibn Ḥafṣūn. The struggle against them was long and tragic; Ibn Ḥafṣūn, well protected in Bobastro and in the Málaga mountains, was the leader of muwallad and even Mozarabic discontent in the south of Al-Andalus, but his defeat in 891 at Poley, near Córdoba, forced him to retreat and hide in the mountains. ʿAbd Allāh, however, was unable to subdue the numerous rebels and thus left a weak state for his grandson, the great Abd al-Raḥmān IIIʿ, who from 912 was able to restore order. He subdued all of Al-Andalus, from Jaén (Jayyān) to Zaragoza (Saraqusṭah), from Mérida (Māridah) to Sevilla (Ishbīliyah), and the Levant. He even challenged Ibn Ḥafṣūn successfully—especially after the latter's political error of reverting to the Christianity of his Spanish ancestors, a move that caused the desertion of numerous muwallads who regarded themselves as good Muslims. When Ibn Ḥafṣūn died in 917, his sons were forced to capitulate, and in 928 ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III captured the theretofore impregnable fortress of Bobastro.

The caliphate of Córdoba
      One of the first international political problems that ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III faced was that of his juridical status vis-à-vis the ʿAbbāsid caliphate at Baghdad. As long as religious unity existed in the Islamic dominions, the Umayyads in Spain were resigned to acknowledge the religious leadership of Baghdad. However, when the heterodox caliphate of the Fāṭimids (Fāṭimid Dynasty) developed in Tunis after 910, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III proclaimed himself caliph and adopted the caliphal title of al-Nāṣir in 929. This new caliphate, the caliphate of Córdoba (Qurṭubah), was to rule Al-Andalus for more than a century.

      Al-Nāṣir's internal situation was already almost assured; the last bulwarks of resistance were not long in capitulating (Toledo, 933), and thereafter he was able to devote all his efforts to foreign affairs. As to Christian Spain, his successes were meagre, and, what was more serious, he suffered a severe defeat in 939 at Simancas (Shānt Mānkas). Afterwards, however, the internal debilitation of the kingdom of León enabled him to restore his predominance on the peninsula by political means. He consolidated his position through a series of embassies to Otto I, the emperor in Germany and the most powerful figure in Christian Europe, to the Christian sovereigns of the peninsula, to the pope, and to Constantinople. His sovereignty was also acclaimed by the corsair enclave in Fraxinetum (Frakhshinīṭ; modern-day La-Garde-Freinet), in southern France.

      In Tunis the Fāṭimids fought the establishment of an empire that would reach as far as the Atlantic and encompass Al-Andalus. In order to forestall Fāṭimid hegemony in the Maghrib, the Islamic area of northwestern Africa, al-Nāṣir occupied the North African ports of Melilla (Malīlah) and Ceuta (931). Intense naval warfare between the two western caliphates coincided with clashes on land in the Maghrib and attempts at subversive wars in the enemy states in northwest Africa. In the latter area, al-Nāṣir nearly overthrew the Fāṭimid caliphate by supporting the rebel Abū Yazīd al-Nukkārī; the conflict between the Umayyads and the Fāṭimids dragged on and ended in 969, when the latter conquered Egypt and lost interest in the Maghrib, thus leaving a power vacuum that was rapidly filled by the Umayyads.

      Al-Nāṣir was succeeded by his son al-Ḥakam II (961–976), who adopted the caliphal title of al-Mustanṣir (Mustanṣir, al-). His peaceful reign succeeded in resolving the problem of the Maghrib, thanks to the strategic ability of General Ghālib and the policy of the intendant, Abū ʿĀmir al-Maʿāfirī, who soon became the all-powerful al-Manṣūr (Spanish: Almanzor), the Victorious One.

      On al-Mustanṣir's death, his throne was occupied by his son Hishām II al-Muʾayyad, a minor. Hishām grew up under the tutelage of his mother, Aurora, and of the prime minister, Jaʿfar al-Muṣḥafī, who before long was liquidated by al-Manṣūr (Manṣūr, Abū ʿĀmir al-). The latter succeeded in eliminating all temporal power of the caliph, whom he dominated, and acquired complete power for himself.

      Al-Manṣūr won control over a great part of the Maghrib, which he transformed into the viceroyalty of Córdoba, and he halted the expansion of the Christian kings from the north through a series of raids—usually every six months—in which he sacked nearly every Christian capital on the peninsula. With the support of a professional army consisting predominantly of Imazighen, many of them recent arrivals from Africa who obeyed him blindly, he managed to dispense with the Arab aristocracy, which for the most part was pro-Umayyad, and to hold in check the influence of the slaves, whose numbers had been increasing since al-Nāṣir had placed them in posts of high responsibility. But this balancing of forces—Arab aristocracy, Imazighen, and slaves—could be sustained only by the strong hand of a ruler such as himself.

      Al-Manṣūr played the role of a grand lord. A protector of poets and scholars, he concealed his rationalism under a cloak of piety and was the darling of the faqīhs (scholars versed in the traditions of Islam); he contrived to attract to himself the outstanding poets of the era. By the time of his death, he had won more than 50 raids and succeeded in leaving a robust and well-organized state for his son ʿAbd al-Malik al-Muẓaffar.

      Al-Muẓaffar (1002–08) continued his father's policies, hemming in Hishām II and fighting against the Christians. After Al-Muẓaffar's premature death, his brother ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Sanchuelo took the reins of power, but he lacked the fortitude to maintain the structure built by his father. An uprising that sought to vindicate the political rights of Hishām II resulted in Sanchuelo's death and brought about the beginning of the end of the Umayyad dynasty in Spain.

The ṭāʾifas
      The death of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Sanchuelo in 1009 ushered in 21 years of unrest, during which the social and political unity—among “Andalusians” (Arabs, Imazighen who had settled in Al-Andalus a long time earlier, and the population that had converted to Islam), Imazighen who had arrived fairly recently, and the slaves—fell apart. The consequence of those years of anarchy was the formation of numerous independent kingdoms, or ṭāʾifa (taifa)s, which may be classified into the following: (1) “Andalusian” factions in the three capitals of the frontier area (Zaragoza, Toledo, and Badajoz), in the valleys of the Guadalquivir (Wadi Al-Kabīr), and in the transition zone from the Ebro to the Tagus (Tajo) valley, (2) “new” Imazighen in Granada, Málaga, and four small southern ṭāʾifas, and (3) groups of slaves in the east.

      The political history of the period comprises an uninterrupted series of internecine wars. Preeminent is the confrontation between the Arab factions, under the leadership of Sevilla (Ishbīliyah) and governed by the dynasty of the Banū ʿAbbād, and the Imazighen, presided over by Granada. Little by little, Sevilla united southern Al-Andalus under its aegis, exclusive of Granada and Málaga. This state was ruled by al-Muʿtaḍid (Muʿtaḍid, al-), a sovereign devoid of scruples, who pretended at first to have found the vanished Hishām II al-Muʾayyad (at most, the pretender was a mat maker from Calatrava who bore some resemblance to the old caliph), and then by al-Muʿtaḍid's son, the poet-prince al-Muʿtamid (Muʿtamid, al-). In the east, except for a brief period when the petty state of Denia (Dāniyah) built a powerful fleet that enabled it to stage incursions throughout the western Mediterranean as far as Sardinia, the various ṭāʾifas preserved a certain static and dynastic equilibrium; farther to the north, the various ṭāʾifas also spent their time embroiled in interminable internal quarrels.

      This fragmentation facilitated the expansion of the Christian states of the north, which, lacking the demographic potential to repopulate the lands they had succeeded in occupying, wisely annexed only those that they were capable of repopulating and garrisoning. The Christian states also imposed a heavy economic burden of tribute on the ṭāʾifas. Christian armies forced the Andalusian petty kings to buy peace by paying annual tribute, the famous parias. The tribute revitalized the economy of the Christian states, but it created sharp friction between the Muslim authorities and their subjects. The ṭāʾifas constantly had to increase the yield from their imposts, and they constantly laid new and heavier tax burdens on their subjects; when cash was lacking, they devalued the currency, minting low-standard coins that were not accepted by the Christians. This in turn gave rise to new tax increases and to popular discontent, which was considerably aggravated by the legalistic party of the faqīhs. Furthermore, the extravagant luxury and lavish public outlays of the local petty courts rendered Al-Andalus ripe for the foreign intervention that came when the Castilians occupied Toledo (1085), the key to the Meseta Central and to the entire peninsula. The factional chiefs, alarmed by the Christian advance, called in the help of the Almoravids, the powerful Amazigh confederation then exercising hegemony over northwestern Africa.

The Almoravids
 The Almoravid ruler Yūsuf ibn Tāshufīn entered the Iberian Peninsula from North Africa and slowly advanced to the fields of Al-Zallāqah, north of Badajoz (Baṭalyaws), where in 1086 he defeated a Castilian army under Alfonso VI. However, unable to further exploit his victory, he returned to the Maghrib. For two years Almoravid policy in Spain remained indecisive, but it appears that the siege of Aledo (1088) convinced Yūsuf ibn Tāshufīn of the urgent necessity of putting an end to the ṭāʾifas if he was going to rescue Spanish Islam. From 1090 he deposed their rulers, beginning with those of Granada and Málaga; the next year he dethroned the rulers of Almería and Sevilla, followed by the leader of Badajoz in 1093. Only Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar (the Cid (Cid, the)), exiled from his native Castile by King Alfonso VI, was able to resist the Africans, and he established an independent kingdom in Valencia—a new ṭāʾifa. The figure of the Cid—the Lord (Spanish Arabic: al-sīd), a title that the Arabs conferred upon him—is quite curious. He first served as a mercenary in the ṭāʾifa of Zaragoza, after which he became an independent prince in the east, ruling over states that were mainly inhabited by Muslims. He had the good fortune, however, of finding efficient administrators from among the Mozarabs residing in his states; further, his superb grasp of Almoravid tactics enabled him to overcome his numerical inferiority. Upon his death, Valencia remained under the control of his forces until 1102, when they were forced to evacuate it and seek refuge in Castile. Following the fall of Valencia, the Almoravids were unopposed, and in 1110, under the leadership of ʿAlī ibn Yūsuf (1106–43), they were able to occupy Zaragoza.

      However, the conquest of Zaragoza marked the beginning of the Almoravid decline. The Aragonese king, Alfonso I (the Battler), and his stepson, Alfonso VII of Castile, launched renewed Christian assaults against the entire frontier of Islam in Spain. In 1118 Zaragoza fell into the hands of Alfonso I, who reconquered a large part of the valleys of the Jalón and of the Jiloca. After 1121 the Almoravids experienced serious difficulties in Africa as a result of the preachings of an Amazigh reformer, Muḥammad ibn Tūmart, and could not successfully withstand the Christian onslaught; indeed, they had to hire Christian mercenaries to help them. A resounding Almoravid victory over the Aragonese at Fraga (Ifragah) in 1134 bore no fruit, because the Almoravids lacked the resources to exploit it.

      In Africa the Almohad dynasty finally triumphed, and Abd al-Muʾminʿ (1130–63), successor to Ibn Tūmart, turned his attention to Spain and to the integration of all the Muslim states—the second ṭāʾifas—formed under the shield of the latest internecine wars caused by the Almoravid decline. Of these states, those under Ibn Mardanīsh (1147–72)—who was successful with Christian help in becoming the master of Valencia, Murcia, and Jaén and in securing Granada and Córdoba—especially stood out.

      The Almohads assumed the title of caliph, introduced a series of severe religious measures, and sought to strengthen their states through religious unification—i.e., by compelling the Jews and Christians to either convert to Islam or emigrate. Two great sovereigns, Abū Yaʿqūb Yūsuf (1163–84) and Abū Yūsuf Yaʿqūb al-Manṣūr (Manṣūr, Abū Yūsuf Yaʿqūb al-) (1184–99), raised western Islam to the zenith of its power. Benefiting from the quarrels that divided the Christians, al-Manṣūr defeated the king of Castile, Alfonso VIII, in 1195 at the Battle of Alarcos (Alarcos, Battle of) (Al-Arak); despite this victory, however, he proved unable to exploit his triumph—repeating the fate that had befallen the Almoravids after al-Zallāqah. Years later, during the reign of his successor Muḥammad al-Naṣīr (1199–1214), the Christians avenged this defeat in the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa (Navas de Tolosa, Battle of Las) (Al-ʿIqāb). This battle created a power vacuum into which stepped some of the ṭāʾifas, prominent among which were those of Banū Hūd of Murcia (Mursīyah) and of the Naṣrids of Arjona (Arjūnah). The policies of the two emirs were quite divergent: Muḥammad ibn Hūd (1228–38) emphasized resistance on the part of the Muslims against the Christians who, led by Ferdinand III, were occupying the Guadalquivir valley; by contrast, Muḥammad I ibn al-Aḥmar (ruled in Granada 1238–73) acknowledged himself to be a vassal of the king of Castile and even helped him against his own Muslim coreligionists. This realistic policy enabled him to preserve in his possession the territory of what are the modern provinces of Málaga, Granada, and Almería, together with portions of neighbouring provinces. Thus, after the middle of the 13th century and the reconquest of Jaén (Jayyān), Córdoba, Sevilla, and Murcia by the Castilians and of Valencia and the Balearic Islands by the Catalan-Aragonese crown under James I (the Conqueror), no independent dominions of Islam remained in Spain—with the exception of Granada, Minorca (until 1287), and the tiny area of Crevillente (Qirbilyān), which soon disappeared.

      The Naṣrid dynasty, founded by Muḥammad ibn al-Aḥmar in Granada, endured for two and a half centuries. The Muslims of Granada lacked sufficient forces to constitute a genuine danger to the Christians, who limited themselves to collecting tribute and launching an attack against the Muslims from time to time, snatching from them some city or other. The people of Granada, for their part, always bore in mind what had happened in the cases of the Almoravids and the Almohads, who, having arrived from Africa as auxiliary troops, became masters in Al-Andalus. Vis-à-vis the new North African empires, particularly the empire of the Banū Marīns (Marīnid dynasty), they maintained a policy of balance of power. Although they permitted the influx of volunteers from Africa to enroll in their army to fight against the Christians, they never permitted the crossing of the Strait of Gibraltar by massive organized contingents. The years between 1302 and 1340 were extraordinarily complex both diplomatically and militarily. The Banū Marīns in both the western Maghrib and Castile vied for the possession of the Granadan ports of Tarifa (Jazīrat Ṭarīf) and Algeciras (Al-Jazīrah al-Khaḍraʾ), ports that controlled the strait. Granada, therefore, allied alternately with the Africans and the Christians, hoping thus to maintain the balance of power. A fourth state, Catalonia, called a Crusade; hoping to obtain a larger slice of the Reconquista, it intervened with its fleet and laid siege to Almería (Al-Marīyah) in 1309.

      When Ismāʿīl I (1314–25) ascended the throne, another branch of the Naṣrid family gained power. Ismāʿīl checked the reconquest ambitions of Alfonso XI—who in 1340, with the aid of the Portuguese, won a decisive victory over the Maghribian army of Abū al-Ḥasan (Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī) at the Battle of the Salado. The defeat of the Maghribians and the lack of interest in reconquest on the part of Alfonso's successors created a favourable climate for Granada, which found itself free from political pressures of both Maghribians and Castilians. During the reign of Muḥammad V (1354–59; 1362–91) Granada attained its greatest splendour; its ministers included some of the most learned men of the epoch, such as the polymath Abū ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Khaṭīb, the physician Abū Jaʿfar ibn Khātima, and the poet Abū ʿAbd Allāh ibn Zamraq. Important figures from the Maghrib were in close touch with Granada.

      During this long era there also developed the institution of the “judge of the frontier” (juez de la frontera y de los fieles del rastro); the judge was a Muslim official who heard Christian complaints against the Granadans. This procedure did much to reduce frontier incidents between Muslims and Christians.

      Little is known about the decline of the Naṣrid dynasty, since with Ibn al-Khaṭīb died the last great Muslim historian of Al-Andalus. The extant records and reports from the 15th century are as a rule from Christian sources or from the tales of travelers. The narrative poems that are of the utmost interest as historic sources for other periods in Muslim history are completely lacking in this era. The conventional verses of the king-poet Yūsuf III (1408–17), of his court poet Ibn Farkūn, or of the anonymous Arab poet of the romance Abenamar, Abenamar, moro de la morería, do little to illuminate the history of this period. More illustrative, however, are the verses of ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Qaysī (c. 1485), an esteemed member of Granada's middle class, who eschewed classic themes and wrote of such mundane phenomena as the increase in the cost of living or the decline of Granada and its continuous territorial losses.

      Foreign relations entered a long period of tranquillity as a result of the ghastly losses of life from the Black Death, which reached Spain in 1348, and afterward from the internal wars that weakened Christian Castile. Only an occasional confrontation served to remind the Muslims and Christians that their territorial struggle, considered by the latter as a reconquest, had not yet come to an end. In the 15th century, however, the Reconquista proceeded apace. The Castilian regent, Prince Ferdinand (Ferdinand I), seized Antequera (Antaqīrah) in 1410; Jimena and Huéscar fell in 1435, Huelma in 1438, and Gibraltar in 1462. One result of these events was that the people of Granada became increasingly less tolerant of Christians, and the Granadan faqīhs professed the most extreme xenophobia. The policy of intolerance and xenophobia points to the existence of a Granadan school of law, which before long exerted an influence on the other side of the strait; the Maghribians—subjected to the constant pressure of the Portuguese, who had gained possession of their coastal areas (Ceuta first, in 1415)—realized, like the Granadans, that the only way to escape Christian hegemony was through the profession of the most rigorous Islamic ideals and the practice of the most extreme xenophobia. This policy, common to both sides of the Strait of Gibraltar, did not achieve equal results. It saved the Maghrib from its external enemies, but in Spain it became the casus belli for the “Granada War” (Guerra de Granada), which was to inaugurate the conclusion of the Reconquista.

      The sultan Muley Hacén (Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī) refused to pay the annual tribute he owed to the Catholic Monarchs and seized the fortified town of Zahara (1481), thus launching hostilities that were destined to liquidate the last bastion of Andalusian Islam. The campaign proved difficult for the Christian army, despite the discord that split the royal family of Granada and was exploited in Machiavellian fashion by Ferdinand II (the Catholic): Muḥammad XI (Spanish: Boabdil), son of Muley Hacén, rebelled in Guadix against his father and was recognized in Granada with the aid of the Abencerrajes, a powerful Granada family. Muley Hacén, however, who had taken refuge in Málaga, succeeded in recapturing the capital with the assistance of the Zegries family. Muley Hacén was successfully deposed by his brother, the Zagal (Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad al-Zaghall—the Valiant One), who was supported by the Venegas family.

 Muḥammad XI was captured by the Catholic Monarchs during his attack at Lucena. In order to regain his freedom, he signed the Pact of Córdoba, in which he pledged himself to deliver the portion of the kingdom that was in the hands of the Zagal in exchange for help from the Castilians in recovering Granada, part of which (the Alhambra) was still in the hands of Muley Hacén. The latter and the Zagal allied themselves against Muḥammad XI, who fled and sought asylum in the court of the Catholic Monarchs. The death of Muley Hacén in 1485 enabled Muḥammad XI, with the help of the inhabitants of Albaicín, to occupy the Alhambra. The Zagal, who had been routed by the Christians before Vélez Málaga, retreated to Guadix in 1487 and, being incapable of further resistance, delivered his territories to the Catholic Monarchs and emigrated to Tlemcén (1491). Taking advantage of this civil war, the Christians seized Ronda, Marbella, Loja, and Málaga and were in a position to lay siege to Granada. When the siege began, the population divided into factions: one consisted of pacifists and the other of belligerents who, despite their quarrels, fiercely defended the city.

      By the end of 1491 the situation became desperate, and Muḥammad XI capitulated. But before making the news public, he brought a detachment of Castilian troops into the Alhambra on the night of January 1–2 for the purpose of avoiding a disturbance on the part of his vassals that might render it impossible for him to comply with the terms of the pact. The official surrender, and with it the end of Muslim political power on the Iberian Peninsula, took place the following day, Jan. 2, 1492. Islamic minorities, such as submissive Mudejars (later called Moriscos), remained in Spain until the 17th century.

      In discussing the influx of the Muslims into Spain, the various social groups into which the population was divided have already been pointed out: Arabs (baladiyyūn and Syrians), Imazighen (Berber), muwallads, Mozarabs, Jews, and slaves. The Muslim population continued to increase during the early centuries of the occupation because of the wave of conversions that markedly reduced the number of Christians. Precise figures cannot be given, but it is estimated that at the time of the conquest some 4,000,000 Spaniards inhabited the peninsula and that in the course of the 8th century the number of immigrant Arabs rose to about 50,000 and of Imazighen to about 250,000. The population was primarily rural, and large cities were few in number. At the end of the 10th century one can estimate the following urban populations: Córdoba, 250,000; Toledo, 37,000; Almería, 27,000; Granada, 26,000; Zaragoza, 17,000; Valencia, 15,000; and Málaga, 15,000.

      At the peak of the administrative pyramid was the emir, caliph, sultan, or king, depending on the era. All the functionaries exercised their power by delegation from the sovereign, who embodied within himself all executive, legislative, and judicial authority, even though at times he delegated power to a ḥājib (chamberlain) or, after the 11th century, to a prime minister (dhu al-wizāratayn). In the discharge of his functions he was assisted by various viziers. At times there was, at the head of the various departments, a kātib, or official secretary. The provinces were governed by wālīs who enjoyed wide autonomy. Uniform municipal organization did not exist, and the duties fulfilled by some officials cannot be considered as representative; such officials included, for example, the chief of police (ṣāḥib al-shurṭa) and the market inspector (known until the 10th century as ṣāḥib al-sūq [zabazoque] and later as muḥtasib). The Muslim cities of Spain, with their baths, gardens, markets, mosques, and high cultural level, were quite different from and, some believe, superior to those of Christian Europe.

      The army was based on the voluntary recruitment of soldiers or on contracts with soldiers from abroad. The units (jund), grouped according to the places of origin of their men, were deployed strategically along the borders and possessed extraordinary mobility at the time of the caliphate. Holding castles close to the enemy lands as their bases of operation, they were glad to welcome into their midst the Muslims, who were eager to die in combat in order thus to open for themselves the gates of paradise. These volunteers, who became more and more numerous with the passage of time and about whom many details are known, were frequently second-class soldiers, since they enrolled during years when they constituted a hindrance rather than a source of help. The navy and merchant marine, organized by ʿAbd al-Raḥmān II, remained an effective force until the middle of the 14th century.

      The entire state structure rested, theoretically, on a foundation of the most rigid Islamic orthodoxy as interpreted by the Malikite ( Mālikīyah) school, which in Al-Andalus manifested special characteristics of a hyperconservative nature. It is not known whether the school acquired these traits upon settling in the peninsula because intolerance was indigenous to the inhabitants there or whether it indoctrinated the Andalusian Muslims in this manner and they in turn transmitted it to the Christian states, their reconquerors.

The economy
      The Muslim conquerors divided the lands seized from the Christians by force of arms and operated them, as a general rule, by means of “tenant-farmer” leases. Possibly about the 10th century the woodlands achieved their widest expansion, and the cultivation of irrigated lands was encouraged by means of drastic regulations, which, however, were favourably received. Plants used in the manufacture of textiles (flax, cotton, esparto grass, and mulberry for silk) as well as those with medicinal properties were protected by the state.

      In addition to agriculture, the raising of livestock (sheep and Arabian horses) occupied a central position in the peninsular economy. As in the Roman period, lead, iron, gold, and mercury were mined. Domestic industry, which never went beyond the handicraft stage, culminated in the production of luxury cloths such as silk (a state monopoly), in the tanning of hides (Córdoban leather), and in the export of ivory objects. Commerce was selective and carried on in products “of low weight and high value” that frequently reached the most remote regions of the known world. There are reports of Andalusian travelers as far as the Sudan, central Europe, and even China.

      The evolution of economic life was conditioned by political events; as the productive centres passed into Christian hands, the commercial vigour of the Muslims kept diminishing proportionally. No phenomenon is more illustrative of this than the confidence placed in the currency. In the 11th century Barcelona was counterfeiting Muslim coins; in the 14th century Granada was doing the same with Barcelona's coins.

Culture of Muslim Spain
      Arab civilization in the peninsula reached its zenith when the political power of the Arabs began to decline. Immediately following the Muslim conquest in the 8th century, there were no traces of a cultural level higher than that attained by the Mozarabs (Mozarab) who lived among the Arab conquerors. All available evidence points to the fact that in this period popular works of medicine, agriculture, astrology, and geography were translated from Latin into Arabic. Many of these texts must have been derived from the Etymologies of Isidore (Isidore of Sevilla, Saint) of Sevilla and from other Christian writers. In the 9th century the situation changed abruptly: the Andalusians, who traveled east in order to comply with the injunction to conduct a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in their lifetimes, took advantage of their stay in those regions to enhance their knowledge, which they then introduced into their native country.

      In the 9th century there flourished such court poets as ʿAbbās ibn Nāṣih, ʿAbbās ibn Firnās, Yaḥyā al-Ghazāl, and the knight Saʿīd ibn Jūdī. Towering above all these, however, was Muḥammad ibn Hāniʾ, nicknamed the “Mutanabbī of the West” (Abū al-Ṭayyib al-Mutanabbī (Mutanabbī, al-) was a 10th-century poet of Iraq), who by virtue of his religious ideas was obliged to forsake his native land and enter into the service of the Fāṭimid caliph al-Muʿizz (Muʿizz, al-). In the 10th century al-Manṣūr (Manṣūr, al-) assembled in Córdoba a notable group of court poets. Bards (bard) performed the functions of modern journalists, accompanying their protector on military expeditions and celebrating his exploits in verse, the singsong rhyme of which became engraved in the memory of the people of Al-Andalus. As al-Manṣūr chose the foremost talents of his time to serve as “poet-journalists”—men such as Ibn Darrāj al-Qaṣtallī, al-Ramādī, Ṣāʿid of Baghdad, al-Ṭalīq, and numerous others—this occasional poetry sometimes attained literary heights. In the 10th century Ibn Faraj of Jaén deemed himself to possess sufficient background to compose the Kitāb al-Ḥadāʾiq (“Book of Orchards”)—the first anthology of Andalusian poets. This anthology was soon followed by one by the physician Ibn al-Kattānī.

      The highest peak in Islamic literature in Spain was attained during the era of the ṭāʾifas, when the poet-king al-Muʿtamid (Muʿtamid, al-) established an embryo of an academy of belles lettres, which included the foremost Spanish intellects as well as Sicilians who emigrated from their native land before its conquest by the Normans. Other petty kings in the peninsula endeavoured to compete with al-Muʿtamid, but they were unable to assemble a constellation of writers of comparable stature.

      Among the outstanding poets of the 12th century in eastern Andalusia (the Andalusian Levant) were Ibn Khafajā of Alcira and his nephew Ibn al-Zaqqāq. To the era of greatest decadence, in the 13th century, belonged Abū al-Baqāʾ of Ronda and Ibn Saʿīd. In the 14th century three court poets, Ibn al-Jayyāb, Ibn al-Khaṭīb, and Ibn Zamraq, preserved their verses by having them inscribed in the Alhambra.

      In Arab literature (Arabic literature), poetry possesses greater vitality than prose. Even so, there are several prose writers of importance. Ibn Shuhayd (c. 1035) was the author of a work that lent inspiration to Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī (Maʿarrī, al-) for his Risālat al-ghufrān (“Epistle of Pardon”). The prolific Ibn Ḥazm of Córdoba (died 1064) wrote the delightful Ṭawq al-ḥamāmah (“The Ring of the Dove”), which dealt with love and lovers and which is still popular today. The enormous output of Ibn Ḥazm includes Kitāb al-Fiṣal, a history of religions that was not surpassed by Western scholars until well into the 19th century. He also was a leading exponent of the Ẓāhirī school of jurisprudence, which stressed thorough knowledge of the Qurʾān and the Hadith. He applied the principles of Ẓāhirism to theology and denounced all non-literalist approaches to theology. Another polymath was the vizier-historian Ibn al-Khaṭīb (died 1375). Two 12th-century anthologies of historical and literary works by Ibn Bassām and Ibn Khāqān are excellent sources of information concerning the apogee of Andalusian letters. Often the best grammars and dictionaries of a language are written by authors living in peripheral zones who endeavour to prevent gross errors being committed by their countrymen in the region. This perhaps explains why Al-Andalus, located at the western fringe of the Muslim world, produced works that to this day are used as texts in some traditional Islamic universities. From among these grammarians al-Zubaydī, tutor of Hishām II and Ibn Maḍāhʾ of Córdoba, who proposed a drastic reform of grammatical methods, stands out. Ibn Mālik of Jaén's didactic poem Alfiyya (“The Thousand Verses”) constitutes an excellent handbook of grammar; and Abū Ḥayyān of Granada (died 1344), who emigrated to the east, wrote an outstanding commentary on the Quʾrān as well as the first Turkish grammar. In the field of lexicology, the blind Ibn Sīda of Denia (died 1066) is preeminent, author of a sort of “dictionary of ideas.”

      Noteworthy in the field of Quʾrānic science are Abū ʿAmr of Denia and Ibn Fierro of Játiva, whose handbooks made possible the correct psalmodizing of the Quʾrān. In addition, various collections of hadith (Ḥadīth)s (traditions referring to the Prophet) appeared, but none of these was of particular importance. In this area the Andalusians were imitators of the East, and figures such as Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, Ibn Rushd (Averroës), and Ibn ʿĀṣim are of interest.

      The first extant chronicles of Muslim Spain, such as the Taʾrīkh iftitāḥ al-Andalus (“History of the Conquest of Spain”) by Ibn al-Qūṭiyyah, date back to the 10th century. In the ṭāʾifa era the preeminent Spanish historian is Ibn Ḥayyān of Córdoba (died 1076), whose mostly preserved Muqtabis is an anthology of historical texts collected from the works of his predecessors; however, he also wrote an original chronicle, the Matīn. Of human interest are the Memoirs of the king Zīrī ʿAbd Allāh, who was deposed by the Almoravids and who sought to justify in those memoirs his deeds as a statesman. In the Naṣrid era is found the aforementioned Ibn al-Khaṭīb. The works of the North African historians Ibn Khaldūn (died 1406) and al-Maqqarī (died 1631) supply much information concerning Al-Andalus.

      Andalusia enjoyed a great tradition in philosophy, in part as a means to compete with the dynamic culture in Baghdad and also as a result of limitations placed on philosophic inquiry in the eastern Islamic world. As early as the 10th century, the caliph of Córdoba, al-Ḥakam II al-Mustanṣir, imported books from the east to build a great centre of learning in his city. His efforts bore fruit as Córdoba was graced by three great scholars in the 10th and 11th centuries—Ibn Masarrah (died 931), Maslama al-Majrīṭī (died 1008), and Kirmānī (died 1068)—all of whom were knowledgeable in philosophy, geometry, and other disciplines. The most important, however, was Ibn Masarrah, whose teachings drew from the 5th-century-BC Greek philosopher Empedocles and laid the basis of later Andalusian mysticism.

      The foundations of the study of philosophy, set in the 10th and 11th centuries, bore fruit in the 12th century when Neoplatonic (Neoplatonism) thought flourished in Islamic Spain. This development is associated with two important figures: Avempace, known in Arabic as Ibn Bājjah, and Ibn Ṭufayl. Although Avempace, a physician who probably died by poisoning, wrote a number of commentaries on important works by Aristotle and al-Farabi (Fārābī, al-), he is best known for his Tadbir al-mutawah hid (“The Regime of the Solitary”), which was influenced by Neoplatonism and commented on the corrupt nature of society. Avempace's later contemporary, Ibn Ṭufayl, court physician and adviser of the Almohad ruler Abū Yaʿqūb Yūsuf, offered a more-developed Neoplatonism in his philosophical novel, Ḥayy ibn Yaqzān (“Alive son of Awake”). It is the story of a man who lives the first 50 years of his life on a deserted island, develops his own philosophy, and learns the truth about God.

      The greatest Andalusian philosopher, however, and arguably the most important Muslim philosopher, is Ibn Rushd—or, as he is commonly known in the West, Averroës. He represents the high point of the philosophic tradition in Islamic Spain. His commentaries on the works of Aristotle, which had been translated into Arabic in Spain, had great influence on Jewish and Christian thinkers, including Thomas Aquinas (Aquinas, Thomas, Saint), Siger of Brabant (Siger De Brabant), and Boethius of Dacia. From a prominent Córdoban family, Averroës enjoyed a career as a court physician and religious judge in Spain. In 1169 he was commissioned to write commentaries on Aristotle's works by Abū Yaʿqūb Yūsuf, who was introduced to Averroës by Ibn Ṭufayl. One of the greatest expositors of Aristotle, Averroës also wrote a commentary on Plato's Republic, in which he critiqued contemporary rulers and governments. Best known for his works on Aristotle, Averroës also wrote The Incoherence of the Incoherence (Tahāfut al-Tahāfut), a spirited defense of philosophy against the theologian al-Ghazālī (Ghazālī, al-), and the Decisive Treatise on the Agreement Between Religious Law and Philsophy (Faṣl al-Maḳāl), which argues for the fundamental agreement between religion and philosophy (he did not, however, advocate the doctrine of the double truth, which his Latin interpreters did).

      In the mid-11th century Ṣāʿid, a qāḍī (qadi) of Toledo, composed a noteworthy handbook of the history of science that contained much information on technical subjects. Mathematical sciences received little attention, though Maslama al-Majrīṭī (died 1008), who probably took part in the translation of Ptolemy's Planispherium and made some contributions to pure mathematics, is particularly noteworthy. During the heyday of Granada, ʿAlī al-Qalaṣādī, commentator on Ibn al-Bannāʾ, did important work on fractions. Despite their lack of interest in the physical sciences, the Andalusians excelled in both theoretical and practical astronomy. A number of these scholars sought to simplify the astrolabe, and finally al-Zarqālī (Azarquiel; died 1100) achieved success by inventing the apparatus called the azafea (Arabic: al-ṣaīḥa), which was widely used by navigators until the 16th century. Al-Zarqālī also anticipated Johannes Kepler (Kepler, Johannes) by suggesting that the orbits of the planets are not circular but ovoid. The Arab mathematician Jābir ibn Aflaḥ (12th century) was also notable for his criticism of the Ptolemaic system.

      Astrology was popular in Muslim Spain, and after 788 the Umayyad rulers retained an official astrologer in their courts. The most widely used astrological treatises were those of the Tunisian ʿAlī ibn Abi al-Rijāl and another, anonymous scientist, who made a translation from Vulgar Latin into Arabic in the 8th century. This book was translated from Arabic into Spanish during the era of Alfonso the Learned under the title of Libro de las Cruces (“Book of the Crosses”).

      The treatises on esoteric or occult subjects attribute to Maslama al-Majrītī two works on natural science that are not properly his but may be ascribed to one of his pupils. They are Ghāyat al-ḥakīm (“The Goals of the Scholar”; also known as Picatrix) and Rutbat al-ḥakīm (“The Step of the Scholar”). Greater interest is merited by the Materia medica, a revision of the Eastern Arabic text of the 1st-century Greek physician Pedanius Dioscorides ordered by al-Naṣir, on which Jews, Arabs, and Christians collaborated. Gradually the Andalusian Arabs kept adding new medicinal “simples”—which described the properties of various medicinal plants—to those described by Dioscorides, and the last eminent essayist on the subject, Ibn al-Bayṭār (died 1248), describes more than 1,400 of these. The Andalusians were familiar with the texts of the great Latin classics relating to natural science, and Ibn Wāfid, Ibn Baṣṣāl, and Ibn al-ʿAwwām (11th and 12th centuries) quote Varro, Virgil, and others. The most notable geographers in Muslim Spain were Abū ʿUbayd al-Bakrī (died 1094), who wrote the Kitāb al-masālik wa'l-mamālik (“Book of Highways and of Kingdoms”), and al-Idrīsī (Idrīsī, ash-Sharīf al-) (died 1166), who was in the service of Roger II of Sicily and is the author of the leading universal geography composed by the Arabs. Somewhat later (1323) there appeared the first Arabic nautical map, possibly of Granadan origin. In technology, Muslim (Islāmic world) Spain was noted for its windmills and for its manufacture of paper. The Jews (Jew) who lived in Muslim Spain had become culturally Arabized. They also pursued their own religious studies; the works of Moses Maimonides (Maimonides, Moses) (1135–1204) are a good example of the cultural brilliance of the Andalusian Jews.

Juan Vernet Ginés María J. Viguera

United Spain under the Catholic Monarchs
The union of Aragon and Castile
 When Ferdinand II (1479–1516; also known as 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 Trastámara became the second most powerful monarchs in Europe, after the Valois of France. The different royal houses of the Iberian Peninsula had long sought 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 (Isabella I) 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 Católicos). 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 (Morisco) (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. Although 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, the quotation does summarize succinctly 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 with 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 Sevilla. 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.

      Castile, too, was a poor country. Much of its soil was arid, and its agriculture was undeveloped. The armed shepherds of the powerful sheep-owners' guild, the Mesta, drove their flocks over hundreds of miles, from summer to winter pastures and back again, spoiling much cultivated land. Despite the violent hostility of the landowners, the government upheld the Mesta privileges, since the guild paid generously for them and was supported by the merchants who exported the raw wool to the cloth industry of Flanders. The activities of the Mesta were undoubtedly harmful to the peasant economy of large parts of Castile and, by impoverishing the peasants, limited the markets for urban industries and thus the growth of some Castilian towns. A change, however, occurred in the 16th century. Just as in the rest of Europe, the population of Spain grew, rising in Castile from about 4.25 million in 1528 to about 6.5 million after 1580. To meet the increasing demands for agricultural products, the peasants expanded the cultivation of grain and other foodstuffs, and the Mesta and its migratory flocks gradually lost their dominant position in the Castilian economy. Their contributions to government finances declined as a proportion of total government revenue. The growing market also stimulated urban industries. Segovia, Toledo, Córdoba, and other towns expanded their manufactures of textile and metal. The apex of this expansion was reached in the third quarter of the 16th century, but it never matched that of Flemish and northern Italian cities. Overall, Spain remained a country that exported raw materials and imported manufactures.

      In the northern provinces of Castile there lived a large class of minor nobles, the hidalgos (hidalgo). The inhabitants of Guipúzcoa (by the westernmost French border) even claimed that they were all of noble birth. But the south, New Castile (southeast of Madrid), Extremadura (southwest of Madrid), and especially Andalusia—that is, those provinces most recently reconquered from the Muslims—were the domain of the great nobility. There the Enríquez, the Mendoza, and the Guzmán families and others owned vast estates, sometimes covering almost half a province. They had grown rich as a result of the boom in wool exports to Flanders during the 15th-century, when there were more than 2.5 million sheep in Castile, and it was they, with their hordes of vassals and retainers, who had attempted to dominate a constitutionally almost absolute, but politically weak, monarchy.

      It was in this kingdom that the Catholic Monarchs determined to restore the power of the crown. Once this was achieved, or so it seemed, the liberties of the smaller kingdoms would become relatively minor problems. Like their contemporary Henry VII of England, they had the advantage of their subjects' yearning for strong and effective government after many years of civil war. Thus, they could count on the support of the cities in restoring law and order. During the civil wars the cities of northern Castile had formed leagues for self-defense against the aggressive magnates. A nationwide league, the hermandad (“brotherhood”), performed a wide range of police, financial, and other administrative functions. Isabella supported the hermandad but kept some control over it by the appointment of royal officials, the corregidores, to the town councils. At the same time, both municipal efficiency and civic pride were enhanced by the obligation imposed on all towns to build a town hall (ayuntamiento).

      With the great nobles it was necessary to move more cautiously. The Catholic Monarchs revoked usurpations of land and revenues by the nobility if these had occurred since 1464, but most of the great noble estates had been built up before that date and were effectively left intact. From a contemporary chronicler, Hernán Pérez del Pulgar, historians know how they proceeded piecemeal but systematically against the magnates, sometimes using a nobleman's defiance of the law, sometimes a breach of the peace or of a pledge, to take over or destroy his castles and thus his independent military power. Even more effective in dealing with the nobility was the enormous increase in royal patronage. Isabella was stage manager to Ferdinand's election as grand master of one after another of the three great orders of knighthood: (knight) Santiago (Santiago, Order of), Calatrava (Calatrava, Order of), and Alcántara (Alcántara, Order of). This position allowed the king to distribute several hundred commanderships with their attached income from the huge estates of the orders. Equally important was royal control over all important ecclesiastical appointments, which the Catholic Monarchs insisted upon with ruthless disregard of all papal claims to the contrary. In the Spanish dependencies in Italy, Ferdinand claimed the right of exequatur, according to which all papal bulls (bull, papal) and breves (authorizing letters) could be published only with his permission. A letter from Ferdinand to his viceroy in Naples, written in 1510, upbraids the viceroy for permitting the pope to publish a brief in Naples, threatens that he will renounce his own and his kingdoms' allegiance to the Holy See, and orders the viceroy to arrest the papal messenger, force him to declare he never published the brief, and then hang him. In Spain the Catholic Monarchs had no formal right of exequatur, but they and their Habsburg (Habsburg, House of) successors behaved very much as if they did. From that time onward the Spanish clergy had to look to the crown and not to Rome for advancement, and so did the great nobles who traditionally claimed the richest ecclesiastical benefices for their younger sons.

      Perhaps most effective of all in reducing the political power of the high nobility was their virtual exclusion from the royal administration. The old royal council, a council of great nobles advising the king, was transformed into a bureaucratic body for the execution of royal policy, staffed by a prelate, three nobles, and eight or nine lawyers. These lawyers, mostly drawn from the poor hidalgo class, were entirely dependent on the royal will and became willing instruments of a more efficient and powerful central government. The Catholic Monarchs established the Council of Finance (1480, but not fully developed until much later), the Council of the Hermandad (1476–98), the Council of the Inquisition (1483), and the Council of the Orders of Knighthood (for the administration of the property and patronage of the orders of Santiago, Calatrava, and Alcántara), and they reorganized the Council of Aragon. Charles I (Holy Roman emperor as Charles V) and Philip II were later to continue this work and to add further councils, notably those of the Indies (1524) and of Italy (1558).

      After Isabella's death in 1504, the nobles appeared to be tamed and politically innocuous. In fact, their social position and its economic basis, their estates, had not been touched. The Laws of Toro (1505), which extended the right to entail family estates on the eldest child, further safeguarded the stability of noble property. In 1520 Charles I (Charles V) agreed to the nobles' demand for a fixed hierarchy of rank, from the 25 grandees of Spain through the rest of the titled nobility, down to some 60,000 hidalgos, or caballeros, and a similar number of urban nobility, all of them distinguished from the rest of the population, the pecheros, by far-reaching legal privileges and exemption from direct taxation. Thus, the Catholic Monarchs' antinoble policy was far from consistent. Having won the civil war, they needed the nobility for their campaigns against the kingdom of Granada and, later, the kingdoms in North Africa and Italy. They now favoured the nobles against the towns, allowing them to encroach on the territory around the cities and discouraging the corregidores and the royal courts from protecting the cities' interests. Thus, the seeds were sown for the development of the comunero movement of 1520.

The Spanish Inquisition
      With its large Muslim and Jewish (Jew) populations, medieval Spain was the only multiracial and multireligious country in western Europe, and much of the development of Spanish civilization in religion, literature, art, and architecture during the later Middle Ages stemmed from this fact. The Jews had served Spain and its monarchs well, providing an active commercial class and an educated elite for many administrative posts.

      By the late 14th century, however, the status of the Jews in Christian Spain began to change. Their former protectors, the monarchs in Spain, began to restrict the rights and privileges of the Jews, and the devastation caused by the Black Death led to increased popular hostility, as many believed that the plague was a plot devised by Jews to destroy Christianity. Animosity toward the Jews was stimulated further by Jewish converts to Christianity who issued polemics against their former coreligionists. Calls for the expulsion or persecution of the Jews were answered by anti-Jewish riots in 1348 and 1391. The pogroms of 1391 were especially significant because of the subsequent mass conversion of Jews to Christianity in response to the violence perpetrated against them.

      The conversos (converso) and Marranos (Marrano)—the “new Christians”—became a highly controversial group throughout Spain. Many of these converted Jews and their descendants assumed important positions in government and society and associated themselves with powerful noble families. They also achieved economic power and prosperity, which inspired increasing hatred of them by the “old Christians,” who already questioned the sincerity of their conversions. Indeed, although there were many devout Christians among the conversos, there were also those who were at most agnostic converts, and the Marranos secretly continued to practice Judaism.

      The wealth of the conversos created jealousy and their uncertain conversions hatred in a population that traditionally saw itself as the defender of Christianity against the infidel. The Catholic Monarchs, ever good tacticians, profited from this feeling. In 1478 they first obtained a papal bull from Sixtus IV setting up the inquisition to deal with the conversos whose conversions were thought to be insincere. Since the Spanish Inquisition was constituted as a royal court, all appointments were made by the crown. Sixtus IV realized too late the enormous ecclesiastical powers that he had given away and the moral dangers inherent in an institution the proceedings of which were secret and that did not allow appeals to Rome.

      With its army of lay familiars, who were exempt from normal jurisdiction and who acted both as bodyguards and as informers for the inquisitors, and with its combination of civil and ecclesiastical powers, the Spanish Inquisition became a formidable weapon in the armory of royal absolutism. The Supreme Council of the Inquisition (or Suprema) was the only formal institution established by the Catholic Monarchs for all their kingdoms together. Nevertheless, they thought of it primarily in religious and not in political terms. The Inquisition's secret procedures, its eagerness to accept denunciations, its use of torture, the absence of counsel for the accused, the lack of any right to confront hostile witnesses, and the practice of confiscating the property of those who were condemned and sharing it between the Inquisition, the crown, and the accusers—all this inspired great terror, as indeed it was meant to do. The number of those condemned for heresy was never very large and has often been exaggerated by Protestant writers. But during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs several thousand conversos were condemned and burned for Judaizing practices. The whole family of the philosopher and humanist Juan Luis Vives (Vives, Juan Luis) was wiped out in this way. Many more thousands of conversos escaped similar fates only by fleeing the country. Many Roman Catholics in Spain opposed the introduction of the Inquisition, and the Neapolitans and Milanese (who prided themselves on their Catholicism and who were supported by the popes) later successfully resisted the attempts by their Spanish rulers to impose the Spanish Inquisition on them. Even in Spain itself, it was the sumptuous autos-da-fé (auto-da-fé), the ceremonial sentencings and executions of heretics, rather than the institution and its members, that seem to have been popular. But most Spaniards seem never to have understood the horror and revulsion that this institution aroused in the rest of Europe.

 The first inquisitor general, Tomás de Torquemada (Torquemada, Tomás de), himself from a converso family, at once started a propaganda campaign against the Jews. In 1492 he persuaded the Catholic Monarchs to expel all Jews who refused to be baptized. Isabella and most of her contemporaries looked upon this expulsion of more than 160,000 of her subjects as a pious duty. At the moment when the country needed all its economic resources to sustain its new European position and its overseas empire, however, it was deprived of many of its most economically active citizens and was laid open to exploitation by German and Italian financiers.

The conversos
      The expulsion of the Jews in 1492 did not signify the end of Jewish influence on Spanish history, as was long thought. It is not, however, easy to establish a clear-cut direction or pattern of this influence. At the end of the 15th century there may have been up to 300,000 conversos in Spain, and the majority of these remained. They had constituted the educated urban bourgeoisie of Spain, and the richer families had frequently intermarried with the Spanish aristocracy and even with the royal family itself. After 1492 their position remained precarious. Some reacted by stressing their Christian orthodoxy and denouncing other conversos to the Inquisition for Judaizing practices. Others embraced some form of less conventional, more spiritualized Christianity. Thus the followers of Sister Isabel de la Cruz, a Franciscan, organized the centres of the Illuminists (Alumbrados (Alumbrado)), mystics who believed that through inner purification their souls should submit to God's will and thus enter into direct communication with him. While they counted some of the high aristocracy among their number, most of the Illuminists seem to have been conversos. Again, it was among the conversos that Erasmianism (named after the famous humanist Desiderius Erasmus (Erasmus, Desiderius)), a more intellectual form of spiritualized Christianity, had its greatest successes in Spain. The Erasmians had powerful supporters at court in the early years of Charles I as emperor, when his policy was directed toward the healing of the religious schism by a general reform of the church. But in the 1530s and '40s the enemies of the Erasmians, especially the Dominican order, launched a systematic campaign against them. The Inquisition annihilated them or forced them to flee the country, just as it had done in the case of the Illuminists as early as the 1520s. Nevertheless, the influence of Erasmus did not completely disappear from Spanish intellectual life, and it has been traced into the latter part of the 16th century.

      But the majority of the conversos and their descendants probably became and remained orthodox Roman Catholics, playing a prominent part in every aspect of Spanish religious and intellectual life. They range from such saints as Teresa of Ávila (Teresa of Ávila, Saint) and St. John of God (John of God, Saint), one a mystical writer and founder of convents, the other an organizer of care for the sick, to Diego Laínez, a friend of St. Ignatius of Loyola and second general of the Jesuit order. They include Fernando de Rojas (Rojas, Fernando de), author of La Celestina, the first great literary work of the Spanish Renaissance, and, two generations later, Mateo Alemán (Alemán, Mateo), who wrote a picaresque novel, Guzmán de Alfarache; Luis de León (León, Luis de), a humanist and poet; a Dominican, Francisco de Vitoria (Vitoria, Francisco de), perhaps the greatest jurist of any country in the 16th century; and another famous Dominican, the defender of the American Indians and historian of the Indies, Bartolomé de Las Casas (Las Casas, Bartolomé de).

      Along with Luis Vives (mentioned earlier), these are only the most famous among the many distinguished conversos who played such a central and varied role in creating the cultural splendours of Spain's “ Golden Age.” This extraordinary phenomenon had no parallel anywhere else in Europe before the 19th or even 20th century. Although any attempt at explanation is bound to be speculative, the following may be suggested. The Spanish Jews (Jew) and conversos formed a comparatively large section of the relatively small educated elite of Spain who were primarily responsible for the cultural achievements of the period. Moreover, having deliberately broken with the Jewish tradition of Talmudic scholarship (from the Talmud (Talmud and Midrash), the body of Jewish civil and canonical law), the conversos found the glittering Renaissance world of Christian Spain ambivalently attractive and repellent but always stimulating. Their response to this stimulus was probably sharpened by the hostility that they continued to meet from the “old Christians,” who were bitterly resentful and aware of the ubiquity of the conversos, however much the conversos assimilated into Spanish culture.

The statutes of limpieza
      Religious, racial, and even anti-aristocratic class prejudices combined to create the obsession with “purity of blood” (limpieza de sangre) which became characteristic of the Spaniards in the 16th and 17th centuries. It first crystallized with a statute of limpieza, imposed in 1547 on the cathedral chapter of Toledo, by which purity of ancestry both from the “taint” of converso blood and from any accusations of heresy by the Inquisition was made a condition of all future ecclesiastical appointments. The author of this statute was Juan Martínez Siliceo, archbishop of Toledo, a man of humble and, hence, by definition, untainted origins who had found himself despised by the aristocratic canons, many of whom were of converso ancestry. In 1556 Philip II gave his royal approval to the statute on the grounds that “all the heresies in Germany, France, and Spain have been sown by descendants of Jews.” This remark was sheer fantasy with regard to Germany and France, and it is especially ironic that Pope Paul IV, then at war with Spain, quite correctly described Philip II himself as a Marrano, or a descendant of Jews who had converted to Christianity.

      Statutes of limpieza spread rapidly throughout Spain. The statutes helped to perpetuate a set of values that equated pure ancestry, orthodoxy, and personal honour. Although this certainly helped to prevent the spread of heresies in Spain, in the long run it had a blighting effect on Spanish society, especially because the statutes were linked so closely with the basically corrupt institution of the Inquisition and its encouragement of the inevitably corrupting and divisive practice of spying on and denouncing one's neighbours.

      By the middle of the 16th century the Inquisition had largely run out of suspected heretics and Judaizers. Apart from its continued concern with the Moriscos (Morisco), the Inquisition began to concentrate its efforts on the censorship of books and on enforcing correct religious beliefs and moral (i.e., mainly sexual) behaviour among the “old” Christians. As religious conflicts in Europe became sharper in the second half of the 16th century, such supervision came to be practiced in Protestant as well as in Catholic countries. It was in this respect that the Spanish Inquisition, spreading its network of courts and familiars from the towns to the countryside, could surpass even the strictest Calvinist-Puritan communities, even though the use of torture was no longer deemed necessary and death sentences had become rare. Taken together with a royal prohibition against students studying at foreign universities, even Catholic ones, the Inquisition tended to isolate Spanish intellectual life from that of the rest of Europe.

      On the positive side there was the Inquisition's general unwillingness to join in the widespread mania of witch hunting that led to thousands of executions in other European countries, especially Protestant ones. Most Spanish theologians did not believe in the existence of witchcraft and held that spells and sorceries were only female vapourings that could be safely ignored or dealt with by shutting the witch-women up in convents.

The conquest of Granada
      The impact of the Muslims on Spanish life and traditions had been rather different from that of the Jews. It was most evident, perhaps, in the position of women in southern Spain, who long remained semiveiled and in much greater seclusion than elsewhere in Christian Europe. It was evident also where Jewish influence was practically nonexistent, in the visual arts and especially in architecture. Not only did houses in southern Spain for a long time continue to be built facing inward onto a patio, but a whole style of architecture, the Plateresque, derived from an imaginative fusion of the Moorish (Muslim) and the Christian: classic Renaissance structures were decorated with Gothic or Renaissance motifs but executed in the Moorish manner, as if a carpet had been hung over the outside wall of the building. This charming style, which was invented during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs, spread far and wide over Spain and eventually even to the New World.

      To Ferdinand and Isabella, the Moorish problem presented itself in the first place in a political and military form, for the Muslims still ruled their independent kingdom of Granada. The Catholic Monarchs had to concentrate all their military resources and call on the enthusiastic support of their Castilian subjects to conquer the kingdom in a long and arduous campaign, which ended with the capture of Granada, the capital, in 1492. In this campaign Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba (Fernández de Córdoba, Gonzalo), the “Great Captain,” developed the tactics, training, and organization that made Spanish infantry almost unbeatable for 150 years.

      The Muslims were granted generous terms and religious freedom. However, against the advice of the saintly Hernando de Talavera, the converso archbishop of Granada who was trying to convert the Muslims by precept and education, the queen's confessor, Francisco (later Cardinal) Jiménez de Cisneros (Jiménez de Cisneros, Francisco, Cardenal), introduced forced mass conversions. The Muslims rebelled (1499–1500) and, after another defeat, were given the choice of conversion or expulsion. Jiménez and Isabella did not regard this new policy as a punishment of the Muslims for rebellion, for Christian baptism could never be that. It was rather that they considered themselves to have been released by the rebellion from their previous guarantees to the Muslims, which they had entered into only with misgivings. Although many Muslims chose conversion, the problem now became virtually insoluble. There were never enough Arabic-speaking priests or money for education to make outward conversion a religious reality. The Moriscos (Morisco) remained an alien community, suspicious of and suspect to the “old” Christians. There was very little intermarriage between Moriscos and Christians, and the Moriscos were less likely to accept Spanish Christianity than were the conversos, who, despite the statutes of limpieza, became an integral part of Spanish society.

      Cardinal Jiménez and other Castilians wanted to follow up the conquest of Granada by invading North Africa. There were religious, strategic, and historical reasons for keeping the two shores of the western end of the Mediterranean under single political control, as indeed they had been since Roman times. But Ferdinand, thinking in dynastic and imperial rather than national terms, chose to concentrate his efforts and Spanish resources on the traditional Aragonese claims against France along the Pyrenees and in Italy.

      Aragon still held Sicily and Sardinia from the much more extensive medieval Aragonese empire. French intervention in Italy from 1494 gave Ferdinand his chance. To secure his southern flank while he led his army into Italy, Charles VIII of France agreed to return to Ferdinand the counties of Cerdagne and Roussillon (Treaty of Barcelona, 1493), which Louis XI had seized during the Catalan civil wars in 1463. But it was through Ferdinand's own diplomacy and through the generalship of Gonzalo de Córdoba that he acquired the Kingdom of Naples (1503). For the first time the union of Aragon and Castile had shown its strength, and Spain now rivaled France as the most powerful state in Europe. Ferdinand had carefully arranged the marriage of his children to strengthen his diplomatic position against France by alliances with Portugal, England, and Burgundy (which ruled the Netherlands). The unexpected deaths of the two eldest and of their children, however, left the succession of Castile after Isabella's (Isabella I) death (1504) to the third, Joan the Mad, and her husband, Philip I (the Handsome) of Castile, ruler of the Burgundian Netherlands. The Netherlands nobility were delighted to see this enormous accretion of power to their ruler and looked forward to the advantages that they might reap from it. They accompanied him to Castile, where a large section of the high nobility, in their turn, were anxious to acclaim him rather than the redoubtable Ferdinand (Ferdinand II). Ferdinand was therefore forced to recognize Philip's claims but, when Philip died in 1506, was left as uncontested ruler. Ferdinand's last great success was the annexation of the Spanish part of the kingdom of Navarre in 1512.

Spain and the New World
 While the exploration of the Atlantic coast of Africa had been mainly a Portuguese concern in the 15th century, the Castilians had not been entirely disinterested in such activities and had occupied the Canary Islands (off northwest Africa). In the Treaty of Alcáçovas (1479), Afonso V of Portugal renounced his claims to the Crown of Castile, and he also recognized Castilian possession of the Canaries in return for Spanish recognition of Portuguese possession of the Azores (in the Atlantic Ocean west of Portugal), the Cape Verde Islands (off West Africa), and Madeira (north of the Canaries). The conquest of Granada allowed Castile, for the first time, to concentrate major resources and effort on overseas exploration. The support that Christopher Columbus (Columbus, Christopher) received from Isabella was indicative of this new policy. In 1492 Columbus made his landfall in the West Indies, and over the next half century the Spaniards conquered huge empires in the Americas (Latin America, history of) and made their first settlements in East Asia. From the beginning there were disputes with the Portuguese, who were establishing their own colonial (colonialism, Western) empire. The Catholic Monarchs obtained a series of papal bulls (1493) from the Spanish pope Alexander VI, which eventually resulted in the Treaty of Tordesillas (Tordesillas, Treaty of) with Portugal (1494) to settle their respective claims. Everything west of an imaginary line 370 leagues (here, the league was just over three nautical miles) to the west of the Cape Verde Islands in the Atlantic was assigned to Spain; everything east went to Portugal. The rest of Europe saw no reason to accept the pope's decision, and the result was constant and brutal warfare in the overseas colonies, even when the European governments were officially at peace (see also Latin America, history of).

Colonial policy
      Unlike the other European colonists of that age, the Spaniards were vitally concerned with the moral problems of the conquest, conversion, and government of so-called heathen peoples. If the great majority of conquistadores ruthlessly pursued gold, power, and status, they also took with them Dominican and Franciscan friars who set themselves to convert and educate the American Indians (American Indian) and, sometimes, to protect them from their Spanish masters. The Dominican Bartolomé de Las Casas (Las Casas, Bartolomé de) fought long battles to modify at least the greatest evils of colonial exploitation. His debates with a theologian, Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda, and the writings of Francisco de Vitoria (Vitoria, Francisco de) provide the first systematic discussions of the moral and legal problems of conquest and colonial rule. Their importance lay in their effects on Spanish colonial legislation. The Leyes Nuevas (“New Laws of the Indies”) of 1542 were based largely on the arguments of Las Casas. While in the Spanish colonies these laws were breached more than observed, they provided at least some protection for the Indians, and there was nothing like them in any of the other European overseas colonies of the period. However, even Las Casas supported the transatlantic slave trade of black Africans until late in his career, when he began to recognize its evils.

The Atlantic trade
      The crown insisted that all trade with the colonies should be carried on through Sevilla and should be reserved for Castilians, on the argument that it was Castilian money and blood that had built the Spanish overseas empire. This trade was closely regulated by the Casa de Contratación (Contratación, Casa de) (1503), or House of Commerce, in Sevilla. The city itself rapidly became one of the greatest trading centres in Europe, and its population rose from 25,000 in 1517 to 90,000 in 1594. Yet Castile was unable to supply all the manufactures that the colonists demanded and for which they paid in solid gold and silver (silver processing). Far from seeing this trade as an opportunity for Castilian industry, the Cortes (parliament) actually petitioned the crown in 1548 to prohibit exports to the Indies, which, they claimed, were raising prices in Castile. The government did not accept this petition, but Castile had to import much of what its colonists needed from Italy and the Netherlands. The Castilian monopoly of trade with Spanish America had in practice only the effect of giving the rest of Europe the chance to compete on equal terms for the American trade with the monarchy's non-Castilian subjects. The organization and financing of the Spanish Atlantic trade was largely in the hands of Genoese and South German merchants.

      From the 1540s, when a new method of extracting silver from ore with the use of mercury was discovered, silver mining became a major industry in both Mexico and Peru, and silver shipments in rapidly increasing quantities soon surpassed the earlier gold shipments in value. Precious metal was exported from the Indies to Spain, partly as the crown's right of one-fifth (quinto real) but, more important, as payment for imports. The average annual quantities, as registered by the Casa de Contratación (not counting the unknown quantities that were smuggled), rose rapidly from about 1 million pesos in the five-year period from 1526 to 1530 to 5 million from 1541 to 1554 and then to the peak of more than 35 million during the period from 1591 to 1595. The growth of overall trade between Sevilla and the New World followed a very similar pattern, rising until 1550, then stagnating until the early 1560s, and rising again to a peak in the last decade of the 16th century. Prices, especially of agricultural produce, had started to rise in Spain, as in the rest of Europe, long before American silver was imported in considerable quantities. Whatever the ultimate causes of the price revolution of the 16th century, there can be little doubt that American silver greatly aggravated the inflation in Spain in the second half of the 16th century. The theologians of the University of Salamanca (Salamanca, University of) (some 100 miles west-northwest of Madrid) in the 1550s were the first to see this connection and to formulate the earliest version of a quantity theory of money (in which money is worth more when scarce than when abundant). Very little of this American treasure seems to have been invested in economic production. Most of it was used for display by the court and ruling circles, to pay for Spanish imports, for the Spanish armies abroad, and to satisfy the government's German, Italian, and Netherlandish creditors. Thus Spain, with all the treasure of the New World at its command, remained a poor country.

Spain under the Habsburgs
      Ferdinand died on Jan. 23, 1516, and the crowns of the Spanish kingdoms devolved to his grandson, Charles I (Charles V) (1516–56), 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 Jiménez (Jiménez de Cisneros, Francisco, Cardenal), the regent until Charles's arrival in Spain, had to battle 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 Jiménez tried to raise a militia, the nobles and the towns 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 finally arrived in Spain in September 1517, his supporters were already disillusioned, and the country was apprehensive of the rule of a foreigner. Ugly, inexperienced, speaking no Spanish, and surrounded by Burgundian councillors and courtiers, Charles 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 (Holy Roman Empire) 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 their displeasure apparent. The Toledans refused to appear; the others demanded the discussion of grievances before they would supply the funds. By a mixture of bribery and concessions, the government finally induced a majority of the delegates (who had transferred from Santiago to A Coruña [Spanish: La Coruña] 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 claimed—more boldly even than the Third Estate during the French Revolution in 1789—that 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 (Padilla, Juan de), 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 for his quest to attain the imperial title (which they thought inferior to that of king of Castile) nor for 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 Enríquez and the constable of Castile, Iñigo de Velasco, as Adrian's coregents 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 corregidores 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. However, 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. In 1538, when 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 to 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.

The nobility
      The traditions of the grandees (grandee) and hidalgos (hidalgo), formed in the centuries of struggle against the Muslims, made them even more averse to economic activities than the rest of the European nobility. Many engaged in wholesale trade in wool and grain, and some profited from the American trade in Sevilla. But the majority invested their money in land—without, however, improving agriculture—and preferred careers in the army, the church, and the civil service to the ignoble occupations of commerce. In the long run, the economic weakness of Spain, aggravated by its social traditions and its system of taxation, proved a serious handicap in Spain's struggle with its western European rivals.

      After Villalar, however, the Spanish nobility had come to accept Charles I. His championing of Roman Catholic Christianity against the Muslim Turks and German heretics appealed to their own traditions of Christian warfare against the Muslims in the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa. While Charles kept the grandees out of the central government of Spain itself, he had many prizes to offer in military commands, provincial governorships, and even viceroyalties in Italy and Spanish America. The hidalgos, trained as lawyers at Salamanca or as theologians at Alcalá de Henares (Madrid, Complutensian University of) (just east of Madrid), could look forward to dazzling careers in the king's councils and in the Spanish church. Even though Charles spent only 16 of the 40 years of his reign in Spain, the Spanish upper classes were beginning to accept and enjoy their monarch's position as the greatest ruler in Europe.

Charles I's foreign policy
      Because of Charles's role as Holy Roman emperor, Spain became involved in interminable wars. The necessity of defending southern Italy against the Turks brought Charles's empire into collision with the Ottoman Empire, with the central Mediterranean as the chief battleground. Ferdinand's failure to complete the conquest of North Africa now brought a bitter revenge. The corsair leader Khayr al-Dīn, known as Barbarossa, had made himself master of Algiers (1529) and acknowledged the suzerainty of the sultan of Constantinople (Istanbul). Thus, the purely local problem of the Muslim raids on the Spanish south coast became merged into the much more formidable struggle with the Ottoman Empire. In 1535 Charles captured Tunis. In perhaps his most satisfying triumph, Charles appeared in his chosen role of, as he said himself, “God's standard-bearer.” He now seriously considered carrying the war into the eastern Mediterranean, even conquering Constantinople itself. But in 1538 Barbarossa, with a Turkish fleet, defeated Charles's Genoese admiral, Andrea Doria (Doria, Andrea), at Préveza (western Greece), and in 1541 the emperor himself failed against Algiers. At the end of the reign, the balance of the two great naval powers in the Mediterranean, the Spanish and the Turkish, was still even.

      Rival claims to Naples by the Aragonese and the Angevins (cousins of the ruling French house) also brought conflict with the French kings, against whom Charles fought four wars. His armies conquered Milan (northern Italy) and reduced most of the still-independent Italian states to Spanish satellites. An increasing part of the burden of these wars fell on Spain and especially on Castile. The Spanish tercios (infantry regiments) were not only the emperor's best troops, but it was in Castile that he could raise the largest part of his imperial revenues—moreover, without having to account for the way he spent them, as he had to do with the taxes voted by the States General of the Netherlands. It is therefore not surprising that the empire in Europe with Charles V as head became gradually transformed into a Spanish—or, rather, Castilian—empire of Charles I. In the latter part of his reign, Spaniards and Hispanicized Italians monopolized all high positions in the empire south of the Alps and began to appear in Germany and the Netherlands. More and more they came to interpret the international and Roman Catholic ideals of the emperor in terms of the political predominance of Spain in Europe and overseas.

      When Charles abdicated his various lands (1555–56), Philip II (1556–98) succeeded to all his father's dominions except Germany. His empire in Europe, now without the imperial title, was still only a loose union of independent states recognizing the same head. Philip, a great traditionalist, was not the man to inspire his different subjects with a new unifying idea, though he improved the central administration of his empire by the creation of the Council of Italy (1558). But his own Castilian upbringing and preferences increased the tendency toward transforming the Holy Roman Empire into a Castilian empire. Six of the nine viceroys Philip appointed to govern Sicily were Spaniards, as were all those of Naples with the single exception of one, Antoine Cardinal Perrenot de Granvelle (Granvelle, Antoine Perrenot de), and 10 out of 13 governors of Milan. In the Spanish viceroyalties of Aragon, Catalonia, Valencia, and Navarre and in those of Mexico and Peru, none but Spaniards, preferably Castilians, were ever thought of at all, with the exception of one or two Italians. These were the key figures in Philip II's empire, and they were backed by the commanders of the Spanish regiments. Fortresses were nearly always governed by Castilians. It was necessary to appoint natives to military commands only in the Low Countries (Low Countries, history of) (Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands).

      When the viceroys and governors were appointed, they were given “secret” instructions—in short, ones not meant for purely propagandistic purposes. These instructions reflected the current commonplaces of Christian government that could be found in scores of “Mirrors of Princes” (handbooks of government popular at the time) published in the 16th century and that Philip had made his own. The governors were to represent the king—not the state or the Spanish empire—as if he were present in person; it was stressed that they were not appointed for their own benefit but for that of the community they were sent to govern; they were to watch so that the king's subjects might sleep in peace and quiet and to dispense equal justice to rich and poor.

      Many of the Castilian grandees who were appointed to these high offices undoubtedly strove to live up to these precepts. In practice, however, their success depended largely on the strength of the local opposition they met: there was, for example, a great deal of local opposition in Sicily, which had gained the reputation of being “fatal to its viceroys,” but very much less in Naples, about which at least one viceroy remarked that no one should wish to be viceroy there, because of the pain he would have to suffer when he had to leave that post at the end of his term. A great part of the viceroys' difficulties, however, stemmed from the unreliability of the king himself. Philip was always anxious to maintain the dignity of their office, but he encouraged the local ministers and officials to report on their viceroys behind their backs, and he had no compunction about recalling a viceroy, governor, or minister when it suited him in this way to appease local opposition.

      The king kept control over his viceroys and governors by weekly, sometimes daily, correspondence, carried by the excellent postal service that the house of Austria (Habsburg, House of) had organized in Europe. All important political decisions were thus taken in Madrid, and there the king relied almost entirely on Spaniards for advice. Only one non-Spaniard, Cardinal Granvelle (Granvelle, Antoine Perrenot de) of Franche-Comté, was ever summoned to Madrid to play a leading role in the king's inner councils (1579–86). It was Granvelle who had earlier, as the king's chief minister in the Netherlands, reminded his master of the international character of his empire. He advised a more international dispensation of royal patronage, as, for instance, the appointment of the Prince of Orange ( William I the Silent) to the viceroyalty of Sicily so that Netherlanders and Italians would no longer think that the king regarded only the Spaniards as his “legitimate subjects.” But Philip had refused to listen, and the bitter Castilian hostility to Granvelle at court ended by making the cardinal's ministry in Madrid less and less effective in the last two or three years before his death in 1586.

Finance and imperial policy
      Philip II inherited from his predecessor an unfinished war with France and a debt of some 20 million ducats. While his ally England (to whose queen, Mary Tudor (Mary I), Philip was married) lost Calais, Philip's own armies won considerable victories, and he was able to conclude the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis (Cateau-Cambrésis, Peace of) with France (1559), which confirmed Spanish possessions and hegemony in Italy and which left the frontiers of the Netherlands intact. But the financial position had deteriorated irretrievably, and Philip's governments, both in Madrid and in Brussels, had to declare a moratorium on their debts, or rather a forcible lowering of the very high rates of interest on government loans and a rescheduling of the repayments of short-term loans. It was the first of three such moratoriums in Philip II's reign—the other two were declared in 1575 and 1596—and it set the tone for the remainder of Habsburg rule in Spain, marked by growing disparity between the monarchy's imperial policies and the financial resources at its disposal to carry out these policies. For the rest of the 16th century this disparity was still largely masked by the fluctuating, but generally increasing, shipments of silver from the New World. These shipments inspired both the king and his German and Genoese creditors with the perennial hope of new treasure to pay off ever growing debts. But the armies and navies continued to swallow up more than the stream of American silver. Much of the money was already spent in the ports and coastal areas where the troops assembled and waited for embarkation to Italy or the Netherlands. Moreover, successive naval building programs provided further economic stimulus to the peripheral areas of the peninsula rather than the centre, Castile—which, however, had the highest rates of taxation. Thus, the financial burden of empire fell more and more on Castile, and it was these conditions that did much to determine the course of Spanish history for the next 100 years.

      When Philip II returned to Spain in 1559, he still faced a naval war with the Turks, and in the following year his galleys suffered a humiliating and costly defeat at the island of Jarbah (Jerba) (off Tunisia's east coast). In 1566 the steadily deepening crisis of the Netherlands came to a head when groups of radical Protestants ransacked Roman Catholic churches, desecrating hosts, smashing stained-glass windows, and breaking sacred images. In that year Sultan Süleyman I (the Magnificent) died, and for a time the Turkish danger faded into the background. Philip could therefore risk sending his commander duque de Alba (Alba, Fernando Álvarez de Toledo y Pimentel, 3er duque de (3rd duke of)), with his best Spanish and Italian troops to the Netherlands (1567) to settle the problems of that dominion once and for all. Alba was to root out heresy, punish those responsible for the rebellion, and impose taxes sufficient to relieve Castile of the need to send any more financial help to the government in Brussels. It was the king's most terrible miscalculation, for rebellion now became revolt and involved Spain in the Eighty Years' War, 500 miles from its own borders (1568–1648). It was in the pursuit of this war that the Spanish empire in Europe eventually foundered.

      The key to the strategic thinking of Philip II and his successors, however, was always France. This was reasonable, for France was potentially the strongest military power in Europe and its hostility to Spanish greatness was absolute, despite occasional short periods of rapprochement. But, until 1595, France was paralyzed by a long succession of civil wars. Much as Philip II hated and feared a possible Huguenot (French Protestant) victory in France, he was content to see the civil wars continue, anxious most often to intervene on the side of the Catholics yet sometimes covertly offering help to the Huguenots. Until the late 1570s the threat from the Turks rivaled in importance the problems of the Netherlands. Philip switched his limited resources from the Low Countries to the Mediterranean and back again, unable to achieve a decisive victory in either theatre. It was natural, therefore, that Spanish foreign policy remained on the defensive for 20 years after the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis. There were, moreover, still formidable internal Iberian problems to be solved.

The Moriscos (Morisco)
      The most immediate problem was that of the Moriscos of Granada. The attempt to Christianize and assimilate them had proceeded only very slowly. In the 1560s the ineptitude and the wrangling among the different public authorities in Andalusia brought government to a virtual standstill. The captain general of Granada, in charge of defense and internal security, was quarreling with the municipal council of Granada and with the audiencia, the supreme court for Andalusia, over precedence, rights of jurisdiction, and the ownership of some pastures. The audiencia, in its turn, quarreled with the Inquisition over disputed rights of jurisdiction, as did the captain general. He was supported by the archbishop of Granada, who was, however, involved in a lawsuit with his cathedral chapter. Such disputes were typical of the Spanish system of government, and it was also characteristic that they became immediately involved in faction fights at Philip II's court. These were therefore rarely settled according to their merits but according to the prevailing political alignment at court. In this case the governor-general, who had usually acted as the protector of the Moriscos against exploitation by the Christians, lost. The government in Madrid first sent a commission to inquire into titles of land, and this commission confiscated mainly Morisco land. In 1567 a decree was published forbidding the Moriscos the use of their Muslim names and dress and even their Arabic language. Internal security was transferred from the governor-general to the audiencia. This decision meant that now there was no one to protect the peaceful Morisco farmers from the large number of outlaws in the Alpujarras mountains. On Christmas Day, 1568, they rose against the hated Christians. It took two years of ferocious campaigning, with dreadful atrocities committed by both sides, before the rebellion was put down. The Moriscos of Granada were then deported in small groups to different parts of Castile and settled in a last attempt to achieve assimilation. In the absence of systematic education and in the face of the hostility of the Christian population, this attempt was also doomed to failure.

Portugal and Aragon
      The question of the complete unification of the Iberian Peninsula remained. In the case of Portugal, Philip's opportunity came when his nephew, King Sebastian of Portugal, lost his life and a great Portuguese army in an ill-prepared Crusade at the Battle of the Three Kings (Three Kings, Battle of the) in northern Morocco (1578). During the short reign of Sebastian's old uncle, King Henry (1578–80), Philip carefully prepared his ground in Portugal by intrigue and bribery. Nevertheless, when Henry died, the opposition to Castile was still so strong in Portugal and the attitude of France and England so threatening that it was necessary for Philip to send Alba with an army to conquer Portugal in 1580. Although Philip respected the laws and privileges of his new subjects and left them to administer their own colonial empire, the union increased rather than diminished the old hostility between the Castilians and the Portuguese.

      Philip II's last action in the peninsula was against Aragon. It was precipitated by a court intrigue that led to the flight (1590) of the king's secretary, Antonio Pérez (Pérez, Antonio), to Aragon. Since Pérez was unlikely to be convicted in the justicia's court there, the king demanded his transfer to the court of the Inquisition. The populace of Zaragoza (some 160 miles west of Barcelona) rioted, freed Pérez, and killed the king's special representative (1591). To the Aragonese this meant the defense of their liberties; to Philip it meant open rebellion. A Castilian army marched into Aragon (1591), and Philip made a number of constitutional changes. The justicia was from then on removable at royal pleasure; the viceroy could be a Castilian, and the principle of majority voting was substituted for that of unanimity in the Aragonese Cortes. These changes gave the crown the ultimate power of decision in Aragon but preserved the kingdom's autonomy.

      In the Mediterranean the Spanish fleet was inferior to that of the Turks, and Philip had to remain on the defensive, even when the Turks were besieging Malta (1565). However, the Turks' failure to capture the island from the Hospitallers, who had leased it from Charles V in his capacity as emperor, marked the end of their great offensive. Six years later the combined Spanish, Venetian, and papal fleets—in alliance the numerical equals of the Turks—virtually annihilated the Turkish fleet in the Battle of Lepanto (Lepanto, Battle of) (1571). The strategic effects of this great victory were negligible, but its moral effects were immense. It confirmed the Spaniards in their chosen role as champions of Christendom and explains much of their continued willingness to support their king's religious and imperial policies, even in the face of ruinous costs and mounting disasters. After Lepanto, however, it became clear that the stalemate in the Mediterranean could not be broken. In 1580 Spain signed a truce with the Sublime Porte (Ottoman government).

      From about 1580 the Spanish government became convinced that the rebellion (1568–1609) and heresy in the Netherlands could not be crushed as long as the rebels received help from England and France. These countries, moreover, gave active support to the Portuguese pretender, António, Prior Of Crato (mid Portugal), and their privateers committed continual acts of piracy against Spanish trade in the Americas. Philip began to give financial aid to the Holy League, the ultra-Catholic party in France. From 1586 he prepared an invasion of England. The Armada, which set sail from Lisbon in May 1588 numbering about 130 ships and nearly 30,000 men, was commanded by Alonso Pérez de Guzmán, duque de Medina-Sidonia (Medina-Sidonia, Alonso Pérez de Guzmán, duke (duque) de), in place of Alvaro de Bazán, marqués de Santa Cruz (Santa Cruz, Álvaro de Bazán, Marqués de), who had died in February. Although a brave and resolute commander, Medina-Sidonia was given the impossible task of convoying the army under Alessandro Farnese, duke of Parma (Farnese, Alessandro, duke of Parma and Piacenza), from the Netherlands to England in the face of a better-armed English fleet and without control of a single deepwater channel port. The defeat of the Armada was probably inevitable but not dishonourable.

      Spanish intervention in France from 1590 was equally doomed to failure. The duke of Parma, with his Spanish veterans, won great tactical victories, but Spain failed to prevent the succession of Henry of Navarre as Henry IV of France and the collapse of its ally, the Holy League, when Henry converted to Roman Catholicism in 1593.

 Philip viewed his role and that of Spain essentially as that of defender of the Roman Catholic Church against the aggression of the heretics, an aggression that now seemed to have become mainly military and that consequently had to be met by military force. It was therefore essential that the king should safeguard and extend the power of Spain and the just claims of his house, such as those he made for his daughter for the throne of France. Every other consideration was subordinated to this obligation, even to the point at which the Spanish ambassador in Rome, Gaspar de Guzmán y Pimental, conde-duque de Olivares (Olivares, Gaspar de Guzmán y Pimental, conde-duque de, duque de Sanlúcar de Barrameda), intervened in three successive conclaves in order to assure, by a mixture of promises and threats, the election of popes congenial to his master (conclaves in 1590–91 of Urban VII, Gregory XIV, and Innocent IX). He just failed in the fourth, but crucial, election—of Clement VIII, who was to receive Henry IV back into the Catholic church (1595).

      Although Philip II could thus justify his aggressive policies to himself, both Spain's enemies and its allies were convinced that they were witnessing the quest for Spanish dominance over Europe. Many Spaniards themselves believed this, and, as the war dragged on and the costs mounted, even the faithful Castilian Cortes began to question the king's policy. In 1574 Philip proposed tripling the value of the encabezamiento, which had remained fixed during the previous 20 years; however, the Cortes opposed this proposal and managed to achieve a considerable reduction. After 1580, silver shipments from the New World to Sevilla reached new record levels, and this undoubtedly helped to persuade Philip II to embark on his grandiose schemes against England and France. Yet this silver represented only a quarter of his annual revenues. The rest was derived from taxation and from loans for which future revenues were pledged. The Armada campaign was said to have cost 10 million ducats; the combined cost of the continuing naval war against England, the campaigns in the Netherlands, and the military intervention in France was even greater. In 1590 the Cortes accepted the royal demand for a new excise tax that was to raise eight million ducats in six years and that was appropriately nicknamed the millones. But by 1595 a deputy from Sevilla said bitterly that

the reason why taxes have been raised without noise is because they have not fallen on the rich who are those who have a voice…and the sweetness which they find, that is the blood of the poor.

      The following year Philip II's government declared its third bankruptcy (moratorium) and failed to get the Cortes to agree to an increase or even the renewal of the millones before 1601.

      Spain had gambled its own prosperity and its American treasure, and with it its own hegemony over the European continent, on a decisive victory over the heretics in western Europe, and it had failed. Shortly before his death, Philip II concluded the Treaty of Vervins (1598) with France, which substantially reestablished the position of 1559. Yet, although Spain had failed in its highest ambitions, it remained the greatest power in Europe at the end of the 16th century. It had brought Christianity to millions overseas—which to most contemporaries, if they thought about it at all, seemed worth the appalling price paid in terms of the lives and freedom of non-European peoples—and Protestantism, though not destroyed, had been contained. Spanish monks and mystics had given Roman Catholicism a new content, and Spanish theologians and jurists had created the basis of international law. Spanish literature and art were only now entering their greatest period. Morally and economically, there were dark sides to the picture, but to the Spaniards the 16th and early 17th centuries have always been their “Golden Age.”

Spain in 1600
      It is not surprising that the enormous exertions of the last quarter of the 16th century, with its mixture of triumphs, disappointments, and miseries, should have been followed by a general mood of introspection and even disenchantment. This was particularly evident in economic and social thinking. The arbitristas (literally, “projectors”) were writers who combined an economic analysis of the social ills of Spain with projects for economic recovery and social and moral regeneration. They saw clearly the central weakness of Spain: the attitude of mind that despised productive work and those who engaged in it. Far too many strove to live the life of a hidalgo. The treasures of Mexico and Peru, so far from stimulating investment and industrial production, had only encouraged men to look for shortcuts to riches and to live the life of rentiers, investing their money in the censos, the government annuities. These censos were the greatest plague and perdition of Spain, wrote González de Cellorigo, perhaps the most acute of the arbitristas of 1600. “It seems,” he concluded, “as if we had wanted to turn these kingdoms into a republic of enchanted men, living outside the natural order.”

      The positive plans (among many fantasies) advocated by the arbitristas included the drastic cutting of government expenditure, the reform of the tax system, the encouragement of immigration into Castile, systematic and extensive irrigation, protection of industry, improvement of transport, and, finally, the sharing of the cost of empire among the constituent kingdoms of the monarchy. These were reasonable proposals, not unlike those put forward by mercantilist writers in the rest of Europe who treated economic activity as a means of increasing the power of the state. But time would show that the Castilian ruling classes would be neither capable nor willing to act on them. Their attitudes were varied and often ambivalent, and this ambivalence is reflected in the imaginative literature of the period.

      At one extreme there was the picaresque novel, with its implicit satire of a society in which one could make one's way by cleverness and roguery rather than by honest work—that is, if one did not happen to be born a nobleman. Thus, the hidalgo in the Lazarillo de Tormes (published 1554; doubtfully attributed to Diego Hurtado de Mendoza), the first of the picaresque novels, is down and out but would rather starve than work, and he expects his servant, the boy Lazarillo, to scrounge for them both. In Don Quixote (published 1605 and 1615), Miguel de Cervantes (Cervantes, Miguel de) raised the novel to a completely new level of social and psychological insight. It is, among other things, a parable of Cellorigo's “republic of enchanted men” living in a world of illusions and tilting at windmills.

      At the other extreme, there was the drama from exponents such as Lope de Vega (Vega, Lope de), Tirso de Molina, and Pedro Calderón de la Barca (Calderón de la Barca, Pedro). As with the picaresque novel, the comedy of the Golden Age was concerned with the contemporary social scene. The psychological problems faced by its characters arose nearly always directly out of social conflicts. But the social purpose of these plays was essentially conservative, representing a defense of Spain's highly structured society. This was achieved by insisting on the special dignity and honour of all social ranks, from the king down to the peasants. Thus Lope introduced the common people as fully rounded characters on the stage, allowing, for instance, to the daughter of a blacksmith the emotions of love formerly reserved on the stage to aristocratic ladies. Heredity and blood are the principles of a social order that, in the comedies, may be threatened but is always reaffirmed in the end. There is perhaps a link here between the visual arts of the age and the Baroque (Baroque period) style.

The “Golden Age” in architecture and painting
      In the more severe artistic climate of the Catholic Reformation of the second half of the 16th century, the playful Plateresque style of buildings fell into disfavour. Philip II preferred the unornamented and monumental architecture of Juan de Herrera (Herrera, Juan de), the greatest Spanish architect of the century. It could be very effective, as in Philip's monastic palace of El Escorial (20 miles northwest of Madrid), which embodied the gloomy and ascetic spirit of the king and also blended with the stark and forbidding landscape of the Guadarrama mountain range northwest of Madrid. But too often the style produced only an ugly and pompous monumentality, such as not infrequently afflicts the architecture of countries at the height of their imperial periods. Yet, at the turn of the century, this style gave way to the Italian Baroque (Baroque period), which Spanish architects found no difficulty in acclimatizing to their country. The Baroque style could achieve monumentality without being pompous. It could display the grandeur of the church or the monarchy or anyone rich enough to build himself a palace. Perhaps most important of all, it was a style that, by its love of ornamentation and its essentially theatrical character, became immensely popular with the mass of the population.

      The single most splendid monument in the Baroque style, the Buen Retiro Palace just outside Madrid, has not survived (for a discussion of the fine porcelain manufactured there later, see Buen Retiro ware). Built in the 1630s, in the middle of the Thirty Years' War, at a time when Spain's military fortunes were beginning to decline, it was designed to reaffirm the greatness of the Spanish monarchy. Like El Escorial, it had a forbidding exterior; its interior decoration, however, like that of the splendid library of Philip II's monastery-palace, showed, literally or allegorically, Spain's victorious battles with the enemies of Catholic Christendom. Great numbers of paintings were bought in Spain and abroad, and Spanish courtiers were coerced to lend or even to make presents of their own paintings and other art objects. As in other courts of the period, splendid theatrical and musical entertainments were organized, mainly for the benefit of the court and the diplomatic corps, but occasionally the Madrid public was also invited or allowed to buy tickets. Perhaps it was symbolic of the Spanish monarchy in this period that such a grandiose vision and its overhasty construction should have produced rising and increasingly unacceptable maintenance costs.

      The painting of the period does not lend itself as easily to a social interpretation, but certain patterns may still be observed. The greatest painter of the Spanish Counter-Reformation, El Greco (Greco, El) (Doménikos Theotokópoulos, from Crete), made his home in Toledo, where the local aristocratic and ecclesiastical society (but not Philip II) seems to have fully appreciated his genius. El Greco's superb portraits, but, above all, his religious paintings, with their elongated figures rising like so many flames to heaven, seem like the embodiment of the most spiritual aspects of Spanish Catholicism.

      El Greco left no school of painting. The painters of the following generation, especially Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (Murillo, Bartolomé Esteban), had a different religious sensibility, more naturalistic than that of El Greco, more personal, and more romantic; and again, as did Baroque architecture, they appealed successfully to a popular religiosity. But the greatest of them, Diego Velázquez (Velázquez, Diego), was hardly a religious painter at all. His subjects were the king with his family and court and, characteristic for the age and parallel with the drama of the period, the common people. All these he represented with a realism and psychological insight unmatched in the 17th century, except perhaps by Rembrandt (Rembrandt van Rijn).

The reign of Philip III
 It was the tragedy of Spain that its ruling classes failed to respond to the social and political problems of the age as creatively as its writers and artists. For this failure there are at least some good reasons. In the first place, the system of royal government, as it was understood at the time, depended ultimately on the king's ability to lead and to make decisions. Philip II's (Philip II) very consciousness of his divinely imposed obligations, compounded by his almost pathological suspiciousness of the intentions and ambitions of other men, had led him to deprecate independent initiative by his ministers. He thus failed to educate an effective ruling class with a tradition of statesmanlike thinking and decision making.

      Devout but indolent and passive, Philip III (1598–1621) was incapable of carrying on his father's methods of personal government. He therefore had to have a minister (privado) who would do all his work for him. His choice, Francisco Gómez de Sandoval y Rojas, duque de Lerma (Lerma, Francisco Gómez de Sandoval y Rojas, duque de), however, turned out to be a singularly unfortunate one. Amiable, incompetent, and, inevitably, under heavy attack from those who envied his position, Lerma strove to maintain himself by the lavish dispensation of royal patronage to the high nobility. He was unable to turn the schemes of the arbitristas into effective reforms. During the reign of Philip III the government of Spain either became the victim of events that it did not attempt to control or allowed its hand to be forced by outsiders.

      Not all events could have been controlled. In 1599–1600 an epidemic plague claimed some 500,000 victims in Castile. This sudden decimation of the labour force caused a sharp rise in wages, which in turn acted as another disincentive to capital investment by Spaniards. Yet the advantages that the labourers had reaped from the rise in wages were quickly offset by renewed inflation, the result of the government's decision to solve its perennial financial problems by the massive minting of vellón, a debased copper coinage. Although this action did not prevent the need for another moratorium on government debts, in 1608 the king promised the Cortes of Castile that the government would not issue any more vellón money for 20 years. But in 1617 and 1621 he was forced to ask the Cortes to allow additional issues.

The expulsion of the Moriscos (Morisco)
      The plight of the Moriscos was the most serious social crisis of the reign. The great majority of the Moriscos lived in the kingdom of Valencia. Like those of Andalusia, they had been forcibly but ineffectively converted to Christianity. Most of them were relatively poor farmers, agricultural labourers, or small tradesmen and hucksters. Although they were hated and despised by the poor Christian peasants, the Moriscos were protected by the landowners for whom they provided industrious tenants and labourers.

      For many years a controversy raged between those who wanted to “solve” the Morisco problem by expulsion and those who pleaded for time and money to achieve the genuine assimilation and Christianization of the Moriscos. While the practical economic aspects of these two views were not neglected, it was characteristic of the Spain of the period that the main emphasis of the debate was on the religious and moral problems. In 1609 Lerma's government ordered the expulsion of the Moriscos. Lerma saw it as part of a policy of disengagement from “Castilian” power politics in central Europe—he himself was a Valencian—and a renewed shifting of Spanish energies toward North Africa and Islam. As a Valencian landowner, he also hoped for personal gain from the confiscation of Morisco land. By 1614 some 275,000 Moriscos had been forced to leave Spain. The majority of Spaniards undoubtedly approved of the expulsion.

      The economic effects of the expulsion have generated considerable debate, both at the time and today. In Castile the effects were probably slight. In Aragon and Valencia, where the Moriscos had constituted between 20 and 30 percent of the population, they were certainly much greater. Some but by no means all Morisco land was resettled by “old” Christians. There was a shift from labour-intensive sugar and rice production to mulberry cultivation for silk and viticulture. The greatest difficulties were caused by the indebtedness of the Morisco peasants and the consequent losses suffered by their urban creditors. An ironic footnote to the expulsion was the plight of the Aragonese and Valencian Inquisitions. Although they once favoured expulsion, they were now left without their major source of income, the composition fines for Moorish practices that they imposed on the Morisco villages.

Spain and Europe
      Neither Philip III nor Lerma was emotionally or intellectually capable of the fundamental reappraisal of foreign policy that Philip II's failures required. Very few even of the arbitristas had seen this need sufficiently clearly. The court, the nobility, and, above all, the clergy and the king's confessors remained caught in the now-hardening tradition of Spanish imperialism, simplistically interpreted as the cause of God. This attitude caused a serious misjudgment of the political forces in England, leading to the absurd hope of placing the infanta Isabella (Isabella Clara Eugenia, archduchess of Austria) on the English throne upon the death of Elizabeth I. In 1601 a small Spanish force was disembarked at Kinsale, in Ireland, to cooperate with the Irish rebels. The English army had no difficulty in forcing it to surrender.

      Fortunately for Spain, the new government of James I was anxious for peace. On the Spanish side, the Treaty of London (1604), which ended 16 years of Anglo-Spanish war, was negotiated on the initiative of Philip II's son-in-law, the archduke Albert (Albert VII), to whom Philip II in his last year had handed over the nominal sovereignty of the Spanish Netherlands. Albert and his Genoese general, Ambrogio Spinola (Spinola, Ambrogio di Filippo, Marqués De Los Balbases), also urged the Spanish government to negotiate with the Dutch rebels. Between 1604 and 1607, Spain sent unprecedentedly large sums to Flanders. Spinola captured Ostend (on the coast of present-day Belgium) and won victories in Friesland (northern Holland). But, he wrote to Madrid, it would take 300,000 ducats a month to continue the war successfully. After the moratorium of 1607, Philip III was in no position to raise such sums. He and Lerma, but not the Castilian grandees in the Council of State, were prepared to recognize Dutch independence, but they insisted that the Dutch withdraw from their recent conquests in America and the East Indies. The Dutch refused to accept this as well as an alternative Spanish condition, the toleration of Roman Catholics in their state. As a compromise, the two sides concluded a 12-year truce, beginning in 1609.

      In 1610 a new war with France threatened, but the French king Henry IV was assassinated, and for almost 20 years France, Spain's most formidable opponent in Europe, became preoccupied with its internal problems. The years from 1610 to 1630 were the last period in which Spain clearly dominated Europe. For the first of these two decades Europe enjoyed a kind of Pax Hispanica. Spanish armies controlled Italy, Flanders, and parts of the Rhineland. Spanish and Spanish-inclined Jesuits were confessors at the courts of the Austrian Habsburgs, Poland, Bavaria, and some of the minor German and Italian princes. Spanish subsidies, pensions, and bribes made clients even of Protestant politicians in England, Holland, and the Swiss cantons (canton) (although much less effectively so than Madrid hoped); and Spanish-paid spies fed the governments of Madrid and Brussels with valuable, if not always accurate, information about potential enemies in the United Provinces (Holland), England, and France. Yet, to a much greater degree than most contemporaries realized, this Spanish domination of Europe rested on default: the disunity and temporary weakness of Spain's political and religious opponents. The psychological effects of this position on Spain were wholly disastrous, for it confirmed the Castilian ruling classes in their imperialist attitudes.

      For Philip III and Lerma this attitude led, for reasons of both finance and temperament, to a largely defensive stance, though its effect was quite the opposite for the Spanish representatives abroad. In the absence of an effective lead from Madrid, the Spanish grandees who were the king's viceroys and ambassadors in Europe took it upon themselves to advance Spanish interests as they saw them—that is, in terms of Spanish power. They fortified the route from Milan to the Tirol (western Austria) through the Valtellina, the vital link with the Austrian Habsburgs (Habsburg, House of); they annexed several small Italian lordships; they enticed Dalmatian pirates (operating from the eastern shore of the Adriatic), the Uskoks, to prey on the trade of Venice, and they even seem to have plotted the complete overthrow of that republic.

      More fateful still were their activities in Prague and Brussels. At the courts of the emperors Rudolf II and Matthias, the ambassador Baltazar de Zúñiga organized an effective “Spanish” party. His successor, the conde de Oñate, negotiated the secret Treaty of Graz (1617) by which the Jesuit-educated archduke Ferdinand of Styria (later Emperor Ferdinand II) was designated as heir to Matthias. In return for giving up Philip III's claims to the Austrian succession, which Madrid had never seriously pursued in any case, Oñate obtained the promise of full Spanish sovereignty of the Tirol and Alsace (now in eastern France), the two German pillars of the “Spanish Road” between Italy and the Netherlands. At the same time, the “Spanish” party in Prague managed the preelection of Ferdinand as king of Bohemia in case of Matthias's death. Zúñiga and Oñate had undoubtedly strengthened Spain's strategic position in central Europe, but they had also, for the first time since the abdication of Charles V, involved Spain again in the local politics of the Holy Roman Empire. For Philip IV this involvement turned out to be even more disastrous than it had for Charles V. Spanish leadership, as practiced by the self-willed Castilian grandees abroad, had proved to be energetic and clever, but it was ultimately as devoid of true statesmanship as the slackness of the king and his privado.

      In 1618 Lerma's enemies at court finally managed to overthrow him. Zúñiga returned to Madrid and became the leading advocate of aggressive policies. Alonso de la Cueva, marqués de Bedmar (Bedmar, Alonso de la Cueva, marqués de), former Spanish ambassador to Venice and the organizer of the anti-Venetian conspiracy, went as ambassador to Brussels and immediately began to press for the reopening of the war against the United Provinces. In 1621 Philip III died, and with him disappeared the last restraints on the neoimperialists. Only 16 years of age, Philip IV left the effective powers of kingship in the hands of his former gentleman of the chamber, the conde-duque de Olivares (Olivares, Gaspar de Guzmán y Pimental, conde-duque de, duque de Sanlúcar de Barrameda). Olivares shared the political views of his uncle, Zúñiga, and he soon dominated the Council of State.

Spain and the Thirty Years' War
 In 1620, following the defeat of Frederick V (the elector palatine, or prince, from the Rhineland who had accepted the crown of Bohemia when it was offered to him in 1618) and the Bohemians, Spanish troops from the Netherlands entered the “Winter King's” hereditary dominions of the Rhenish Palatinate (Rhineland-Palatinate). Militarily, Spain was now in a favourable position to restart the war with the United Provinces (Dutch Republic) at the expiration of the truce in 1621. The decision to do so was, however, taken on more general grounds. The Dutch had used the truce only to capture the carrying trade with Spain of western Europe and the Baltic, Zúñiga argued. On the oceans they had never observed the truce but continued their piracies against Spanish and Portuguese shipping. If they were allowed to continue, first the Indies would be lost, then the rest of Flanders, Italy, and, finally, Spain itself, for it would have lost the dominions that had made it great. These were very different grounds for resuming the war from those habitually advanced by Philip II. Little was said about religion or even the king's authority, while the protection of the overseas empire had become the central consideration in Spanish relations with the Dutch rebels. Olivares dismissed the counterarguments of the Council of Finance. The young king, content to be told that he was not responsible for the debts of his predecessors, piously declared his intention not to burden his subjects any further. Yet neither he nor his ministers could foresee that a recent slump in silver shipments from America was not a temporary setback but heralded a rapid, long-term decline. The Dutch were equally anxious for war—partly, at least, because of the vain hope that the Belgians would rebel against Spain and join the United Provinces.

      Having decided on war, Olivares pursued a perfectly consistent strategy: communications between Spain and the Spanish Netherlands were to be kept open at all costs, and the Dutch were to be hit wherever they were most vulnerable. The first objective led Spain to build up a naval force in the Spanish Netherlands (Belgium) that preyed on Dutch shipping in the North Sea and, on the diplomatic front, to cultivate the friendship of James I of England and even to contemplate the restoration of Frederick V to the Palatinate and the marriage of Philip IV's devoutly Roman Catholic sister to the heretic prince of Wales (later Charles I). It led to very close cooperation with the Austrian branch of the Habsburgs and the need to fight for the control of the Valtellina. The second objective, which followed the advance of the imperial armies under Albrecht Wallenstein (Wallenstein, Albrecht Wenzel Eusebius von, Herzog von Friedland, Herzog von Mecklenburg, Fürst Von Sagen) (an adventurer who made himself indispensable to the Habsburgs as a military organizer) to the Baltic (Baltic Sea), led to grandiose schemes of building an imperial Spanish fleet in the Baltic with Hanseatic (the Hanse towns on the Baltic were independent mercantile organizations) and Danish help in order to destroy the Dutch Baltic trade and with it the economic prosperity of the republic.

      However rational and limited these aims and plans seemed in Spain, in the rest of Europe they appeared to show only too clearly the limitless ambitions of the house of Austria. The now habitual talk in Spanish court and military circles of restoring Spain's greatness did not help to persuade Europe otherwise. Spinola's and Wallenstein's victories in the mid-1620s convinced the Spanish Council of State that victory against the Dutch was possible and blinded them to the danger of raising up new and more powerful enemies. Thus, they let the last chances of a favourable peace slip away. Yet, despite enormous sums sent annually from Castile to Flanders, the Spanish armies could not break Dutch resistance. They could not even supply their own provisions and ammunition without the covert help of Dutch merchants, who, in their turn, argued that this trade with the mortal enemy brought in the money needed to pay for the troops fighting this enemy. From 1630, when Sweden and France actively intervened in the war, Spain rapidly lost the initiative. The war was fought on a global scale, in central Europe and from the Philippines to Brazil. Spanish armies could still win tactical victories in Italy and Germany, but the number and seriousness of Spanish reverses, especially at sea, were now steadily mounting.

The government of Olivares
 Olivares was undoubtedly the most able politician directing the Spanish government since Cardinal Granvelle. The Catholic Monarchs, the emperor, and Philip II had kept the high nobility, to a greater or lesser degree, out of the central government. Lerma had reversed this policy, and Olivares could not go back on this position, although he bitterly lamented the incompetence of his fellow aristocrats and sharply reduced the overgenerous flow of royal patronage to them. He could—and did—develop a system of committees (juntas (junta)) of experts within the councils, which took over a great deal of government business and made its administration more efficient.

      In 1623 and 1624 Olivares presented to the king and Council of State a number of memorandums that were nothing less than plans for a far-reaching reform of government and society on the lines advocated by the arbitristas. Like them, Olivares saw the need to change mental attitudes; in particular, he recognized the need for restraints on the aristocratic love of splendour and display, the need to appreciate the dignity of work and productive economic activity, and the need to end the economically harmful and morally indefensible mania for limpieza de sangre (Olivares himself, through his grandmother, was of converso ancestry). On the more immediately practical level, Olivares's memorandums were concerned principally with finance, for, with an annual expenditure of eight million ducats, there was a deficit of four million. The count-duke proposed the abolition of some of the most harmful taxes, the millones and the alcabala, and their substitution by simpler and more-equitable taxes. Finally, he argued that Castile should not be expected to continue to bear nearly the entire cost of the war. Like Granvelle, Olivares recognized that the king's non-Castilian dominions could be expected to share in the burdens of empire only if they could also enjoy its advantages—the honours, commands, and control over policy that had been all but completely reserved to the Castilians.

      None of these plans was put into practice. The Spaniards were unwilling to change their mode of life and their ingrained beliefs at the behest of a royal favourite. Olivares did manage to arrange loans with a consortium of Portuguese Marrano (Christianized Jews) businessmen, but he was bitterly attacked for this action. The court itself gaily abandoned a short-lived austerity in the celebrations that followed the arrival of the prince of Wales in his romantic but abortive quest for a Spanish bride (1623). The financial reforms foundered on the opposition of vested interests to taxation by the Cortes and on the opposition of the whole Castilian ruling class to the plan for the decentralization of the empire. Just as had happened to Granvelle's proposals, there was not even any serious discussion of Olivares's plan. In the 1560s the result of this failure had left Philip II with no alternative but Alba's policy of repression, which caused the revolt of the Netherlands; in the 1620s it left Olivares with no alternative but his Union of Arms, which caused the revolts of Catalonia and Portugal. The Union of Arms was a scheme for the creation of a reserve army of 140,000 men that was to be paid for by the dominions of the Spanish empire in proportion to their estimated resources. But the non-Castilian dominions disliked this proposal because it infringed on their liberties. They also distrusted Castilian intentions—and with good reason, for in 1625 Olivares had advised the king in a secret memorandum to “secretly plan and work to reduce these kingdoms of which Spain is composed to the style and laws of Castile.”

The revolt of Catalonia
      Apart from Portugal, Catalonia was the state with the greatest degree of autonomy. Its medieval form of government had not been changed since Ferdinand the Catholic had settled it in 1486. Its countryside, especially on the French border, was infested with smugglers and bandits and riven by local feuds. Its taxes were administered by the Diputació, a self-perpetuating and corrupt committee of the Catalan Corts that functioned during the long intervals between the meetings of that body. The viceroys, hemmed in on all sides by local privileges and without control over the finances of the province, were virtually powerless. In 1626 Philip IV summoned the Cortes of the realms of the Crown of Aragon. Aragon and Valencia reluctantly voted some money but refused conscription of troops. Catalonia refused everything. Nevertheless, Olivares published the royal decree for the Union of Arms. Subsequently relations between Madrid and Catalonia deteriorated rapidly.

      As the costs of warfare mounted, the government resumed the inflationary minting of vellón coinage and had to declare yet another moratorium on its debts, in 1627. In 1628 the vellón coins were withdrawn, causing a collapse of prices and a recession. In the 1630s new taxes were instituted in Castile along with outright confiscations from private individuals, both of income from government annuities and of American silver imported in commercial transactions. Not surprisingly, Madrid was becoming obsessed with what it considered to be the injustice of Catalonia's immunity from taxation. In 1639 Olivares opened a campaign against southern France from Catalonia. It had no rational strategic objective except to pitchfork Catalonia into the war. If the Catalans had to defend their country, Olivares argued, they would have to support the army.

      Olivares's logic was lost on the Catalans. The peasants, urged on by their clergy, refused to support the troops. During the winter the soldiers were quartered in the countryside. Soon there were clashes with the population, then riots and open rebellion. Too late, Olivares attempted to draw back and appease the Catalans. On June 7 the mob murdered the viceroy in Barcelona. The higher nobility and the urban aristocracies were still anxious for an accommodation, but the countryside was now completely out of control. The Diputació, which was the only remaining legal authority, was led by a strong-minded cleric named Pau Claris, canon of Urgel, located west of Barcelona, who was unwilling to make concessions. In the autumn of 1640 Olivares scraped together the last available troops and sent them against the Catalan rebels. Claris countered by transferring Catalan allegiance to the king of France, “as in the time of Charlemagne” (January 1641). French troops now entered Catalonia, and only after French forces withdrew with the renewed outbreak of the French civil wars (the Fronde (Fronde, the)) were the Castilians able to reconquer Catalonia (1652). The Catalan upper classes were relieved, for they had found the French even less congenial masters than the Castilians. Not repeating its previous mistakes, Madrid fully restored the liberties and privileges of Catalonia.

The revolt of Portugal
      The revolt of Catalonia gave the Portuguese their opportunity. The lower classes and the clergy had always hated the Castilians, and the Portuguese aristocracy and the commercial classes—previously content with the patronage and the economic opportunities that the union with Spain had provided—had become dissatisfied during the preceding 20 years. They resented the introduction of Castilians into their government (1634), the ineffectiveness of Spanish naval support in the defense of Brazil against the Dutch, and the growing reaction of the Spanish colonies against Portuguese economic penetration during this period of contracting economic activity. Rather than allow themselves to be sent to fight the Catalan rebels, the Portuguese nobility seized power in Lisbon and proclaimed the duque de Bragança as King John IV of Portugal (December 1640). Madrid, with an aristocratic conspiracy in Andalusia on its hands (1641), no longer had the means to react.

The last years of Philip IV
 The disasters on Spain's periphery were matched by continued mismanagement of Spanish finances at the centre. Once more the government tampered with the vellón coinage and then reversed course into a sudden and catastrophic deflation (1641–42). In January 1643 the Castilian grandees were finally able to force Philip IV to dismiss Olivares (Olivares, Gaspar de Guzmán y Pimental, conde-duque de, duque de Sanlúcar de Barrameda). The king now decided to run his own government. He dissolved the juntas, and the councils resumed their authority. Soon control of the government slipped into the hands of Olivares's nephew, Luis Méndez de Haro (Haro, Luis Méndez de), a clever but colourless politician with neither his uncle's imperial vision nor his panache.

      The defeats continued. In 1643 the French king's cousin, Louis II de Bourbon (the Great Condé (Condé, Louis II de Bourbon, 4e prince de)), broke the Spanish tercios and their reputation for invincibility at the Battle of Rocroi (Rocroi, Battle of) in northeastern France. Popular revolutions broke out in Naples and Palermo (Sicily) in 1647, and soon both cities were controlled by revolutionary governments. The excessive taxation, imposed for Spain's war effort, had precipitated the rebellion, at least in Naples. The Spanish monarchy, wrote the Venetian ambassador to Madrid at the time,

resembled that great colossus that during an earthquake had collapsed in a few moments while everyone hurried along to enrich himself with the fragments.

      In fact, Spain survived and even managed to hold on to much of its empire. The revolts of Naples and Sicily, directed as much against the local nobility as against Spain, were suppressed in 1648. When the emperor conceded French claims to Alsace and the Rhine bridgeheads, the “Spanish Road” to the Netherlands was irrevocably cut, and the close alliance between the Spanish and the Austrian branches of the house of Habsburg came to an end. With Portugal in revolt and Brazil no longer an issue between the Dutch and the Spaniards, Philip IV drew the only possible conclusion from this situation and rapidly came to terms with the United Provinces, recognizing their full independence and agreeing to stop overseas trade on the Schelde (Schelde River), a river emptying into the North Sea west of Antwerp (Treaty of Münster (Westphalia, Peace of), January 1648). But Philip IV had not changed his basic policy. He wanted to have his hands free for a final effort against France, even after Catalonia had surrendered. Once again the temporary weakness of France during the Fronde (Fronde, the) confirmed the Spanish court in its disastrous military policy. Haro passed up the chance of concluding a very favourable peace in 1656.

      The war dragged on, with England joining France, capturing Jamaica, and contributing to the Spanish defeat in the Battle of the Dunes (Dunes, Battle of the) on the northern coast of France (1658). The Treaty of the Pyrenees (Pyrenees, Peace of the) (1659) cost Spain Artois (now northernmost France), Roussillon, and part of Cerdagne. More important than these relatively minor territorial losses was the realization throughout Europe that Spain's pretensions to hegemony had definitely and irremediably failed. The Spaniards themselves were slow to admit it. Philip IV had made concessions to France in order, once again, to have his hands free against the last unforgiven enemy, Portugal. There was no longer any rational basis for his hopes of success. All schemes for financial and tax reforms were still being blocked by vested interests, and the government again had declared bankruptcies in 1647 and 1653. Once more the Council of Finance issued a debased coinage to pay for the Portuguese campaign. But the Portuguese routed the last Spanish armies at Ameixial (1663) and at Villaviciosa on the northern coast of Spain (1665). Spain finally formally recognized Portugal's independence in 1668.

      For 10 years Philip IV's widow, Maria Anna of Austria, acted as regent for Charles II (1665–1700). She allowed her government to be dominated by her confessor, the Austrian Jesuit Johann Eberhard (Juan Everardo) Nithard. It was weakness, rather than strength, that prompted this government not to summon the Cortes any more. But this policy paved the way for the introduction of effective royal absolutism in the 18th century. In 1669 Nithard was overthrown by Juan José de Austria, an illegitimate son of Philip IV, but the regent still managed to keep him out of the central government. In 1677 Juan José led an army against Madrid and made himself Charles II's principal minister. This first pronunciamiento, or military coup, inaugurated a tradition that was to bear bitter fruit in the political life of Spain and Latin America in the 19th and 20th centuries. Juan José himself planned some promising reforms but died in 1679. Thereafter, the high nobility dominated the government as effectively as it had in the days of Philip III, playing court intrigues, first with the regent and later with the two successive wives of the incapable Charles II. The majority of these aristocrats were self-seeking and incompetent. Some, however—notably Manuel Joaquín Álvarez de Toledo y Portugal, the conde de Oropesa—had considerable ability. They finally restored the coinage in 1680, though not before they had caused another catastrophic deflation. They established a committee for commerce that pursued orthodox mercantilist policies, encouraging trade and industry. They even took the unprecedented step of investigating the Inquisition and recommending a right of appeal to the secular courts.

      Even though the woolen industry of Segovia and some other towns expanded and the imports of American silver, now routed through Cadiz rather than Sevilla, recovered at least in some years to about their former levels, a broadly based economic recovery still lay in the future. Until the mid-1680s the Castilian economy declined at such a rate that the French ambassador claimed to see an appalling deterioration between his two visits, in 1668–69 and in 1671–73. In the 1690s the Venetian ambassador characterized the reign of Charles II as “an uninterrupted series of calamities.” The population of Castile declined from about 6.5 million at the end of the 16th century to under 5 million about 1680. Figures for the whole of Spain followed a similar pattern, declining from 8.5 million to about 6.6 million. The reasons for this decline were not so much emigration to the overseas colonies, which averaged 4,000–5,000 per year in the 17th century, as military casualties from all causes, which averaged the frightening figure of 10,000–12,000 a year. More devastating still were the recurrent plagues and, perhaps, the sheer misery of the rural population, who lived on estates that their noble and ecclesiastical owners could not be bothered to manage with even a minimum of efficiency. The shortage of labour, especially skilled labour, and high wages attracted many foreign workers, perhaps as many as 70,000 Frenchmen. Nevertheless, Castilian industries continued to decline. The nadir was reached in the decade 1677–86 with crop failures, earthquakes, an epidemic that sharply reversed a slight upward trend in population dating from about 1650, and, on top of these natural disasters, the government's deflation of the coinage.

The French wars
      In these circumstances it is not surprising that Spain now became the victim rather than the initiator of aggression. In three successive wars with France (1667–68, 1672–78, 1689–97), Spain lost Franche-Comté (Treaty of Nijmegen (Nijmegen, Treaties of), 1678) and some Belgian frontier towns to France but still managed to hold on to the greater part of the southern Netherlands and the Italian dominions. The reason was less Spain's own military efforts, which were puny compared with those of the first half of the century, than the unwillingness of other European powers, especially the United Provinces, to see the Spanish dominions in Europe swallowed up by France. After the last and, for Spain, most disastrous of these wars, the War of the Grand Alliance (Grand Alliance, War of the) (1689–97), Louis XIV himself restored Flanders and Catalonia, which his troops had occupied, for he now had his eye on the inheritance of the whole Spanish empire.

      The last years of the childless and clearly dying Charles II were occupied by the maneuvers of the European powers for the Spanish succession or, alternatively, for the partition of the Spanish empire. Amid cabals, intrigues, exorcisms of evil spirits, and blood feuds at court, while riots were going on in the streets of Madrid, the rule of the house of Austria came to an end with the death of Charles II, on Nov. 1, 1700.

The decline of Spain
      Although there is no doubt that Spain suffered economic and political decline in the 17th century, especially in its second half, it is not nearly as clear that there was also a comparable cultural decline or even decadence, as has sometimes been maintained. Certainly, Calderón, Velázquez, and Murillo had no successors of comparable stature. The court of Charles II was neither financially nor psychologically capable of playing the patronage role that Philip IV's court had played. Some of the supposed decline, however, may have been more a matter of changing styles in painting and architecture that did not please the more conservative contemporaries, nor many later historians. A good example is the architecture of the brothers Churriguera (Churriguera family) (see Churrigueresque). Although it has often been dismissed as overly ornate, it has come to be appreciated as a delightful Mediterranean counterpart to the famous contemporary southern German Baroque (Baroque period)-Rococo (Rococo style) style.

      The term decadence, except perhaps when applied to the person of Charles II himself, does not explain the timing of the economic and political decline nor its duration. In the first place, the economic decline was mainly a Castilian phenomenon and did not affect Catalonia or Valencia to anything near the same degree. For Castile, it is perhaps best to see the problem of decline as the arbitristas saw it: in the depreciation by Castilians of economic activity, an attitude that was rooted deeply in Castile's past history but that was particularly baleful in a period of general European economic depression, such as the 17th century. Moreover, the aggressive militarism that was central to the Castilian aristocratic tradition led to the political hubris of Spanish imperial policy, from Philip II to Philip IV. The Castilian ruling classes never produced, or perhaps gave no chance to, a leader who could break out of this tradition. Velázquez (Velázquez, Diego) seems to have known it or felt it instinctively when he painted The Surrender of Breda as the beginning of a hoped-for reconciliation of enemies and when, in his portraits of Philip IV, he showed the pathos of a man half aware of his personal inadequacy for the role he was called upon to play. It was the wars, however, that devoured Castile, even though they were fought beyond its borders. They do not directly explain the end of the “Golden Age,” but it may be suggested that a society that invests most of its energies and all of its pride in war, even though it may be ideal for war, is unable to provide a congenial ground for the exercise of creative genius when its ideal has failed and it is left with nothing but a now-hollow pride.

Helmut Georg Koenigsberger Ed.

The early Bourbons, 1700–53
      Although the wars of the 17th century had weakened Spain's power in Europe, the country still remained the world's greatest imperial power. 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. At the beginning of the 18th century, 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.

      In 1700 (by the will of the childless Charles II) the duc d' Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV of France, became Philip V of Spain. Austria refused to recognize Philip, a Bourbon (Bourbon, House of), 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, a task both complicated and facilitated by the War of the Spanish Succession (Spanish Succession, War of the) (1701–14), wherein the allied armies of Britain and Austria invaded Spain in order to drive out Philip V and establish the “Austrian” candidate, the archduke Charles (Charles, Archduke) (later the Holy Roman emperor Charles VI), 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 (Orry, Jean), a financial expert, and a handful of Spanish lawyer-administrators such as Melchor de Macanaz. They were supported by the queen, María Luisa of Savoy, and her friend the 60-year-old Marie-Anne de la Trémoille, princesse des Ursins (Ursins, Marie-Anne de la Trémoille, princesse des).

      The opponents of reform were those who suffered by it: the grandees who had dominated the cumbersome, inefficient councils; the councils themselves; the regions such as Catalonia, Aragon, and Valencia, in which the establishment of effective royal rule was seen as a Castilian centralizing imposition in conflict with the local privileges, or fueros (fuero); and the church, whose position was threatened by the ferocious and doctrinaire regalism of Macanaz, who wished to subject the independent jurisdictions of the church (especially of the papal nuncios and the Inquisition) to the absolute monarch. The disaffection of all these elements easily turned into opposition to Philip V as king. Opposition to the new dynasty accentuated the determination of Bourbon civil servants to end special privileges that could serve as a cover for treasonable sympathy with the Austrian and English invaders.

      Despite severe financial difficulties (owing to the loss of revenues from the Indies), Castile was ferociously loyal to the new dynasty throughout the war. The support of Castile and of France (until 1711) enabled Philip V to survive severe defeats and two occupations of Madrid. In 1705 the archduke Charles landed in Catalonia and took Barcelona. When Philip V tried to attack Catalonia through Aragon, the Aragonese, in the name of their fueros, revolted against the passage of Castilian troops. This revolt, backed by the local nobility, turned the king's advisers resolutely against local privileges and aristocratic treason. After the victory over the archduke Charles at Almansa (April 1707), the fueros of the kingdoms of Valencia and Aragon were abolished and the property of rebels confiscated. When the archbishop of Valencia resisted attempts to make priests of doubtful loyalty appear before civil courts, the regalism of Macanaz was given full course.

      This was the last direct triumph of the reformers. With the death of Queen María Luisa in 1714 and the arrival of Philip's new wife, Isabella Farnese, court support for radical reform disappeared. Macanaz was condemned by the Inquisition, and a less rigid administration, more inclined to compromise with the church and the higher nobility, controlled the country's policy.

      The last stages of the war were a Spanish concern. The allies deserted the archduke Charles; the French gave little help to Philip V. In 1714 Philip recaptured the archduke's capital, Barcelona. By the Decree of Nueva Planta (1716), the fueros were abolished and Catalonia was integrated into Spain. Integration, widely criticized by later generations of Catalans as the destruction of Catalan “nationality,” was nevertheless a precondition for industrial revival; it gave Catalonia a domestic market in Spain and later an overseas market in America. Paradoxically, a disastrous war had for the first time created a unitary Spanish state: except for the Basque provinces and Navarre, Spain was under direct royal administration.

      Spain's defeat in war cost it many of its possessions outside Iberia. The treaties of Maastricht and Utrecht (Utrecht, treaties of) (1713) stripped it of its European possessions (Belgium, Luxembourg, Milan, Sardinia, Sicily, and Naples) and gave Britain Gibraltar and Minorca and the right to send one ship a year to trade with Spanish America.

“American” and “Italian” policies
      Two tendencies can be discerned in Spanish policy until 1748: a desire for revenge and recovery in Italy and an “Atlantic” policy that sought to protect America from British incursions and to revive Spanish colonial rule. Both policies demanded a strong army and navy. The “Italian” tendency was influenced by Philip V's second wife, Isabella, and her desire to get Italian thrones for her sons. The instruments of her ambitions were two foreigners: the Italian cardinal Giulio Alberoni (Alberoni, Giulio), the exiled son of an Italian gardener, and the Dutch-born adventurer Juan Guillermo Riperdá (Riperdá, Juan Guillermo Riperdá, duque de, Barón De Riperdá) (Johan Willem Ripperda). The attempt to recover the possessions in Italy involved Spain in an unsuccessful war with Austria, which was now the great power in Italy. Spain suffered a serious naval defeat off Cape Passero, Sicily, in 1718. Nevertheless, Isabella's persistence was rewarded when her son, the future King Charles III of Spain, became the duke of Parma in 1731 and king of Naples in 1733, relinquishing his claims to Parma.

      The American-Atlantic tendency was the work of Spanish ministers with a particular interest in the navy and foreign trade—José Patiño (Patiño, José Patiño, marqués de), Zenón de Somodevilla y Bengoechea, marqués de la Ensenada (Ensenada, Zenón de Somodevilla y Bengoechea, marqués de la), and José de Carvajal y Lancáster. The “Italian” and “Atlantic” tendencies existed side by side in the late years of Philip V's reign. Atlantic rivalries in the form of a dispute over the interpretation of British trading privileges in Spanish America granted at Utrecht brought on the War of Jenkins' Ear (Jenkins' Ear, War of) (1739–43), during which the British sacked Porto Bello (now Portobelo) in the Caribbean. The Spanish fleet nevertheless was surprisingly effective and worsted Admiral Edward Vernon at Cartagena. The Italian-Mediterranean policy led directly to Spanish involvement in the War of the Austrian Succession (Austrian Succession, War of the) (1740–48). It made possible an alliance of France and Spain against Austria, giving Isabella the opportunity to settle her second son, Philip, in an Italian duchy. In 1745 Spanish troops entered Milan.

       Ferdinand VI (1746–59) was concerned with the domestic recovery of Spain rather than the extension of its power in Europe. He hoped to recover Gibraltar at the general peace that ended the War of the Austrian Succession. But the Anglo-French rapprochement made recovery of Gibraltar an impossibility at the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (Aix-la-Chapelle, Treaty of) (1748); the treaty merely strengthened Spain's position in Italy when Philip became duke of Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla. The Atlantic tendency became dominant under Ferdinand VI. Because Britain was Spain's most significant enemy in the Americas (as Austria had been in Italy), Spain's “natural” ally was France, as Ensenada and Carvajal had seen (hence a series of family pacts with France in 1733 and 1743). It was only in the last years of Ferdinand's reign that his minister, Ricardo Wall, attempted a policy of strict neutrality as the best means of saving Spain from the hostility of Britain, Austria, or France.

      The American interest was reflected in increased trade (the old system of convoyed fleets was abandoned for individual sailings), the creation of privileged trading companies (1725), and the founding of new naval arsenals at Ferrol and Cartagena (1726). But Spain's central weakness as an imperial power remained; its economy could not supply America with the consumer goods it needed in return for its increased exports. Instead, these were supplied either by British merchants through the “legitimate” trade from Cadiz or by smuggling. Despite considerable efforts, the Spanish navy was unable to suppress a contraband trade that, from the colonists' point of view, was a necessity.

      Ferdinand VI's ministers revived the reforming traditions weakened during the latter years of the rule of Philip V, whose lethargy had deepened into chronic melancholia. One of the most important imitations of French administrative practice was the use after 1749 of crown officers, or intendants, to rule in the provinces. The intendants strengthened royal control over local government, especially in its financial aspects; together with the captains general (established by Philip V), they were responsible for a renewal of provincial public works. Carvajal reorganized the postal system. Ensenada was a great road builder. He also opened the Sevilla tobacco factory, botanical gardens, and observatories, and he increased royal receipts through a rationalization of the tax structure. Charles III, Ferdinand's successor, implemented dramatic reforms that followed along the path set by Ferdinand.

The reign of Charles III, 1759–88
      Two features distinguished the reforms of Charles III (the “Caroline” reforms) from those of the early Bourbons. First, Charles was a “reformer's king” in that he consistently supported reforming ministers. This was surprising in a monarch who had no great intellectual gifts, was obsessed by hunting, and whose court society was among the most boring in Europe. Second, the civil servants were distinguished from their predecessors by their adherence to a philosophy of government derived from the ideals of the European Enlightenment.

      Nevertheless, there were sharp differences among the civil servants. Pedro Pablo Abarca de Bolea, conde de Aranda (Aranda, Pedro Pablo Abarca de Bolea, conde de), and Pablo de Olavide y Jáuregui were influenced by the French philosophes (philosophe); Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos y Ramírez (Jovellanos, Gaspar Melchor de) was a disciple of the Scottish political philosopher and economist Adam Smith (Smith, Adam); Pedro Rodríguez Campomanes drew more directly on Spanish reformers such as Macanaz; José Moñino y Redondo, conde de Floridablanca (Floridablanca, José Moñino y Redondo, conde de), was a professional administrator. All would have taken as their slogan “Felicidad” (“Felicity”)—a well-ordered monarchy based directly on the productivity of people who are made happy by the intelligent application of the principles of political economy. There were, however, impediments (estorbos), such as traditional privileges (e.g., grazing rights held by the sheep-breeders' corporation, the Mesta) or attitudes (e.g., the prejudice of the nobility against the “mechanical trades”); they could not be allowed to stand in the way of greater prosperity and, therefore, of a higher tax income for the state.

Economic revival
      After 1714 Spain experienced a gradual economic recovery, which became quite marked in the second half of the 18th century. It is doubtful that much of this revival was the work of conscious but often confused government policy. Thus, the famous decree (1783) “ennobling” the mechanical trades had little practical result; the attempt to establish government factories and replace religious charity by the productive employment of the poor was a relative failure. Government policy had little to do with the growth of population, which rose during the century from 8 million to 12 million. The increased demand for food and the consequent sharp rise in prices encouraged agriculture, benefiting the large landowners of the south and the small farmers near growing towns such as Barcelona. The most remarkable feature of this economic revival was the emergence in Catalonia after 1745 of a modern cotton-based textile industry. The industry benefited from a protected market in Spain and the colonies. In the Basque provinces the archaic iron industry began a slow process of modernization. In Galicia, Catalan immigrants established a flourishing fishing fleet. The brandy trade brought sudden prosperity to the ports of Catalonia and their hinterland. Nevertheless, government actions of earlier years, such as financial reforms and the abolition of internal customs duties, removed obstacles to the expansion of the internal market, and the opening of the American trade (see below) acted as a strong stimulant.

      Most of these developments occurred not in the old Castilian core of the monarchy but in the peripheral regions and in the towns rather than in the countryside. Price rises were steepest on the periphery; in Barcelona, for example, they outstripped wages and thus created the beginnings of a social problem. The role of Catalans in the economic revival lies at the origins of the Castilian stereotype of the Catalans as selfish, thrusting businessmen, indifferent to traditional values and exploiting their fellow Spaniards.

Imperial problems
      Charles III maintained that the key to Spain's prosperity lay in the development of an American market in the Indies. He saw clearly that Spain alone could not preserve an overseas market closed to the outside world against Britain. Ricardo Wall's policy of strict neutrality had allowed Britain to make gains in Canada that were bound to weaken France—the only other anti-British power in America. If Britain would respect Spain's possessions, or if Charles could mediate between France and Britain in such a way as to preserve the balance between them in America, then to commit Spain to the French alliance was a dynastic luxury. Once it was clear to Charles that British terms were nonnegotiable, then the Bourbon Family Compact (Famille, Pacte de) of 1761, a mutual-defense treaty with France, was a piece of realpolitik, signed by the “Anglophile” Ricardo Wall.

      The consequence of such an alliance was involvement in the Seven Years' War—too late to save France. In 1762 the British occupied Havana—the greatest single blow sustained by Spain in the war. Spain theoretically allowed no foreigners to share directly in the colonial trade, the effect of which was to starve the colonies of necessary imports and to encourage smuggling. In 1762, 15 ships entered the port of Havana; (Havana) during the 11 months of British occupation, 700 did. This was a dramatic indication to the colonists of the drawbacks of the Spanish monopoly, especially when that monopoly was exercised by what was, in European terms, an underdeveloped country.

      The Treaty of Paris (Paris, Treaty of) (1763) concluded the Seven Years' War and destroyed France as an American power. Spain lost the territory between Florida and the Mississippi, in return gaining Louisiana from France. Spain also had to recognize Portuguese advances in the Río de la Plata (the fort of Sacramento) and the British right to cut mahogany in Central America. The Family Compact was therefore an immediate military failure, and it was only the revolt of the North American colonies (American Revolution) against Britain that enabled Spain to recover the ground it had lost; the successful alliance with France to aid the colonists resulted in the Treaty of Versailles (1783), which gave back Sacramento, the two Floridas, and Minorca. Not until later did it become apparent that an alliance of revenge with colonial insurgents was a shortsighted policy for an imperial power.

      Driven by fears of British and Russian expansion, Spain also undertook a more aggressive policy in the far north of its American possessions: California, New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona. These were reorganized into a single administrative unit, the Internal Provinces, under a unified military command. A string of missions was established in California to assert Spanish control.

      The problems of imperial defense were thus temporarily solved by British weakness after 1765. The positive side of Charles III's imperial policy was an attempt to create an efficiently administered colonial empire that would provide the crown with increased revenues and with a closed market for the exports of an expanding Spanish economy, a program known as the “Bourbon Reforms.”

      The rationalization of the administration of the Indies had started before Charles III with the creation of a new viceroyalty at Santa Fé de Bogotá (present-day Colombia) in 1717. To protect the south against the British and against Portuguese incursions from Brazil, the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata (Río de la Plata, Viceroyalty of the) was created in 1776. The centrepiece of Caroline reform was the introduction of the intendant system in the colonies to tighten up local administration. Most dramatic of all was the abolition of the monopoly of Cadiz, by which all trade to the colonies had to go through that port. Beginning in 1778, non-Castilian ports could trade directly with the colonies.

      The new policies brought some immediate and striking results. Energetic viceroys and ministers and ruthless intendants doubled or tripled imperial revenues. The volume of Spanish goods in the American trade increased 10-fold in 10 years, prompting British concern at the Spanish revival. But imperial free trade would not satisfy the growing demand from Creole producers for free trade with all nations. Nor did the colonial oligarchs desire efficient government and higher taxation; they preferred bad government that let them control their own affairs. They showed their discontent in a series of revolts in the 1780s; only the fear of the native Indians drove them back to allegiance to the Spanish crown.

Domestic reforms
      The domestic reforms of Charles III are more interesting for what they intended than for what they accomplished. They were not, as has often been maintained, directed at fostering a “bourgeois revolution.” The middle classes were too weak, in a predominantly agrarian country, for the role of a modernizing elite; nor did Charles III contemplate a frontal attack on the traditional nobility. The purpose of reform was to remove what seemed to civil servants to be “traditional” constrictions on economic growth and administrative anachronisms that prevented the efficient exercise of royal power. The reformers' view of the inadequacy of the existing system was well expressed by Pablo de Olavide, an active administrator who would later fall afoul of the Inquisition:

A body composed of other and smaller bodies, separated and in opposition to one another, which oppress and despise each other and are in a continuous state of war…Modern Spain can be considered a monstrous Republic of little republics which confront each other because the particular interest of each is in contradiction with the general interest.

      Reorganizations of the machinery of central government made for greater executive efficiency, but complete rationalization was never achieved; the old machinery of the councils persisted, with the Council of Castile as the ultimate decision-making body. An attempt to establish royal control of municipalities (without which reforms could not get past the oligarchic councils) was likewise only a partial success. Most of the public works that characterized the late 18th century were the achievement of vigorous captains general (captain general). The extensive civil functions of these military officials were the first signs of a hybrid military-civilian government that, in another form, was to be developed in the 19th century.

      Spain's agrarian economic structure also was not modified. All the chief reformers believed that the great and extensively cultivated estates, especially in Andalusia and Extremadura, constituted the greatest bar to agricultural prosperity. The landless underemployed proletariat who worked the large estates began to alarm reformers. The statesman and author Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos asked:

Why in our villages and towns are these men without land and in the countryside land without men? Bring them together and all will be served.

      It was felt that property should be more widely distributed and that there should be a free market in land. Yet none of the reformers was radical enough to push through a wholesale assault on private property or on the civil entail (the juridical instrument by which the latifundios (latifundium), or large estates, were preserved intact). Acts such as the limitation of future entail, which preserved great estates intact over generations (1789), the limitation of the privileges of the Mesta (1779), and the right to enclose olive groves and irrigated land (1788) showed that the reformers believed primarily in the right of private individuals to do what they liked with their own property; the unrestricted pursuit of private profit, they believed, would bring public prosperity. The enemy was corporate property. Hence, it was proposed that common lands owned by municipalities and the crown should be sold for individual cultivation and that ecclesiastical entail ( mortmain) be ended.

      The attack on the privileges of the greatest corporation in Spain, the church, was less radical than has sometimes been maintained. Charles III himself was a devoted Catholic who dedicated Spain to the Immaculate Conception. While some of his servants were fashionable anticlericals, most were regalists; that is, they asserted the right of the crown to control over the church in civil matters. In the extreme regalists' view, the state should take care of charity and education, and it should subject priests to civil jurisdiction for civil crimes and assert the traditional rights of the crown over church appointments.

      The main attack of the regalists fell on the Jesuit order. In 1766 a serious riot in Madrid revealed some of the difficulties confronting the reformers. The abolition of fixed wheat prices during a bad harvest (a step that reflected the reformers' belief in the virtues of a free market) and an attempt to reform outlandish fashions in popular dress brought out the mob in Madrid. The Jesuits were alleged to have fostered the riot and were expelled from both Spain and America in 1767. The importance of this expulsion, however, has been overestimated. Already expelled from France and Portugal, the Jesuits were bitterly criticized by rival orders as well as by the secular clergy: 42 of the 56 bishops approved of the expulsion. Again, the expulsion was a negative achievement; more ambitious plans to establish a state university system and a state welfare organization failed.

      The question arises of the extent to which the policies of Charles III resulted from the acceptance by his servants of the precepts of the Enlightenment. Certainly Aranda (Aranda, Pedro Pablo Abarca de Bolea, conde de), the “Hammer of the Jesuits,” and Olavide were what were called esprits forts (“strong spirits”; i.e., French-influenced radicals); their views gave a sharp edge to traditional regalism. Jovellanos (Jovellanos, Gaspar Melchor de) was a disciple of Adam Smith (Smith, Adam). Although his famous Informe sobre la ley agraria (“Report on the Agrarian Law”) is not original, the book is significant in that it attempts to apply dogmatic laissez-faire ideology to Spanish conditions and is one of the foundations of Spanish liberalism.

      One of the aims of the Enlightenment was to produce a society in which no traditional prejudices or institutions should inhibit economic activity. This was the motive behind the attempt to encourage the nobility to engage in commerce by making it “honourable.” Patriotic societies, organized with government encouragement from 1765 onward, were meant to provide the provincial basis for a progressive society and to familiarize Spaniards with European advances in technology and agriculture. However, this attempt did not progress much beyond the status of local reading rooms and debating societies.

      Traditional Roman Catholic society was still strong, if under attack from a minority of intellectuals and civil servants. As the reaction of the countryside after 1808 was to show, the church was still a great social power. Arthur Wellesley, the duke of Wellington (Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, 1st duke of, marquess of Douro, marquess of Wellington, earl of Wellington, Viscount Wellington of Talavera and of Wellington, Baron Douro or Wellesley), observed that “the real power in Spain is in the clergy. They kept the people right against France.” Although a number of bishops could be counted among the “enlightened” and supported much of the reform program, most of the clergy viewed the new ideas of the Enlightenment as “foreign” and dangerous. There could be no such thing as moderate progress encouraged by the king himself—the notion of a “revolution from above” that was to haunt subsequent Spanish history. Voltaire, John Locke (Locke, John), and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Rousseau, Jean-Jacques) were quite simply dangerous heretics, though the Inquisition proved powerless to prevent the clandestine circulation of their works. It was the clerical attacks on heretics as much as the subversive works themselves that familiarized a narrow stratum of society with new ideas. When the French Revolution exposed the dangers of progressive thought, the traditionalist cause was immensely strengthened, and the Inquisition appeared to the crown itself to be a useful instrument to control the spread of dangerous ideas.

Charles IV and the French Revolution
 In 1788 Charles III, who had been the “nerve” of reform in the sense that he loyally supported able ministers, was succeeded by his son, Charles IV, a weak, amiable man dominated by a lascivious wife, María Luisa. Spain was ruled after 1792 by her favourite, Manuel de Godoy (Godoy, Manuel de), a handsome, plump officer from the lower nobility. This choice was unfortunate not merely because Godoy was incompetent and self-seeking but also because the French revolutionary and Napoleonic wars put unbearable pressures on a weak power. Reform was now dangerous. Neutrality was impossible; alliance with either France or the anti-revolutionary coalitions engineered by Britain proved equally disastrous.

      José Moñino y Redondo, conde de Floridablanca (Floridablanca, José Moñino y Redondo, conde de), the prime minister, disliked both the internal effects of the French Revolution (the spread of radical as opposed to government-guided reform) and its external consequences (the weakening of the anti-British alliance). His hostility to France was the cause of his dismissal. Pedro Pablo Abarca de Bolea, conde de Aranda, a friend of France, was discredited by the excesses of the Revolution (1792). Godoy became prime minister at age 25 because the older ministers of Charles III had failed to devise a foreign policy. In domestic affairs, Godoy supported a mild version of the enlightened reformism of his predecessors; like them, however, he failed to find a satisfactory place for Spain in the Europe of the French revolutionary and Napoleonic wars (1800–15).

      Spain had no alternative but to declare war on France after the execution of Louis XVI in 1793. The war was popular but disastrous; in 1794 the French armies invaded Spain, taking Bilbao, San Sebastián ( Donostia–San Sebastián), and Figueres (Figueras). Godoy feared the spread of revolutionary propaganda in the wake of the French armies in Catalonia and the north (there was a republican conspiracy in 1795). Above all, he was convinced that Britain was the true enemy of Spain. Thus, the Treaty of San Ildefonso (1796) represented a deliberate choice: the French alliance, irrespective of the nature of the French regime, was the only policy for a weak imperial power.

      The consequences of this choice were disastrous. War with Britain became inevitable and cut off Spain from America, opening Spain's colonial markets to Britain and the United States. This development threatened complete bankruptcy of the royal finances, which Godoy attempted to alleviate by the issue of state bonds and the sale of church properties—a measure that alienated conservatives. Godoy invaded Portugal with success in the War of the Oranges (Oranges, War of the) (1801), but the defeat of the Franco-Spanish fleet by the British at Trafalgar (Trafalgar, Battle of) in 1805 and the “selfishness” of Napoleon (Napoleon I) caused Godoy to seek a rapprochement with the allies. Had Napoleon lost the Battle of Jena (Jena, Battle of) (1806) against the Prussians, Godoy would have joined the Fourth Coalition against him.

      Godoy's position was now extremely weak. Disliked by the court aristocracy, who considered him an upstart, he was unpopular at home. In addition, severe inflation produced great hardship among the poorer classes, and a campaign of gossip was mounted against him by those intellectuals whom he did not patronize. He now hoped, with French help, to dismember Portugal and to secure personal salvation in a principality. This curious hope was the basis of the Treaty of Fontainebleau (1807), by which Napoleon and the Spanish government agreed upon the conquest and partition of Portugal. When French troops on the way to Portugal occupied the fortresses of northern and central Spain and when Napoleon demanded territorial gains in Spain itself, Godoy's policy was made bankrupt. It was obvious that Napoleon had lost all faith in Godoy and Spain as an ally; the “dirty intrigues” of Ferdinand (Ferdinand VII), prince of Asturias and heir to the throne, against his father and Godoy led Napoleon to consider drastic intervention in Spanish affairs.

      The opportunity for direct intervention by Napoleon was given by the Revolt of Aranjuez (March 17, 1808), in which the partisans of Ferdinand, an alliance of discontented aristocrats and others opposed to Godoy, compelled the abdication of Charles IV and the dismissal of Godoy. Napoleon summoned both the old king and Ferdinand VII to Bayonne, where both were compelled to abdicate. The Spanish throne was then offered to Joseph Bonaparte (Bonaparte, Joseph), Napoleon's brother.

The French invasion and the War of Independence, 1808–14
      Joseph could count on the support of cautious, legalistic administrators and soldiers, those who believed resistance to French power impossible, and those who considered that Napoleon might “regenerate” Spain by modern reforms. These groups became convinced afrancesados, as members of the pro-French party were pejoratively called. Relying on their support, Napoleon entirely underestimated the possibility of popular resistance to the occupation of Spain by French armies. Although the uprising of May 2, 1808, in Madrid was suppressed, local uprisings against the French were successful wherever French military power was weak.

The War of Independence (Peninsular War)
      After the deposition of King Ferdinand, “patriot” Spain outside the control of the French armies split into a number of autonomous provinces. Resistance centred in provincial committees (juntas) that organized armies. A Central Junta at Aranjuez sought to control this nascent federalism and the local levies, and Spanish regular troops defeated a French army of inferior, ill-supplied troops under General Pierre Dupont de l'Étang at Bailén in July 1808. The French retired from Madrid. Napoleon then invaded Spain and by 1809 was in control of most of the peninsula. The Spanish regular army, led by incompetent generals, suffered defeat after defeat.

      The War of Independence—or, as the English call it, the Peninsular War—became for Napoleon the “Spanish ulcer,” and he attributed his defeat in Europe to its requirements for men and money. He was defeated not by the inefficient Spanish regular army but by British troops under the duke of Wellington advancing from Portugal with the aid of Spanish guerrillas. As the main battles—Talavera (July 1809) and Vitoria (Vitoria, Battle of) (June 1813)—were fought by Wellington, the guerrillas pinned down French garrisons, intercepted dispatches, and isolated convoys.

      The term guerrilla, derived from the Spanish guerra (war), was first used during the Spanish War of Independence. The guerrillas were a complex phenomenon, and they did not share a single motivation for fighting the French. Some were patriotic liberals, and others were driven primarily by their attachment to the church and fought to defend traditional institutions against French-inspired reform.

The Constitution of Cadiz, 1812
      The war years both recreated a patriotic spirit to cover the bare bones of Bourbon administrative centralism and resulted in the explicit formulation of a liberal ideology that was to be a dynamic factor in Spanish history. The Central Junta and its successor, the regency, were compelled to summon a Cortes in order to legitimize the situation created by the absence of Ferdinand VII, who was a prisoner in France. Conservatives conceived of this task as the mere supply of the sinews of war on behalf of an absent king. However, the Cortes, when it met at Cadiz in 1810, was dominated by liberals who wished to go beyond the mere support of the war effort and establish a constitution that would make impossible the revival of rule by a favourite like Godoy. The constitution of 1812 was to become the “sacred codex” of Latin liberalism.

      The Constitution of Cadiz gave Spain a strictly limited monarchy (the king must work through his responsible ministers), a single-chamber parliament with no special representation for the church or the nobility, and a modern centralized administrative system based on provinces and municipalities. All this had little basis in the medieval precedents quoted in the debates and was inspired by the 1791 constitution of Revolutionary France. Liberal individualism inspired legislation against entail, favouring instead the sale of common lands and the individual's right to dispose of his property as he might wish. The abolition of the Inquisition represented a mixture of historical regalism and modern anticlericalism. This measure produced a conservative reaction, as did all liberal anticlericalism through to the Second Republic in the 1930s. This reaction gave a popular underpinning to Ferdinand VII's destruction of liberalism and all its works in 1814 (see below).

      In addition to initiating a liberal tradition, the War of Independence bequeathed two problems: first, generals chafed at control by civilian juntas and on occasion overthrew them, thus initiating the phenomenon of the pronunciamiento, or military revolution; second, the afrancesados, who were often of liberal inclination but were tarred with the accusation of collaborationism with the French, were left as an indigestible element within liberalism itself.

Ferdinand VII, 1814–33
      With the help of an army corps and of conservative sentiment that had been outraged by the liberalism of 1812, Ferdinand returned from exile in France to rule Spain as an absolute monarch. In 1820 he was forced by military sedition to return to constitutionalism during the Liberal Triennium (1820–23). For the last, “ominous” decade of his reign, he returned to a relatively enlightened form of ministerial despotism. From 1814 to 1820 Spain attempted to reestablish its rule in America and to maintain an inflated wartime army with a permanent economic deficit.

The failure of liberalism
      The solution of the Cadiz liberals to the imperial problem had been to make the colonies constitutionally part of metropolitan Spain by giving them representation in the Cortes. This did not stop the revolt of the colonies, where the Creoles wanted local self-government and free trade rather than liberal centralization. In 1814 it was not clear that the rebels under Simón Bolívar (Bolívar, Simón) in the north and José de San Martín (San Martín, José de) in the south would succeed; however, all Ferdinand's efforts to assemble a large army and a fleet to send to America failed. In 1820 the army that was to subdue the colonies revolted against the king in a pronunciamiento organized by Major Rafael de Riego y Núñez and supported by the local liberals organized in Masonic lodges.

      The revolution of 1820 brought into power the “jailbirds”—liberals of the 1812 vintage who had been persecuted by Ferdinand VII. The constitution of 1812 was reestablished together with other liberal legislation, including the sale of monastic property.

      The liberal system failed once more because it was a minority creed sustained by a section of the army—the military radicals such as Riego—against a mounting conservative reaction that had been fed by an attack on the church, especially the monasteries. The liberals themselves split. The more conservative wing (led by Francisco Martínez de la Rosa (Martínez de la Rosa, Francisco de Paula), a dramatist) wished for a more moderate constitution, based on the French Charter of 1814, which would give better representation to the upper classes and would not be totally unacceptable to the king, as was the “prison” of the constitution of 1812. The king gave no support to this movement and, in a cowardly fashion, disowned a rising of the guards' regiments that backed it. Thus, the extreme radicals (exaltados) gained control by means of demonstrations in the streets, organized by clubs run on the lines of the Jacobins of the French Revolution. The conservative reaction developed in the north around the regency set up at Seo de Urgel. Without French help, the movement would not have been successful, but when Louis XVIII sent French troops (the “Hundred Thousand Sons of St. Louis”), the liberal armies disintegrated and the liberal system fell.

      Once more revolution at home favoured revolution in the colonies. Mexican conservatives, who had no desire to be ruled by Spanish anticlericals, successfully established an independent Mexico under Agustín de Iturbide (Iturbide, Agustín de) (1822). Spanish military power in South America finally foundered in the decisive Battle of Ayacucho (Ayacucho, Battle of) (1824). Of Spain's far-flung empire, only the islands of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines remained.

The “ominous decade,” 1823–33
      The “ominous decade,” as it was called by the persecuted liberals, began with a severe purge of liberals, but in its later stages the regime became increasingly unacceptable to extreme conservatives, who looked to the king's reactionary brother, Don Carlos (Carlos María Isidro de Borbón, conde de Molina) (Carlos María Isidro de Borbón (Carlos María Isidro de Borbón, conde de Molina)). Ferdinand had to rely either on inefficient traditionalists who could raise no money in the European money markets or on the more liberal ministers who were able financiers. Ministers such as Luis López Ballesteros, a friend of the afrancesados, set the tone with a serious attempt at a government-fostered economic revival.

      The return to 18th-century “ministerial despotism” did not satisfy the liberal exiles, who mounted ineffective invasions in 1824 and 1830. More important, the conservatives of Don Carlos's court faction accepted Ferdinand VII's rule only on condition that Don Carlos would inherit the crown. In 1829 Ferdinand married his niece María Cristina (María Cristina de Borbón) of Naples, who realized that her influence depended on the elimination of that of Don Carlos. In March 1830 her faction at court persuaded the king to exclude Don Carlos from the succession even if María Cristina produced a female heir. This attack on the rights of Don Carlos was the origin of the Carlist party and of the Carlist wars, which were to be a disrupting influence in Spain for more than a half century. After the defeat of an attempt to force María Cristina to recognize Don Carlos's rights during Ferdinand's illness (September 1832), María Cristina's faction became dominant at court. She succeeded in securing all important military commands in the hands of supporters of the claims of her daughter, Isabella (Isabella II). When, on Sept. 29, 1833, Ferdinand (Ferdinand VII) died, Isabella was proclaimed queen, with María Cristina as regent, precipitating almost immediately the outbreak of the First Carlist War (1833–39).

Isabella II, 1833–68
The Carlist wars
      The dynastic war between Isabelline liberalism and Carlism was a savage civil war between urban liberalism and rural traditionalism, between the poorly paid and poorly equipped regular army of the liberal governments, supporting Isabella, and the semi-guerrilla forces of the Carlists. The Carlist strength lay in the north, especially in the Basque provinces and Navarre, where there was strong support for the fueros against liberal centralism and for the traditional Roman Catholic order represented by the religious bigotry of Don Carlos and his circle. But the Carlists could not break out of their bases in the north to capture an important city. The great Carlist leader Tomás Zumalacárregui y de Imaz (Zumalacárregui y de Imaz, Tomás de) was killed in an attempt to capture Bilbao, and Don Carlos's expedition to Madrid failed (1837). In 1839 Rafel Maroto, the Carlist commander, staged a mutiny against the clerical court of Don Carlos and came to terms with Baldomero Espartero (Espartero, Baldomero, príncipe de Vergara), the most successful of Isabella's generals.

      María Cristina allied with liberalism out of military necessity, not from conviction. She would have preferred to grant administrative reforms rather than consent that her daughter should become a constitutional monarch. But only the liberals could save her daughter's throne from the Carlists, and the minimum demand of all liberals was a constitution. As regent from 1833 to 1840, she therefore consistently supported conservative liberals against the radicals. The Royal Statute (1834) represented this alliance between respectable upper-middle-class liberals and the crown.

      This conservative constitution, with its steep property franchise and the great powers it gave the crown in the choice of ministers, could not stop the drift toward the left implicit in liberalism itself. The radicals, who were the heirs of the exaltados of 1820–23, were installed in power first by a series of provincial town uprisings in 1835 and later, after a short-lived conservative reaction, by an army mutiny that forced María Cristina to accept the constitution of 1812. The radical politicians, however, accepted a more moderate compromise constitution—that of 1837. Of more enduring importance was the sale of church lands to finance the war. The great disentailment carried out by Prime Minister Juan Alvarez Mendizábal and his successors profoundly altered the social structure of Spain by putting on the market large quantities of land, most of which were bought by large landowners or prosperous peasants.

Moderates, progressives, and the generals
      The Carlist wars left civilian politicians discredited, and generals became the arbiters of politics not, as in 1814–20, as intruders but as part of the political machinery. They became the “swords” of the two main political groups. The moderados (moderates), who were upper-middle-class oligarchic liberals fearful of democratic violence and upholders of the prerogatives of the crown, represented the conservative stream in liberalism. Their rivals, the progresistas (progressives), were the heirs of the exaltados and represented a lower stratum of the middle class; the progresistas were prepared to use the discontent of the urban masses in order to bring pressure on the crown to give them office. Their instrument was the Urban Militia. General Espartero used his military faction and his supporters among the younger progresista politicians and their artisan followers in the great cities to oust María Cristina and establish himself as regent (1841–43). Espartero proved a disappointment to the radical progresistas, who now allied with his conservative opponents under his military and political rival, Ramón María Narváez (Narváez, Ramón María, duque de Valencia). In 1843 Espartero was ousted by a pronunciamiento.

      Narváez jettisoned his progresista allies through a court intrigue, and between 1844 and 1854 he and his fellow generals dominated domestic politics as representatives of the moderados. Their administrative, educational, and financial measures and the formation of the Civil Guard were lasting achievements; however, the generals could not stabilize their rule on the basis of their constitution of 1845, a conservative revision of the constitution of 1837. The period was disturbed by a series of progresista military risings.

      To the left of the progresistas, who were prepared to accept the monarchy if it gave them office, developed a Democratic Party, which was prepared to dethrone Isabella II, who was declared of age to rule in 1843. Never strong in numbers outside the towns, the Democrats radicalized politics. Orthodox progresista politicians were embarrassed by their extremist attitudes but could not neglect their potential role as urban revolutionaries.

      It was not the Democrats but a group of discontented generals led by Leopoldo O'Donnell (O'Donnell, Leopoldo, Duque De Tetuán) who successfully revolted in 1854. They were prepared to sacrifice the dynasty because the queen and her mother favoured a rigid court conservatism that effectively excluded them from influence. The rebellious military oligarchs were forced to call in civilian and radical support. This turned their pronunciamiento into a mild revolution. Isabella survived only through Espartero's political timidity. Unprepared to accept the backing of the Democrats as the “George Washington (Washington, George) of Spain,” he accepted an alliance with O'Donnell, who was determined to arrest the drift to radicalism. In 1856 he broke with Espartero, defeated a demonstration in his favour, and dissolved the National Militia, the instrument of the left-wing Progressives. The radical thrust was thus defeated.

Economic expansion
      The “revolutionary” period of 1854–56 saw no important constitutional change, but the further extension of disentailment to the lands belonging to the municipalities (the Land Reform of Madoz [1855]) and the new law for limited companies provided the legal structure for a rapid expansion of the economy. To promote this expansion, there were new injections of foreign credit—particularly French—and new banks. This capital allowed construction to begin on the railroad network that was to provide the transport infrastructure for a national market. The textile industry of Catalonia flourished as a modern wool manufacture grew up; in the Basque Country the second pole of an industrial economy developed slowly around iron. The still-dominant agricultural sector expanded as the church and common lands provided new fields for wheat, the easiest of cash crops; the growth of such towns as Barcelona created a market for vegetables, wines, and fruit.

      Expansion resulted in the classic expression of 19th-century liberalism—the haute bourgeoisie of finance and industry. Members of this new class ranged from solid Catalan manufacturers demanding protective tariffs to safeguard their gains to daring speculators such as José, marqués de Salamanca, a railway financier who took an active part in political life and the urbanization of Madrid. It also included successful generals ready to forget their humble origins. Together with the large landowners, these groups formed the oligarchy of liberalism.

      The government that presided over this prosperity was O'Donnell's Liberal Union, which was an attempt to fuse all dynastic parties in a broad-based coalition. It provided a long period of stable government (1856–63), and, had the Progressive politicians been less afraid of losing their left wing to the Democrats and had the queen been willing to grant Progressives power, the dynasty might have survived. Instead, she excluded the Progressives and forced them first to withdraw formally from political life and then to contemplate revolution. Their “sword,” General Juan Prim (Prim, Juan) y Prats (a pharmacist's grandson and a striking example of the social mobility of the liberal army), was a resolute conspirator and the ablest of the political generals of the 19th century. When Isabella's court ministers alienated O'Donnell's followers, a powerful coalition was formed, and Prim dropped his alliance with the Democrats. A series of mediocre ultraconservative governments, a growth in democratic agitation among university intellectuals (whose main concern was the hold of the church over education), and an economic slump caused by bad harvests gave wide support to the military rising against Isabella. Her armies would not defend her, and she was forced to leave for France in September 1868.

The Revolution of 1868 and the Republic of 1873
      The revolution that led to the dethronement of Isabella was the work of army oligarchs led by Francisco Serrano y Domínguez (Serrano y Domínguez, Francisco, duque de la Torre) and Progressive conspirators behind Prim. The Democrats became active in setting up juntas after the revolution; for the most part they rapidly became Federal Republicans under the influence of the theories of the French anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph) as presented by their leader, Francisco Pi i Margall. The Democratic intellectuals' main contribution was to add a radical democratic content to the demands of the military oligarchy.

      The generals were determined to keep the leadership of the revolution in their own hands by channeling it into a constitutional monarchy. Although they had to concede universal male suffrage in the constitution of 1869, they ruthlessly suppressed republican risings in the summer of that year. Their problem was to find a constitutional monarch. Prim's attempt to persuade a Hohenzollern (Hohenzollern Dynasty) to accept the throne was opposed by France and set off the Franco-German War in 1870. In November 1870 Amadeo ( Amadeus), second son of Victor Emmanuel (Victor Emmanuel II), king of Italy, was elected king, and Prim, the kingmaker, was assassinated the day Amadeo entered Madrid.

      Amadeo attempted to rule as a constitutional monarch. Opposed both by Republicans and by Carlists, he could form no stable government from the “September coalition” of former conservative Liberal (liberalism) Unionists, the ex-Progressives, and the moderate Democrats—now called Radicals. Once Amadeo called the Radicals to power, the conservatives deserted the dynasty. Amadeo abdicated after an attack by the Radicals on the army in February 1873, and subsequently the Cortes proclaimed Spain a republic.

      The Republic of 1873 came into existence to fill the political vacuum created by Amadeo's abdication. The Republican Party was neither strong nor united. When the Republican leaders, on legal scruples, refused to declare for a federal republic, the provincial federal extremists revolted.

      This Cantonalist revolt was serious in Cartagena, Alcoy, and Málaga. Simultaneously the authorities had to deal with a new uprising by the Carlists, the Second Carlist War (1873–76). The Republican leaders had allowed attacks on the army that had reduced it to impotence. To conservatives and other supporters of order, the country seemed on the verge of total dissolution; the Carlists were immensely strengthened by the “excesses” of the Cantonalists. Too late, Emilio Castelar y Ripoll (Castelar y Ripoll, Emilio), the last president of the republic, tried to recapture the loyalty of the army. In January 1874 General Manuel Pavía y Rodríguez de Alburquerque (Pavía y Rodríguez de Alburquerque, Manuel) drove the Republican deputies from the Cortes building in the hope of creating a government of order. Pavía turned power over to General Francisco Serrano to form a coalition government.

      General Serrano took over as president of a unitary republic ruled from Madrid. His main task was victory over the Carlists, now a strong force in northern Spain. In this he failed, and on Dec. 29, 1874, a young brigadier, Arsenio Martínez Campos (Martínez Campos, Arsenio), “declared” for Alfonso XII, the son of Isabella.

      There was no resistance. The extreme threat of anarchy in 1873 had resulted in a strong conservative reaction, strengthened by the religious policies pursued since 1868. The constitution of 1869 for the first time had allowed complete freedom of religion. Despite its failure to deliver political stability, the Revolution of 1868 bequeathed to Spain the model of a modern secular state based on universal suffrage. anarchism pentrated Spain's extreme left, especially in rural Andalusia and in industrial Catalonia, where the lower classes deserted a long tradition of political action via the Democratic and Republican parties and moderate unionism. Although anarchists were persecuted after 1873, the movement was kept alive by small groups of enthusiasts.

      The independence movement in Cuba, which, along with Puerto Rico, was the last possession of Spain in America, posed the worst problem for Spain in the period 1868–75. Cubans had long resented the failure to reform rule by captains general, to grant some autonomy, and to ease the economic sacrifices that were imposed by the Spanish tariff system. The Ten Years' War that began in October 1868 made great demands on Spain both in terms of manpower (100,000 by 1870) and money. The war made difficulties for all governments in power in Spain after 1868 and forced abandonment of the most popular of the pledges made by the rebels in 1868: the abolition of the arbitrary and socially selective recruitment system. Like the Carlist wars, the war in Cuba tended to favour the monarchical reaction.

The restored monarchy, 1875–1923
      Once the Carlists had been defeated and the Cubans had accepted the peace settlement of El Zanjón (1878), the restored monarchy provided the most stable government Spain had known since 1833. This stability was sustained by an uneven but respectable economic growth.

Stability, 1875–98
 The architect of the restoration itself and of the constitution of 1876 was Antonio Cánovas del Castillo (Cánovas del Castillo, Antonio). A superb politician, Cánovas had hoped for a civilian restoration; he accepted Martínez Campos's coup but used the young Alfonso XII to keep the military out of politics.

      The Canovite system was artificial in that it required the contrived rotation in office (turno pacífico) of a Liberal and a Conservative party; this in turn demanded governmental control of elections, which were run by caciques, or local political bosses, who controlled votes in their districts and delivered them in return for favours for themselves and their supporters. Only in this way could the government selected by the king and the politicians in Madrid obtain a parliamentary majority. Extensive corruption and the use of administrative pressures on electors were considered the only ways to make the parliamentary system work in an underdeveloped society. This system survived the death of Alfonso XII (1885) and began to falter only in the 1890s, toward the end of his wife's regency. The Carlist threat weakened with defeat, and the majority of Republicans in Spain were domesticated and reconciled to the use of “legal” means.

      “Without being a rich country,” wrote an economist in the early 1880s, “Spain has become comfortably off.” This prosperity, untroubled by the claims of organized labour, was the result of the demand for iron ore after the invention of the Bessemer process (England and France invested heavily in mineral production), the demand for Spanish wine after the devastations by phylloxera in France, and the resumption of railway construction in Spain. The third largest wool industry in Europe grew up alongside the older cotton mills in Catalonia. The boom did not break until the late 1880s, when an agricultural depression set in. A wave of economic pessimism preceded the political and intellectual reaction of 1898.

      The loss of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines in 1898 following the Spanish-American War exposed the Spanish political system to severe criticism. No fiscal and political reform sufficient to satisfy Cuban demands could be effected within the framework of the monarchy, partly because of the pressure of the Spanish loyalist party in Cuba. A revolt in 1895 set off another costly war against Cuban guerrillas. The intervention of the United States could not be staved off by a last-minute grant of autonomy. Their humiliating and total naval defeat in 1898 became known to Spaniards as “the Disaster.” Spain now lost the Philippines and the last of its possessions in the Americas at the very time when the great European powers were building their overseas empires. These events exacerbated an already-existing pessimism among intellectuals about Spain's national and racial “degeneration.”

Opposition movements, 1898–1923
      Criticism of the restoration monarchy came from the Catalan and Basque regionalists, a revived Republican Party, the proletarian parties, the army, the more forward-looking of the Spanish politicians, and intellectuals.

      Basque regionalism, though more akin in its ideas to extreme nationalist movements, was less a challenge than Catalan regionalism. With their own language and a revived cultural tradition, known as the Renaixença, Catalan nationalists moved from a demand for protection of Catalan industry against “Castilian” free trade to a demand for political autonomy. The Regionalist League (Catalan: Lliga Regionalista), founded in 1901 and dominated by the Catalan industrialist Francesc Cambó i Batlle and the theoretician of Catalan nationalism Enric Prat de la Riba, demanded the end of the turno and a revival of regionalism within a genuine party system. Cambó wished to solve the Catalan question “within Spain”—that is, by legal means and in cooperation with monarchist politicians. The revival of Catalanism, however, set off a “Castilian” reaction in which moderate Catalans were accused of selfishness or of hiding separatist aims under “respectable” regionalism.

      Anti-Catalan sentiment was particularly strong among army officers, still smarting from the defeat of 1898. A string of antimilitary cartoons in Catalan periodicals led members of the Barcelona garrison to sack the offices of these (the Cu-Cut!) and demand the application of military law to insults against the military. The passage of the Law of Jurisdictions (1906), which largely met the officers' demands, led to the creation of Solidaridad Catalana, a united front of Catalanist parties.

      In the 1907 election, the Solidaridad Catalana defeated the establishment parties but then divided into a right (which accepted a solution within the monarchy) and a left wing (which was to drift to Republicanism). Cambó's cooperation with Madrid brought Catalonia no tangible concessions.

      Republicanism, which had degenerated into local politicking and lived on its memories of 1873, was revived in a number of major cities: in Valencia by the novelist-politician Vicente Blasco Ibáñez (Blasco Ibáñez, Vicente), in Gijón by Melquíades Alvarez, and, most significantly, in Barcelona by the colourful demagogue and former journalist Alejandro Lerroux (Lerroux, Alejandro). Lerroux's Radical Party offered a program that appealed to the alienated working-class voter of Barcelona. Competing with a slow revival of anarchism, Lerroux veered between terrorism, educational propaganda, and union activity; the anarcho-syndicalist union, the National Confederation of Labour (Confederación Nacional del Trabajo; CNT), was founded in 1910. The socialist movement with its union (the General Union of Workers [Unión General de Trabajadores; UGT], founded 1888) was relatively weak except in the mining districts of the north and in Madrid, where it was dominated by its French-influenced founder, Pablo Iglesias (Iglesias, Pablo). In 1909 the socialists (socialism) abandoned their boycott of “bourgeois” politics and allied themselves with the Republicans. This alliance gave the party a political leverage in excess of its voting strength.

      The intellectuals' protest embraced the writers of widely differing ideas collectively known as the Generation of '98 (Generation of 1898). Joaquín Costa, a voluminous writer, was an especially harsh critic of caciquismo (caciquism) (the system of electoral manipulation on the local level by political bosses); he wanted a revived, effectively democratic, modernized Spain. Miguel de Unamuno (Unamuno, Miguel de) saw regeneration in terms of a return to “pure” Spanish values. The Generation of '98 distrusted politics as managed by professional politicians, who, they said, were out of touch with the “real” Spain. Although the defeat of 1898 loomed large in these intellectuals' thoughts, the cultural pessimism they expressed was far from a peculiarly Spanish affair. Rather, it was part of and shared many features with a more general European fin de siècle pessimism.

      Among the politicians themselves, the conservative leaders Francisco Silvela and Antonio Maura (Maura y Montaner, Antonio) and the democratic liberal José Canalejas (Canalejas, José) sought to regenerate the system by widening the degree of political participation through “sincere” elections. Opposed by the professional party members, Maura only succeeded in confusing the party structure by splitting the Conservative Party. The danger of “sincere” elections to the political establishment was revealed by the Republican victories in 1903.

      The call up of troops for Morocco, where Spanish troops were engaged in operations protecting the Spanish coastal possessions, set off the Tragic Week of 1909 in Barcelona. Public order collapsed, and anarchists and Radical Republicans burned churches and convents. Maura was driven from office because Alfonso XIII (who ruled in his own right from 1902) accepted the Liberals' estimate of the harm Maura's firm repression would inflict on the monarchy. Rather than resist a Liberal Party that had allied with the Republican parties, the king held that the Liberals were a useful “lightning conductor,” protecting the monarchy from the threat on the left. Ever since Maura's fall, the king's diagnosis had been challenged by conservatives.

       World War I produced increased strains. Real wages fell, making the unions restive, and in 1917 junior officers formed juntas and struck for better conditions. The ensuing crisis was exploited by Catalan politicians, who increasingly pressed for autonomy. The revolutionary coalition consisting of Radical Republicans and Catalan regionalists split, and a general strike frightened Cambó and the Catalans, who threatened to call a national convention that would unite all critics of the monarchy. The formation of a national government under Maura ended the last serious attempt to regenerate the political system and to make it respond to reformist and Catalan demands. No subsequent government was strong enough to face the anarchist agitation in Catalonia and the Moroccan War.

      Spain, through negotiations with France, had obtained a protectorate in Morocco in 1912. In an effort to pacify Morocco, economizing politicians were ready for compromise with tribal leaders, but the generals saw conquest as the only solution. A bid by General Fernández Silvestre, reputedly backed by Alfonso XIII, for a crowning victory ended in the terrible massacre of Spanish troops at the Battle of Anual (Anwal) in 1921. Opposition politicians were determined to expose the king's action and criticize the army.

      World War I had given the anarcho-syndicalist movement great power. At the same time there grew a terrorist fringe, which the leaders of the CNT could not control. Although CNT leaders Salvador Seguí and Angel Pestaña shared the anarchist contempt for political action, they wished to build unions powerful enough to challenge the employers by direct action. They mistrusted the libertarian tradition of spontaneous revolution as a means of toppling the bourgeois state. The great Barcelona strike of 1919 was the most impressive in Spanish history. When the employers' violent reaction discredited the moderates in the CNT, it was followed by a wave of assassinations by gangsters employed by both the anarchists and the employers.

      Thus, when General Miguel Primo de Rivera (Primo de Rivera, Miguel) staged his pronunciamiento in September 1923, he received the support of the conservative classes fearful for social order. For example, the Lliga became more concerned about suppressing strikes than about Catalan autonomy, for which it had campaigned from 1915 to 1918. He also had a tacit alliance with Alfonso XIII, who was tired of politicians who could not provide him with effective governments and afraid of being blamed for the disaster at Anual by a parliamentary committee that was scheduled to report in the fall of 1923.

Primo de Rivera (1923–30) and the Second Republic (1931–36)
 Primo de Rivera was a political improviser who believed his mission was to save Spain from the old politicians and to hand over government (after an interval of personal rule) to “clean” patriots. He failed to complete the process because his rule became increasingly unpopular, especially among the intellectuals and Catalans. The September 1923 coup by which he had gained power had been widely welcomed in Catalonia, where, as captain general, Primo had listened sympathetically to Catalan demands. However, Primo soon became a Spanish patriot and permitted an “anti-Catalan crusade.” His followers' attempts to build up a political party (the Patriotic Union) to run a regenerated Spain and provide it with an ideology collapsed.

      At first Primo ruled via the army. In spite of initial quarrels with the African commanders, whom he forced to retreat in Morocco, the Military Directory was responsible for final victory in the protectorate. The Spanish, collaborating for the first time with the French, landed at Alhucemas (Al-Hoceima) in September 1925 and defeated the most successful tribal leader, Abd el-Krim. By 1927 the whole of the protectorate was successfully occupied.

      The Civil Directory (1925–30) was responsible for a thorough overhaul of local government and for an ambitious public works program to increase irrigation, hydraulic power, and road building. Primo's economic nationalism entailed strict protectionist policies and an attack on foreign oil monopolies. The complicated bureaucratic control of industry did not endear him to capitalists after 1926; on the other hand, he collaborated successfully with the UGT while suppressing the CNT. The Civil Directory failed in its chief task, that of winning sufficient political support in the National Assembly summoned for 1928 to facilitate a return to quasi-constitutional government.

      Primo oversaw an economic expansion based on favourable terms of trade for Spanish exports during the early years of his dictatorship. His governments carried out a policy of economic nationalism that included public works, the creation of numerous state regulatory agencies, the nationalization of foreign petroleum interests, and the establishment of a state-owned petroleum company. By 1929, however, the peseta (the Spanish currency) began to fall in value despite desperate measures to prop it up. Economic recession alone would not have forced the dictator from office, but he also lost the support of both the army and the king. The army turned against him as a result of his attempts to abolish the privileges of the artillery and engineer corps, and the king believed that student protests, the growing discontent in Catalonia, and the increasing conspiracies of the “old” politicians imperiled the dynasty.

      On Jan. 28, 1930, Alfonso forced Primo's resignation. However, the king acted too late. His earlier support of the dictatorship tarnished him in the eyes of the politicians and public. The weak governments of General Dámaso Berenguer (Berenguer, Dámaso, conde de Xauen) and Admiral Juan Bautista Aznar could barely keep order. At San Sebastián (Aug. 17, 1930) an alliance of former liberal monarchists, Catalan politicians, and Republicans agreed to overthrow the monarchy. The failure of a Republican military rising at Jaca (Dec. 12, 1930) saved them from having to establish a republic by force. The municipal elections of April 12, 1931, proved that the great cities were overwhelmingly Republican. Rather than face civil war and street demonstrations in Madrid, Alfonso XIII left Spain.

The Second Republic
      The history of the Second Republic falls into four distinct phases: (1) the Provisional Government, which lasted until the religious issue forced its resignation in October 1931, (2) the governments of the Left Republicans and Socialists, which ruled from October 1931 and were defeated in the elections of November 1933, (3) the conservative government of the Radical Republicans and the Roman Catholic right from November 1933 to February 1936, which was punctuated by the revolution of October 1934 and ended with the electoral victory of the Popular Front in February 1936, and (4) the government of the Popular Front and “the descent into violence” that culminated in the military uprising of July 1936.

      The Provisional Government was a coalition government presided over by Niceto Alcalá Zamora (Alcalá Zamora, Niceto), a former monarchist converted to republicanism, whose Catholicism reassured moderate opinion. Another conservative Catholic, Miguel Maura, was minister of the interior. The coalition included all the groups represented at San Sebastián: Lerroux's Radicals, the Catalan left, the Socialists, and the Left Republicans dominated by Manuel Azaña y Díaz (Azaña y Díaz, Manuel).

      The elections to the Constituent Cortes strengthened the Socialists and Left Republicans and thus upset the parliamentary balance between moderate Catholic Republicans and the left. The left imprinted its views on the constitution, especially its religious clauses. Historically conditioned anticlericalism had already led the government to tolerate an outburst of church burning (May 1931). The Socialists and Left Republicans inserted in the constitution an attack on religious education and the regular orders, which forced the resignation of Alcalá Zamora and Maura.

      This direct and ill-advised clash with Catholic sentiment provided a base for the formation of a right-wing party devoted to the reversal of the church settlement. This party, established by the Catholic politician José María Gil Robles (Gil Robles, José María), was known as Acción Popular and became the main component of the right-wing electoral grouping, the Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Rights (Confederación Española de Derechas Autónomas; CEDA). The left viewed CEDA's “accidentalism” (the doctrine that forms of government are irrelevant provided the church can fulfill its mission) as suspect, and these suspicions were only exacerbated by a proclivity among Gil Robles's followers, especially the youth wing, for fascist styles.

      From October 1931 the government, with Azaña as premier, was controlled by Left Republicans and Socialists, with the Catholic right, the Basque Catholics, the Navarrese Carlists, and Lerroux's Radicals in opposition. Azaña aimed to create a modern democracy; labour legislation would be the work of the Socialists, with the UGT leader, Francisco Largo Caballero (Largo Caballero, Francisco), as minister of labour.

      In April 1931 there was a danger that Catalonia might declare its independence within a federal state. Overcoming conservative Republican opposition to limited home rule under the Generalitat, which was controlled by the Catalan left (Esquerra) under Lluis Companys, Azaña was able to settle the Catalan question—perhaps his greatest achievement. Largo Caballero's legislation provided labour with a strong negotiating position but could not in itself mitigate the mounting unemployment, which was particularly serious in the latifundios of the southwest. Since new machinery for the settlement of labour disputes was dominated by the UGT, it was opposed by the CNT, now influenced by the extreme revolutionary apoliticism of an anarchist group, the Iberian Anarchist Federation (Federación Anarquista Ibérica; FAI). Violent strikes were frequent.

      Sedition from the right came to a head in General José Sanjurjo's pronunciamiento in Sevilla (Aug. 10, 1932). Politically more dangerous than Sanjurjo's abortive coup, however, were the steady growth of Gil Robles's Acción Popular and the Socialists' desertion of the Azaña coalition, as Largo Caballero, influenced by increasing discontent with the slow pace of reform among Socialists, wearied of cooperation with “bourgeois” parties. In the elections of November 1933, therefore, the left was divided and the right relatively united behind CEDA. Given an electoral law that favoured electoral coalitions, the CEDA and Lerroux's Radicals, now a respectable middle-class party, triumphed.Although the CEDA had more seats than any other party, President Alcalá Zamora refused to call on Gil Robles to form a government and turned instead to Lerroux, who was unable to govern without the support of Gil Robles. With power in sight, Gil Robles accentuated his legalism, to the distaste of the militant monarchists among his supporters.

      The election defeat further radicalized the Socialists, especially Largo Caballero, who was influenced by Luis Araquistaín, Spain's ambassador in Berlin when Adolf Hitler (Hitler, Adolf) came to power in Germany in January 1933. Throughout 1934 the Socialists threatened an uprising should the CEDA, which they saw as a clearly fascist party, be invited to join the cabinet.

      When four members of CEDA entered Lerroux's government in October 1934, the Socialists staged the revolution they had been threatening. Poorly planned, it was a total failure everywhere except the coalfields of Asturias, where the failure of the Republic to bring any improvement to their situation had a particularly radicalizing effect on the miners there. Revolutionary councils were established in the mining districts of Asturias, where there was considerable destruction of property. In Barcelona the revolution was led by Catalan nationalists, who believed autonomy was imperiled by the actions of the Madrid government in overruling an agrarian law passed by the Generalitat. Unsupported by the CNT, the revolution was quickly suppressed.

      The October Revolution of 1934 was the dividing point in the Second Republic. The Socialists, fearing the fate of their Austrian and German brothers, had revolted against a legal government and thereby established in the minds of the right the fear of a “Red” rebellion. In the subsequent repression by the army lay the emotional origins of the popular front against “ fascism”—a re-creation of the Azaña coalition of Left Republicans and Socialists.

      When the Radicals collapsed in late 1935 following a series of scandals, Alcalá Zamora dissolved parliament and called new elections for February 1936. The campaign was violent, and the Popular Front won by a narrow majority. Spain was politically polarized, and this division intensified. The Popular Front government was exclusively Republican. Under Largo Caballero's leadership, the left Socialists put increasing pressure on the government, using revolutionary language if not intending revolution, and agricultural workers in the south and west staged a number of land seizures. Largo Caballero's revolutionary rhetoric concealed his hope that the orthodox Republicans could be eased from power, leaving the field open to a pure Socialist government, which his followers, using the language of Russian Communist Party founder and revolutionary Vladimir Lenin (Lenin, Vladimir Ilich), chose to call the “ dictatorship of the proletariat.”

      Just as the fears of the “fascism” of the right justified the defensive reaction of the Socialists, so the right argued that the Republican government was a prisoner of the revolutionary left. The Falange, a fascist party founded in 1933 by José Antonio Primo de Rivera (Primo de Rivera, José Antonio, marqués de Estella), the son of the former dictator, grew significantly as the failure of Gil Robles's legalist strategy became clear. The Falange was primarily responsible for the marked increase in political street violence in the months after the 1936 election. Conservatives rallied behind the right-wing National Front, which openly appealed to the military to save Spain from Marxism.

 The army played a decisive role. By the early summer of 1936 a young officers' conspiracy was backed by Generals Emilio Mola, Manuel Goded, and, finally, Francisco Franco (Franco, Francisco). The murder of José Calvo Sotelo, the leader of the extreme right, with the connivance of government security forces, was the final outrage for the right and the army.

The Civil War (Spanish Civil War)
 The military uprising started in Morocco on July 17, 1936, and quickly spread to the garrisons of metropolitan Spain. The Civil War took place because the rising was successful only in Old Castile, in Navarra, where Carlist support was decisive, and, of the larger towns, in Zaragoza, Sevilla, Córdoba, Valladolid, and Cádiz. Galicia soon went over to the Nationalists, as did most of Andalusia. Catalonia and the Basque provinces were loyal to the government because the republic guaranteed their autonomy. In Madrid and Barcelona the security forces, aided by the workers who were armed belatedly by the government, defeated the officers. Thus, in broadest terms, the Republic held the centre, the Levant, Catalonia, and the Basque industrial zones; the Nationalists controlled the food-producing areas, which was to cause an increasingly acute food shortage in the Republican zone.

      The role of the workers in defeating the rising made their organizations the power in the Republican zone. The legal government was bypassed or totally supplanted by local committees and trade unions; the workers' militia replaced the dissolved army. In many parts of Spain a social revolution took place in July 1936 as factories and farms were collectivized (collectivization). The English novelist George Orwell (Orwell, George) described Barcelona, where the CNT was all-powerful, as “a town where the working class was in the saddle.” The success of working-class control, in terms of increased production, is difficult to estimate.

      The revolution was distasteful to the Left Republicans and to the Communist Party of Spain (Partido Comunista de España; PCE), the latter growing rapidly in number and in political influence because it controlled the supply of arms from the Soviet Union, which—given the refusal of Britain and France to support the legitimate and democratically elected Republican government or even to allow it to purchase arms—became the Republic's only significant ally. In the name of an efficient war effort and the preservation of “bourgeois” elements in the Popular Front, the communists (communism) pressed for a popular army and central government control. In September–November 1936, the CNT was brought into the government of Catalonia and into Largo Caballero's ministry in Madrid—an astonishing step for a movement that had consistently rejected “bourgeois” politics. The CNT militants did not approve the leaders' “surrender” and the dismantling of the militia-backed revolution.

      A small Marxist revolutionary party, the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista; POUM), which rejected the Popular Front in favour of a workers' government, set off a rebellion in Barcelona in May 1937. The communists, Republicans, and anti-Caballero socialists used this as an excuse to oust Largo Caballero, who proved insufficiently pliable to communist demands. The government led by the socialist doctor Juan Negrín (Negrín López, Juan) was a coalition of Republicans, socialists, and communists. Thus the UGT and CNT trade unions were replaced by the political parties.

      The communists were correct in arguing that the committee-militia system was militarily ineffective. Ferried over from Morocco, General Franco's army cut through the militia and neared Madrid by November 1936. The successful resistance of the city, which was stiffened by the arrival of the International Brigades, organized by the Communist International (International, Third), and by Soviet arms, prolonged the Civil War for two more years.

      Victory ultimately went to the Nationalists, who had a better army, unified political control, and an adequate arms supply. The core of the Nationalist army was the African army commanded by General Franco. Given the confused political control in Republican Spain, the secure military and political command of Franco (from October 1936) was decisive. In April 1937 he incorporated the Falange and the Carlists into a unified movement under his leadership. Franco also benefited from the support of the Roman Catholic Church, which proclaimed his cause a “Crusade.”

      The Nationalist zone saw the extensive use of terror against anyone suspected of being a “Red.” The number of people killed for political reasons is unclear, but even conservative estimates put the figure at 80,000 between the outbreak of the war and 1943. The Republican zone also saw numerous political killings, including some 7,000 members of the clergy, but the circumstances were radically different. The vast majority of the executions in the Republican zone took place in the early months of the war when government authority had broken down. In contrast, the Nationalists consciously used terror as a policy, one that continued well after the war had ended.

      Both sides sought help from abroad. General Franco appealed immediately to Hitler in Germany and to Benito Mussolini (Mussolini, Benito) in Italy, both of whom supplied aircraft early in the war. In return for mineral concessions, the Germans (Third Reich) supplied the Condor Legion (100 combat planes), and the Italians sent some 70,000 ground troops; both supplied tanks and artillery. This support proved crucial to Franco's victory.

      The Republic consistently hoped that France and Britain would allow them to acquire arms. Owing to fears of a general war and domestic pressures, however, both powers promoted a nonintervention agreement (August 1936), which committed 29 countries to refrain from selling war matériel to either side in the Spanish conflict. The agreement was supposed to be enforced by a London-based committee, but this turned out to be nothing more than a facade that did little to hinder the blatant violations by Germany and Italy.

      The Soviet Union (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) responded to the breakdown of nonintervention by supplying arms to the Republican side. Soviet supplies were of great importance (tanks, aircraft, and a military mission) after October 1936. Mexico also provided aid to the Republicans, though its support was very limited. Soviet supplies dropped off in 1938, and thereafter the balance of arms supply decisively favoured the Nationalists. Once the Popular Army replaced the militia, the Republic held Madrid and defeated two flanking attacks in the battles of Jarama (February 1937) and Guadalajara (March 1937), where the International Brigades decisively defeated a motorized Italian corps.

 After his failure at Madrid, Franco transferred his effort to the north, where the bombing of Guernica (Gernika-Lumo) on April 26, 1937, by German planes outraged public opinion in the democracies. By October 1937 Franco had captured the industrial zone, shortened his front, and won a decisive advantage. When Franco concentrated again on Madrid, the Republican army staged its most effective offensive in the Battle of Teruel (launched Dec. 15, 1937). Franco, however, recovered Teruel and drove to the sea, but he committed his one strategic error in deciding to launch a difficult attack on Valencia. To relieve Valencia, the Republicans attacked across the Ebro (July 24, 1938); once more they failed to exploit the breakthrough, and the bloody battle exhausted the Popular Army.

      The final Nationalist campaign in Catalonia was relatively easy. On the Republican side, the question of the feasibility of continued resistance, which was supported by the communists and Negrín, caused acute political divisions. On March 7, 1939, a civil war broke out in Madrid between communists and anticommunists. On March 28 the Nationalist forces entered a starving capital.

Franco's Spain, 1939–75
      Throughout Franco's rule, his authoritarian regime was based on the emergency war powers granted him as head of state and of the government by his fellow generals in 1936. The first decade of his government saw harsh repression by military tribunals, political purges, and economic hardship. Economic recovery was made difficult by the destruction during the Civil War (especially of railway rolling stock and communications in general), a loss of skilled labour, a series of bad droughts, and a shortage of foreign exchange and the restriction on imports of capital goods imposed by World War II and its aftermath. These difficulties were increased by Franco's misguided policies of autarky, which aimed at economic self-sufficiency through the state control of prices and industrial development within a protected national economy cut off from the international market. The national income fell back to the levels of 1900, as industrial production and agricultural output stagnated and real wages dramatically fell. The near-famine years of the 1940s witnessed the rise of the black market and misery in rural areas that caused migration to the shantytowns of the cities. Given brutal repression and a controlled and censored press, sullen discontent could take no organized form. The regime maintained a division between the victors and the vanquished of the Civil War, with the vanquished excluded from public life.

      Franco's sympathies in World War II lay with Germany and Italy, to whom he gave moral and material support. Nevertheless, Franco demanded France's North African colonies in compensation for military cooperation against the Western Allies, on whom Spain was dependent for food and oil imports. Hitler refused. When in 1943 it appeared that the Allies would win the war, Franco reaffirmed Spain's nominal neutrality without gaining their benevolence.

      The declared hostility of the great powers after 1945 and the diplomatic sanctions imposed by the United Nations (UN), from which Spain was excluded, gave Franco's opposition in Spain and in exile new life. Juan Carlos Teresa Silverio Alfonso de Borbón y Battenberg, conde de Barcelona (popularly known as Don Juan), heir of Alfonso XIII, presented the monarchy as something acceptable to the democratic powers and offered himself as king of all Spaniards, victors and vanquished alike. Because many of Franco's fellow generals were monarchists hostile to the Falange, demands for a restoration were parried only with difficulty. Valiant but futile guerrilla activities, inspired largely by the Communist Party (1944–48), were brutally suppressed.

      Franco met these serious difficulties with success, shifting the balance of power among his supporters from the Falange to Catholics. The Fuero de los Españoles (1945), guaranteeing personal freedoms (provided no attack was made on the regime), was a cosmetic device which failed to establish Franco's democratic credentials with the Allies. More important for Franco was the support of the church, which was given control over education. The diplomatic ostracism imposed by the UN was skillfully turned into a means of rallying support for the regime in the name of national unity.

      Franco's confidence came from his sense that, with the onset of the Cold War, the United States would come to consider Spain a valuable ally against the Soviet Union and that France and Britain, though declaring support for the democratic opposition, would not intervene directly to overthrow him at the cost of renewed civil war. Hence the hopes of the opposition came to nothing. In 1953 an agreement with the United States gave Franco considerable financial aid in return for the establishment of four U.S. military bases in Spain; in the same year a concordat with the Vatican gave Spain added diplomatic respectability.

      By 1955, when Spain was admitted to the UN, Franco's regime appeared secure. Internal political command remained in Franco's hands, ensured by his control of the armed forces and by his ability to play off the groups that supported him, in particular the Falange, the monarchists, and the church. Ultimately, the Falange lost power in the National Movement, the sole legal political organization; its attempts to create a Falangist one-party state were defeated in 1956, though tensions between the Falange and the conservative elements persisted.

      Opposition to the regime took the form of student unrest, strikes, and the unsuccessful efforts of the Communist Party (Communist Party of Spain) to forge a united front and challenge the regime (1958, 1959). The moderate opposition's attempt in 1962 to force a democratic opening in order to enter the European Economic Community (European Community) (EEC) was dismissed by the regime as treason. More serious was the bankruptcy of autarky, evident in inflation, a growing deficit in the balance of payments, and strikes. This crisis was remedied by the technocrats of Opus Dei (a conservative Roman Catholic lay organization), a number of whose members were appointed to the cabinet in February 1957. The devaluation of the European currencies forced Franco to implement a stabilization plan in 1959, which provided a fierce dose of orthodox finance. Economic nationalism, protectionism, and the state intervention characteristic of autarky were abandoned in favour of a market economy and the opening of Spain to international trade and much-needed foreign investment. The stabilization plan was followed by a development plan in 1963, which was based on French indicative planning—i.e., the setting of targets for the public sector and encouragement of the private sector.

      The new policies produced growth rates of more than 7 percent between 1962 and 1966, aided by a rapid increase in tourism, foreign investment, and the remittances of emigrants who, hard-hit by the immediate results of the 1959 stabilization policies, had sought employment in other European countries. There was a rural exodus from the impoverished countryside and a dramatic fall of the active population engaged in agriculture, from about two-fifths in 1960 to about one-fifth by 1976. Spain was rapidly becoming a modern industrialized country. However, the government's policies were fiercely resisted by the Falange, who claimed that the policies were a surrender to neocapitalism. All hopes of a limited liberalization of the regime by its reformist wing were blocked by conservative elements, with the exception of Manuel Fraga's Press Law of 1966, which gave the press greater freedom and influence.

      Although the new prosperity brought a novel degree of social mobility and satisfied the enlarged middle class, the workers' movement revived. Workers, disillusioned with the “official” syndicates run by the Falange, set up Workers' Commissions (Confederación Sindical de Comisiones Obreras; CC.OO.) to negotiate wage claims outside the official framework and called serious strikes. Sections of the church were sympathetic to claims for greater social justice and responsive to the recommendations of the Second Vatican Council. Indeed, many younger priests were sympathetic to the Workers' Commissions. Although the bishops generally felt that the church should support the regime, they were increasingly aware of the long-term dangers of such an alliance.

      Peripheral nationalism constituted an intractable problem. In the Basque provinces the nationalists could count on the support of the clergy, and Basque nationalism developed a terrorist (terrorism) wing, ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatsuna; Basque: “Basque Homeland and Liberty”). The Burgos trials of Basque terrorists in 1970 discredited the regime abroad, and the following year the Assembly of Catalonia united the opposition with a demand for democratic institutions and the restoration of the Autonomy Statute of 1932.

      In the 1960s, elements in the regime were increasingly troubled by its lack of “institutionalization” and the problem of the succession, as Franco was in failing health and there was no designated successor. The Organic Law of 1969 gave the regime a cosmetic constitution, and in 1969 Franco finally recognized Juan Carlos, grandson of Alfonso XIII, as his successor as king and head of state; Juan Carlos's designation was rejected by the democratic opposition as a continuation of the regime. To secure continuity, in June 1973 Franco abandoned the premiership to Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco. However, in December Carrero Blanco was assassinated by ETA.

      Carlos Arias Navarro (Arias Navarro, Carlos), the former minister of the interior, was selected as the new premier. His government saw a fierce struggle between reformists, led by Manuel Fraga and the new foreign minister, José Maria de Areilza, who wished to “open” the regime by limited democratization from above, and the “bunker” mentality of nostalgic Francoists. Although Arias Navarro promised liberalization in a February 1974 speech, he eventually sided with the hard-line Francoists, and his Law of Associations proved to be completely unacceptable to the opposition and a defeat for the reformists. The government severely repressed ETA's terrorist activity in the Basque provinces, executing five terrorists in September 1975 despite international protests.

Spain since 1975
Transition to democracy
      After Franco's death on Nov. 20, 1975, the accession of Juan Carlos as king opened a new era, which culminated in the peaceful transition to democracy by means of the legal instruments of Francoism. This strategy made it possible to avoid the perils of the “democratic rupture” advocated by the opposition, which had united, uneasily, on a common platform in July 1974. Arias Navarro, incapable of making the democratic transition supported by the king, was replaced in July 1976 by Adolfo Suárez González (Suárez González, Adolfo), a former Francoist minister. Suárez persuaded the Francoist right in the Cortes to pass the Law for Political Reform (November 1976), which paved the way for democratic elections. Suárez then convinced the opposition of his willingness to negotiate and his democratic intentions; in April 1977 he legalized the PCE against the wishes of the armed forces. In the elections of June 1977, Suárez's party, a coalition of centrist groups called the Union of the Democratic Centre (UCD), emerged as the strongest party, winning 165 seats in the Cortes, closely followed by the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), who captured 118 seats. It was a triumph for political moderation and the consensus politics of Suárez. The PCE gained 20 seats and the right-wing Popular Alliance (Popular Party) 16.

      Suárez formed a minority government, and the political consensus held to pass the constitution of 1978. The new constitution, overwhelmingly ratified in a public referendum in December 1978, established Spain as a constitutional monarchy. Church and state were separated, and provisions were made for the creation of 17 autonomous communities throughout Spain, which extended regional autonomy beyond Euskadi (the Basque Country, encompassing the provinces of Viscaya, Guipúzcoa, and Álava) and Catalonia, both of which had already been given limited autonomy. Confronted by terrorism and economic recession, the UCD disintegrated into the factions of its “barons.” After heavy defeats in local elections and fearing a possible military coup, Suárez resigned in January 1981.

      The inauguration of Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo, also a member of the UCD, as prime minister was interrupted by the attempted military coup of Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Tejero, who occupied the Cortes (Feb. 23, 1981) and held the government and the deputies captive for 18 hours. The coup attempt failed, however, owing to King Juan Carlos's resolute support of the democratic constitution. Calvo Sotelo, who was left with the task of restoring confidence in democracy, successfully engineered Spain's entry into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1982.

The administration of Felipe González (González Márquez, Felipe), 1982–96
      The election of October 1982 marked the final break with the Francoist legacy, returning the PSOE under its leader, Felipe González (González Márquez, Felipe), whose government was the first in which none of the members had served under Francoism. The PSOE won a solid majority (202 seats), while the UCD was annihilated, winning only 12 seats. The conservative Democratic Coalition led by Manuel Fraga gained 106 seats and formed the official opposition.

      A radical party in 1975 committed to the replacement of capitalism, the PSOE subsequently abandoned Marxism and accepted a market economy. The new government made its main concern the battle against inflation and the modernization of industry. González's policies were resisted by the unions (the socialist UGT and the CC.OO. controlled by the PCE), which staged violent strikes against the closing of uneconomic steel plants and shipyards. The left was further alienated by the government's decision to continue NATO membership, despite the party's official opposition to membership during the 1982 election. To justify this radical departure from the PSOE's traditional neutralism, membership in NATO was submitted to a referendum and made dependent on a partial withdrawal of U.S. forces stationed in Spain under the 1953 agreements. Spain also was to make its contribution to collective defense outside the integrated military command of NATO. The government won the referendum of March 12, 1986—a triumph for González rather than evidence of understanding of or enthusiasm for NATO. González also secured Spain's entry into the EEC in January 1986 after prolonged and difficult negotiations.

      The government lost some support on the left with the creation of the United Left (Izquierda Unida; IU), the core of which was remnants of the PCE, and the right capitalized on law-and-order issues, focusing on the fight against terrorism, disorder on the streets, the rise in crime, and the development of a serious drug problem. The government was accused of using its large majority to force through a major reform of university and secondary education and of abandoning socialist policies in the battle against inflation and in its support of a capitalist market economy. However, the government's control of the PSOE was ensured by its manipulation of political patronage. It was furthermore troubled by frictions created by the demands of Euskadi and Catalonia for greater autonomy. But the success of the government's economic policies (inflation fell and growth was resumed) and the popularity of González enabled the socialists in the election of June 1986 to retain their majority (184 seats), whereas Fraga's conservative Popular Coalition (105 seats) failed to make any gains and fell apart.

      In its second term, the government's economic policies continued to provoke the hostility of the trade unions—unemployment ran at nearly 20 percent—and on Dec. 14, 1988, the CC.OO. and the socialist UGT staged a general strike. In foreign policy, all the major parties, with the exception of the United Left, supported the government's decision to offer logistical support to the United States and its allies in 1991 in the Persian Gulf War; however, massive demonstrations against the war revealed widespread neutralist sentiments. Tensions between the central government and the autonomous governments of Euskadi and Catalonia continued. Although ETA terrorists lost political support, the rise of nationalism in the disintegrating Soviet Union sparked outbursts of separatism in Spain. The Spanish government favoured greater political union with the EEC, the country's major trading partner. Following on Spain's success in hosting football's (soccer's) World Cup a decade earlier, the country again achieved international prominence in 1992, when it hosted the Expo '92 world's fair in Sevilla and the Olympic Games in Barcelona.

      Even before the glamour of these international events had faded, Spain entered a difficult period. The economy experienced a downturn, the government was rocked by a series of corruption scandals, and infighting within the PSOE reached intolerable levels. In these highly unfavourable circumstances, Felipe González called new elections for 1993. Surprisingly, the Socialists remained the largest party in the Cortes, though without an absolute majority; they were forced to rely upon the support of Catalan and Basque nationalists.

      González's fourth term got off to a rocky start. Investigations led by judge Baltasar Garzón into the “dirty war” against ETA during the mid-1980s led to accusations that senior government officials had lent support to the Antiterrorist Liberation Groups (Grupos Antiteroristas de Liberación), whose activities included the kidnapping and murder of suspected ETA militants. Another scandal, involving missing security documents, led to the resignation of two ministers, including the deputy prime minister, Narcís Serra. When Catalan leader Jordi Pujol withdrew his party's support for the government, González called new elections for March 1996, which were won by the conservative Popular Party (Partido Popular), although by a much narrower margin than had been expected and without a parliamentary majority. Overall, the Popular Party captured 156 of the Cortes' 350 seats, while the PSOE was reduced to 141 seats.

Spain at the beginning of the 21st century
      The new prime minister, José María Aznar (Aznar, José María), like González, depended on the support of Basque and Catalan nationalists (he also secured the support of the small Canary Coalition party), requiring him to alter the party's strident centralist rhetoric. Aznar's focus on deficit reduction provoked a wave of strikes and protests, including demonstrations by government workers, a two-week strike by truck drivers, and, in 1998, violent protests by Asturian coal miners. Nevertheless, Aznar's government reaped political benefits when Spain qualified to join the euro, the single currency of the European Union (in which the European Community [formerly EEC] was embedded in 1993); it did so by continuing many of the economic policies the Socialists had introduced to meet the Maastricht Treaty's terms for inclusion. It also benefited from a recovery in the late 1990s that put the economy on generally firm footing as Spain entered the new millennium.

 Aznar's Popular Party won a landslide election victory in April 2000, but it continued to face such intractable problems as the relationship between the regions and the state, Gibraltar's status as a British colony, and the seemingly eternal scourge of Basque terrorism. International affairs caused domestic political tensions to flare in 2003, when Aznar supported the U.S.- and British-led war (Iraq War) to oust Ṣaddām Ḥussein's government in Iraq despite opposition by some 90 percent of Spain's citizens (see Iraq War). On March 11, 2004, 10 bombs exploded on four trains in Madrid, killing some 200 people and injuring some 1,500 others in the worst terrorist incident in Europe since World War II. In elections held three days later, voters swept the governing Popular Party from office in favour of the Socialist Party, led by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (Zapatero, José Luis Rodríguez).

      Zapatero had campaigned on ending Spain's participation in the Iraq War, a promise that he fulfilled immediately, though he also increased the number of Spanish troops serving in Afghanistan. Zapatero, who became prime minister at age 44, represented a new generation of Socialist leaders and brought a new type of progressive politics to government. Half his cabinet, including his deputy prime minister, were women, and his government passed a number of laws affecting private life—the most important of which were the legalization of same-sex marriage and the criminalization of domestic violence. Zapatero had long stressed the importance of the immigraion issue for Spain, and his approach to it was very different from that of most other European governments; in 2005, for example, he implemented a program that enabled some 700,000 illegal immigrants to legalize their status. Zapatero also attempted to grapple with two longstanding issues: the status of Catalonia and of the Basque Country. He supported a reform of the autonomy statute for Catalonia in 2005 and the declaration, the following year, of that region as a nation. On the Basque question, Zapatero pledged not to yield to terrorism, though he hoped to arrive at a negotiated political solution with the Basque separatist organization ETA. The prospects for a settlement brightened in 2006 when ETA declared a ‘‘permanent " cease-fire, but it was broken off 14 months later.

Sir Raymond Carr Adrian Shubert
      In 2008 the PSOE triumphed again, in a hotly contested general election. Although it failed to win an absolute majority, both PSOE and the Popular Party gained seats in the lower house of the Cortes (of which together they constituted 90 percent). Zapatero pledged to boost Spain's slumping economy and to continue his agenda of social and political reform. Zapatero's progressive policies had drawn criticism from conservatives and the Roman Catholic Church during his first term, and the PSOE's win widened the division between Spain's right and left.

Ed.

Kings and queens regnant of Spain
       Kings and queens regnant of Spain Kings and queens regnant of SpainA list of kings and queens regnant of Spain is provided in the table.

Additional Reading

General Works
Overviews of Spain include Adrian Shubert, The Land and People of Spain (1992); and Eric Solsten and Sandra W. Meditz, Spain: A Country Study, 2nd ed. (1990). Richard Carrington, The Mediterranean: Cradle of Western Culture (1971), discusses the evolution of the area's geologic structures, flora, and fauna and surveys its history.

Land
General information about Iberian geography appears in books about the physical geography of the Mediterranean area and of Europe, notably Russell King, Lindsay Proudfoot, and Bernard Smith (eds.), The Mediterranean: Environment and Society (1997), a general overview of the historical, environmental, geographical, and social features of the Mediterranean basin; Catherine Delano Smith (Catherine Delano-Smith), Western Mediterranean Europe: A Historical Geography of Italy, Spain, and Southern France Since the Neolithic (1979), a systematic approach to the historical aspects of environment, settlement, and economy; J.M. Houston, The Western Mediterranean World: An Introduction to Its Regional Landscapes, 3rd ed. (1971); and Clifford Embleton (ed.), Geomorphology of Europe (1984). Ricardo Méndez and Fernando Molinero, Geografía de España (1993), provides a general survey of the geography of Spain, with a focus on the environment and the economy. Manuel de Téran, L. Solé Sabarís, and J. Vilà Valentí (eds.), Geografía regional de España, 5th ed., rev. and updated (1987), is the most complete work on the subject. J.Ma. García Alvarado and J.A. Sotelo Navalpotro (eds.), La España de las autonomías (1999), surveys the Spanish autonomies (regions). J. Vilà Valentí, La Península ibérica (1968, reprinted 1983), gives a good concise description of the country. Adolf Schulten, Geographie des antiken Spanien, 2nd ed. (1974), vol. 1 of Iberische Landeskunde, is an exhaustive scholarly work on the geography of the Iberian Peninsula in ancient times. Antonio Gilman, John B. Thornes, and Stephen Wise, Land-Use and Prehistory in South-East Spain (1985), focuses on an earlier period. Aguilar, S.A. de Ediciones, Atlas gráfico de España, 3rd ed. (1984), is a regional approach, with clear, large-scale maps accompanied by short texts in Spanish on a variety of aspects.Catherine Delano Smith

People
Adrian Shubert, A Social History of Modern Spain (1990, reprinted 1992), examines Spanish society in the 19th and 20th centuries. John Hooper, The New Spaniards, new and rev. ed. (1995), is an entertaining look at the people by a British journalist. An interesting and useful survey of attitudes and opinions for the period of the democratic transition is Francisco Murillo Ferrol et al., Informe sociológico sobre el cambio social en España, 1975/1983 (1983). Carmen Martín Gaite, Usos amorosos de la postguerra Española (1987, reissued 1997), is a superb essay by a novelist on relations between the sexes in the 1940s and '50s. Miguel Juárez, V informe sociológico sobre la situación social en España: sociedad para todos en el año 2000, 2 vol. (1994), offers a comprehensive review of Spanish social trends. Rafael Puyol (ed.), Dinámica de la población en España: cambios demográficos en último cuarto del siglo XX (1997), provides a survey of the demography of Spain.

Economy
William Chislett, Spain (1992), provides a brief analysis of the Spanish economy with reference to its main regions. Joseph Harrison, An Economic History of Modern Spain (1978), is a concise overview. Reviews of the economic history of the 19th and early 20th centuries include Nicolás Sánchez-Albornoz (ed.), The Economic Modernization of Spain, 1830–1930 (1987; originally published in Spanish, 1985); and Jordi Nadal, “The Failure of the Industrial Revolution in Spain, 1830–1914,” pp. 532–626 in Carlo M. Cipolla (ed.), The Emergence of Industrial Societies (1973, reissued 1976), vol. 4 of The Fontana Economic History of Europe. More-detailed coverage of 20th-century developments appears in Sima Lieberman, The Contemporary Spanish Economy: A Historical Perspective (1982); and José Luis García Delgado et al., España, economía, ante el siglo XXI (1999). Keith G. Salmon, The Modern Spanish Economy: Transformation and Integration into Europe (1991, reissued 1995), provides a sectoral analysis of Spanish economy at the end of the 20th century.

Government and society
Michael T. Newton and Peter J. Donaghy, Institutions of Modern Spain: A Political and Economic Guide, new expanded, rev., and updated ed. (1997), is an essential overview of political, economic, and institutional life in modern Spain. Peter J. Donaghy and Michael T. Newton, Spain: A Guide to Political and Economic Institutions (1987), offers a superb description of the institutions of democratic Spain. Paul Heywood, The Government and Politics of Spain (1995), presents a historical discussion of the modernization of the Spanish state. Thomas D. Lancaster and Gary Prevost (eds.), Politics and Change in Spain (1985), is a collection of essays on aspects of post-1975 Spain. Frances Lannon, Privilege, Persecution, and Prophecy: The Catholic Church in Spain, 1875–1975 (1987), provides a historical review of religion and church-state relations.

Cultural life
Richard E. Chandler and Kessel Schwartz, A New History of Spanish Literature, rev. ed. (1991), surveys the history of Spanish literature through the 1980s. Bradley Smith, Spain: A History in Art (1966, reissued 1971), covers the period up to 1930. John F. Moffitt, The Arts in Spain (1999), offers a balanced overview of the art history of Spain, with an emphasis on Spanish singularity and Spanish responses to international art trends. Emma Dent Coad, Spanish Design and Architecture (1990), covers fashion, interior and graphic design, and furniture, as well as architecture. Gilbert Chase, The Music of Spain, 2nd rev. ed. (1959), is a survey. J.M. Caparrós Lera and Rafael de España, The Spanish Cinema: An Historical Approach (1987), is a brief introduction that goes up to 1975. J.M. Caparrós Lera, Historia crítica del cine español: desde 1897 hasta hoy (1999), offers a more comprehensive history of Spanish film.Adrian Shubert Vicente Rodriguez

History
Pre-Roman Spain
A general book, richly illustrated, is Richard J. Harrison, Spain at the Dawn of History: Iberians, Phoenicians, and Greeks (1988). Arturo Ruiz and Manuel Molinos, The Archaeology of the Iberians (1998; originally published in Spanish, 1993), is a study of the prehistoric archaeology of Spain. Antonio Beltrán, Rock Art of the Spanish Levant, trans. from Italian (1982), gives an account of Mesolithic rock art.Richard John Harrison

Roman Spain
Works on this period include C.H.V. Sutherland, The Romans in Spain, 217 B.C.–A.D. 117 (1939, reprinted 1982); S.J. Keay, Roman Spain (1988); Leonard A. Curchin, Roman Spain: Conquest and Assimilation (1991, reissued 1995); J.S. Richardson, The Romans in Spain (1996, reissued 1998); and A.T. Fear, Rome and Baetica: Urbanization in Southern Spain, c. 50 BC–AD 150 (1996).John S. Richardson Adrian Shubert

Visigothic Spain
E.A. Thompson, The Goths in Spain (1969); Kenneth Baxter Wolf (trans. and ed.), Conquerors and Chroniclers of Early Medieval Spain, 2nd ed., trans. from Latin (1999); and the collection of essays in Edward James (ed.), Visigothic Spain: New Approaches (1980), are informative studies of the Visigothic period.

Christian Spain from the Muslim invasion to 1479
Joseph F. O'Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain (1975, reissued 1983), is the standard survey in English. Roger Collins, Early Medieval Spain: Unity and Diversity, 400–1000, 2nd ed. (1995); and Angus MacKay, Spain in the Middle Ages: From Frontier to Empire, 1000–1500 (1977, reissued 1989), cover the medieval period. J.N. Hillgarth, The Spanish Kingdoms, 1250–1516, 2 vol. (1976–78), studies the late Middle Ages in greater detail. Derek W. Lomax, The Reconquest of Spain (1978), focuses primarily on military history. A modern work on the Cid is Richard Fletcher, The Quest for El Cid (1989, reissued 1991). Also important are Thomas F. Glick, From Muslim Fortress to Christian Castle: Social and Cultural Change in Medieval Spain (1995); James F. Powers, A Society Organized for War: The Iberian Municipal Militias in the Central Middle Ages, 1000–1284 (1987); and Heath Dillard, Daughters of the Reconquest: Women in Castilian Town Society, 1100–1300 (1984, reissued 1989). Robert Ignatius Burns, The Crusader Kingdom of Valencia: Reconstruction on a Thirteenth-Century Frontier, 2 vol. (1967), Islam Under the Crusaders: Colonial Survival in the Thirteenth-Century Kingdom of Valencia (1973), and Medieval Colonialism: Postcrusade Exploitation of Islamic Valencia (1975); and the excellent Mark D. Meyerson, The Muslims of Valencia in the Age of Fernando and Isabel: Between Coexistence and Crusade (1991), all deal with the settlement of Valencia and the fate of the Muslims who remained behind after the Christian reconquest. David Nirenberg, Communities of Violence: Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages (1996, reprinted with corrections, 1998), is an important discussion of relations among Jews, Christians, and Muslims in medieval Europe. Mark D. Meyerson, A Jewish Renaissance in Fifteenth-Century Spain (2004), is an important recent study of Jews in late medieval Spain.

Muslim Spain
Valuable works include Hugh Kennedy, Muslim Spain and Portugal: A Political History of Al-Andalus (1996); Thomas F. Glick, Islamic and Christian Spain in the Early Middle Ages (1979); Olivia Remie Constable, Trade and Traders in Muslim Spain: The Commercial Realignment of the Iberian Peninsula, 900–1500 (1994, reissued 1996); Richard Fletcher, Moorish Spain (1992, reissued 1998); and L.P. Harvey, Islamic Spain, 1250 to 1500 (1990, reissued 1992).

United Spain under the Catholic Monarchs and the Habsburgs
J.H. Elliott, Imperial Spain, 1469–1716 (1963, reissued 1977), is the best single work covering this period. Henry Kamen, Spain, 1469–1714: A Society of Conflict, 2nd ed. (1991), is a short introduction. Stephen Haliczer, The Comuneros of Castile: The Forging of a Revolution, 1475–1521 (1981), is an important corrective to the traditional overvaluation of the Catholic Monarchs. Recent work on the Inquisition includes Norman Roth, Conversos, Inquisition, and the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain (1995); Angel Alcalá (ed.), The Spanish Inquisition and the Inquisitorial Mind (1987; originally published in Spanish, 1984); Henry Kamen, The Spanish Inquisition: An Historical Revision (1997); B. Netanyahu, The Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth Century Spain (1995); and Mary E. Giles (ed.), Women in the Inquisition: Spain and the New World (1999).John Lynch, Spain Under the Habsburgs, 2nd ed., 2 vol. (1981, reissued 1984), provides a good overview of early modern Spain. Antonio Domínguez Ortiz, The Golden Age of Spain, 1516–1659 (1971), is a synthesis by one of the most distinguished Spanish scholars. Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, 2 vol. (1972–73, reissued 1995; trans. from French 2nd rev. ed., 1966), is an economic and historical geography of the Mediterranean basin during the 16th century, in which Spain plays a central role; this book has become a classic. M.J. Rodríguez-Salgado, The Changing Face of Empire: Charles V, Philip II, and Habsburg Authority, 1551–1559 (1988), discusses Spanish foreign policy. Geoffrey Parker, Philip II, 3rd ed. (1995), is a balanced study. Henry Kamen, Philip of Spain (1997), is a recent and controversial biography. John Francis Guilmartin, Jr., Gunpowder and Galleys: Changing Technology and Mediterranean Warfare at Sea in the Sixteenth Century (1974), studies war in the Mediterranean. Many books were published for the 400th anniversary of the Armada campaign; among these is Colin Martin and Geoffrey Parker, The Spanish Armada, 2nd rev. ed. (1999). Geoffrey Parker, The Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road, 1567–1659: The Logistics of Spanish Victory and Defeat in the Low Countries' Wars (1972, reprinted with corrections, 1995), is the definitive work on the Spanish army in western Europe; and R.A. Stradling, The Armada of Flanders: Spanish Maritime Policy and European War, 1568–1668 (1992), is the equivalent for the Spanish navy. I.A.A. Thompson, War and Government in Habsburg Spain, 1560–1620 (1976), studies the effects of war on government in Spain. Jonathan I. Israel, The Dutch Republic and the Hispanic World, 1606–1661 (1982, reprinted 1986), is also useful. J.H. Elliott, The Revolt of the Catalans: A Study in the Decline of Spain, 1598–1640 (1963, reissued 1984), and The Count-Duke of Olivares: The Statesman in an Age of Decline (1986), are outstanding contributions to Spanish history written in English. J.H. Parry, The Spanish Seaborne Empire (1966, reprinted 1990), is an excellent sketch of its subject. Jonathan Brown and J.H. Elliott, A Palace for a King: The Buen Retiro and the Court of Philip IV (1980, reissued 1986), successfully attempts to integrate the history of art with political history. Henry Kamen, The Phoenix and the Flame: Catalonia and the Counter Reformation (1993), is an interesting study of 16th- and 17th-century Catalonia. Sara T. Nalle, God in La Mancha: Religious Reform and the People of Cuenca, 1500–1650 (1992), is a fascinating study of religious practice in one Castilian province.

The 18th century
John Lynch, Bourbon Spain, 1700–1808 (1989, reprinted 1993), is an excellent survey. Two specialist studies, using modern techniques, are Richard Herr, Rural Change and Royal Finances in Spain at the End of the Old Regime (1989); and David R. Ringrose, Transportation and Economic Stagnation in Spain, 1750–1850 (1970). Other specific topics are addressed by William J. Callahan, Church, Politics, and Society in Spain, 1750–1874 (1984), and Honor, Industry, and Commerce in 18th Century Spain (1972); and Richard Herr, The Eighteenth-Century Revolution in Spain (1958, reissued 1969), on the reign of Charles III.

The 19th and early 20th centuries
Gerald Brenan, The Spanish Labyrinth: An Account of the Social and Political Background of the Civil War, 2nd ed. (1950, reissued 1993), remains a stimulating introduction to the problems of modern Spain. General histories of political, economic, and social developments include José Alvarez Junco and Adrian Shubert (eds.), Spanish History since 1808 (2000); Adrian Shubert, A Social History of Modern Spain (1990, reprinted 1992); Raymond Carr, Spain, 1808–1975, 2nd ed. (1982); Stanley G. Payne, Politics and the Military in Modern Spain (1967); and Carolyn P. Boyd, Praetorian Politics in Liberal Spain (1979).There has been a renewal of interest in the economic history of this period. The classic work is Jordi Nadal, El fracaso de la revolución industrial en España, 1814–1913, 5th ed. (1982). David R. Ringrose, Spain, Europe, and the “Spanish Miracle,” 1700–1900 (1996, reissued 1998); and Leandro Prados de la Escosura, De imperio a nación: crecimiento y atraso económico en España (1780–1930) (1988), provide revisionist views of Spain's economic history.Sources on early- and mid-19th-century politics include Jesus Cruz, Gentlemen, Bourgeois, and Revolutionaries: Political Change and Cultural Persistence among the Spanish Dominant Groups, 1750–1850 (1996); Renato Barahona, Vizcaya on the Eve of Carlism: Politics and Society, 1800–1833 (1989); V.G. Kiernan, The Revolution of 1854 in Spanish History (1966); and C.A.M. Hennessy, The Federal Republic in Spain: Pi y Margall and the Federal Republican Movement, 1868–74 (1962, reprinted 1980). Pamela Beth Radcliff, From Mobilization to Civil War: The Politics of Polarization in the Spanish City of Gijon, 1900–1937 (1996), is an important study of politics in one major city. Paul Heywood, Marxism and the Failure of Organised Socialism in Spain, 1879–1936 (1990), analyzes the socialist party. Studies of the place of the church in society and politics include William J. Callahan, Church, Politics, and Society in Spain, 1750–1874 (1984); and Joan Connelly Ullman, The Tragic Week: A Study of Anti-Clericalism in Spain, 1875–1912 (1968).Among the important recent works on the late Spanish empire are Christopher Schmidt-Nowara, Empire and Antislavery: Spain, Cuba, and Puerto Rico, 1833–1874 (1999); and Sebastian Balfour, The End of the Spanish Empire, 1898–1923 (1997).

Primo de Rivera (1923–30) and the Second Republic (1931–36)
The excellent but misleadingly titled work by Shlomo Ben-Ami, Fascism from Above: The Dictatorship of Primo de Rivera in Spain, 1923–1930 (1983), deals with the dictatorship, and The Origins of the Second Republic in Spain (1978), chronicles its collapse. George Esenwein and Adrian Shubert, Spain at War: The Spanish Civil War in Context, 1931–1939 (1995), is a recent synthesis. Paul Preston, The Coming of the Spanish Civil War: Reform, Reaction, and Revolution in the Second Republic, 2nd ed. (1994); Nigel Townson, The Crisis of Democracy in Spain: Centrist Politics under the Second Republic, 1931–1936 (2000); and Edward E. Malefakis, Agrarian Reform and Peasant Revolution in Spain: Origins of the Civil War (1970), are detailed studies of aspects of politics during the Second Republic.

The Civil War (1936–39) and Franco's Spain (1939–75)
Hugh Thomas, The Spanish Civil War, 3rd ed., rev. and enlarged (1977, reissued 1994), is a narrative history; Raymond Carr, The Civil War in Spain, 1936–39, new ed. (1986), takes a wider view. Burnett Bolloten, The Spanish Civil War: Revolution and Counterrevolution (1991), is an encyclopaedic account. George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia (1938, reissued 2000), remains a classic account of political feuds in Barcelona. Michael Alpert, A New International History of the Spanish Civil War (1994, reissued 1997), covers international aspects of the conflict; and Mary Nash, Defying Male Civilization: Women in the Spanish Civil War (1995), covers the role of women.The standard work on Francoism is Stanley G. Payne, The Franco Regime, 1936–1975 (1987, reissued 2000). Paul Preston, Franco: A Biography (1993, reissued 1995), is the definitive account of the dictator's life. Michael Richards, A Time of Silence: Civil War and the Culture of Repression in Franco's Spain, 1936–1945 (1998), is a provocative study of early Francoism. Amando de Miguel, Manual de estructura social de España (1974), discusses Francoist society. Sebastian Balfour, Dictatorship, Workers, and the City: Labour in Greater Barcelona Since 1939 (1989), is an excellent study of the labour movement.

Spain since 1975
Sources on the period of political transition include Raymond Carr and Juan Pablo Fusi Aizpurúa, Spain: Dictatorship to Democracy, 2nd ed. (1981, reissued 1991; originally published in Spanish, 1979); and Paul Preston, The Triumph of Democracy in Spain (1986, reissued 1990). Víctor M. Pérez-Díaz, The Return of Civil Society: The Emergence of Democratic Spain (1993, reissued 1998; originally published in Spanish, 1987), is an important interpretive essay. Charles T. Powell, El piloto del cambio: el rey, la monarquía y la transición a la democracia (1991), examines the role of King Juan Carlos in the transition.Among the many studies of regional nationalism, the most important include Daniele Conversi, The Basques, the Catalans, and Spain: Alternative Routes to Nationalist Mobilisation (1997, reissued 2000); Juan Díez Medrano, Divided Nations: Class, Politics, and Nationalism in the Basque Country and Catalonia (1995); and Robert P. Clark, The Basque Insurgents: ETA, 1952–1980 (1984), and Negotiating with ETA: Obstacles to Peace in the Basque Country, 1975–1988 (1990).Adrian Shubert

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