In the face of a new war with France in October 1683, the monarchy grappled with a liquidity shortage due to a scarcity of currency. Resorting to medieval recruitment methods to mitigate financial strain, the strategy of enlisting men from Castilian cities with representation in Cortes emerged as a viable option. Despite resistance from the nobility and clergy, this study, based on previously unpublished sources, examines the service provided by these cities, the strategies and rewards employed for its achievement, and the ultimate outcomes. It highlights the collaboration between the elites of Castilian cities and the Crown during times of crisis. However, this article underscores the inherent challenges in military management stemming from a lack of foresight and resources from the Royal Treasury. This deficiency significantly impacted the effectiveness of the service, leading to adverse conditions. Consequently, it sheds light on the complexities of military administration in a context of economic constraints.
Juan Caramuel developed and applied in the Rítmica a set of literary ideas —exposed in some epistles prior to the doctrinal body of the work— in order to prepare the «lover of the muses» with some theoretical principles before receiving the doctrine on metrical art. This doctrine is full of all kinds of examples taken from texts written in various languages, predominantly Spanish, and scholia of a broad subject matter. The objective of this work is to analyze some of the judgments, opinions, explanations and comments that qualify and complete certain ideas exposed in the aforementioned epistles.
We study the bronze and porphyry collections of the 7th Marquis of Carpio. It was unknown that he was the owner of four of the fifteen bronze sculptures, nine of them by Antonio Susini based on models by Giambologna, which Cosimo II Medici gave to Prince Henry of Wales in 1612 and which were inherited by his brother, the future Charles I of England. The latter had a Cupid and a Saint George on horseback by Francesco Fanelli, which also passed to Carpio. Carpio commissioned in Rome four firedogs representing the continents, which were acquired by Charles II of Spain at auction. The monarch acquired porphyry tables and vases, some of which we identified in the Prado Museum and in drawings in the Carpio album in London.
This study is based on the comparison established by Vincenzo Giustiniani in 1628 between musical evolution and modes of dress to explain the aesthetic austerity from the reign of Philip II to that of Philip IV. An austerity related to the markedly religious character of the Spanish court, but also to its absence of the competitive display that had given other courts a more innovative character, as was the case with the Burgundian court in the 15th century or that of the Medicis in the 16th century. The great courts, such as the Spanish court, did not need this exhibition, as their consideration did not depend on it. For that reason, it slowly took on some of those elements of prestige, such as the Burgundian ceremonial that was introduced in 1548 or the Florentine opera that had its first trial in 1627 with La selva sin amor (The forest without love). This contribution attempts to explain the modernisation of musical taste at the Spanish court until the final years of Charles II's reign, when the last portraits of Claudio Coello show him in a dress more in keeping with European fashions.
This article delves into Doña Catalina Antonia de Aragón y Sandoval, Duchess of Segorbe, Cardona and Lerma (1635-1697) and her influence in the court of King Carlos II of Spain. One of the most powerful aristocrats of her time, Catalina later became the Duchess of Medinaceli upon her marriage to Don Juan Francisco de la Cerda Enríquez de Ribera. This study examines Doña Catalina’s biography within the power network in the court of Carlos II and shows the Duchess’s contemporary views through, among others, diplomatic relations, travel diaries and political satires against the Duke of Medinaceli’s Ministry. Moreover, the close political and cultural relations of the Cardona-Medinacelis with Italian diplomats in the Spanish court and in Italy are deeply highlighted.
This work searches describe to biographic and politic profile of the first governors of Tucumán during Carlos II’reign. Thus, we can identify and explain the politics that they employed to defend the population of attacks of chaqueños indigens. As their previous cursus honorum (military experiences on Europe and the Spanish America) as well as their bonds with the local elites were key to ensure the governability of the jurisdiction. Therefore, the militarization occurred because of these two elements.
The Holy Church of Toledo, in its capacity as Primate of Spain, played an important role in relation to the monarchy and the rest of the Churches of Castile. The Crown’s request for help in the continuous armed conflicts in which it was immersed was addressed by the Church in two divergent ways. If it was a matter of spiritual help, the response of the cathedral’s council of canons was always positive, sparing no detail to make the liturgical acts more brilliant. However, when financial contributions were required (subsidio, excusado, cruzada and donativos) the attitude changed radically. Generosity was substantially reduced and a whole string of arguments were put forward aimed at avoiding the exaction and, if this was not achieved, at reducing the sum or delaying the time of collection, two formulas used to obtain some kind of relief and make the burdens more tolerable.
The main aim of this paper is to assess the importance of the monetary reform of the reign of Carlos II, putting it into the context of the general economic situation of the kingdom of Castile in the last two decades of the 17th century. To do this is analysed the way in which monetary problems were tackled, the solutions provided and, in particular, the main contributions and their projection in the following century, defending the idea that the reign of Carlos II laid the essential foundations on which the much more celebrated monetary reform of the 18th century was based. It concludes by relating the monetary reform to the rest of the renovating measures adopted during the reign.
What happens when climate, famines, epidemics, and political changes converge? How is this situation articulated with the social turmoil that may occur? And all this in an imperial space. For several decades I have investigated, in this perspective, the years 1690-1700, in the heart of the Little Ice Age. They are a watershed, with its contradictions and transformations: crisis and growth, changes that open the eighteenth century and its reforms. Is something from 1810 already present in 1690? These are questions and hypotheses that we have specifically explored, based on claims, emotions, revolts, social and cultural changes, in various geographies of the Indies: New Spain, Guatemala, Nueva Granada. It is the proposal for a survey that could cover broader sets, since the crisis of 1692 —a central and extensible point— has a planetary extension.
The Kingdom of Mallorca was governed until the beginning of the eighteenth century by aristocrats from the peninsular kingdoms of the Crown of Aragon: Aragonese, Catalans and Valencians. There were eight viceroys who ruled Mallorca during the reign of Charles II: three Valencians, three Catalans and two Aragonese. Several of these characters, who served in the prelude to their political careers as viceroys of Mallorca, later lived through the vicissitudes of the War of Succession to the Crown of Spain. Some of them fought on one side or the other. In the Austrian one, four did so, while decidedly a supporter of Philip V, it was one, the Marquis of Castelldosrius.
During the last thirty years of the 17th century, before and after the great victories of Vienna (1683) and Buda (1686), all the Habsburg rhetoric hosted in art, literature and public festivals announced the arrival of a new era of regeneration and triumphs for the House of Habsburg; an era that would renew the greatness achieved in the 16th century. This second golden age was to materialize in the reigns of Charles II of Spain and Emperor Leopold I, so it is not strange that their respective iconography relied on the same symbolic architecture that, overcoming weak monarchs, expressively affirmed the predestination of the Habsburg lineage and its two-headed empire.
This article is an approach to the complex landscape of medical pluralism in a very specific context, the court society of the late 17th century. This approach is taken via the life of two ordinary women and their seemingly insignificant story: María Sánchez de la Rosa and her daughter Elena de Tordesillas, accused between 1699 and 1700 by the Inquisition of sorcery and unorthodox healing. At the core of this study is the edition of two documents included in the trial record: the inventory of medical products found in their house at the moment of detention and the answers given to the tribunal by María Sánchez de la Rosa of why they owned them and for what purpose were they using them. Based on these editions, this paper aims to analyse two particular aspects: On the one hand, it explores the ingredients used by an woman healer to compile her remedies. On the other, in the complex context of certainty and uncertainty which was shaping any inquisitorial proceeding, it looks on the ambiguous interpretations of certain items under scrutiny.
This paper examines the political role played by the Inquisition at Court during the reign of Charles II. Specifically, it reviews the main issues in which the Consejo de la Suprema Inquisición and the Inquisitor General intervened during the thirty-five years of that reign, in order to interpret them globally. The objective sought by the government of the Inquisition, it concludes, was to vindicate the role of the institution in the order of the monarchy and, furthermore, to ensure a prominent presence in court politics.
In the context of the process of decline experienced by the royal sites of Valladolid since the exit of the court (1606), the reign of Carlos II hardly slowed it down. Some symptoms of this crisis can be found in the poor maintenance of the properties, the loss of personnel assigned to the royal works or the continuous outflow of moveable property to other royal sites. Not even the monarch’s two visits to the city (the frustrated one in 1679 and the one in 1690) served more than to clean up or contain the ruin of the buildings that were going to be visited. However, the reign of Carlos II is also the last stage of consideration of these royal sites as such properties. From the eighteenth century, with the arrival of the new dynasty, this process will not only intensify, but the search for new uses for them will begin, even at the cost of suppressing their original function or promoting their definitive removal from the Royal Heritage.
Traditionally, the army of Charles II has never enjoyed great renown. After the great successes achieved during the reigns of the Habsburgs, the Crown’s armed forces experienced an irreversible decline that reached its peak during the reign of the last Habsburg. Defeated and without resources, the army had reached its nadir, commanded by incompetents. Archaic and backward, in the eyes of many, it had no chance of confronting its European rivals. This paper analyzes how, in fact, the royal troops, despite enormous difficulties, continued to play a major role in the Monarchy's international policy and demonstrated a remarkable capacity for innovation and adaptation.
The reign of Carlos II was a period of commercial and demographic reactivation of the Spanish Caribbean in opposition to the stagnation and crisis of Felipe IV. But this dynamism originated not with metropolitan trade, but through interregional trade and smuggling with foreign islands, which explains the settlement in it thanks to such relationships of new immigrant families and slaves introduced clandestinely.
With the arrival of Manuel Joaquín Álvarez de Toledo y Pimentel, VIII Count of Oropesa, to the presidency of the Royal Council of Castile in 1684, for the first time a minister who could be qualified as a valido, from the very definition of the concept in the late modern period, attained the post. As a result, the long series of administrative powers exercised by the institution, which were fundamental to the political struggle he had to face as a valido or privateer, were at his direct disposal, without mediation, as had been the case until then. These included the administrative authorisation of publications, which, through the dedication of books by different clients and ministers linked to Oropesa, could offer a highly productive return in terms of building his political reputation.
Following pages describe the situation of island and continental Caribbean during the reign of Charles II, highlighting the possibilities and limitations of the Monarchy, the defensive effort that is being made, the lack of money that hinders the progress of the defence in the fortification constructions, the settlement of the enemies in some islands and areas of the continent, the pirate attacks and the replica of the privateer.
This study analyzes the process that led to the altars of the valencian dominican saint Luis Bertrán (1526-1581), concluded in 1671 with his solemn canonization in Rome, by Pope Clement X and along with four other saints, Rosa de Lima, Cayetano Thiene, Filippo Benizi and Francisco de Borja.
The article aims to highlight, based on a study of the preliminary texts of the Segundo volumen of the poetry of the New Spain religious Juana Inés de la Cruz (Seville, Tomás López de Haro, 1692), whose publication was promoted by the Duke of Montellano, the existence, under the protection of the latter, of a connection between the intellectual and scientific circles of Cádiz and Seville in the Time of the novatores.
