“Spanish Society, 1348-1700”
Introduction
This book “Spanish Society, 1348-1700” second edition was written by Teoflo F. Ruiz and published in the year 2017 (Ruiz). This book explains Spain’s change from medieval times to modernity. It explains in detail what transpired in Spain in the 17th century and the causes of its collapse. On this basis, it was Spain’s mismanagement and not developing its industry that led to its decline.
What happened to Spain in the early 17th century is that during this period, the country was on the peak of its power and influence both socially and culturally. However, difficulties were being experienced in the political and economic fields. As the decades went by during that fateful century, the troubles grew, and finally, France took over from Spain as Europe’s superpower. Many issues, for instance, ineffective taxation, power struggles, and the country’s decentralized nature of politics, all led to the difficulties and decline of Spain. The economy of Spain at that time was continually deteriorating, and not even the “arbitristas” proposal of initiatives to revive the economy succeeded. As a result, the Spanish monarchy had no other option but to proclaim “sovereign defaults” nine times. This was between the year 1557 and the year 1666. Ultimately after a long struggle, the economy festered (Ruiz).
On the question of whether there was a decline, there indeed was a decline. The nature after that, of the decline, was chronological. Various aspects facilitated the Spanish empire’s decline. During the 17th century period, funds were so difficult for the monarch to come across. Gold that was being shipped from the Americas back to Spain was mostly captured by pirates in the seas or wrecked by heavy storms. Therefore, even after forming a vast Spanish empire, maintaining it proved to be very difficult. On the other hand, the lands that the Spaniards conquered often led to resistance from the natives, and as a result, the empire had to utilize a lot of funds in the form of armies and weapons to extinguish the threats. The last stroke before the decline of the mighty empire came from Portugal, their neighbors. After long years of being mistreated and colonized, they decided to place their ruler in charge of their country and chased away all the Spanish citizens from the state. Not entirely satisfied by that, they made a friend with England, which was considered one of Spain’s worst foes. After doing that, Spain had n other option but to accept Portugal’s independence from it (Ruiz).
The Causes of the collapse of Spain were as follows: The banishment and persecution of the “Jews” and “Moriscos” from Spain affected its demographic base immensely. This factor disadvantaged Spain since they lost the kind of individuals that were considered very innovative and useful during the 17th century. This included the artisans and traders of that time. The second cause was that Spain did not mainly focus on developing its industry and business area, which constituted a “healthy taxable base.” This is because gold and silver were coming in from the countries that Spain was colonizing, and thus, they felt no need to indulge in other income-generating activities. Another major cause was poor finances. This came as a result of mismanagement by the country’s monarchy and ceaseless warfare, which was very costly due to the expense of feeding and paying the armies plus buying war paraphernalia. After the wars, often very minimal returns on the investment were brought home. The next cause was the war with the Dutch. This war depleted resources of the Spanish empire, leaving them ‘dry’ without anything adding to the fact that the war did not bring about any vast returns. Finally, Spain’s ambition led them to a state of over-expansion and thus depleting their resources in the process, leading to the empire’s decline (Ruiz).
Spain almost disintegrated in the year 1640 with the basis of the catholic Monarchs reforms. This is because, during that era, the nobility considered the church as a very lucrative career path such that by the year 1620, almost a hundred thousand Spaniards were in the clergy. During this time, the Catholic church owned around twenty percent of Spain’s land. This also included the thirty-year war between the Catholics and the protestants, which almost brought Spain to a standstill as the Habsburgs who were ruling Spain at that time lacked support from the Pope (Ruiz).
In conclusion, Spain Mismanagement and not investing in their economy through the building of industries, etc. to develop a robust taxable base led to the decline of the greatest empire of the 17th century. This raises questions as to whether the empire would have still existed had they developed their taxable base instead of depending on gold and silver from their colonies.