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THE ADMINISTRATION OF SPAIN UNDER CHARLES V, SPAIN’S NEW CHARLEMAGNE Joseph Beard, B.A. Thesis Prepared for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS May 2005 APPROVED: Laura Stern, Major Professor Marilyn Morris, Committee Member Peter Lane, Committee Member Harold Tanner, Chair of the Department of History Sandra L. Terrell, Dean of the Robert B. Toulouse School of Graduate Studies Beard, Joseph, The Administration of Spain Under Charles V, Spain’s New Charlemagne. Master of Arts (History), May 2005, 232 pp., 3 tables, bibliography, 110 titles. Charles I, King of Spain, or Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, was the most powerful ruler in Europe since Charlemagne. With a Germanic background, and speaking French, Charles became King of Spain in 1516. Yet secondary sources and available sixteenth century Spanish sources such as Spanish Royal Council records, local records of Castro Urdiales in Castile, and Charles’s correspondence show that he continued the policies of his predecessors in Spain, Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile. He strove to strengthen his power and unify Spain and his empire using Castilian strength, a Castilian model of government, Roman law, religion, his strong personality, and a loyal and talented bureaucracy. Charles desired to be another Charlemagne, but with his base of power in Spain. TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES………………………………………………………………...……..iii Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION AND HISTORIOGRAPHICAL REVIEW………...…………1 Introduction Historiographical Review Thesis Statement and Chapter Contents 2. THE GOVERNING IDEAS AND ACTIONS OF CHARLES AT THE BEGINNING OF HIS RULE IN THE NETHERLANDS, THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE, AND SPAIN……...……………………………………………….......44 Introduction Charles’s Childhood and General Political Theory of Europe Burgundy before Charles’s Reign The Netherlands during Charles’s Reign The Holy Roman Empire before Charles’s Reign The Holy Roman Empire during Charles’s Reign The Political Theory Charles Developed Conclusions 3. SPAIN BEFORE THE RULE OF CHARLES…….......…………………….....107 Introduction Spain before the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella Spain during the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella Conclusions 4. SPAIN DURING THE RULE OF CHARLES………………………………....153 Introduction The Beginning of Charles’s Reign in Spain The Comunero Revolt and the 1520s Society, Religion, Economy, Military, and Government in Charles’s Spain Conclusions 5. CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………....218 BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………………225 ii LIST OF TABLES Table 1. 1 Figures for imports of American treasure before and during the reign of Charles V., p. 178. Table 2. 1 Figures for imports of American treasure before and during the reign of Charles, broken down by percentage., p. 179. Table 3. 1 Chart of Charles’s conciliar system of government., p. 202. iii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION AND HISTORIOGRAPHICAL REVIEW Introduction Of all lands which stretch from the West to India, you are the most beautiful, O Spain, sacred and ever-blessed mother of leaders and of nations. By right you are now queen of all the provinces, from whom not only the West but also the East obtains its light. You are the glory and ornament of the world, the most illustrious part of the earth, in which the glorious fecundity of the Getic people rejoices much and abundantly flourishes.1 That was how Isidore of Seville saw Spain in the seventh century, an outlook similar to that of sixteenth century Spaniards under the rule of Charles I. At La Coruña, where Charles made known his imperial program, Pedro Ruiz Mota, Bishop of Badajoz and one of the Spaniards who came from Burgundy with Charles, said to the cortes (parliament): “Now is returned the ancient glory of Spain…By God’s grace our Spanish King is made King of the Romans and Emperor of the World.”2 This Spanish king, Charles I, also Duke of Burgundy, head of the Hapsburg dynasty, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, and controller of the lands in the New World that the Spanish conquistadors were taking, was a powerful ruler hampered mainly by the extent of his domains. Ramón Menendez Pidal said about him: “Charles V is the first and the last Emperor of the old world and the new.”3 This is doubly true, for he was the last great Holy Roman Emperor 1 Isidore of Seville, History of the Goths, Vandals, and Suevi, translated from the Latin by Guido Donini, (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1970), 1. 2 John Lynch, Spain Under the Hapsburgs, (New York: New York University Press, 1981), vol. 1, 41. 3 Manuel Fernández Alvarez, Charles V: elected emperor and hereditary ruler, (London: Thames and Hudson, 1975), 188. 1 over much of a dramatically changing Europe, and was the first to gain a large empire spanning from Europe to the Americas. This empire found its basis in the newly unified Spanish nation under the rule of King Charles I from 1516 to 1556. Holy Roman Emperor Charles V is remembered for many things: his lack of toleration for the German Lutherans, his devout Roman Catholicism, the expansion of Spanish interests into the New World, the precious metals brought into Spain from the Americas during his reign, his desire to gain back parts of Burgundy taken generations before by France, and his desire for a unified Catholic Europe to check the Turkish invasions and create a world-wide Christian empire. The events during his reign are well known, but his intentions and ideas on politics and administration in the case of Spain are in need of further clarification. This thesis centers interest on Charles’s government administration as King of Spain. This first chapter introduces the topic, explains my reason for writing this thesis, talks about the numerous literary sources and records pertaining to Charles’s political ideas and administration for Spain, presents the historiography of Charles, and discusses the historiography of sixteenth century Spain. Charles I, King of Spain, was not born in Spain. Charles entered Spain with the political theory he learned as a child and the experience he gained from Burgundian government. When Charles came from Burgundy he had different ideas on how to rule Castile and Aragon, the two principal kingdoms of Spain. The Comunero Revolt in Castile in 1520 and his stay in Spain from 1522 to 1529 made him realize that he must give Spain precedence and rule it in a Spanish way, not a Burgundian one. He was accustomed to a parliamentary system in Burgundy and to limitations placed upon him as 2 a ruler. Once he gave up Burgundian ideas, he found the system of government in Castile was more effective in ruling Spain. Charles continued the majority of the social, religious, economic, military, and governmental policies of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile. He technically continued their policy of autonomous regions in Spain, but had more opportunity to bring gradual centralization to Spain under the domination of Castile. In Castile he found a model of government he appreciated and tried to use in other places he ruled. With its strong office of monarch, royal control of permanent councils, and support for the monarchy from the towns, Charles found that Castile was much easier to rule than his other lands. Charles desired the final word on almost everything, but the idea that Charles was an absolute monarch in complete control of the government and without need of counsel, is incorrect. Charles’s government in Spain consisted of permanent councils under his direct control, but with more power than councils in an absolutist state. The system was inherently flawed, but because of Charles’s strong personality, great attention to governmental affairs, and the skills of his loyal governmental officials, the system was effective during his reign. While Charles was not an absolute monarch, he became closer to being so as he got older, gaining great power over the parliamentary system of Spain. Charles’s strong personality, created and fueled by his desire to be a great ruler like Charlemagne, controlled Spanish government in such a way that it was not structured to run under a weak or dictatorial monarch. This change in Spain’s system of government was not beneficial to Spain, causing absolutist government and economic decline in the generations that followed. Charles controlled a large amount of land in Europe, as well as 3 the newly acquired lands of the Americas to which Spain claimed much and began to possess more of throughout his reign. But Charles placed more importance upon Spain than his other lands. The “Golden Age” Spain of Ferdinand and Isabella became his own as Charles made it his base of power and his home throughout his long reign. I have written this thesis as a preliminary study of Spain during the reign of Charles. The subject is too vast to be studied thoroughly in a thesis, and the vast majority of sources concerning Spain under Charles are too general to lay the groundwork for a more specific study at this point. Historians of Spain have traditionally been dependent upon narrative sixteenth century Spanish chronicles when studying Spain under Charles, rather than Spanish government records or the correspondence of Charles with government officials. Chronicles about Charles, attractive and articulate eulogies of Charles’s personal rule of Spain and the rest of his personal empire, are helpful in determining Charles’s personality and style of rule, but not in determining the specifics of his system of rule in Spain. I attempt to glean useful information about Charles’s government from these narrative sources because they provide some helpful material about his rule in Spain. But they cannot be substituted for administrative documents. By not placing emphasis on necessary, bedrock sources, such as Spanish government records and Charles’s correspondence, Spanish historians have merely scratched the surface of the history of Spain under Charles.

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