Is Spain Different?: A Comparative Look at the 19th and 20th Centuries
256
Is Spain Different?: A Comparative Look at the 19th and 20th Centuries
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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781837644056 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Liverpool University Press |
| Publication date: | 11/01/2023 |
| Series: | Sussex Studies in Spanish History |
| Pages: | 256 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.42(d) |
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Is Spain Different?
A Comparative Look at the 19th and 20th Centuries
By Nigel Townson
Sussex Academic Press
Copyright © 2015 Nigel TownsonAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-84519-359-1
CHAPTER 1
The Debate Over the Nation
José Álvarez Junco
In placing the construction of Spanish national identity within a comparative context, it is natural to draw a parallel with two well-documented cases from the same part of Europe: England and France. In all three instances, the process was initially founded on two pillars: the monarchy and religion. By contrast, the processes of the German principalities or of the Italian and Flemish city-states were very different from that of Spain following the accumulation of kingdoms under the Catholic Kings, Ferdinand and Isabel, in the late 15th century. However, the political fragmentation that characterized the Iberian pensinsula before the Catholic Kings, which contained numerous exceptions and different types of self-government within its kingdoms and fiefdoms, was so great that parallels can also be drawn during this period with the German, Italian and Flemish cases.
Even in comparing Spain with England and France, there are important differences, such as Spain's early lag. The Spanish process did not begin until the reign of Ferdinand and Isabel, who were responsible for the aggregation of kingdoms – not unification – that superseded a state of political fragmentation. Prior to erdinand and Isabel, there was no "Spanish" monarchy to speak of, but a number of Christian kingdoms and a Muslim one. By contrast, one can speak of a 'French' monarchy from the late, even the early, Middle Ages, although its territory did not match that of the early modern age. The English case bears a greater resemblance to the Spanish one, given the union of Wales and Scotland with England between the 13th and early 18th centuries.
Following the successful accumulation of kingdoms carried out by Ferdinand and Isabel between 1476 and 1516, there emerged an Hispanic or "Catholic" monarchy (the title being bestowed by the Borgian Pope, Alexander IV, after the conquest of the Muslim kingdom of Granada in 1492), around which a centralized bureaucratic structure was constructed that was able to acquire economic and coercive resources much like the French and English crowns. In all three cases, the objective was to deal not only with neighbouring monarchs, but also with internal forces, such as the aristocracy, corporations, parliament, cities, religious or military-religious orders, guilds and municipalities.
The political structure of these monarchies was very different from that of the modern State. Far from being centralized and homogeneous powers, with similar rights and obligations for all subjects, these were aggregations of kingdoms and fiefdoms with different judicial and fiscal regimes, without forgetting their diverse cultures. Such contrasts were especially marked in the case of the Hispanic monarchy. Its exorbitant demands for men and money in order to wage constant warfare affected the different territories in a very uneven fashion. Castile was the principal victim of the monarchy's tax demands, as shown by its rapid depopulation and industrial decline in the 16th century. The process generated a certain Castilian victimization, but, above all, an understandable obsession amongst the other peninsular kingdoms to preserve their privileges, the only effective safeguard against the voracity of the royal tax collector.
If the monarchy was the institution around which an early State structure was created, whereby resources and coercive power were accumulated, religion became the basic cultural reference of the society dominated by this power nexus. Relevant here is the brilliant analysis by Benedict Anderson of the way in which the Protestant Reformation, together with the invention of the printing press, helped spread a new vision of a world divided into "imagined communities" that would later become nations. According to Anderson, the printing press facilitated the diffusion of sacred texts and theological competition, thereby creating areas of considerable cultural homogeneity with families that read in the same language and interpreted the Holy Bible in a similar manner. This was the origin of distinct cultural spaces, in addition to stereotypes regarding neighbouring communities, evident in the works of Erasmus and Bodino, that with time would end up manifesting themselves as national identities. One consequence, as well as a symptom, of this process is the way in which the wars of religion, despite all being internal conflicts, were presented by the propagandists as confrontations with collective external entities, enemies of "our way of being".
In the Spanish case, not only it is indisputable that religion was as important in shaping this nascent cultural identity as in the rest of Europe, but it can even be argued that it was more so. Still, the Spanish process does not coincide with Anderson's model, partly because of the scant impact of the Protestant Reformation on the Hispanic Monarchy and partly because of the ban by the ecclesiastical authorities on a vernacular version of the Bible. Besides, there was a phenomenon prior to Martin Luther, derived from the frontier character of the Iberian peninsula (which was characterized in the Middle Ages by a mixture of races and cultures that was rare in Europe): the "ethnic cleansing" undertaken - like the political "unification" – by the Catholic Kings, who between 1492 and 1502 expelled those Jews and Muslims who did not convert to Christianity. This expulsion of non-Christian minorities was not unknown in Europe, as it had already taken place at various times and places during the Middle Ages, but nowhere did it occur in such an effective and systematic fashion as in the Spanish case at the outset of the early modern era. Throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, Jewish and Muslim converts were marginalized from all positions of power and social influence by means of the statutes of "cleanliness" or "purity of blood". If one adds to this the prior creation of the Court of the Inquisition (also the work of the Catholic Kings), with the aim of guaranteeing the orthodoxy of the converts or "new Christians", in addition to the belligerantly propapal policy adopted by Charles V and his successors in the struggle against Lutheranism, along with the expulsion of the moriscos – Muslim converts – by Phillip III (1598–1621), one can see that by the Peace of Westphalia (1648) all the subjects of the monarchy – called "Spaniards" by foreigners – were by definition Catholic, Apostolic, Roman, and "old Christian". Without the need of a Bible in the vernacular, a collective identity had been created, one that was deeply rooted and accepted as its own by the virtual totality of the population subject to the "Catholic monarchy".
Defining this identity as "religious" should not be misinterpreted as the term "religion" did not refer, at least in the most prevalent sense, to personal beliefs or attitudes relating to the spiritual or supernatural world. Rather, it consisted of submission to the doctrinal pronouncements of an authority – the Pope and the Councils – and public participation in rites and ceremonies that would make each and every individual a member of a "church" or community. From this perspective, Catholicism became an indispensable ingredient of collective identity and the Church an almost omnipresent institution in political and social life. The clergy accepted the doctrinal pronouncements issued by Rome in an unconditional manner. However, in organizational terms the clergy did not depend on the Pope but on the Spanish monarchy, whose "right of patronage" provided it with the power to control – in theory to "propose", but Rome inevitably accepted those proposed – all the important positions.
It was this institution, the Church, that carried out crucial cultural and educational functions in shaping the collective identity. Its mission, in theory, was not to create "Spaniards", but "Catholics"; that is to say, members of a community of believers who aspired to universality. However, these terms were virtually synonymous. Not only were all "Spaniards" necessarily Catholics, as subjects of the quintessential "Catholic king", but also, according to the dominant contemporary perception, the only real Catholics. They did not trust other principalities or the republics, such as France or Venice, which were nominally ascribed to the same religious creed, but supposedly less committed in their convictions. This translated into a self-awareness as a 'Chosen People', or one enjoying special divine protection, something which, once again, was not at all extraordinary. After the Peace of Westphalia, the practical totality of the European political systems was confessional and monolithical in religious terms. "Un roi, une loi, une foi" was not a Spanish invention. Neither was the term "Gallicanism", as control of the Church by the king and the tendency to seek ever greater independence from Rome were features shared by both the Spanish and the French Churches. The subsequent reforms of Joseph I in Austria would take the same form. Following the Anglican schism, the English Church, which did not even recognize the doctrinal declarations of Rome, had become the paradigm of what would later be called a "national Church".
The forging of "imagined communities" that preceded the nations of the modern era was based not only on religion, but also on the construction of an image of cultural singularity by means of historical accounts. A consciousness of this type was undoubtedly developed in the Spanish case. The most influential example is the General History of Spain by the Jesuit Juan de Mariana, the first edition of which appeared in Latin at the end of the 16th century. Mariana referred to the natio, a term which at the time meant a community defined by birth, language, and a "lineage" whose noble blood had been more than attested to by the martial deeds of their ancestors and for which providence had shown a special predeliction, as shown, for example, in the allegedly peerless fecundity and excellence of the land in which they lived. This consciousness of an identity was reinforced by the constant wars of the period, which projected internal tensions onto external enemies, while preserving – apart from certain periods – the peace between the diverse kingdoms of the interior. Naturally, having common enemies, as the subjects of the Catholic king did during nearly three hundred years, was a unifying factor, in contrast to civil wars.
A third, non-religious cultural ingredient that helped form this consciousness was language and literary creation. In the Spain of the ancien régime there did not exist the degree of linguistic homogeneity that nationalists like to believe, as this was impossible in such extensive and poorly connected lands. Still, there was a language, Castilian, that by around 1500 had acquired a preeminence amongst the other languages due to the greater economic and demographic weight of Castile, a preeminence that was consolidated over the next two centuries as it became the idiom of the court and of the upper ranks of the bureaucracy. Although there are no reliable figures, it is possible that during the first attempts of the Hispanic kingdoms at linguistic standardization – that is to say with Phillip V (1700–45) – about two thirds of the inhabitants of the monarchy spoke Castilian, a language that had also been accepted by the political and cultural elites of the rest of the kingdoms. Castilian had also been used as the exclusive language of the colonizers of the Americas, while its advance in the peninsula during the early modern era was such that the Occitan language that had been spoken in the kingdom of Aragón disappeared altogether. Castilian was at least as dominant within the Hispanic monarchy as English and French were in their respective monarchies. It was probably even more homogenous than the latter two given that the regional or class variants in the language did not reach the same level of incomprehension between the urban or courtly elites and the peasantry.
We could also discuss the political importance of language and its usage by the monarchs and their ministers. The personal dedication of Nebrija, author of the first grammar of Castilian, to Queen Isabel is well-known – "language was always the companion of Empire" – but we also know that Isabel and her succesors did not show much interest in the matter. In reality, official endeavours before 1700 to impose Castilian in the kingdoms or fiefdoms where other tongues were spoken were extremely rare. A related but different question is the possible pride derived from cultural glories. Mariana complained that Spain was "more abundant in [military] triumphs than in writers", a criticism that the political thinker Feijóo would repeat in the 18th century. Still, one should also note the "praise of the Castilian tongue" by Aldrete or Covarrubias in the 17th century, by Mayáns in the 18th and the eulogies of the Catalan Antonio de Capmany on the eve of the 19th century regarding the sonority of the Castilian language and its rich "literature". However, this was not in any way comparable to the innumerable expressions of pride that were dedicated to Spaniards as the defenders of the "true faith". Again, this was a phenomenon that was entirely characteristic of Europe at the time.
One peculiar feature that cannot be ignored in analysing the formation of an identity linked to the development of the monarchy is the existence of the empire. Evaluating its impact in the Spanish case, however, is not easy. The Empire had been formed to a certain extent by accident. In the American case, this was due to the unexpected discovery of a new continent in the search for a shorter route to the spice markets of Asia. In the European case, this was because of the unforeseen inheritance of the throne of the Catholic Kings by the central European dynasty of the Habsburgs. But the convergence of these two factors and the resulting European hegemony gave way – and this was also typical of the period – to a belief in a Providential Monarchy and in a Chosen People. Messianic odes, eschatalogical prophesies and expressions of collective pride in relation to the political and military successes of the monarchy are recorded from the times of the Catholic Kings, increasing thereafter under the Habsburgs Charles V and Phillip II. The focal point of these eulogies was the monarchy, whose manifest destiny was to rule the world. To a lesser extent, the subjects of the monarchy, known from outside as "the Spaniards" above all, also benefited from this sense of exceptionalism.
This period of hegemony scarcely lasted a century. The sensation of superiority was accompanied by a sensation of utter exhaustion, which ended up in an acceptance of "decline" or decadence. In its American version, the Empire lasted three centuries, causing fewer problems and producing far greater material benefits than the European one, yet the role of the American empire in the kingdom's collective mythology and self-glorification is far inferior. Eurocentrism meant that the American achievements were always relegated to a secondary position in comparison with the much more debateable and costly ones in Europe. One only needs to note the battles that Phillip IV chose to commemorate in the Hall of Kingdoms in the Royal Palace: they were all European, except for the occasional battle on American territory but against European powers. One should also note, as Anthony Pagden points out, that the very word "empire" did not even appear, at least not in a modern sense, until the 19th century or slightly before; that is to say, until the Spaniards were in the process of losing their colonies. Throughout the early modern era, one did not speak in Spain of the "empire" but of the "monarchy", while the "colonies" were American "kingdoms" or "vicerroyalties".
One last aspect that should be considered is the poor image of Spain in Europe. Evaluating the impact of this within Spain itself is difficult. From the end of the 16th century, during the last years of Phillip II, European political-cultural circles, mainly those of Protestants and Jews expelled from Spain, launched an intense campaign of propaganda, which the Spanish conservatives of the 20th century were to baptise "the Black Legend". According to the Legend, the Spanish monarchy and its people had come to dominate Europe by means of inhumane cruelty, fanaticism, ignorance and the worship of retrograde values such as the nobility of blood rather than productive work. As long as the supremacy of the Spanish Habsburgs endured, these criticisms could be dismissed as the product of resentment, but in the second half of the 17th century and throughout the 18th the 'decadence' of Spain became undeniable. The stereotype that equated absolutism and intolerance with Spanishness also asserted that failure was inherent to these political principles. More successfully than anyone, Montesquieu made Spain the epitomy of a decadence that he attributed not only to "internal vices" of the system, but also to psychological characteristics of the "people": pride, cruelty, intolerance, prejudice. As the political debates unleashed by the American and French revolutions became more intense in Europe, the Enlightment propagandists could simply refer to "Spain", without the need to offer any explanation, in order to evoke the appalling effects of absolutism and the atrocities of the Inquisition.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Is Spain Different? by Nigel Townson. Copyright © 2015 Nigel Townson. Excerpted by permission of Sussex Academic Press.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Acknowledgements,The Editor and Contributors,
Introduction Spain: A Land Apart? Nigel Townson,
1 The Debate Over the Nation José Álvarez Junco,
2 The Civil Wars of the 19th Century: An Exceptional Path to Modernization? María Cruz Romeo Mateo,
3 Anticlercialism and Secularization: A European Exception? Nigel Townson,
4 The Second Republic: A Noble Failure? Edward Malefakis,
5 The Spanish Civil War: A Unique Conflict? Michael Seidman,
6 'Spain is Different'? The Franco Dictatorship Nigel Townson,
7 The Transition: A Global Model? Pamela Radcliff,
Index,