The Limits of Royal Authority: Resistance and Obedience in Seventeenth-Century Castile

by Ruth MacKay

Overview

In what is sometimes called the age of absolutism, Castilian nobles and commoners, tribunes and towns, were to a considerable degree able to resist and shape royal commands. This is a study of one such form of resistance: the opposition to military levies in the 1630s and 1640s. The assurance with which such a range of people addressed the crown reveals a society in which a great number of people had a great deal to say about the definition and use of political power.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521643436
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	05/06/1999
Series:	Cambridge Studies in Early Modern History
Pages:	210
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.63(d)

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. Recruitment and royal authority; 2. Making soldiers of townsmen; 3. War, lords, and vassals; 4. Common claims; Conclusion; Glossary; Bibliography; Index.

Editorial Reviews

"...a new and compelling look at Habsburg Spain's century of gold and war." Luis R. Corteguera, American Historical Review

"This book is both a tightly focused study of military recruitment in seventeenth - century Castile and an original, convincing analysis of the nature of Habsburg adsolutism that takes into account recent theorizing about the origins and consolidation of the early modern state." Carolyn P. Boyd, The Journal Of Interdisciplinary History

From the Publisher