The Fall of the Spanish Empire

Can be traced to 3 main causes

-Deep seeded belief in Chivalry which was beginning to fall out favor in the face of the first true wave of globalization, where Fabers protestant work ethic. So well satired in Cervantes' Quixote. An inability to adapt if you will

-Taxation And Wars. From Lepanto to the Peace of the Pyrenees Spain and the Hapsburgs were in near constant warfare with much of the tax burden falling on Castile

-The end of treasure/piracy The mines in Lima began to dry up and Mexico’s were not yet ready to replace them. Spain’s dominance has a near linear relationship with the flow of treasure. Piracy forced the Spanish into costly convoys and the pirates themselves grew bolder as time went on culminating with Henry Morgan’s destruction of Panama City. Dutch Naval dominance fits in here somewhere

Interesting topic, Strike. AFAIK, Don Quixote was a satire of the literary conventions of the time, not a comment on the management of the empire as such. How do you think that chivalry factored in? Bad military decisions based on an outdated code? Excessive emphasis on military matters at the expense of economic issues? Your reference to Protestant work ethic suggest you are talking about the economy but I’m not sure.

You mentioned taxation, but I think that the sheer amount of taxes is only part of a poor economic situation. The Spanish nobility did not pay taxes, and so everyone else had to pay more. Also the New World treasure caused massive inflation and thus high prices. High prices hurt exports. Maybe it was okay for the rich, but it was really bad for the economy. The attempt to spread the tax burden by reforming the Netherlands tax system contributed to rebellion in the Netherlands. So problems with the economy and lack of effective action in dealing with them played a role.

The Catholic Church of course played a role too. I see three areas where this would make a difference.
1: Hostility toward Protestants. The persecution of Protestants in the Netherlands was another cause of rebellion. Philip II’s goal of gaining control of Protestant England (in which he was encouraged by the Catholic Church) led to great expense for no results (loss of one invasion fleet in harbor and of the Spanish Armada at sea).
2: Catholics had more holy days (holidays) than Protestants, and so their workers were less productive and got less practice. Maybe that comes under your work ethic comment.
3: I cannot prove it, but I assume that a culture where you could get burned alive for having the “wrong” idea would not foster creativity or flexibility. The church did provide identity, unity, learning, etc., but at a heavy price.

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Originally Posted by Brandy Blue

Also the New World treasure caused massive inflation and thus high prices.

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Yeah, that's what I thought, too.

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Originally Posted by Strike For The South

Can be traced to 3 main causes

-Deep seeded belief in Chivalry which was beginning to fall out favor in the face of the first true wave of globalization, where Fabers protestant work ethic. So well satired in Cervantes' Quixote. An inability to adapt if you will

-Taxation And Wars. From Lepanto to the Peace of the Pyrenees Spain and the Hapsburgs were in near constant warfare with much of the tax burden falling on Castile

-The end of treasure/piracy The mines in Lima began to dry up and Mexico’s were not yet ready to replace them. Spain’s dominance has a near linear relationship with the flow of treasure. Piracy forced the Spanish into costly convoys and the pirates themselves grew bolder as time went on culminating with Henry Morgan’s destruction of Panama City. Dutch Naval dominance fits in here somewhere

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Basically, the only true reason is the second one, which is the war and taxation. The other two are different.

The major cause of the collapse of the Spanish Empire was the failure to reform itself (Especially in the metropolis), as the very same small percentage of people (Noblemen and Clergy), had deep vested interests in the land. The stranglehold of these classes, combined with the wealth influx from the colonies, made sure that there was little incentive to reform or modernize, creating local wealth from the metropolis through building manufacturers. Instead, Spain remained extremely rural until the 20th Century. It had very little to do with workethics.

The other major reason is that Spain overplayed it's hand in its bid for their Grand Imperial Designs. As stated, decades of constant warfare depleted the coffers, and increased the taxes on all of it's provinces.

It wasn't so much the drying up of the mines that contributed to it. Spain bankrupted itself several times while still on peak bullion period. Charles V and Phillip II of Spain (due to the wars they conducted), had borrowed massive amounts of money from German and Genovese and Dutch bankers to maintain and finance their wars, and it got into such a situation that all the taxes imposed on the population, plus the incoming bullion from the new world, were unsufficient to even pay the interest on the loans taken by the Spanish state. Also take into account that the Low Lands were by far the most profitable province (Tax wise and investment wise, as Dutch burghers were the most important investors in profitable colonial infrastructures - such as Brazil's Sugar Cane plantations - of the Spanish Empire) to the Spanish Empire, and that when this province rebelled, a large chunk of the Spanish finances revenues evaporated.

Jews were also one of the most important sources of capital and brain power for the State during these times, and their expulsion in the beginning of the 16th Century would have reprocutions later on.

The invincible armada is also known to have directly contributed to the decline of the Spanish, as snice most of the Armada was sunk, a great many ships which were usually committed to the interdiction of commerce lanes exclusive to Spain/Portugal also evaporated. (Though most of the armada's top ships were Portuguese, including the Armada's flagship)

let's not forget the silly habbit of inbreeding with their austrian relatives wich eventualy resulted in the drooling idiot Charles II as head of state.

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Originally Posted by Strike For The South

Can be traced to 3 main causes

-Deep seeded belief in Chivalry which was beginning to fall out favor in the face of the first true wave of globalization, where Fabers protestant work ethic. So well satired in Cervantes' Quixote. An inability to adapt if you will

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This is bullcrap fed by jingoist protestants. The social elites, the aristocracy were bone-idle, but then I'd love to see an aristocracy that weren't.

Along with what others here have said, the causes of Spain's decline are more mundane and less ideological.

One thing not mentioned so far is Spain's approach to its new world resources and the low levels of development it made within Spain itself. Essentially, Spain itself remained poor and its exploitation of its colonies unsustainable (essentially reliant on exploitation and slave labour). Crucially, Spain herself did not actually run the trade with her empire. Dutch, Italian and even English merchants ran most of the transatlantic trade. The Spanish empire also mostly made use of Italian, German and Dutch banks -neglecting the development of its own banking sector. The whole of europe lived (and developed) off Spain's American silver, and Spain in many ways made the least out of it.

I havea book at home that I can't remember the title of which I'd strongly recommend -will dig out.

Edit: Spain's Road to Empire: The Making of a World Power, Henry Kamen http://www.amazon.co.uk/Spains-Road-.../dp/0713993650

Al-Roumi, makes a good point about banking. However, this is tied very closely into ideology and social status. The strong muslim influence in Spain was apparent also in that earning interest on money (what banking is based on) was considered usury, and therefore menial labour unsuitable for an hidalgo. Since in Spain, at the time, and for a very long time after, considering someone NOT to be an hidalgo was grounds for a duel to the death, and 'cleanliness of blood' (funny concept that basically implied proving that all your ancestors as far as records exist were not descendants of muslims or jews - which gave rise to a mafia running falsifications of birth certificates, and family trees, as 'cleanliness' was a requirement for public office or any meaningful job within the government. Only hidalgos were allowed to carry swords,for example. To keep their status they couldnt engage in usury, or do manual labour. Obviously that didn't help the economy...

233 views and 6 replies

thanks guys!

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Originally Posted by SwordsMaster

Al-Roumi, makes a good point about banking. However, this is tied very closely into ideology and social status. The strong muslim influence in Spain was apparent also in that earning interest on money (what banking is based on) was considered usury, and therefore menial labour unsuitable for an hidalgo. Since in Spain, at the time, and for a very long time after, considering someone NOT to be an hidalgo was grounds for a duel to the death, and 'cleanliness of blood' (funny concept that basically implied proving that all your ancestors as far as records exist were not descendants of muslims or jews - which gave rise to a mafia running falsifications of birth certificates, and family trees, as 'cleanliness' was a requirement for public office or any meaningful job within the government. Only hidalgos were allowed to carry swords,for example. To keep their status they couldnt engage in usury, or do manual labour. Obviously that didn't help the economy...

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The main opposition to the practice of usury in europe was the Catholic church. The Hidalgos were at best tax farmers, living off agricultural tithes from their estates. Most of central and southern Spain's farmlands were owned by the aristocracy or the church, worked by non-land owning peasant labourers. Only in the Northern regions were there many smallholdings or land-owning peasants (critical to the Carlist wars, in particular Navarra).

There certainly had been a strong Muslim and Jewish influence in Spain, but most of them were evicted and dumped on the Morrocan shoreline during the reign of the reyes catolicos (Ferdinand and Isabella). This did deal irreperable harm to Spain's economy as it amputated key artisans, bankers and workers.

I think the focus on Hidalgos themselves is a littel overblown. Their role as a lid and limitation on the rest of Spanish society's development cannot be overstated however. As I mentioned before, the aristocracy have only very rarely been the engine for economic development -they have too many vested interests in the status quo, which places them at the top. The middle classes, or their emergence, are what have always been the engine and key indicator of economic -and social- development. The aristocracy, church and inquisition did such a good job of keeping the peasantry brutalised and the middle class emasculated over a quite a few centuries that only in the early 1900s did things begin to change.