Historical and Cultural Shifts: From Medieval to Baroque Spain

Posted on Jan 17, 2025 in Social sciences

Historical Contexts

Early Medieval Period (11th Century)

  • Born as a result of the heroic spirit of the times.
  • Historical figures become legends.
  • The people needed to know what happened to their heroes and wars; the epic fills this need.
  • These are not historical texts but have parts of literary fantasy; historical details give more credibility.

Late Medieval Period (15th Century)

General Characteristics:

  • Crisis of medieval society during the transition.
  • The medieval world is transformed.

Politics:

  • Reign of John II and Henry IV (anarchy, stately, moral corruption of the court).
  • Catholic Monarchs: Discovery of America / Union of Castile and Aragon / End of the Reconquista.

Society:

  • Conflict: Terrible underclass status.
  • Increasing inequality (riots).
  • Deterioration of relations between races and religions.
  • Outbreaks of violence toward Jews (due to their financial activities).
  • Forced conversions.
  • It ends with their expulsion.
  • Inquisition: religious intolerance / Maintain Christian purity.
  • Rise of the bourgeoisie (builds its strength on money; upward mobility is possible).
  • Crisis: Weakening of ethical and religious principles / Relaxation of morals / Tension over the decay of feudalism.

Culture:

  • Discovery of Classical Antiquity (relegates Provençal French influence to the background).
  • Greco-Roman Culture: Arrives indirectly through Italian humanists.
  • Pre-humanism.
  • Religion is weakened by scientific questions that challenge faith-based answers.

Renaissance

Politics and Society:

  • Beginning of industry, commerce, and the market.
  • Land valuation is replaced by money; end of feudalism.
  • Development of cities.
  • Modern Nations (the concept of the State arises).
  • Development of the bourgeoisie.

Culture:

  • Features are marked by bourgeois society.
  • Vitalism.
  • Secularization of culture.
  • Exaltation of the worldly spirit of humanity.

Rationalism

  • Relies on the power of reason to know the truth.
  • Time of great discoveries.
  • Increased critical sense and curiosity.
  • Authority is no longer the sole criterion.

Lutheranism and Erasmus

  • Change in religious spirituality.
  • Continuation of critical Reformation (Luther).
  • Attack on traditional religion and defense of the individual.
  • The Church reacts: Council of Trent / Counter-Reformation.

Humanism

  • Central position of humanity in the cosmos, as the center of the universe.
  • Attempt to retrieve Greco-Roman Classical Antiquity.
  • Creation of humanities studies (arising in Italy / classics are read and studied / ideal: *mens sana in corpore sano* / taught: Grammar, Rhetoric, Poetry, Philosophy).
  • Movement of human liberation.
  • Triggers the creative process; nature is valued.
  • Vision of life worth living with pleasure and appreciation of beauty.
  • Mortality.
  • Plato: Idealization of reality.

Baroque Period

  • Spain loses 1/4 of its population (war, poverty).
  • Lapsed trade and industry in the hands of the nobility.
  • Farms crushed by taxes; people move from rural to urban areas and become beggars or criminals.
  • Strong tensions between the bourgeoisie and nobility.
  • The nobility could not cope with the problems, lacked initiative, spent on luxuries, did not invest.
  • Spain crumbles.
  • Political corruption, bad governments.
  • An attempt to combat any manifestation of modernity.
  • Counter-Reformation.
  • Nobility and clergy imposed their traditionalism.
  • The Inquisition.
  • Re-theologization.