Key Terms of the Old Regime: Definitions and History
Key Terms of the Old Regime
The Old Regime was the term that the French revolutionaries used pejoratively to describe the system of government before the French Revolution of 1789. It was also applied to other European monarchies with similar regimes. Its opposite was the New Regime.
Forms of Government and Governance
Absolute monarchy is a form of government where the monarch holds absolute power.
The viceroy was responsible for managing and governing, as a representative and on behalf of the king, country, or a province.
Abdicate: The act whereby a person gives up and surrenders before the expiry of the time for which it was taken.
Bureaucracy is an organization or organizational structure characterized by explicit and regularized procedures, division of responsibilities and specialization of labor, hierarchy, and impersonal relationships.
Political Figures and Institutions
The favorite was a political figure (the favorito) of the Old Regime in the Hispanic Monarchy, which blossomed under the Austrias in the seventeenth century. It cannot be regarded as an institution, since at no time was it an official position; it only served the king as he had confidence in the person chosen.
Corregidor was a royal official in Castile instituted by Henry III around 1393, whose mission was to represent the Crown at the municipal level.
The entail, primogeniture, or link is an institution of the old Castilian law that kept a set of interlinked goods so that the linkages could never be broken.
The Astrolabe is an ancient tool to establish the position of the stars in the sky.
Organizations and Treaties
The Honorable Assembly of the Pastors of Mesta was created in 1273 by Alfonso X the Wise, bringing together all the pastors of León and Castile into a national association and giving important powers and privileges such as exemption from military service, the right to testify in court, and grazing rights of way, etc.
The Treaty of Alcáçovas was signed in the Portuguese town of the same name on September 4, 1479, between representatives of the Catholic Monarchs, Isabel of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon and Castile, on the one hand, and King Alfonso V of Portugal and his son John on the other.
Royal Houses and Agreements
The House of Castile was a royal dynasty, of Castilian origin, which was king of Castile (from 1369-1504 and 1506-1516 (Fernando V), Aragon (from 1412-1516), Navarra (from 1425-1479) and Naples (from 1458-1501).
The Capitulations of Santa Fe are the documents signed on April 17, 1492, in the town of Santa Fe (Granada), by the Catholic Monarchs, which reflect the agreements reached between the Kings and Christopher Columbus on the expedition to the Indies westward by sea.
The Treaty of Tordesillas is the commitment made at Tordesillas (now in Valladolid province, in northwestern Spain) on June 7, 1494, between Isabella and Ferdinand, king of Castile and Aragon, and John II, King of Portugal, under which a division of areas of conquest and annexation of the new world was set out through a boundary line in the Atlantic Ocean and adjacent territories.
The House of the Indies was established in 1503 by royal decrees of January 10 and February 14, based in Seville, [1] created to promote and regulate commerce and navigation with the New World. Its official name was the House and Court of India, and it established a seat which bore the fruits of a monopoly of trade with India.
Dynasties and Royal Houses
The House of Austria is the name by which the Habsburg dynasty reigning in the Hispanic Monarchy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is known, since the Concordia of Villafáfila recognized Philip the Fair as king consort of the Crown of Castile, leaving his father, King Ferdinand of Aragon, the Crown.
House of Tudor ruled the kingdom of England from 1485 to 1603. Its emblem was a rose, the Tudor rose, with ten petals, five white and five red, centered on the outer edge. This symbolized the union of the House of York and the House of Lancaster and ended the civil war that bloodied the history of England during the fifteenth century.
The House of Bourbon is an important Royal House of Navarre-French origin and the present ruling house in the Kingdom of Spain and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. It first ruled Navarre and France, but by the eighteenth century, members of the House of Bourbon came to the thrones of Spain and much of Italy, highlighting the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and several smaller duchies and counties.