Spanish Empire & Renaissance: Key Events and Concepts
Spanish Empire and Renaissance
Key Institutions and Concepts
Commendation
Legal institution implemented by Spain in America to regulate relations between Spanish and Indian.
Viceroyalties
Kingdom or territory governed by a viceroy. In the Indies, the Viceroy had absolute power delegated by the Spanish Crown.
Capitulations of Santa Fe
Documents signed on April 17, 1492, in the town of Santa Fe, by the Catholic Monarchs, which reflect the agreements reached between the Kings and Christopher Columbus on the expedition to the Indies by sea to the west.
House of Trade
Created to promote and regulate commerce and navigation with the New World. Its official name was the House and Court of India and established a seat in Seville, which held a monopoly of trade with the Indies.
Laws of the Indies
Legislation enacted by the Spanish monarchs to regulate the social, political, and economic relationship between the settlers and the indigenous population of the American part of the Hispanic Monarchy.
Juros
Government bonds that were used to finance the state debt and fund wars.
asientos
Loans provided by bankers to the monarchs at the place and time as necessary.
The Inquisition
Created in 1478 by a papal bull to combat Judaizing practices of the Judeo-Spanish converts. Directly under the Spanish crown, it was established in all the kingdoms of Spain, including Sicily, Sardinia, and the American territories.
Clean Blood
Legal mechanism of discrimination toward converted minorities on suspicion of secretly practicing their old religions – primarily targeting Jewish and Muslim converts who settled in Spain during the Old Regime.
Historical Events and Conflicts
Battle of Lepanto
A naval battle that took place on October 7, 1571, in the Gulf of Lepanto, located between mainland Greece and the Peloponnese. It was fought between the Ottoman Turks and the Christian Coalition, called the Holy League, formed by Spain, Venice, Genoa, and the Vatican. The Christians were victorious, significantly slowing Turkish expansionism in the Western Mediterranean.
GermanÃas
Guerrilla conflict that occurred in the Kingdom of Valencia at the beginning of the reign of Charles I, in parallel with the Revolt of the Comunidades, between 1519 and 1523.
Revolt of the Comunidades
An armed uprising of the commoners, which occurred in the Crown of Castile from 1520 to 1522, during the early reign of Charles I. The cities of the Castilian interior were the protagonists, with Toledo and Valladolid at the forefront.
Art and Architecture
Plateresque
A unique architectural style of the Spanish Renaissance. It appeared in the early fifteenth century and lasted for two centuries. It is a fusion of Moorish and Flamboyant Gothic components.
Herrerian
An architectural style developed in Spain during the last third of the sixteenth century, coinciding with the reign of Philip II, and continued in force in the seventeenth century, but transformed by the Baroque current of the time.