History - Spain - Charles I, 1516-56: Revolts In Depth

. Charles's absence was marked by the Comuneros Revolt, a rising of Castile

. Revolts of the 1520s were a significant turning point in the reign and their suppression helped to secure Charles' position - The two revolts did not link up, despite overlapping in date, thus according to Kamen highlights the lack of unity in Spain

. Rady - Although confined to central Castile, 'the scale and organisation of the comunero revolt makes it quite unprecedented in Spanish history' - It could have ended Charle's reign

. Long-term causes (Ferdinand/Isabella with Charles as a spark)

. Short-term (just Charles's early mistakes)

. Was it a revolution demanding major constitutional change?

. Some historians stop at Charles' insensitive actions in Spain early on as the sole cause

. Kamen/JH Elliott see longer term reasons - They focus on the deep divisions in Spanish society and that the arrival of Charles was not enough on its own to cause revolt, although a catalyst

. The Castilians resented that Charles spent longer in Aragon than Castile early on, reflecting long rivalry between the two kingdoms - towns had felt unprotected after the death of Isabella in 1504

. Haliczer has added to this view by suggesting that a wealthy and growing urban middle class was becoming increasingly resentful at the political dominance of the Castilian landed nobility and that as a succession of weak governments had favoured nobles over towns, it meant the towns were already on course for action before the arrival of Charles in 1517

. Hunt argues that the towns may have risen without the absence of Charles

. Rady says the immediate cause of the revolt is clear 'Charles's bad government'

. Rady argues that by looking at the reform proposals in Octover 1520 drawn up by the rebels' junta, there were more concerns than a simple redress of grievances (bad government)

. Rady - 'What the junta proposed was the thorough constitutional, administrative and economic reform of the state'

. They demanded the proper appointment, regulation and training of state officials, reform of taxes and tolls and the complete abolition of subsidies from the Cortes

. The Crown was to compensate itself for lost income with repossessing alienated estates and rooting out financial corruption

. To protect the national wool and textile trade, protectionist measures were to be introduced - they even calcualted how much this would increase Castilian national income

. Rady says that in constitutional terms, the rebels were beyond the norm as they claimed political sovereignty belonged to the nation, not the King - the mouthpiece of this sovereignty was the Cortes of Castile

. The King should consult the Cortes more regularly

. Charles to return to Spain

. Exclude foreigners from his entourage

. Marry soon

. Cortes to meet every 3 years and given a major role in government

. Alcabala to be cut to 1499 level and collected by towns not tax farmers

. Export of wool to be controlled

. Kamen says that 'none of these demands were revolutionary' and all reflected in some degree the reign of the Catholic Kings

. The Comuneros saw the new reign as deviant in three ways:

. From ever present Spanish monarchs it substitued an absentee foreigner

. From a Spanish regime it had led to one of aliens who treated Castilians as 'Indians'

. From an empire based on the Mediterranean it had led to an empire based on the north

. Discontent had been growing in Castile and Spain for several months and evident before Charles left for Germany in May 1520

. A week after Charles had left, Segovia lynched their corregidor Rodrigo de Tordesillas, who had represented the city at the Cortes of Santiago earlier in the year

. Adrian of Utrecht reacted promoptyl and despatched a small force to take Segovia and control the citizens - But when Segovia was reinforced by troops from Toledo, Adrian's men were forced to retire

. At this stage the revolt was a limited affair according to Rady

. In June 1520, Toledo summoned all the Cortes cities to a meeting, but only 4 were present at Avila in July - Toledo, Segovia, Salamanca and Toro; 14 of the cities approached refused to have anything to do with it

. Thus 'had Adrian acted calmly' (Rady) the rebellion could have been subdued - But he sent a force to Medina del Campo to seize the arsenal

. The scheme backfired and the troops ended up devastating the town and butchering the inhabitants on 21st August 1520 - The news spready rapidly and spread the revolt; by September 1520 14 towns that sent members to the Cortes were represented in the Junta

. Only the 4 Andalusian cities - Seville, Jarn, Granada and Cordoba were absent

. Among the towns taken by the Comuneros was Valladolid, which meant that the regent was virtually prisoner of the town council - Worse came when Tordesillas fell and Queen Joanna went to their control

. An attempt was made to gain the support of Joanna (where the queen was being held prisoner) - She was prepared to show her support when meeting some of the comuneros, but not prepared to confirm support in writing

. Thus the leaders had no claim to legality - Had they been able to say they were trying to restore the rightful monarch, they would have had a clear purpose

. Charles made some concessions - On 3rd September 1520 Charles made appointments that appeased the nobles, he promoted Constable Velasco and Admiral Enriquez as co-regents in Castile which both defused noble opposition to Flemish Adrian

. The collection of the subsidy of the Cortes of Santiago was stopped - Thus more nobles were prepared to support the king to put down the revolt

. In November 1520 Burgos, which had always been conservative, withdrew from the Junta and the split encouraged the co-Regents to gather troops

. Adrian escaped from Valladolid to the safety of the admiral's estates where a force of loyal troops were gathered

. On 5th December 1520, Tordesillas was taken and Joanna was freed

. These setbacks split the junta - radical elements pushed for a revolutionary social programme directed against landed and commercial elites

. By 1521 three juntas existed, all levying extraordinary taxes and forced loans to pay for their disorganised and plundering armies - Alarmed the moderate towns left the rebel side

. On 23rd April 1521 the main rebel army of Juan de Padilla was routed by Velasco and Enriquez at Villalar - Padilla was executed the same day with the main revolt being stopped just in time as Francis I had invaded Navarre

. Castilians and Aragonese joined forced to defeat him at Pamplona in June 1521 - Toledo held out for a further 10 months led by Maria Pacheo and the bishop of Zamora, but the military power of the comuneros had been broken

. Repression was harsh, but ceased after Charles returned to Spain - On 1st November 1522 he signed a general pardon

. 22 rebels had been executed, 293 mostly from the urban elite, were excempted from the pardon, but there were no further executions

. All cities that had taken part remained untouched in their privileges and Kamen says that this clemency gave the king a strong basis for reconciliation with his subjects

. The Comuneros never got the support of the powerful nobles - In Andalucia, from th start the great lords refuse to collaborate and, as noble power was strongest in the south, this was important

. Nobles quickly became worried about the radical language being used by some of the rebels as aristocratic power linked to the monarchy - The failure of the rebellion from the growing tendency for radicalism inside and outside the Junta

. Some towns were accused of wishing to abolish the monarchy and follow the Italian model of city states in Castile - Suggested by some that all taxes should be suppressed, or that the rich and poor should be equally liable to pay

. 'We are all born free and equal' argued Alonso de Castrillo in his 1521 Treatise on the state, maintaining that government must be by the consent of the governed

. Radical threat split the movement

. The rebels could not count of the queen - Kamen says the she encouraged them but was cautious enough to never put her signature to any document

. Charles' concessions - The Constable and Admiral of Castile were appointed co-regents (helped win over lesser nobles who were wavering), agreed that the collection of the servicio would be suspended and that no more foreigners would be given jobs

. Broke out simultaneously to comuneros - but the two revolts did not link up

. It never posed as much a threat as comuneros as it was a class conflict which was dealt with by the nobility

. Much more of a social than a political revolt - Kamen says that 'unlike the Comuneros, the Germanias were from the beginnign a clear class conflict between urban groups - bourgeois and artisan - and the aristocracy'

. In 1519, a member of the artisans' guild in Valencia, Juan Llorenc (who saw the guilds as the bulwark against noble power) went to Barcelona to ask the king's permission to recruit a Germania or militia to defend the coast of Valencia

. He received the go ahead from Chievres and this ordered for the guilds to arm and prepare for raids by the Turks, with the residents being provided with weapons

. In December 1519, the guilds also set up a council of 13 and proposed remodelling Valencia's constitution to reduce the privileges of the nobles and set up a city state along the lines of Venice

. Germania members had grievances against local Muslims and the power of the nobles that employed them

. There had already been trouble in August 1519 in Valencia when armed mobs defied the authorities as they thought the Inquisition had been too lenient on Moors/Moriscos

. The arrival in April 1520 of a new viceroy, count of Melito, provoked clashes between the nobles and the guilds who now had taen 2 out of 6 places on the Valencian Diputacion to be popularly elected

. Llorenc's candidates won but the viceroy refused to admit them and the Germanias took control major cities from the nobles

. Plague had broken out in the area and seen as punishment from God for tolerating the Muslims - The Mudejars as a whole were terrorised into forced mass baptisms

. Many of the rich had moved away due to the plague, thus the Germania were able to take over Valencia city

. Ordinary people felt that the most immoral, the nobles, had escaped punishment - Food was in short supply due to the plague and a power vacuum was left by the nobles

. Further complaints were made against Charles who had regularly put off meeting the Valencian Cortes as Charles had to leave to be elected HRE and did not seem interested in remaining in Spain

. Support for the rebellion was to be found among a wide section of the middle and lower classes - poorer craftsmen, small farmers, weavers and spinners; but not nobles or wealthier clergy

. Llorenc died in 1520 and was replaced by Vincente Peris, a radical whose violence and policy alarmed the moderate section of the Germanias

. Rebellion spread across the whole kingdom of Valencia and over to Majorca, aand the poor and oppressed, sometimes aided by local priests, rose up against landlords and government officials

. The governor of Valencia, the Count of Melito, was forced to flee from the city and the army he raised was defeated by the Germania at Gandia in 1521

. The rebels overplayed their hand, Vincente Peris, was an extremist, and incited more violence and radical demands, such as wider land distribution

. Ravaging around the south of the kingdom converting and murdering Moors and nobles, he left his capital unguarded

. The Marquis of Zenete (Melito's brother) retook Valencia in October 1521 and Peris was defeated as the nobility recovered its nerve - Peris was captured and executed in March 1522

. The main forces were defeated in October 1521 but resistance continued into 1523 and not until December 1524 and the execution of hundreds of rebels was there a general pardon issued by the new viceroy, Germaine de Foix

. Like the Comuneros Revolt, it was put down by a nobility determined to reassert its political supremacy - Local nobles had strengthened their own position

. The revolt took longer to suppress as a revolt in Valencia posed less threat than one in Castile, thus the nobles could be left to control the revolt themselves

. Charles could not take credit for the crushing of the revolt - He was reliant on noble cooperation

. The revolt failed as too many different groups were involved - peasants, artisans and labourers, none of whom possessed any real power

. There was disagreement in the rebel camp over how extreme it should be - some wanted independent city republics