spain in the 1600s

Picaresque, Golden Age, Black Legend

SPAIN IN THE 1600S

Historical Factors• Common sense of identity traditionally predicated on caste superiority—Christian warriors• Military leaders were or became aristocrats, and lower classes had access to upward mobility

through military achievement• The sense of honor (respect, status): defining quality of the Christian warrior which

distinguishes him from the truly vulgar

Social Attitudes• Fighting and conquest were prized• Mundane constructive labor had low priority• Acceptance of aristocratic norms and values b a large proportion of the population• Imperial system based on size and vigor of Castilian society, it’s militant ethos, and its system

of monarchy

Social Stratification• Higher proportion of peasants and lower proportion of urban middle-class and artisans• Thousands of ordinary people in northern Castile able to claim petty hidalgo status

LIFE IN THE 1600S

A new genre: realistic, often satirical prose fiction • Roguish hero of low social class• Lives by his/her wits in a corrupt society• Hero or heroine very close to being criminals

Lazarillo de Tormes (1554): considered the first picaresque. Other examples:• Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini (1558)• Guzmán de Alfarache (1599) by Mateo Alemán• El buscón (1604, publ. 1626) by Francisco de Quevedo

Determinism and free will (the Counter-Reformation is based on the doctrine of free will)

PÍCARO AND THE PICARESQUE

They sought:• Less taxation• Self-government• Religious tolerance

They were: the Netherlands between 1569-1648 (the Eighty Years’ War)• 17 provinces inherited, purchased or conquered, and

inherited by Charles V• Protestantism had gained ground• William of Orange turns against Spain• Supported by Anglican England and the French Huguenots

WHO WERE THEY?

• William needed soldiers: tuned to diplomatic alliances, militias, mercenaries, and also a group of desperadoes and pirates known as the Watergeuzen

• Origin of the name: geuzen singular geus, from the French gueux meaning ragged tramp or beggar. When war broke out, the name geus or specifically watergeus referred to a member of irregular Dutch rebel forces.

• Who were they: originally included adventurers, smugglers, and pirates who attacked vessels of almost any nation as well as fishing boats, villages, and towns on the southern coast of the Dutch Provinces. In 1547 a protection fleet with 10 armed ships was constituted to protect and defend Spanish convoys in the North Sea.

BEGGARS OF THE SEA(WATERGEUZEN)

• From 1569 William of Orange issued letters of marque, making official privateers of those who until then had been criminal pirates. Under the command of a succession of daring and reckless leaders, the Sea Beggars became an effective and organized fighting force against Spain.

• Since the Dutch were well received by the English and French protestants, the Sea Beggars who plundered both by  sea and land carried their booty to English and French ports. For several years their bases of operation included such Protestant-held ports as Emden (North Germany), La Rochelle (France), and Dover (England).

• In 1572 Queen Elizabeth, under Spanish pressure, refused to admit them any longer to her harbors. Deprived of a safe refuge, the leaders Lumey and Ripperda and their Sea Beggars, in desperation, made a surprise attack upon the small Spanish-held port of Brielle (also known as Den Briel near Rotterdam) in April 1572. Encouraged by their success, they sailed to Vlissingen (Flushing, in the province of Zeeland), which was taken after an audacious raid. The capture of these two towns gave the signal for a general revolt in the Netherlands, and is often regarded as the real beginning of Dutch independence.

PIRATES BECOME PATRIOTS

The Eighty Years' War was a war of independence, but also a religious and civil war in which economic and political factors played major roles. Both sides often committed pointless atrocities. The Sea Beggars and the northern Protestant insurgents regarded all Spaniards and Catholic Dutchmen as enemies. They therefore attacked churches, monasteries, and Catholic villages and towns, killing priests, monks, and administrative representatives of the Spanish crown, as well as Catholic citizens.

In return the Spanish army (mostly composed of mercenaries) had no problem sacking towns and murdering innocent victims. For example, infuriated and neglected hired soldiers in Spanish service plundered and made a bloodbath at Delfshaven in April 1572, Mechelen in October 1572, Naarden in December 1572, Anthwerp in 1576, and Oostende in 1604.

A COMPLICATED CONFLICT

As the Beggars of the Sea consolidated the insurgents' situation, Queen Elizabeth I openly sided with the Dutch rebels and unleashed her Sea Dogs. Francis Drake attacked the coasts of Spain, inflicting serious damage, while Walter Raleigh attacked the Spanish fishing fleets in the North Atlantic.

The Beggars of the Sea morphed into an ambiguous ragtag assemblage of Dutch aristocrats, ultra-Calvinists, pirates, and riffraff. They became a prime example of those warrior mariners who strayed between legal privateers and illegal sea robbers. Pirates turned patriot privateers, they waged guerrilla sea warfare against Spanish interests, and proved an effective instrument of the Dutch cause between 1568 and 1574 in the early phase of the Eighty Years' War.

Some of the high-born leaders: William II van der Marck, Baron of Lumey; Baron Willem Blois van Treslong; Barthout Entens van Mentheda Baron of Middelstum, Dorema and Engelboort; Wigbolt Ripperda

DRAKE AND RALEIGH JOIN IN

WHERE IS THIS?

• Starts with the ascendance of the newly united Spanish kingdom

• Politically, ends with the Treaty of the Pyrenees with France (Habsburg dynasty)

• The Habsburgs (Charles V, Philip II) were great patrons of art

• Counter-Reformation: the Catholic Church invests in religious art

THE SPANISH OLDEN AGE1492-1659

VS.

• Miguel de Cervantes (Don Quijote)• Lope de Vega (the Spanish Shakespeare: comedies)• Tirso de Molina (El Burlador de Sevilla: the character of

Don Juan)• Francisco de Quevedo (conceptismo)• Luis de Góngora (culteranismo)• Pedro Calderón de la Barca (the Spanish Shakespeare:

tragedies; Life is a Dream)

WRITERS AND DRAMATISTS

El Greco Zurbarán

PAINTERS

Murillo Velázquez

PAINTERS

Poussin, Et In Arcadia Ego

A DIGRESSION

Ars larga, vita brevis. Shadow/mirror/representation/mortality

What is Life? A frenzy.What is Life? An illusion,A shadow, a fiction.And all good is smallFor Life is a dream, And a dream is but a dream.

Pedro Calderón de la BarcaLife Is A Dream

LIFE IS A DREAM

THE SPANISH MAIN AND SPANISH TRADE ROUTES 16-18TH CENTURIES

Mediterranean: corsairs

Spanish Main: pirates, buccaneers, privateers

Bartolomé de las Casas, Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias•  First published in English in 1583: The Spanish Colonie, or Brief

Chronicle of the Actes and Gestes of the Spaniards in the West Indies,

• At the time England and Spain were preparing for war in the Netherlands

• It’s a fanciful translation

SPANISH EMPIRE: "cruel, bigoted, exploitative and self-righteous”

1598 engraving by Theodor de Bry: a Spaniard feeding Indian  children to his dogs.

SELF-CRITICISM AND PROPAGANDA

Spaniards torturing an Indian

The Flying Dutchman

ANOTHER LEGEND

THE GOLDEN AGE OF PIRACY1650-1730