Spanish Empire, 1400-1700

Professor Toby Liang

Email: yglhistory@gmail.com

Course description Starting in the late Middle Ages, Spain established Europes largest and most
powerful empire. It was the first of its kind since Charlemagne and it was the first
truly global empire that spanned parts of Europe, North and South America,
Africa, and Asia. This course surveys the history of the Spanish Empire and takes
an in-depth look at daily life on the Iberian Peninsula in the age of empire. Topics
include Spains territorial expansion; the development of governmental structures;
politics and imperial policies; great monarchs; art in an imperial age; and the
encounter with previously unknown human societies. A look at daily life will
consider the lived realities, practices, customs, and mentalities of rural
communities; literary depictions of the daily struggle for survival; religiosity and
spirituality; and violence in the form of the Spanish Inquisition.

Students will study major historiographic themes:

Course objectives The development of an early modern empire
State building: institutions, monarchs, ideologies, policies, warfare
An emerging sense of national and community identity
Religiosity in society and government
Students will practice a variety of skills:
The ability to read, write, and converse in English
Analyze secondary historiographic sources in English translation
Make arguments from a survey of data and information
Present arguments in professional ways

Week 1 Introduction to the Course
Week 2 The Christian Reconquest
Angus Mackay, Spain in the Middle Ages: From Frontier to Empire,
1000-1500 (1st half)
Week 3 The Late Middle Ages
Angus Mackay, Spain in the Middle Ages: From Frontier to Empire,
1000-1500 (2nd half)
Week 4 The Rise of the Spanish Empire in the Sixteenth Century
John Elliot, Imperial Spain 1469-1716 (1st half)
Week 5 The Apogee and Limits of Empire
John Elliot, Imperial Spain 1469-1716 (2nd half)
Week 6 Philip II and Imperial Government
Geoffrey Parker, The Grand Strategy of Philip II (1st half)
Week 7 Philip II and Warfare
Geoffrey Parker, The Grand Strategy of Philip II (2nd half)
Week 8 Art and Empire
John Elliott and Jonathan Brown, A Palace for a King (excerpts)
John Elliott, Art and Decline in Seventeenth-Century Spain (263-286)
Week 9 The Encounter with Humankind
John Elliott, The Discovery of America and the Discovery of Mankind
(42-66)
John Elliott, The Mental World of Hernan Cortes (27-41)
Week 10 Spaniards and Native Americans in the New World
Kenneth Mills and and Wiliam B. Taylor, Colonial Latin America: A
Documentary History (excerpts)
Week 11 Daily Life in Early Modern Spain
David Vassberg, The Village and the Outside World in Golden Age Castile
(first half)
Week 12 Daily Life in Early Modern Spain
David Vassberg, The Village and the Outside World in Golden Age Castile
(second half)
Week 13 Popular Religiosity and Practice
William Christian, Local Religion in Sixteenth Century Spain (excerpts)
Week 14 Catholic Reformation and Spirituality
Jodi Bilinkoff, The Avila of Saint Teresa: Religious Reform in a
Sixteenth-Century City (excerpts)
Week 15 The Spanish Inquisition
LuAnn Homza, The Spanish Inquisition (all)
Helen Rawlings, The Spanish Inquisition