The Rise of Spain 171bolized by the end of Venetian supremacy by 1600. The Thirty Years’ War
(1618—1648) also disrupted trade and manufacturing. International trade
fell off dramatically. Furthermore, Spaniards had begun to exhaust the gold
and silver mines of Latin America, disrupting the money supply. A leveling
off of the population probably compounded the saturation of European mar
kets. Urban growth slowed, and many of Europe’s old ecclesiastical, admin
istrative, and commercial centers stagnated. In sharp contrast, ports such as
Amsterdam, Hamburg, and Liverpool grew with the expansion of the
Atlantic trading system.
The Rise of Spain
Sixteenth-century Spain, the most powerful state of its time, was not one
kingdom but two: Castile and Aragon. Castile was by far the larger and
wealthier; its vast stretch of mountainous land across much of the center
of the Iberian Peninsula contained a population of about six million
Map 5.1 Spain in the Late Fifteenth Century