THE HAPSBURG ERA: TRIUMPH AND TRAGEDY 49
but that was still powerful enough militarily and
territorially to be feared and respected. Under his
successors, Spain entered a rapid decline, the fi rst
signs of which became visible in the area of diplo-
macy and war. The truce of 1609 with the Dutch,
which tacitly recognized Dutch independence, was
an early sign of waning Spanish power. The fa-
mous defeat of the infantry at the battle of Rocroi
(1643) revealed the obsolescence of Spanish mili-
tary organization and tactics, marking the end of
the kingdom’s military preponderance on the Con-
tinent. By the third quarter of the century, Spain,
reduced to the defensive, had been compelled to
sign a series of humiliating treaties by which it lost
the Dutch Netherlands, part of Flanders, Luxem-
bourg, and a string of lesser possessions.
The crisis existed at home as well as abroad. Ef-
forts to make other Christian kingdoms bear part of
the burdens of the wars in which Castile had been
so long engaged caused resentment and resistance.
The able but imprudent favorite of Philip IV, Count
Olivares, aroused a storm with his efforts to billet
troops in Catalonia and otherwise make Catalonia
contribute to the Castilian war effort at the expense
of the ancient fueros,or privileges, of the principal-
ity. In 1640 a formidable revolt broke out; it con-
tinued for twelve years and shattered the economy
of Catalonia. In the same year, Portugal, weary of
a union that brought more losses than gains, suc-
cessfully revolted against Castilian rule. Lesser in-
surrections took place in Biscay, Andalusia, Sicily,
and Naples.
THE WANING ECONOMY AND SOCIETY
A decline in the quality of Castile’s rulers no
doubt contributed to its political decline, but this
was guaranteed by the crumbling of the economic
foundations on which the empire rested. By the
1590s, the Castilian economy had begun to crack
under the strain of costly Hapsburg adventures in
foreign policy. Philip II several times resorted to
bankruptcy to evade payments of debts to foreign
bankers. His successors, lacking Philip’s resources,
were driven to currency infl ation, which caused a
fl ight of gold and silver abroad, until the national
currency consisted largely of copper. But the de-
velopment that contributed most to the kingdom’s
economic crisis was a drastic decline in the infl ow
of American treasure in the middle decades of the
seventeenth century. In the decade from 1591 to
1600, revenues from the American colonies to-
taled about 135 million pesos, but half a century
later, they declined to 19 million pesos in the de-
cade from 1651 to 1660 (the complex causes of
this decline are discussed in Chapter 4).
By 1621, signs of economic decline were ev-
erywhere. Seville had only four hundred looms
producing silk and wool, down from sixteen thou-
sand a century earlier. Toledo had fi fty woolen
manufacturing establishments in the sixteenth
century; it had thirteen in 1665. The plight of ag-
riculture was shown by a chronic shortage of food-
stuffs, sometimes approaching famine conditions,
and by the exodus of peasants from the country-
side. Castile became a land of deserted villages. In
the period from 1600 to 1700, it also suffered an
absolute loss of population, from about 8 million
to 6 million. The ravages of epidemics, aggravated
by near-famine conditions; the expulsion of the
Mo riscos, or converted Muslims, between 1609
and 1614; and emigration to the Indies, contrib-
uted to this heavy loss.
The economic decline caused a contraction of
the kingdom’s artisan and merchant class, strength-
ened the domination of aristocratic values, and fos-
tered the growth of parasitism. In the seventeenth
century, ambitious young people looked above all
to the church and the court for an assured living.
In 1626, Castile had nine thousand monasteries;
at the end of the century, about 200,000 monks
and priests existed in a population of 6 million. The
nobility formed another very large unproductive
class. At the end of the century, according to one
calculation, Spain had four times as many nobles
as France with its much larger population. The
highest rung of the ladder of nobility was occupied
by a small number of grandees—counts, dukes,
marquis—who possessed enormous wealth and
immense prerogatives. The lowest was occupied
by a great number of hidalgos, petty nobles whose
sole capital often was their honor and the pre-
cious letters patent that attested to their rank and
their superiority over base pecheros (taxpayers),