This 1996 book, based upon a vast range of documentary and secondary sources, shatters the disproven but persistent myth of the closed immobile village in the early modern period. It demonstrates that even in traditionalist Castile, pre-industrial village society was highly dynamic, with continuous inter-village, inter-regional, and rural-urban migration. The book is rich in human detail, with many vignettes of everyday life. Professor Vassberg examines such topics as fairs and markets, the transportation infrastructure, rural artisans and craftsmen, relations with the state, and life-cycle service. The approach is interdisciplinary, and pays special attention to how rural families dealt with economic and social problems. The rural Castile that emerges is a complex society that defies easy generalizations, but one which is unquestionably part of the general European reality.

Spanish Society depicts a complex and fascinating country in transition from the late Middle Ages to modernity. It describes every part of society from the gluttonous nobility to their starving peasants. Through anecdotes, a lively style and portraits of figures such as St Teresa of Avila and Torquemada, the book reflects the character and humour with which the common Spaniard endured an often-wretched lot. Beginning with a description of the geography, political life, and culture of Spain from 1400 to 1600, the unfolding narrative charts the country's shifts from one age to the next. It unveils patterns of everyday life from the court to the brothel, from the 'haves' of the aristocracy and clergy to the 'have nots' of the peasantry and the urban poor. Historical records illuminate details of Spanish society such as the transition from medieval festivities to the highly-scripted spectacles of the early modern period, the reasons for violence and popular resistance and the patterns of daily living: eating, dressing, religious beliefs and concepts of honour and sexuality. This compelling account includes historical examples and literary extracts, which allow the reader direct access to the period. From the street theatre of village carnivals to the oppressive Spanish Inquisition, it gives an abiding sense of Spain in the making and renders vivid the colours of a passionate history.

Beginning with the Black Death in 1348 and extending through to the demise of Habsburg rule in 1700, this second edition of Spanish Society, 1348–1700 has been expanded to provide a wide and compelling exploration of Spain’s transition from the Middle Ages to modernity. Each chapter builds on the first edition by offering new evidence of the changes in Spain’s social structure between the fourteenth and seventeenth century. Every part of society is examined, culminating in a final section that is entirely new to the second edition and presents the changing social practices of the period, particularly in response to the growing crises facing Spain as it moved into the seventeenth century. Also new to this edition is a consideration of the social meaning of culture, specifically the presence of Hermetic themes and of magical elements in Golden Age literature and Cervantes’ Don Quijote. Through the extensive use of case studies, historical examples and literary extracts, Spanish Society is an ideal way for students to gain direct access to this captivating period.

Based on the biblical commentaries of rabbis and writers who were exiled from Spain in 1492, The Land Is Mine presents late medieval and early modern Iberian Jewish intellectuals as deeply concerned with questions about human relationships to land.

Now notorious for its aridity and air pollution, Mexico City was once part of a flourishing lake environment. In nearby Xochimilco, Native Americans modified the lakes to fashion a distinctive and remarkably abundant aquatic society, one that provided a degree of ecological autonomy for local residents, enabling them to protect their communities' integrity, maintain their way of life, and preserve many aspects of their cultural heritage. While the area's ecology allowed for a wide array of socioeconomic and cultural continuities during colonial rule, demographic change came to affect the ecological basis of the lakes; pastoralism and new ways of using and modifying the lakes began to make a mark on the watery landscape and on the surrounding communities. In this fascinating study, Conway explores Xochimilco using native-language documents, which serve as a hallmark of this continuity and a means to trace patterns of change.

The lives of Toledan Jewish families are traced from the time of the Inquisition through seventeenth-century Spain

For nearly two centuries Spain was the world’s most influential nation, dominant in Europe and with authority over immense territories in America and the Pacific. Because none of this was achieved by its own economic or military resources, Henry Kamen sets out to explain how it achieved the unexpected status of world power, and examines political events and foreign policy through the reigns of each of the nation’s rulers, from Ferdinand and Isabella at the end of the fifteenth century to Philip V in the 1700s. He explores the distinctive features that made up the Spanish experience, from the gold and silver of the New World to the role of the Inquisition and the fate of the Muslim and Jewish minorities. In an entirely re-written text, he also pays careful attention to recent work on art and culture, social development and the role of women, as well as considering the obsession of Spaniards with imperial failure, and their use of the concept of ‘decline’ to insist on a mythical past of greatness. The essential fragility of Spain’s resources, he explains, was the principal reason why it never succeeded in achieving success as an imperial power. This completely updated fourth edition of Henry Kamen’s authoritative, accessible survey of Spanish politics and civilisation in the Golden Age of its world experience substantially expands the coverage of themes and takes account of the latest published research.