A capitol question.

[Chris 62]

I'm playing the modern era scenario as Spain, and I was wondering: When did Madrid become Spain's capitol? It is just something I would like know.

[kIndal]

quote: Originally posted by cpoulos on 01-22-2001 11:17 AM I'm playing the modern era scenario as Spain, and I was wondering: When did Madrid become Spain's capitol? It is just something I would like know.

Madrid became capital city of Spain during the XVI century, in 1561, when Philip II took the Spanish court to this city.

[Jay Bee]

Philip II moved the capital from Valladolid to Madrid in 1561, shortly after being crowned King. However under Philip III (Philip II's son and succesor) the court was moved back to Valladolid for a few years. In 1607 Philip III officially made the city the national capital, a status it has retained ever since.

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FYI, Valladolid had been the capital of Spain since the "creation" of the kingdom of Spain in 1469, although Charles I (HR emperor Charles V) always considered Toledo, not Valladolid as his capital.

Before the unification of Castile with Aragon, the capitals of Castile had been León, Burgos, Toledo and finally Valladolid. The capital of Aragon was always in Zaragoza (Saragossa).



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"Our community extends beyond national frontiers. Whether it is an Argentinian or a Spaniard, a Chilean or a Mexican, we all know as children that our national language is the language of many nations, and that it was born in Spain many centuries ago... without it, our people would not exist"

Octavio Paz, Mexican Writer. Nobel Laureate 1990, Cervantes Prize 1982

[Chris 62]

Thanks for that info. Wow! That just what I wanted to Know! Thanks guys.
[This message has been edited by cpoulos (edited January 22, 2001).]

[XarXo]

Oh, yes, the official catalanoaragonese capital was Saragossa, but the economical was truly Barcelona, and the cultural València xDD. And everybody knows that the court of the confederation was in Barcelona...

This info mistakes are tipically spansih... But...

You know the theorics about Cristofulus Columbus was catalan (curiously, there is an important amount of "Colom" surname, that is Columbus in catalan, people near the PALS town zone, and MORE curiously, the starter town of the expedition was "PALOS", when this "PALOS" was a tiny barracs amount near the water, without any seaport, but PALS has a great seaport with relationship with Geneve... And *MORE* curious: there are a lot of pictures that show a catalanoaragonese flag in the three ships, and in modern version they are *misteriously* changed for spanish ones... OOOOh... REALLY mysterious!! )?

Yes, all them are a TYPICALL historic spanish strange things...


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Si el que fas és per a distraure't i no t'ho passes bé respecte amb el teu tarannà, llavors varia-ho.

Tant de bó tothom canviï la vella costum de quedarse
amb el que no vol per simple i estúpid orgull...

Dirigit als usuaris catalans-valencians-balears de Call to Power I .
[This message has been edited by XarXo (edited January 22, 2001).]

[Jay Bee]

(Jay Bee is stirring the pot up a bit in order to create an interesting debate)

quote: Originally posted by XarXo on 01-22-2001 09:35 PM Oh, yes, the official catalanoaragonese capital was Saragossa, but the economical was truly Barcelona, and the cultural València xDD. And everybody knows that the court of the confederation was in Barcelona... This info mistakes are tipically spansih... But...

Ergo, the capital of Aragon was Saragossa, exactly what I wrote... No typically-Spanish mistake here

quote: catalanoaragonese

A term coined in the XIX century for obvious political reasons. Why not "catalanoaragonesevalencian majorcan"?

quote: catalanoaragonese flag

Hey Xarxo, you might find it interesting to read the Jan issue of La Aventura de la Historia Else, do you believe the Cabeza de Estopa legend was true?


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"Our community extends beyond national frontiers. Whether it is an Argentinian or a Spaniard, a Chilean or a Mexican, we all know as children that our national language is the language of many nations, and that it was born in Spain many centuries ago... without it, our people would not exist"

Octavio Paz, Mexican Writer. Nobel Laureate 1990, Cervantes Prize 1982

[Jay Bee]

quote: Originally posted by Stefan Härtel on 01-23-2001 12:22 PM Lemme ask a stupid question: Why Madrid? According to my sources, Madrid was no special cultural, political or merchantile centre. Besides, Toledo was much more important. What made Madrid so special?

Well, you are totally correct. Madrid does not even a have a river (the Manzanares does not qualify as a river ). What other important city do you know in the world without a river?

I do not really know the exact answer to your question, and many have been given. The simplest one was that Philip II wanted to end the rivalry between Valladolid and Toledo by moving the capital to a third city.

Another explanation was Madrid's geographical situation in the middle of the country and in closer proximity to several Habsburg palaces and hunting grounds.

[Fiera]

Madrid's geographical situation is the most consistant explanation of them all, IMO. Madrid is located at (roughly) the same distance from Barcelona and Seville.

Seville was actually more important at the moment (despite whatever XarXo may think about it ) than Barcelona, for Seville was the starting point to all Spanish colonial trade.

Furthermore, Madrid had better and shorter routes towards both Seville and Barcelona than Valladolid had.

Regarding culture, the Complutensis, located at Alcalá de Henares was the most ideologically advanced University in the 16th Century. Alcalá happened to be at just a few kilometres east to Madrid. Toledo had old temples and a beatiful cathedral, but nothing compared to this.

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"¡Y pensar que algunos se asombran de que hayamos perdido las colonias! Lo que a mà me asombra es que, con esta burocracia, no hayamos perdido hasta los pantalones."

PÃo Baroja

[Jay Bee]

quote: Originally posted by Fiera on 01-23-2001 03:59 PM Regarding culture, the Complutensis, located at Alcalá de Henares was the most ideologically advanced University in the 16th Century. Alcalá happened to be at just a few kilometres east to Madrid. Toledo had old temples and a beatiful cathedral, but nothing compared to this.

Well, Fiera... and what about Salamanca University? In the XVI century the University of Salamanca still was one of the "four torches of the world". Closer to Valladolid too.


[This message has been edited by Jay Bee (edited January 23, 2001).]

[Fiera]

No, not really. Salamanca was ruled by the reactionary Dominics, so their method was strictly medieval, so to speak...

Alcalá de Henares was a renaissance school. Fray Luis de León never had any problem teaching there, but he had when he moved to Salamanca, because of his verses, too "neoplatonic" to their mentality...

If you want further explanations about this, I'll have to use Spanish...

[Jay Bee]

quote: Originally posted by Fiera on 01-23-2001 04:31 PM No, not really. Salamanca was ruled by the reactionary Dominics, so their method was strictly medieval, so to speak... Alcalá de Henares was a renaissance school. Fray Luis de León never had any problem teaching there, but he had when he moved to Salamanca, because of his verses, too "neoplatonic" to their mentality... If you want further explanations about this, I'll have to use Spanish...

Venga, venga... esto se pone interesante

[XarXo]

Yes, Seville was the official seaport for the Americas colonization, but...

-The OLDEST paper speaks about "PALOS DE LA FRONTERA" as the starter seaport of Columbus expedition, the FIRST one, but Palos de la Frontera in these epoch was (as I said) an amount of barracs quite far of the sea when Pals was a quite important seaport with relationship with Geneve...

And some other things that are totally TRUE:

-I have to remember you that the "spanish" court prohibited to the catalan commerce (Barcelona) to trade with the Americas. Why? Because Barcelona have
an important commercial developement in the Mediterranean, and Seville what have? Commerce with the "richest" and "friend" arabian kingdom of Morocco?
The reason is the same as today, and is the actually excuse for some events that you know...

-The official capital of the Catalanoaragonese Federation (yes, is a modern word, but why don't say USA as the 13 Old English Colonies in this case too? ) was Saragossa, but the court was always in Barcelona. It is a similar case as the USA state of New York, where Albany is the true capital ¿why? ask to the history...

-Finally, as I said always, Barcelona is a "small" city, but if you amount all the power of its economical region...

INTERESTING LINKS:

Columbus catalan? What a joke!! or NOT...
http://www.banrep.gov.co/blaavirtual...u/colocris.htm
http://www.paisvirtual.com/universit...oja/colome.htm
http://www.sola-sole.com/merril.htm http://clio.rediris.es/articulos/colon.htm

In the second one, note that "ColoM" is Colón (Columbus) in catalan...

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A vegades surt més a compte oblidar el concepte cientÃfic d'acceptar dues versions encara que no t'agradi, sobretot quan les dues han arribat a una conclusió certa, això sol passar quan aqueixes són la mateixa o quan una ha fet el possible per eliminar l'altra, generant proves que ara han esdevingut indiscutibles...

La veritat és sempre una cosa que s'amagat durant la història, i la matixa història sol ser una mentida basada en l'ocultació de la veritat.

-Filòsof català-valencià-balear
[This message has been edited by XarXo (edited January 23, 2001).]

[Stefan Härtel]

Lemme ask a stupid question:

Why Madrid? According to my sources, Madrid was no special cultural, political or merchantile centre. Besides, Toledo was much more important. What made Madrid so special?

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Follow the masses!
30,000 lemmings can't be wrong!

The vast majority of our imports come from outside the country.
-George W. Bush

Shahan Shah Eran ud Aneran

Visit my Homepage at: http://members.xoom.com/SHaertel/Index.html

[Fiera]

Since I think Stefan's question has already been answered, I'll turn to Spanish to reply Jay Bee and XarXo's questions...

If Stefan, cpoulos or anyone else is interested anyway, tell me so and I'll make a big effort to translate it...

Jay Bee,

lo que quiero decir es que Salamanca representaba la "vieja escuela". Estaba dominada por los dominicos, que seguÃan a pies juntillas a Santo Tomás y rechazaban de pleno cualquier tendencia que hoy denominarÃamos humanista y que entonces se caracterzaban por la influencia de Platón, San AgustÃn y los neoplatónicos florentinos (Ficino, della Mirandola).

Ese tipo de enseñanzas sà se permitÃan, e incluso se promovÃan, en Alcalá de Henares. Recuerda que la Complutense fue fundada por Cisneros, quien se encargó de trazar el programa que habÃa de ser impartido en ella. Por lo que parece, uno de sus máximos anhelos fue la incorporación de Erasmo, el humanista por excelencia de principios del siglo XVI.

Lo de Fray Luis de León lo he mirado mejor y resulta que no llegó a enseñar en Alcalá, aunque sà habÃa estudiado allà de joven.

El caso es que en Salamanca ingresó en la orden de San AgustÃn, tradicionalmente asociada con los fgranciscanos y enemiga de los dominicos. Especializado en exégesis bÃblica, lenguas clásicas y semÃticas, filosofÃa y semÃtica, empezó a enseñar en la Universidad de Salamanca, y debido a su prestigio, consiguió en 1561 la cátedra de TeologÃa, que hasta entonces habÃa sido coto privado de los dominicos. Sus enemigos le acusaron ante la Inquisición de menospreciar el texto latino de la Biblia y de haber traducido clandestinamente el Cantar de los Cantares. Fue hallado culpable y estuvo en la cárcel de 1572 hasta 1576.

Lo que creo que sirve para probar el caracter involucionista de Salamanca en una fecha tan avanzada como 1572. Es cierto que la Contrarreforma, que empezaba a ponerse en marcha, miraba con cierta sospecha los excesos humanistas, pero, y esto es lo más importante, la imagen de Felipe II como rey fanático, intolerante y cerrado a la cultura y las ciencias es una imagen propagada por la leyenda negra que dista mucho de la realidad. Felipe II, como corresponde al monarca del mayor imperio del mundo en su tiempo, se esforzó por promover la ciencia y la técnica españolas, y llegó a hacer de El Escorial un centro del saber cientÃfico español y europeo en general.

Ufff, lo siento por este post tan largo...

[Fiera]

Ahora voy con lo tuyo, XarXo...

Mira, en primer lugar, decirte que casi ningún historiador serio duda hoy del nacimiento de Colón en Génova.

En su testamento escribe: "Essendo io nato en Genova". Creo que no es necesario traducirlo.

Resulta que todas las cartas de caracter familiar Colón las redactaba en dialecto ligur. Cuando escribe correspondencia oficial en castellano, resulta que utiliza la ortografÃa del portugués, por lo que todos los historiadores coinciden en señalar que habÃa aprendido antes el portugués que el castellano. Esto es comprensible si se trata de un genovés, pero muy extraño si en efecto hubiese sido catalán. ¿No habrÃa utilizado la ortografÃa catalana? ¿Y no habrÃa tenido contacto con el castellano mucho antes que con el portugués?

Otros dato bastante definitivo es que se haya identificado a su padre como un cardador de lana vecino de Génova.

Si quieres consultar libros (no páginas de Internet, que con el debido respeto tengo que decirte que llevo tres años buscando una página que trate con rigor la historia española y no he encontrado ninguna), consulta "Los descubridores" de Daniel Boorstin y "Los conquistadores del Imperio español", de Jean Descolá. Boorstin es estadounidense y además judÃo, mientras que Descolá es francés, o sea que imagino que no estarán interesados en hacer propaganda españolista...

Hay una cosa, no obstante, que reconozco: el poder marÃtimo de Aragón era mucho mayor que el de Castilla hacia 1492. Pero recuerda que, durante la Reconquista, los reinos cristianos acostumbraban a acordar mediante tratados y compromisos, sus respectivas áreas de influencia. La de Aragón quedó definitivamente fijada en el Mediterráneo, la de Castilla hacia el Atlántico. Es asà de simple. Luego, con la unión de los reinos mediante el matrimonio de Isabel y Fernando, es lógico que Fernando aportase recursos de Aragón para la empresa de Colón, igual que Isabel aportó tropas castellanas para la conquista de Nápoles.

Y una última pregunta que te hago: ¿crees de verdad que la historiografÃa española podrÃa preferir una ascendencia genovesa de Colón a una ascendencia catalana? Yo a eso no le encuentro sentido... si hubiese pruebas al respecto, yo serÃa el primero en alegrarme y enorgullecerme por ello...

Me encantan estos debates...
[This message has been edited by Fiera (edited January 24, 2001).]