Reforming Early Modern Monarchies
The Castilian Arbitristas in Comparative European Perspectives
edited by Sina Rauschenbach and Christian Windler
During the last decades of the 16th century, the political and economic pillars of the once-powerful empire of Charles I seemed to have become insecure and fragile. Subjects of the Spanish king responded to perceptions of decline by authoring so-called arbitrios, records documenting the presumed “ills” of the body politic, and proposing “remedies” for its recovery. Yet, whereas the authors of arbitrios presented themselves as “doctors” fulfilling their duty of examining and healing the Spanish monarchy, their contemporaries came to mock them as “arbitristas”. This ridicule finally shaped an image of early modern arbitrismo that even made its way into early scientific contexts and studies. Today, scholars not only agree that the history of the arbitristas needs to be integrated into a new history of Spanish economic and political thought, but they also tend to expand the geographical and disciplinary horizons of their research and open fresh avenues for comparative approaches. The present volume aims to make a contribution to similar studies and to stimulate further research: On the one hand, it discusses arbitrismo as part of 16th- and 17th-century European practices of advice literature. On the other hand, it places the history of the arbitristas in the larger context of a cultural history of knowledge, economy, and early modern political communication.
During the last decades of the 16th century, the political and economic pillars of the once-powerful empire of Charles I seemed to have become insecure and fragile. Subjects of the Spanish king responded to perceptions of decline by authoring so-called arbitrios, records documenting the presumed “ills” of the body politic, and proposing “remedies” for its recovery. Yet, whereas the authors of arbitrios presented themselves as “doctors” fulfilling their duty of examining and healing the Spanish monarchy, their contemporaries came to mock them as “arbitristas”. This ridicule finally shaped an image of early modern arbitrismo that even made its way into early scientific contexts and studies. Today, scholars not only agree that the history of the arbitristas needs to be integrated into a new history of Spanish economic and political thought, but they also tend to expand the geographical and disciplinary horizons of their research and open fresh avenues for comparative approaches. The present volume aims to make a contribution to similar studies and to stimulate further research: On the one hand, it discusses arbitrismo as part of 16th- and 17th-century European practices of advice literature. On the other hand, it places the history of the arbitristas in the larger context of a cultural history of knowledge, economy, and early modern political communication.
- Edited by Sina Rauschenbach
- Edited by Christian Windler
Other Titles in this Series
Faith, Politics and the Arts
Early Modern Cultural Transfer between Catholics and Protestants
Volume 158
Die innerchristlichen Religionsgesprache im Abendland
Regionale Verbreitung, institutionelle Gestalt, theologische Themen, kirchenpolitische Funktion. Mit besonderer Berucksichtigung des konfessionellen Zeitalters (1517-1689)
Volume 122
Innovation in Forschung und Lehre
Die Philosophische Fakultat der Universitat Helmstedt in der Fruhaufklarung 1680-1740
Volume 132
Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft (1617-1680). Hundert Jahre nach der Reformation
Forschungen der Arbeitsstelle der Sachsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften an der Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbuttel
Volume 150
Verfuhrung zur Galanterie
Benehmen, Korperlichkeit und Gefuhlsinszenierungen im literarischen Kulturtransfer 1664-1772
Volume 152
Gebetsliteratur der Fruhen Neuzeit als Hausfrommigkeit
Funktionen und Formen in Deutschland und den Niederlanden
Volume 92
Die Religionsphilosophie Christian Franckens (1552- 1610?)
Atheismus und radikale Reformation im Fruhneuzeitlichen Ostmitteleuropa
Volume 117
Der Theologe und Schriftsteller Friedrich Dedekind (1524/5-1598). Eine Biographie
Mit einem Beitrag von Britta-Juliane Kruse zu Dedekinds geistlichen Spielen und der Erstedition der Hochzeit zu Cana in Galilea
Volume 145
Theologe, Erbauungsschriftsteller, Hofprediger
Joachim Lutkemann in Rostock und Wolfenbuttel
Volume 136
Medienphantasie und Medienreflexion in der Fruhen Neuzeit
Festschrift fur Jorg Jochen Berns
Volume 157
Similar Books
Balthasar Caymox of Nuremberg
Early Modern German Print Publishers: Popular Prints of the Seventeenth Century
Beyond Sovereign Courts
Agents and Practices in Early Modern Spanish and Habsburg Diplomacy
Volume 3
Circulation, Use, Impact
The Consumption of Architectural Books in the Early Modern Eastern Adriatic
Volume 1
Councils, Conflicts, Correspondence
Urban Diplomacy in Reval (Tallinn) and Lübeck (c. 1470–1570)
Volume 67
Friedlicher Handel oder umkämpfte Geschäfte?
Handel und Handelsrecht in der Vormoderne zwischen Krieg und Frieden
Global Gulf
Geo-Economic, Geo-Political, and Geo-Technological Transformation in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar
Innovationes Lovanienses: Arts, Law and Theology at the University of Louvain (1425–1797)
Studium Lovaniense: Learning across Borders, 2
Volume 18
Invisible Labour in Antiquity
Visualizing Obscure Work in the Ancient Mediterannean and West Asia
Volume 1
Legal Visuality
Exegesis, Ambiguity, and Dissimulation of the Donation of Constantine in the Early Modern Period
Naples as Laboratory / Laboratorium Neapel
Style Options, Artistic Rivalry and Self Fashioning in Neapolitan Baroque Painting / Plurale Stilbildung, Kunstlerkonkurrenz und Self Fashioning in der neapolitanischen Barockmalerei
Power and Women in Southeast and Central Europe in Late Medieval and Early Modern Period (1300-1600)
Volume 10
Socio-économie du travail
La dégradation du travail au XXIe siècle ? Lectures contemporaines de Harry Braverman
Volume 17
Socio-économie du travail
Le sens du travail, concept scientifique ou instrument du capitalisme ? Volume 1
Volume 18
Staging the Spectacle of Majesty
Ceremonial, Courtly Space, and Collecting under the Spanish Habsburgs
Volume 9
Students, Scholars and Their Books at the University of Louvain (1425-1797)
Studium Lovaniense: Learning across Borders, 1
Volume 17
The Embodied Court in the Premodern World
Understanding the Physicality, Performativity and Lifecycle of Bodies at Court in Europe and Beyond, 1400-1800
Volume 4
The Sacred and the Secular in Renaissance Florence
Vallombrosan Exorcisms and the Rise of Observant Mendicancy
Volume 31
Tradition, Interpretation, and Change
Developments in the Liturgy of Medieval and Early Modern Ashkenaz