Cortes of Castile

The Cortes of Castile was an assembly through which representatives of the kingdom’s cities participated in decisions on taxation. Unlike the English Parliament, it represented a narrow range of interests and had little legislative authority. Its weakness made it easier for the Spanish monarchy to consolidate absolutism, restrict trade, and preserve the flow of American wealth to the Crown rather than encourage broader commercial development.

Representation and Powers

The Cortes of Castile, like the Cortes of Aragon, had to be summoned to assent to new taxes. But its representation was limited primarily to major cities, rather than spanning urban and rural areas as the English Parliament did. By the fifteenth century, it represented only eighteen cities, each sending two deputies. This narrow base meant it did not become a forum in which a wide range of interests could press constraints on royal authority. Its formal powers were also restricted. The assembly could not legislate, and its authority over taxation was limited. It therefore lacked both the breadth of representation and the institutional reach that might have allowed it to act as a durable counterweight to the monarchy.

Conflict with the Crown

The limits of the Cortes became consequential when Charles V sought greater revenues. In 1520, he presented the assembly with demands for increased taxation. Urban elites used the confrontation to press for broader changes to the Cortes and its powers, but their opposition turned violent and became known as the Comunero Rebellion. Charles crushed the rebellion with loyal troops. The contest did not end there. Throughout the sixteenth century, the Crown continued trying to wrest away the Cortes’s remaining rights to levy new taxes and raise existing ones. The struggle ebbed and flowed, but the monarchy ultimately prevailed. After 1664, the Cortes did not meet again until it was reconstructed during the Napoleonic invasions almost 150 years later.

Absolutism and Economic Consequences

The Cortes’s political marginalization helped distinguish Spain’s institutional path from England’s. In England, the defeat of absolutism strengthened Parliament and contributed to the development of a more effective centralized state. In Spain, absolutism triumphed: the monarchy sidelined the Cortes, while the state became increasingly unable to raise revenue, even through direct negotiations with individual cities. The consequences extended beyond the assembly. Spain’s monarchy failed to secure property rights for entrepreneurs and monopolized trade. It also sold offices, sometimes making them hereditary, relied on tax farming, and sold immunity from justice. In overseas commerce, a guild of merchants in Seville controlled trade between Spain and its colonies, ensuring the monarchy received a share of American wealth. Trade with the colonies was not free, and merchants in one colony could not trade directly with another: a merchant in New Spain, for example, could not trade with one in New Granada. These restrictions narrowed the class of merchants able to benefit from colonial commerce and safeguarded the Crown’s access to silver and gold. The broader economic divergence was stark. During the seventeenth century, England moved toward commercial growth and rapid industrialization while Spain entered widespread decline. At the beginning of the century, one in five people in Spain lived in urban areas; by its end, the proportion had fallen to one in ten. Spanish incomes declined as England grew richer. The Cortes did not alone determine these outcomes, but its limited powers and eventual disappearance formed part of the political settlement that allowed royal absolutism and extractive economic institutions to persist.