Philip III

Philip III is identified in the account of Spain’s relative and then absolute economic decline as the king who expelled the Moriscos between 1609 and 1614. Their expulsion extended a pattern of exclusion and dispossession begun under his predecessors, illustrating how the consolidation of absolutist rule could damage the people and property on which a prosperous society depended.

Rule and the Expulsion of the Moriscos

Between 1609 and 1614, Philip III ordered the expulsion of the Moriscos, descendants of citizens of the former Arab states in the south of Spain. They were allowed to take only what they could carry and were forbidden to take gold, silver, or other precious metals. The account places this policy among the insecure property rights that characterized Habsburg rule: the crown’s power reached into the lives and assets of those it expelled.

A Pattern of Exclusion

The expulsion followed the earlier removal of Spain’s Jewish population. After the Reconquest, Isabella and Ferdinand gave approximately 200,000 Jews four months to leave. They had to sell their land and assets at very low prices and could not take gold or silver out of the country. The two episodes differed in timing and targeted communities, but both show the monarchy turning exclusion into a direct loss of property and wealth.

Significance in Spain’s Decline

At the union of Castile and Aragon, Spain was among Europe’s most economically successful regions. After its absolutist political system solidified, it entered relative decline and, after 1600, absolute decline. Philip III’s expulsion of the Moriscos belongs to this broader account of decline: rather than protecting secure ownership, the monarchy expelled a population and restricted what its members could carry away. The episode therefore contributes to the book’s argument that political institutions and the interests they served—not simply a lack of economic knowledge—shaped prosperity and its distribution.