Updated Sunday 15 May, 2011 12:18 PM

The Comuneros of Castile

Dale Cozort’s site has an AH entitled ‘The Comuneros Triumphant’, which included the title of this book. Thanks Dale.

History – well, English-speaking historians – have tended to point to the British Civil war as the first armed confrontation between parliament-like factions, organised by a representative system, and the older system of monarchy and aristocraticy. In doing so, they either underestimate an earlier confrontation or ignore it altogether. Stephen Haliczer, however, has not ignored it and has written the only (as far as I know) book on the Comuneros of Castile.

Stephen Haliczer paints a picture of a society torn between three factions, with considerable intermingling and fighting between the people involved. The monarchy, which had been established by Ferdinand and Isabella, was tottering with the advent of Charles, who was far weaker than his predecessors and – worse – had the problems of the Holy Roman Empire to deal with as well. Unsurprisingly, he tended to ignore Spain as much as he could. The nobility, meanwhile, saw a chance to gain more power for themselves (some of them would side with the Comuneros until the wind changed) and were pushing against the rights and land of the towns. The town parliaments, the Comuneros, started to push back.

Not surprisingly, the royal power began to decline and much of it fell – unlike England – into the hands of the great nobility. They used this to seize town property, which the king’s viceroy, Cardinal Adrian, was powerless to stop. Living on the legends of the great kings, (Ferdinand and Isabella having killed nobility who got too big for their boots), the Comuneros assumed that the King was in league with the nobles. As the King was draining money from Spain to fight wars in places the Spanish cared nothing for; that suspicion deepened.

Like the English civil war, the decisive clash came over money. The King’s government needed the money, but the towns’ representatives refused to grant them any money without certain guarantees, many of which were beyond the power of the viceroy to grant. The royal government attempted to push the matter – making local heroes out of the representatives – and rebellion broke out in many cities.

The early attempts by the royalists to squash the rebellion failed, largely because powerful anti-noble forces had become visible and because of the shortage of money to pay their troops. After an attempt to take the city of Medina failed, many other cities joined the revolt and a junta was formed by the town councils to coordinate their efforts. Despite cajoling, the nobles remained on the sidelines. It was a decision they would soon regret.

Despite early success, the Comuneros position was very shaky. They had received no royal authority for their actions (Dale Cozort points to this as being the decisive moment of the revolution) and their financial position was shaky. This meant that many of the troops they could call on were menicaries, and they might well desert if left unpaid. Reluctance to alienate the nobles meant that recruiting among the peasants was difficult, which left the most motivated faction out of the army. While some of the royal guard had joined them, this part of the army was untrustworthy.

Sadly for the history of democratic nations, the Comuneros had a string of bad luck that ended their existence – ironically because of the own success. Some of the lower orders, notably the nobles’ peasants, were demanding rights that were owed to them, but denied to them by the nobles. They started to assert themselves; therefore, many of the nobles decided that a royal revival was likely to be more in their interests than a Comunero victory. The royalist forces, thus strengthened, were able to take the Comunero capital and then defeat the Comuneros in battle, ending the revolt.

Stephen Haliczer states firmly that the Comunero revolt had no long-lasting effects on the politics in Spain. It did teach the king some manners about tax collection (although the discovery of gold in Mexico might have altered his targets a little) and about the dangers of an overstrong nobility. Charles acted to crush some nobles, but was careful how he acted; a new revolt could have proven disastrous. Many of the Comunero leaders escaped punishment – in a prelude to the reconstruction era in America – due to their popularity amongst the people. There were also troubles with the French, who attempted to take Narrivee while the royal forces were engaged.

Are there any alternate history possibilities from the revolt? One of them must be a wider-ranging revolt which attacked the nobles from day one. If that had survived the first few weeks, it might well have been unstoppable.

Another possibility is a compromise. If the towns had their old rights granted by the viceroy, with authority to attack the nobles when they attempted to pressure the townspeople, they would have formed a powerful bloc in Spanish politics. Instead of constant extremism in Spain, there might have been a slow power shift to the towns, causing the eventual birth of a democratic society.

One minor problem with this book is that it was published in 1981 in America and copies are hard to find. I got mine from the British library; any readers in America might have to go to the library of congress.

Christopher Nuttall

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