The Comuneros of Segovia: A City-Republic of Old Castile against the Spanish Empire, 1475-1525
Open Access
- Author:
- Kang, Seonghek
- Graduate Program:
- History
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- May 31, 2024
- Committee Members:
- John Christman, Outside Unit Member
Ronnie Hsia, Co-Chair & Dissertation Advisor
Catherine Wanner, Major Field Member
Kathryn Merkel-Hess Mcdonald, Outside Field Member
Kathryn Merkel-Hess Mcdonald, Professor in Charge/Director of Graduate Studies
Amanda Scott, Co-Chair & Dissertation Advisor - Keywords:
- Early Modern Spain
Early Modern Europe
Castile
Comunero Revolt
Revolutions and Social Movements - Abstract:
- This dissertation presents the history of the Comunero Revolt of Castile in Segovia from the city’s long-term medieval foundations through the reign of Isabel I to the Habsburg succession, the 1520 rebellion, and the aftermath. The study of the judicial documents, governmental correspondences, and the manuscript/published narratives reconstructs the triangular history of conflict between Segovia, the Castilian monarchy, and the noble house of the Cabreras culminating in the 1520 uprising that triggered the nationwide, revolutionary escalation. Using the interpretive frameworks of the structural crisis theory and political theology, the subjects of kingship, landownership, civic culture, empire, and republicanism are analyzed to render the following evaluation of the significance of the Comunero Revolt among the early modern European popular movements. As the point of departure between the Trastámara system and the Spanish Empire, the Comuneros grew out of the crisis of the governing structures embedded to the pre-Habsburg Castilian polity, exemplified by Segovia’s pre-Habsburg municipal conflicts. Fueled by the collapse of the crown-city relations at the foundation of the Castilian polity, this crisis consequentially birthed the praxis and ideology of municipal dissent in Segovia based on the political theology of the city-republics and their corporate lordship. Once erupted into a civil war, this insurrectionary blueprint endowed Comunidad de Segovia with its defining cohesion above the obstacles which otherwise inhibited the overall success of the Comunero movement. Notwithstanding the defeat, the Comuneros thus acquired revolutionary significance firstly as the progenitor of the radical republican tradition, secondly in the construction of the Habsburg system through its impact on the city-republics as the primary agents of political order in the late medieval and early modern Spain.