IN SPAIN, NO CIVIL WAR, NO PROTESTANTS, NO CAPITALISTS

SPANISH KINGS TOO OBTAIN NEW RESOURCES, AND THEIR IMAGE CHANGES AS DOES THAT OF FRENCH KINGS

Charles V by Titien, 1548 / zoom

But those resources come from the outside, not from local producers:  

Zoom with chart

Origins of Spain's new revenues: Flanders and the New World

They finance 150 years of hegemony and Spain's Golden Age with its churches, theater decors and thousands of plays. But wealth remains limited to the top nobility and the culture is famously austere. Compare the costumes of the French and Spanish courts:

Meeting of Louis XIV and Philip IV, anonymous, 17th century / zoom

Louis in red, Philip in black; members of the French court in color, ruffles and ribbons, those of the Spanish court sober.

The Burial of the Count of Orgaz by el Greco, 1687 / zoom                    The Death of Charles X, French royalist print, 1836 / zoom

They finance the Inquisition as well, which takes off in the 16th century and like official neutralizations of wealth...

• It uses up funds...

• Tribunals appear throughout Spain and in the territories it controls. Each remunerates two or three Inquisitors (thoroughly trained, well-paid members of the elite) plus notaries, lawyers, scribes, doctors, prison guards and executioners.

-- The Faith of Remembrance: Marano Labyrinths by Nathan Wachtel, 2009

The Procession of the Inquisition of Goa, 1783 / zoom

In 18th-century Goa the Church replaces the king.

Auto de Fe in the Plaza Mayor of Madrid by Francisco Rizi, 1683 / zoom 

Victims must repent before the king or if outside Madrid, before his representatives. Then they learn whether or not they will be burned. 

• Terrifyingly reinforces authority, especially at night:  

The Inquisition at Night by Francisco Goya, 1810 / zoom

The regime makes forcibly converted Jews or Muslims who may still retain ancestral practices the defenseless enemy. But not Protestants, whom the archaic monarchy keeps from even starting.

So Spain does not change...

Internet, photographer not named

 The facade is rebuilt in the 18th century — with 16th-century decor.

And when its outside revenues give out,
France will suck it into its orbit as inexorably
as African producers sweep away the old kingdoms
when the Atlantic slave trade ends.

*     *     * 

Next,

Defeating archaic opponents of growth