The economic status of Spain in this era could be more clearly set forth if it were possible to have fairly reliable data as to population. In the middle of the sixteenth century there may have been about six and three quarter millions of people in Spain. By the end of the century some estimates hold that the numbers had increased to perhaps eight and a half millions, but there is ground for doubting these assertions. Figures for the seventeenth century are even more uncertain, but there is a general agreement that the population declined. One estimate makes the population of Spain 5,700,000 at the end of the era. Misery, idleness, and vagabondage were characteristic of Spanish life in the late sixteenth and throughout the seventeenth century; it has been estimated that there were 150,000 vagabonds at the close of the sixteenth century whose principal occupations were begging, thieving, and prostitution. It is true that a like state of affairs existed in other countries, and that many foreigners were included in this element in the peninsula, but conditions were probably worse in Spain than elsewhere in western Europe.
Causes of vagabondage.
Much has been written about the causes of vagabondage in Spain. The principal causes undoubtedly were economic. Foreign writers have charged it to Spanish pride and scorn of manual labor as well as to a certain native laziness. These allegations are true to some extent, flowing naturally from the circumstances of the history of Spain. Slavery had been perhaps more general and long-continuing in the peninsula than in other parts of Europe, and the slaves had usually been Moslem in faith; thus Spaniards might naturally be disinclined to do the work of slaves and infidels, and the same spirit would be present on its religious side to make them object to working in company with the questionably orthodox Moriscos. The general desire of Spaniards to be regarded as of noble blood also tended to make manual labor unpopular, since there was a strong class prejudice that nobles should not engage in such work. Finally, the ease of entry into religious orders had rendered escape from toil possible for a great number, and had increased the sentiment against laboring with one’s hands. The only way out for a great many was the life of a vagabond. The sudden wealth acquired by individuals in the Americas reacted psychologically to make the necessarily slow accretions of property in Spain an irksome prospect. The exaltation of military glory had the same general effect, but as the Spanish armies were small this occupation was not open to everybody, and its perils and irregularities in pay made not a few hesitate to enter it. Furthermore, there were many contemporary writers, Cervantes among them, who pointed out that the life of a vagabond had a certain appeal for many Spaniards; young men of good family not infrequently joined bands of gypsies.
Inability of the government to cope with the situation.
The poverty of Spain was general by the middle of the seventeenth century, and the state of the country got steadily worse thereafter. Bread riots frequently served as a reminder to the authorities, who indeed made many attempts to remedy the situation. Their measures to attack the root of the evil were worse than useless, however, being based on economic misconceptions or being discontinued (when they might have proved beneficial) if they ran counter to governmental policies. Direct legislation against vagabondage was frequent, but was evaded as often as enacted. When people were forbidden to remain in the country without working, the vagabonds made a showing of becoming porters or of engaging in other like occupations, under the guise of which they continued their loose practices. When these occupations were limited they were to be found as theoretically in the service of the noble or wealthy, whom social pride induced to have as many in their following as possible. When this custom was attacked direct evasion of the laws was rendered possible through charitable institutions, especially through the free soup-kitchens of the religious orders. On the benevolent side the problem was also approached through the founding of poor-houses, although this method was not yet greatly developed, and through the conversion of the former public granaries (pósitos), in which stores of grain were kept to guard against the possibility of famine, into pious institutions for the gift or loan of food supplies to the poor.
Contemporary opinions as to the causes of Spain’s economic decline.
The fact of Spain’s economic decline has perhaps been pointed out with sufficient clearness. It is now pertinent to sum up the causes which had produced it. According to Altamira there was “a great variety of causes, accumulated upon a country which entered the modern age with weak and incipient economic energies, a country whose governments let themselves be dragged into an imperialistic policy (in great part forced upon them by problems traceable to Ferdinand the Catholic and the fatal inheritance of Charles I), neglecting, more for lack of means than intentionally, those measures which could best contribute to better the productive power and well-being of the country.” This is an epitome not only of the causes for Spain’s economic decline in this period but also of modern Spanish history. It places the fault where it belongs, on Spanish imperialism with its train of costly wars, a policy which Spain might have followed so far as the Americas were concerned, but which proved an impossible strain on her resources when carried beyond the Spanish peninsula into Europe. This was one of the principal causes assigned at the tune. Some others may also be enumerated. The increase in the alcabala and in other taxes was often mentioned as a principal cause, although it is easy to see how this might have been a result of the warfare. In like manner another group of causes set forth at that time might well have been results of the economic decline, such as the following: emigration to the colonies; the lack of government aid to industries; the invasion of foreign goods and foreigners into Spain; and the decline in population. Other causes alleged by contemporaries and deserving of prominent mention, though less important than that of the European wars, were these: the repugnance of Spaniards for manual labor; bad financial administration by the government; the prodigality of the kings in granting favors and exemptions; the governmental practice of fixing the prices of agricultural products; the evil of absentee landlordism, especially in the case of the latifundia, which were not developed to the extent of their resources; waste of the means of production in luxury; the great number of convents and monasteries; and the exemptions enjoyed by a vast number of individuals.
Causes assigned by later writers.
Later writers have put emphasis on other matters. Some present-day historians assign the expulsion of the Moriscos as the principal cause of the economic decline. It did leave many trades without hands, and temporarily depopulated whole districts, but it seems hardly accurate to regard it as anything more than one of many contributory causes. Writers of the seventeenth century were impressed by its religious and political advantages, and do not seem to have regarded it as of serious economic import. The economic effects of the conquest of the Americas have also been set forth to account for Spain’s decline. That conquest induced the already-mentioned get-rich-quick spirit among Spaniards, and encouraged the false economic idea that precious metals are the basic form of wealth, leading to the assignment of an undue importance to them. More serious, perhaps, was the fact that the Americas drained Spain of some of her best and most virile blood. The number of Spaniards who went to America, however, was not excessive,—little more than the number of Englishmen who crossed the seas in the seventeenth century. Furthermore, Spain most certainly secured a vast financial profit out of the Americas, not only from precious metals, but also from commerce and the employment which thousands obtained both in Spain and in the colonies. Spanish soil was indeed not fertile enough to support a policy of European imperialism, and that argument has been put forward, but the fault was less in the land itself, which in other days had produced more richly, than in the methods (or lack of them) employed to develop its capacities. Foreign commercial vicissitudes, which are also alleged to account for Spain’s economic fall, did indeed help to bring it about,—such, for example, as the disastrous consequences of the silting in of the port of Bruges, which city had been one of the best purchasers of Spain’s raw materials. While it is indeed impossible to assign any single event or condition of affairs as the sine qua non of Spain’s decadence, one factor stands out from the rest, however, as the most important,—that of the oft-mentioned policy of Spanish imperialism in Europe.