To understand more about rebirth, I think this article would be of great help to all students who are enrolled in the course of scientific and humanistic cultures II, since the material covers topics such as society and the economy at this stage, Also we will realize how capitalist society is emerging and how in a moment it becomes necessary scientific and technological advancement to meet the needs of society.
The direction in which to find the document is:
www.cervantesvirtual.com/historia/carlosv/6_2_josep_perez Society and economy
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English society Joseph Perez
Renaissance
What is Renaissance? The word born in the early nineteenth century, Michelet coined the definition: art and reason, the marriage of beauty and truth, and is used to characterize the changes occurring all across Western Europe from the second half of the fourteenth century. Then witnessing an explosion of vitality in all areas: demographic recovery after the Black Death of the mid-XIV, trade expansion, urban growth, strengthening the rule, invention of printing, great maritime discoveries, encounter with classical culture Greco-Roman world.
As the bourgeois mentality, we could define it, not so much as greed or pursuit of profit, which exist in all times and in all societies, but rather as the search for ever greater profit, indefinite, the search for yield The accumulation of benefits, instead of spending unnecessarily, are invested in leading companies that can provide greater economic development and improved social utility.
What relationship is there between the Renaissance and the bourgeois mentality? I would say that this relationship has two complementary and antithetical: no coincidence in time but also deep opposition between the two concepts. Renaissance society is undeniably expansive and innovative society, but this society is more aristocratic than bourgeois, despite appearances.
1 .- An expansive and innovative society
From approximately mid-fifteenth century until the late sixteenth century, Europe has been experiencing a long period of growth. This is the transition from medieval to modern times or, if you will, from feudalism to capitalism, a phenomenon difficult to define precisely but has at least one main characteristic: moving from a system of social relations in which currency plays a secondary role to one in which the money in the broad sense of the word is to become the economic engine. Castilla Spain and above all not just participating in these changes but to a large extent initiated. Think of the enormous quantities of gold and silver treasures-Americans coming into Europe from Sevilla early sixteenth century. Indian remittances are not the cause of "economic revolution" of the sixteenth, as it had started earlier, but give greater impetus
(1) . The business known then an extraordinary boom that does not go unnoticed. Sarabia de la Calle, who wrote in 1542, notes that in Seville "and much of the world is set to bustle and purchases and leases.
general trend of the economy practical effects on everyday life. While people like to dress, wear jewelry, to live in affluent households, to participate in parties, banquets, breaks. Courts repeatedly protested against the luxury, the latest in clothing, inventions of tailors, milliners and craftsmen
(2) . The moralists are not far behind. In the middle of the century we have three similar testimonies. One is by Antonio de Torquemada: "This reproach universally have all of the English nation, and especially the Spaniards, who are great friends of innovations and inventions, and so in the costumes, in courtesy, in the greetings and generally everything we do and we try, we have so little persistence that we annoyed our own language ... "
(3) . The humanist Arias Montano complaint about the same time the customs of the young affluent who like to travel abroad, especially to Italy, where they come with a strange accent, despising all things from their land and "they have grown up admiring both pumpkins'
(4) . In La Perfecta Casada Fray Luis de León censorship particularly women: "They are so lost in looking at other inventions, the hate, and study and keep watch as do others. And the frenzy grows more and no longer place so much gallant and beautiful as costly and precious, and the fabric is to come out of nowhere [...] And all new and all new, and everything done yesterday, today and toss to dress tomorrow "(Chapter III).
The luxury obliged to spend more than you earn, which forces people to borrow and incur debt. The extraordinary development of the juros and census is one of many manifestations of an economy and society that have entered the monetary stage. He who has money (merchants, lawyers, convents ...) lends with interest, the need to purchase it censuses, ie borrows. In itself, the census does not constitute an obstacle to economic development for approximately the first two thirds of the sixteenth century, were an effective instrument to finance agriculture, livestock, construction, housing and other productive activities. But in parallel, they also began to use the census to buy favors, Villazgo, regiments, to provide convents and lavish spending. In this way the trend is accentuating income to live as gentlemen, to reach the situation described Cellorigo end of the century, Spain has become a "republic of enchanted men" in which work and produce few and many spend what they do not have.
2. A more aristocratic bourgeois
We face a paradox: the Renaissance coincided with the first commercial development of capitalism and the entrenchment the modern state, and yet this development is not the benefit or the bourgeoisie or the administrative body of royal officials (the lawyers). Outwardly at least, are the aristocracy and the chivalric values \u200b\u200bthat win. The nobility has original features, including its conversion to culture: the perfect gentleman is no longer the warrior, as in the Middle Ages
(5) , but the courtier, who knows how to handle at once, or alternatively the pen and the sword. It is the aristocracy, rather than the bourgeoisie, which has spread in Spain, ideas, themes and forms of the Italian Renaissance, a thesis that the study of Helen Nader on the Mendoza family perfectly illustrates
(6) and could be extended to much of the English nobility: think of the Admiral of Castile in the Master of Alcantara, Nebrija guard Zalamea in court at the court of the Duke of Alba Alba Tormes, on the count of Urena, founder in 1548 of the University of Osuna endowed with an income of more than a million coppers, libraries collected by the counts of Benavente and the marquis of Priego, etc. Think about everything in the model coined by Baltasar Castiglione The Courtier in the first third of the sixteenth century: the court of Prince or larger, the urbs, the bourgeois city, which is the ideal and the focus of Renaissance society. When interest the nobility of culture to Western civilization imposes an aesthetic and an ethic whose counterpart contempt of manual labor and some assessment of art as superior luxury, typical of the social elite.
The development of large international business, following the economic boom is a source of huge profits for those involved to buy the products listed on the European market, merino wool, for example, to export abroad and import other products for domestic consumption. Cobra strength and the figure of the merchant, wholesaler, both exporter and importer, banker at times not to be confused with the simple shopkeeper or retailer retail. These are authentic bourgeois merchants, dynamic, entrepreneurial, but they have no awareness of being a homogeneous class, a social group original. XVI century society remains a society based on privilege estates, hence the integration of the nobility represents the consecration of social success and the goal to which all aspire to, conquerors, scholars and merchants who came from the lower layers have reached a certain level of wealth. Herein lies the desire of nobility: in match to the dominant group and prestigious of the nobility, distinguished from the mass of commoners and commoners. That is a theologian to the merchants of Seville, "and die from rabies cavalry "
(7) . This desire for social advancement is well supported at the time. The nobility has not yet become a closed caste. There is some social mobility that allows a bourgeois ascend to the rank of knight or gentleman for that to accept the ideals of nobility and aristocratic way of life is leisure, without having to personally engage in hard labor. That leads to the distinction between offices and not vile vile. Are considered as vile and mechanical trades, in general, those that are used have not choice but to make a living. A moralist writes for example that "winning is a merchant by profession vile reprehensible, but a merchant for the good of the republic and his house is not outrage ", that is a certain level of wealth and is itself worthy of social status. This explains it very well Huarte de San Juan on your plantations Review: 'The republic also makes gentlemen, because leaving a brave man of great virtue and rich, does not bear empadronar, it seems that deserves contempt for his person live in freedom and not even the common people, this estimate, from the children and grandchildren, it becomes noble and come to the right against the king "
(8) .
usually nobility integration is a gradual transition. Parents accumulate wealth, marry their sons or daughters buy for them noble regiments or places of mastery and thus make them gentlemen or lords of vassals, ie knights. "Never been better he moves around, and not only life and customs," we read in the Buscon Quevedo. Conversely, while moving from place and facilitates the change of life status, geographical mobility may be a means of social mobility. This is the advice given to a wealthy commoner in the dialogue of the pages: "From here a few years, your grandchildren or great grandchildren will [...] [...] to live where they do not know and in two faiths are gentlemen and even gentlemen
(9) . What is being noble? "Being fifty leagues from here," answered the Forest of Melchor de Santa Cruz
(10) . In this way is growing each year the number of noblemen.
The triumph of the values \u200b\u200bof chivalry actually carries several implications. The first and most important from a social perspective is the growing contempt in falling production activities and manual labor, trade considered vile, unworthy of a gentleman. "God commanded the rich man that works and did not say that worked, that it belongs to the poor." The phrase is of Francisco de Osuna and is written in the first third of the sixteenth century says a lot about a collective mentality that censorship as an enemy of idleness soul, but at the same time considering the manual labor as a curse. In Renaissance Spain "honors and money almost always go together"
(11) . The work means poverty and meanness. The worst part is that there is very little hope of working out of trouble: "Not much work enriches the usual," notes Juan de Luna, author of the second Lazarillo
(12) , Matthew German emphasizes the idea: "The money is not gained to dig '
(13) . There's more: the same moralists have recommended half at work: it should not be lazy or too zealous, so that is gained only to be honest, without toil day and night, Sundays and workdays, as some out of greed to win. In other words, the poor are condemned to be forever.
It is not surprising in these circumstances to seek ways of living less vile. We have seen the attitude of the burghers and merchants. For many others, an honorable solution is domestic service, entering the bondage of a noble house. The gentleman without fortune comes and part of the usual retinue of a grandee: lives in his palace, clothe and eat at the expense of his master, accompanying him when he goes to war, so every day less, or the court, part of the giving party and have fun and learn the manners and gentlemanly ideals of life. These are sometimes called pages: "They are usually noble people, and when their parents sent them to serve their main intent is to send them to be indoctrinated in good manners and to be taught virtuoso exercises"
(14) . But besides these servants in the etymological sense of the word (which is raised with a man at the expense of it), the great houses also occupy many servants in the modern sense: porters, butlers, stewards, waiters, etc. which gives high gloss number that employs them. The Cortes of Toledo in 1559, alarmed at this situation: to walk in this habit, mostly when they are free, many leave their offices and other work field, which has been a while since they are not pawns for digging and mowing or doing other things in the field, but very excessive prices
(15) . The return of 1611 on the theme: "The very people who deal in used and on the desktops and other forms of life useless to the republic needed to farming, breeding, treatment and trades necessary to the republic, that it be great scarcity in all things so expensive manufacturing cost. "
This is one of the most alarming of Renaissance Spain: inflation of what we now call the tertiary or services sector is both a cause and effect of an economic, social and moral in productive activities are discredited. "Dar es honor, receiving is slavery," read the motto of the first Duke of infantado, Diego Hurtado de Mendoza (1415-1479)
(16) . Many are made to serve away from work in the field or manufacturing. The great can not keep so many lackeys and servants, but believe they have the moral obligation to continue using them. Hence the cartoon that runs in the sixteenth century on the master they advise to dismiss part of his servants. The Lord looks at the list he presented and said: "These remain because I have needed, and these other also because they need me to me"
(17) . Such mentality is totally opposed to the puritanical, based on savings, economic investment in the social utility. Already said the author of the Celestina: the money is used to living well: "What advantage have what it refuses to take?".
usually attributed to the abnormal increase in the number of servants, the abandonment of productive activities in the Renaissance and Baroque Spain
(18) . In fact, the phenomenon is complex causes, mainly to the inadequacy of the social structure to new conditions created in the late Middle Ages
(19) .
The big offer of services to the homes of the rich and noble is not enough to solve the problems of overpopulation. Many are left unemployed, without means of existence, and have no choice but to go begging from one city to another, asking for charity from the wealthy. This did not fail to meet the demand, as the social values \u200b\u200bof the time believed that the wealthy had an obligation to give alms to the homeless. But not all lend themselves readily to exercise charity and preachers had to strongly remind that this was a binding obligation for Christians. On several occasions, courts, advocates in this case, the privileged of the great cities of Castile, called for measures to be taken pasasen prevent beggars from a city to another. Begged prosecutors' everyone should ask in their nature ", ie in their hometown
(20) . These requests answered several municipal ordinances in the years 1540, who apparently did not give the expected result that at the end of the century, Dr. Cristóbal Pérez de Herrera again recommended similar measures to cope with the increasing number of beggars and vagrants. His project aims to organize assistance to the poor, forcing those who were healthy to work in suitable workshops and the sick and elderly in nursing homes where they would shut properly cared for. Nor
successful reform designed by Christopher Perez de Herrera, certainly not because of laziness or a mindset environment hidalguista opposed to everything that meant a step towards modernity or capitalism. The problem, in essence, it was not ethical, but cyclical. Against the poor and beggars, the reformers put forward three kinds of arguments:
- The poor "live as Gentiles, who do not confess, take communion, and hear mass, nor do I know the Christian doctrine [...]. Alarab live like no reason, no justice, no show "
(21) .
- Many of them have diseases and their contact with decent people at the door of churches and other public places also hazardous, filthy and disgusting aspects presented.
- Finally, they're idle who prefer to live on handouts rather than work to earn an honest living.
The third of these arguments is perhaps the principal. "Before that wage laborers are missing," prosecutors said in Cortes in 1522 and 1548. In a first stage, until the 1570s or so, there is indeed a strong demand for labor in Spain but the English, mostly fueled by the easy money running everywhere and the luxury of the affluent, demand high wages that employers are reluctant to pay, preferring to resort to foreign labor, the French, for example, much less demanding and taking advantage of the situation: They charge more in Spain than in France
(22) . The phenomenon is well documented throughout the period. Jeronimo Lopez-Salazar provides concrete data to the Channel where the rich farmers seeking to lower wages and aim to prevent day laborers go to work in other locations where more favorable contracts. For example, in 1565, the municipality of Santiago Horcajo informed the Board Orders that the young men of the place "have come to ask so immoderate wages that can not by any means suffer such a big mess and are friends [...] Holger many days and very little work and earn in a day to idle four "
(23) . This is precisely one of the arguments of the reformer Pérez de Herrera: "Some, to go idle, others ask for money wages than they deserve, is used because no one take and receive"
(24) . What inspires as projects for the reorganization of the charity is a capitalist mentality in the worst sense of the word class selfishness. One can thus understand the reaction of a Domingo de Soto to denounce hatred and loathing of the poor that encourages mid-century reformers. Was idleness
cause or effect of the absence of industrial development in Spain? For much of the sixteenth century, there was a genuine development in Spain, hence the labor demand, slowed by the requirement of high salaries. At the end of the century symptoms of crisis: easy money, high living standards, censuses and parasitism undermine the productive capacities. Cristóbal Pérez de Herrera confuses cause and effect "for having so many homeless, there are the farmers who help them cultivate the land, or other officers of the republic who teach their craft, which is why it is certainly worth so expensive makings of things, and all merchandise is sold & Maintenance
(25) . In fact, prices and wages, had gone before and this was mainly the 'idleness' many preferred to spend on charity rather than work hard with no prospect of promotion and stagnation in production caused the disappearance of many jobs. Maravall is right to highlight that in the seventeenth century, idleness "was not a premise, but a result of the crisis in the country, its impoverishment and decline. The trouble was that those who needed and wanted to work did not find what "
(26) , more precisely, unwilling to work for a meager salary and they did not want to engage in any type of work. "The enforced leisure-in short what we call stop-and underinvestment phenomena were due to conditions objective of the company, which suffocated to working "
(27) .
The conclusion we might draw from this quick review and therefore schematic is that the transition from medieval to modern was a period much longer than I expected Michelet. It is impossible to give a clean break between the two eras, we are facing a very slow evolutionary process. The Renaissance began changes that coincide chronologically with the appearance of features of what later is generally regarded as capitalism and social advancement of the bourgeoisie. But attitudes change very slowly and the relationship between economic infrastructure and ideological superstructure is much more complex than you think. This is what Ernest Labrousse suggested in the preface he wrote for the French translation of the book of RH Tawney, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism: How did the Puritans to settle in and develop at home in history? Puritan mentality does not explain economic development, but is explained in turn by social change. Ethics can influence a company, but more likely it is society that ethics
condition (28) .
1. VILAR P. Or et monnaie dans l'histoire. 1450-1920. Paris: 1974, pg. 89.
2. MARAVALL, JA expansive image of society in the sixteenth century English consciousness. In Histoire économique du monde méditerranéen. 14501650. In l `honneur Mélanges Fernand Braudel. Toulouse: 1973, pg. 369-388, and the same author estimates the new in English culture. In Hispanic Papers, No. 10. Sl: February 1964, pg. 187-228.
3. Torquemada, Antonio de. Clerks Manual. ZAMORA, MJ and V. ZAMORA (Ed.). Madrid: 1970, Schedules of the Bulletin of the Royal English Academy, XXI, pg. 118.
4. Rhetoricorum libri III. Antwerp: 1569.
5. HERMOSILLA D. of. Dialogue of life of the pages in the palace (1573). Ed Donald Mackenzie. Valladolid, 1916, contains interesting information on the prestige of the military profession among the nobles: "In Castile, the sons of gentlemen in their homes and in the halls of their mothers are, they never go to war" (p. 153 .) The same dialogue points to the growing crowd of nobles to the study: "Science, all say they never blunts the spear and decorated much to the lords and princes" (p. 147).
6. NADER, H. The Mendoza Family in the English Renaissance, 1350-1550. New Brunswick, New Jersy, Rutgers University Press: 1979. There are English translation, Los Mendoza and the English Renaissance. Guadalajara: 1986.
7. ALBORNOZ, B. of. Art of the contracts. Valencia: 1573, cited by Lapeyre, H. Une famille of marchands, les Ruiz. Paris: 1955, pg. 117.
8. HUARTE OF SAN JUAN, J. Review of wits. Madrid: Ed Chair, sa, pg. 553.
9. Hermosilla, Diego de. Op cit., P.. 81.
10. HOLY CROSS, M. of. English Forest [1574]. Madrid: 1953.
11. Santa Teresa. Way of Perfection, Sl: sa, who adds: "who wants to honor no money and whoever hates hates, which is given little honor. Understood this well, I think this always brings honor any interest income or money, for a wonder there are honest in the world if he is poor before, but it is in itself, you have to little. "
12. Cited by MARAVALL , JA picaresque literature from social history. Madrid: Taurus, 1986, pg. 172.
13. Alfarache Guzman. First part, Book II, chap. VIII. S. l. : Sa
14. Memorial the Marquis de Villena sent Fray Luis de Leon in 1588, v. LLORENTE PINTA, M. of. Studies and debates on Fray Luis de León. Madrid: 1956, p. ,171-173.
15. MARAVALL. Picaresque JA. op. cit, p.. 217.
16. Cited by LADERO QUESADA, Aristocrats and marginal MA: Aspects of English society in the Celestina. Space, time and form. Series III. Medieval History, pg. 105. S. l. : 1990. v.3.
17. The quotation is taken from the pages of dialogue Diego de Hermosilla, but there are many variations. Appears to be first in the Italian Facetias L. Domenichi (Florence, 1564) who put the phrase in the mouth dei Medici cardinal of Spain, and Hermosilla, the quote Melchor de Santa Cruz, Luis Zapata and several others, V. Chevalier, Maxime. Sur le little story. In Mélanges de la Casa de Velázquez, XXVI-2, 1990, pg. 178.
18. "If they had not the lords, / clerics and soldiers / need so many servants, / there are more farmers' (Lope de Vega, the villain in his corner).
19. This is the interpretation, which we founded, JA MARAVALL proposed in his book on the Picaresque, already cited.
20. Cortes of Valladolid in 1518.
21. C. PÉREZ DE HERRERA Under poor, ed. Michel Cavillaca, Madrid: 1975 (Classic Castellanos, 199), pg. 24-37.
22. On wages higher in Spain than in the rest of Europe, v. VINES, Caramel. Notes on raw materials ... In Yearbook of economic and social history, 1975, pg. 393. Already in 1578, Jean Bodin observed the phenomenon and explained the French emigration to Spain: "Ce qui jam Auvergnats us Limousin en Espagne et qu'ils gagnent [...], c'est au triple de ce qu'ils font in France. Car l'Espagnol, hautain, riche et paresseux, vend cher sa fine comb "(quoted by Vilar, P. Op. Cit., P.. 111).
23. LOPEZ-SALAZAR PEREZ, J. Agricultural structures and rural society in La Mancha (XVI-XVII). Ciudad Real: Instituto de Estudios Manchego, 1986, pg. 523.
24. PÉREZ DE HERRERA, C. op. cit., p.. 99, repeated by the same argument Perez de Herrera, in a speech to King Philip III quoted by JA Maravall, JA Picaresque, pg. 182: "Have the farmers laborers at great price."
25. Amparo, pg. 110.
26. Picaresque, pg. 547.
27. Ibid., Pág.179. In the seventeenth century, Sancho de Moncada clearly alludes to "enforced idleness, not having to do work" (Restoration policy of Spain. Ed. Vilar, Jean. Madrid: Instituto de Estudios Fiscales, 1974, pág.108 and 148).
28. LABROUSSE, E. preface to Tawney, RH Religion et l'essor du capitalisme. Paris: Marcel Riviere, 1961, pg. XVIII-XIX.
