Tuesday 20 May 2014
To write about Carlos II of Spain, the last Spanish Habsburg could be easy.
"He was a lunatic, he was born from a lunatic, and he belonged to a family of lunatics."
Seriously, his mother and father were niece and uncle.
He was descended from his great great great grandparents Juana la loca (Joanna the Mad) and Philip the Handsome through three of their children.
Whereas someone whose ascendants were all unrelated to their spouses would have 32 great great great grandparents, Carlos only had 14.
But that would be to easy, and it would not make Carlos II justice, nor his ancestors, for to truly understand Carlos II, one must understand not only the Spanish Habsburgs, but Spain itself.
I shall try my best to do just that.
In old maps (as the one below), Spain stands at the extremity of Europe, and separated by the Pyrenees from the rest of the continent.
Over a long period of time, stretching many centuries, the Iberians had wandered their own path of Christianity.
Uniquely, Spain and Portugal had experienced centuries of Islamic occupation, not raids across the borders, but constant contact with a vibrant and active Muslim culture.
Córdoba, capital of the Iberian caliphate (Al-Andalus), and Sevilla were at one time larger than any of the Christian cities of Europe, and although the Islamic occupation had been slowly whittled down during the centuries-long Catholic reconquista, the frontiers, both social and political, had come to stay, and to be absorbed.
There were many Muslims who adopted Christianity (known as Mudejares, which comes from the Arabic word "Mudajjan", meaning, "one who remains behind"), and a number of Christians, including members of the royal family, were rumoured to have Moorish - or Jewish - blood in their veins.
In practice, if not in theory, these three cultures, the Moors, the Jews and the Christian Iberians had mixed and interpenetrated.
The aim of the reconquista, accomplished by Ferdinand II of Aragon/V of Castile and his wife, Isabella I of Castile (these two united the kingdoms of Aragon, Castile and Léon to create the Kingdom of Spain), was to capture all Spanish land for Christianity.
After capturing Granada in 1492, their first act was to purge their kingdoms of all non-Christian, alien elements.
On 30 March 1492, they decreed that all Jews must either leave or convert.
Up to 150,000 Jews left, many fled to the Italian states, or the Ottoman Empire, where their wealth and industrial skills were welcomed.
This concern for purity, "One nation, one faith", was not new to Spanish society.
In 1449, the town council of Toledo decreed that no one of Jewish ancestry could ever hold public office in the city.
Only those of "pure and untainted blood" (limpieza de sangre) could be full citizens.
Pure blood became a Spanish obsession.
All the nations of Western Europe had regarded the Jews as little better than animals, and the Catholic church had proclaimed them collectively the murderers of Jesus Christ.
What separated European Jews from Spanish Jews was that in Europe, they were considered TAKERS of Christian blood, but in Spain they were seen as GIVERS of corrupt blood, through sex and the birth of "tainted" children.
Due to the degree of Jewish integration in Spanish society, they could use the power of sex to convince Catholics to "contanimate" themselves.
This was the Spanish terror, the fear of the enemy in their midst, outwardly Christian, but nevertheless carriers of bad blood.
The same also rang true of the Moors, "New Christians" as they were.
The Spanish Habsburg rulers Karl V(as Holy Roman Emperor)/Carlos I and Felipe II banned the book "Libro Verde" because it claimed that the Trastámara ancestors of Carlos and Felipe had doubly corrupted blood, that they had married Moors and consorted with Jews.
Every Moor and every Jew was a suspect, even Moorish midwives and wet nurses were not seen kindly, as they represented another way to corrupt Christian blood.
Felipe II's decision to relocate the Granadan Moors meant that sources of possible contagion was spread through all Christian communities.
The only weapon against such a mortal danger was the Holy Inquisition, which waged a ceaseless war against the forces of heresy undermining Christianity.
It has been calculated that around 35,000 cases of religious abnormality came before the Inquisition during Felipe's reign.
The Spanish became self-proclaimed experts on racial distinction as a consequence of this obsession with pure blood.
Sancho Panza, in "Don Quijote" by Miguel de Cervantes, boasted that he was "free from any admixture of Jew or Moor", and therefor he was the inferior of no man.
It was in this Spain, under Felipe II and his successors, the male children of the Habsburgs were brought up.
Maximilian II (Holy Roman Emperor) and all his four sons grew to maturity at the Spanish court, while the daughters of Felipe II and his son, Felipe III, journeyed north from Spain to marry their Austrian cousins.
The impact of this Spanish fixation with blood and race influenced the Habsburgs deeply.
The marriage patterns of the Habsburgs in the century and a half of the Madrid-Wien axis is unique in Western European history.
Their marriages followed a simple rule: to marry "in", conserving the blood, was good, to marry "out", could lead to disaster.
Felipe IV, the father of Carlos II, married the daughter of his cousin, Emperor Ferdinand III, in 1649.
Carlos II, whose life had been expected to end abruptly ever since his birth survived for 35 years.
He was most likely not able to reproduce, due to the incestuous nature of his Habsburg ancestors and left no heirs, so his death sparked the War of the Spanish Succession, with both the French king and the Austrian emperor vying for control over Spain.
French ambassadors to the court of Spain stressed the physical decay and mental ineptitude of Carlos II, while Habsburg diplomats were more inclined to stress the vital signs.
Carlos was not quite the imbecile potrayed in most histories.
He did not lack shrewdness and a will of his own.
When he came of age in 1675 he refused to sign a document that would have prolonged the regency of his mother.
Simply put, he was capable of understanding and signing decrees, following arguments and making political judgements.
He had trouble walking and was almost illiterate, but he also possessed many traits recognized in his ancestors.
He was as stubborn as his namesake, Karl V/Carlos I, and as pious as his cousin Leopold I (Holy Roman Emperor).
He was delighted to be painted kneeling before the monstrance (vessel used in Roman Catholic, Old Catholic and Anglican churches to display the consecrated Eucharistic host), but still possessed the iron discipline of a Spanish king.
During a 14 hour ceremony, he only left his place once, to answer natures call.
However, he did suffer, amongst many other things, he had a bad metabolism.
The English ambassador to Madrid, James Stanhope, reported about Carlos that "His constitution is very weak and broken much beyond his age" and that "They cut his hair off in his sickness, which the decay of nature had almost done before".
Furthermore, "He has a ravenous stomach, and swallows all he eats whole, for his nether jaw stands so much out, that his two rows of teeth cannot meet".
Yet within days Carlos could be completely recovered, a pattern that repeated itself year after year.
By October 1700, Carlos was plainly in a terminal decline.
On 8 October, his doctor reported that he was almost dead, but once again, Carlos rallied, making an almost miraculous recovery.
On 29 October, his doctors covered his trunk with the entrails of freshly killed animals, hoping to restore his vital energy.
By this point, he could no longer speak.
Finally, on 1 November, Carlos II, last of the Spanish Habsburgs, called "el Hechizado", the Insane, or the Bewitched, passed away.
His ancestors obsession with purity of blood ultimately led to the undoing of Carlos, who suffered his entire life from mental handicaps, infertility and an inability to chew his own food.
Pictured is an old map of Spain, and Carlos II, with the trademark Habsburg chin clearly shown.- Tobbe
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