On April 28, 1974, Professor Antonio Domínguez Ortiz was received into the Real Academia de la Historia. In the year previous to his entrance into the Academia, he published the two books reviewed here. While both display his preoccupation with the interaction of state and society, one of them, Alteraciones andaluzas, significantly enlarges our knowledge of early modern Spain and the other, Hechos y figuras del siglo XVIII español, offers little, except, perhaps, to the introductory student. Yet, both are excellent books and, in different ways, demonstrate how fitting and proper was Domínguez Ortiz’ entrance into the Real Academia.
The rebellions that spread throughout Andalusia in the middle of the seventeenth century (1647-1652) have attracted little attention from historians. The standard histories either neglect them altogether or mention briefly the short-lived uprising in Seville in 1652. In Alteraciones andaluzas, Domínguez Ortiz attempts to analyze the series of riots which began in the señorío of Lucena in January, 1647, and culminated in Seville in May 1652. During these five years, riots had broken out in over fifteen other towns of Andalusia, including the cities of Málaga, Granada, and Córdoba. Relying almost exclusively on local archives, Domínguez Ortiz devotes almost ninety pages of his brief book to a reconstruction of the actual events. (There is also a discussion of los precedentes, an ensayo de interpretación, and an eighty-page appendix containing thirty-seven documents.) While careful to point out that his treatment is “una síntesis previa que sirva de punto de partida a nuevas investigaciones” (p. 12), he does a masterful job of analyzing the various riots. In spite of the difficulties inherent in such a topic, he is able to isolate the factors peculiar to a particular uprising and, hence, to characterize the riots as generalized phenomena of Andalusia in the mid-seventeenth century.
Among his conclusions are the observation that the fundamental cause was not simply (or even primarily) la escasez de viverse. Similarly, un carácter antiseñorial was present in only some of the riots. Rather, the riots—which were of an urban character and not jacqueries —were not movements of the very poor, and were occasioned by monetary fluctuation and excessive taxation. Insofar as they had any specific direction, “las iras populares se concentraron contra los representantes del poder central: corregidores ineptos, exactores de impuestos, comisionados extraordinarios” (p. 155). Among the notable topics that emerge are the role that ecclesiastics played in the disturbances (pp. 141-48), the comparatively benign reaction of the authorities after the failure of the riots, and the reminder that “si en el Antiguo Régimen no existía actividad política en el piano nacional, era activísima dentro del marco local” (p. 121). Domínguez Ortiz does not fall into the error of exaggerating the importance of his subject: “las revueltas . . . no consiguieron absolutamente nada” (p. 136). They—like the other popular movements of the seventeenth century —are significant “como exponente no sólo de unas condiciones materiales de vida, sino de una mentalidad, de un estado de espíritu” (p. 11). It is in this context, in the perspective of the other popular uprising of early modern Europe, that not only students of seventeenth-century Spanish social history, but all students of early modern European history will find Alteraciones andaluzas both enlightening and provocative.
Hechos y figuras del siglo XVIII español will, on the other hand, probably enlighten and provoke only the beginning student of eighteenth-century Spanish history. The specialist will be familiar with the bulk of this material. The book is a collection of seven articles published by Domínguez Ortiz between 1952 and 1972. Theoretically, they are unified by the theme of modernization, the tensions between a traditional society and the intellectual, political, and economic forces seeking to change that society. The last article, a 1969 comment on Ramón Menéndez Pidal, is entitled “Reflexiones sobre Las dos españas” and is an attempt to put this dual aspect of Spanish history (and historiography) into a European context. The articles cover a variety of topics. This reviewer found “La villa y el monasterio de Sahagún en el siglo XVIII” (1972) fascinating and “Una visión crítica del Madrid del siglo XVIII” (1970) rather trivial. Others may disagree and may appreciate “Aspectos de la España de Feijoó” (1964), “Dos médicos procesados por la inquisitión” (1959, 1962), or “Don Leandro Fernández de Moratín y la sociedad española de su tiempo” (1960?). The longest article, “El ocaso del régimen señorial en la España del siglo XVIII” (1952), was previously reprinted in La sociedad española en el siglo XVIII (1955).
While the wisdom of republishing such an article, without incorporating the important work of Salvado Moxó and others, may be questioned, there is little doubt that the collection of the other articles is a great convenience. More important, this collection serves to remind us, especially with the article on “El ocaso del régimen señorial,” of Domínguez Ortiz’ contribution to our knowledge of Spain; his treatments and conclusions are now standard in all general treatments of eighteenth-century social developments. This book, like Alteraciones andaluzas, provides testimony to the fittingness of Domínguez Ortiz’ entrance into the Real Academia. Those interested, however, in el régimen señorial might be advised to neglect Hechos y figuras and seek—as I intend to do—a copy of the discurso Domínguez Ortiz read on the occasion of his ingreso: “El regimen señorial y el reformismo borbónico.”
