Atlantic Southwest Europe (1540–1683 CE): Political Transformation, Maritime Expansion, and Cultural Flourishing

Between 1540 and 1683, Atlantic Southwest Europe—including northern and central Portugal (Lisbon and Porto), Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, northern León and Castile, northern Navarre, northern Rioja, and the Basque Country—underwent a transformative era marked by political upheaval, economic prosperity through maritime commerce, intense religious reform, and dynamic cultural expression. The region developed distinctive identities deeply influenced by the Renaissance and later the Baroque era, significantly shaping its trajectory toward modernity.

Political and Military Developments

The Iberian Union and Portuguese Restoration

In 1580, Portugal’s succession crisis resulted in the Iberian Union (1580–1640) under the Spanish Habsburg monarchy. This union initially strained the economies of northern Portuguese cities, notably Porto and Lisbon, which experienced intensified taxation and restrictions on trade. Dissatisfaction intensified, culminating in Portugal’s successful Restoration of Independence (1640) led by King João IV (House of Braganza). This pivotal moment restored political autonomy and stability, revitalizing regional governance structures and economic dynamism.

Autonomy and Fueros in Northern Spain

Throughout this period, regions such as the Basque Country and Navarre staunchly defended their traditional fueros, which guaranteed local autonomy, taxation privileges, and self-governance. These institutions effectively insulated the northern territories from the Spanish Crown's centralizing policies, sustaining political stability even as Spain faced broader imperial challenges.

In contrast, Galicia, Asturias, and Cantabria were more integrated within Castilian governance yet retained significant local autonomy. Their administrative flexibility enabled them to balance central demands and local interests effectively.

Military Pressures and Regional Stability

Atlantic Southwest Europe occasionally found itself at the forefront of broader military conflicts, notably during England’s maritime confrontations with Spain and Portugal. Despite such external pressures—including the disastrous defeat of the Spanish Armada (1588), which deeply impacted Basque and Cantabrian ports—the region largely maintained internal stability, enabling sustained economic recovery and growth in subsequent decades.

Economic Developments: Maritime and Commercial Expansion

Portuguese Maritime and Commercial Prosperity

Northern and central Portugal, especially cities like Lisbon, Porto, and Viana do Castelo, benefited enormously from maritime trade expansion. Porto, in particular, flourished as international demand surged for Port wine from the Douro Valley, becoming a key commercial hub for exports to England and the Low Countries. Shipbuilding along the northern Portuguese coast simultaneously expanded, driven by this booming maritime economy.

Northern Spain’s Industrial and Maritime Growth

The Basque provinces and Cantabria witnessed substantial economic prosperity driven by industrial growth, particularly shipbuilding, iron production, fisheries, and robust maritime commerce. The city of Bilbao became a major iron exporter, enhancing its economic importance within European trade networks. Santander similarly prospered through increased transatlantic and northern European maritime trade.

Galicia notably revitalized its maritime economy with strengthened fishing industries and expanded commercial ties through ports like Vigo and A Coruña, reinforcing regional economic resilience.

Religious Developments: Counter-Reformation and Local Identity

Counter-Reformation Orthodoxy

Following the Council of Trent (1545–1563), Atlantic Southwest Europe firmly embraced Counter-Reformation Catholicism, reinforced by inquisitorial tribunals and revitalized ecclesiastical institutions. Cities such as Valladolid, Braga, Coimbra, Santiago de Compostela, and Pamplona became prominent centers of religious orthodoxy, significantly shaping local educational, cultural, and spiritual life.

Pilgrimage routes, notably the Camino de Santiago, experienced renewed popularity, underscoring regional religious identity and promoting cultural cohesion, especially in Galicia.

Influence of the Jesuits

The establishment of Jesuit colleges significantly impacted regional intellectual life, fostering robust Catholic education in cities like Lisbon, Coimbra, Porto, and Valladolid. These institutions contributed significantly to the region’s intellectual vitality, while simultaneously ensuring adherence to Counter-Reformation doctrine.

Cultural and Artistic Flourishing

Transition from Renaissance to Baroque

Initially influenced by Renaissance humanism, cities like Braga, Santiago de Compostela, Burgos, Bilbao, and Lisbon sponsored art and architecture that reflected classical ideals and humanist values. By the late sixteenth century, the Baroque aesthetic profoundly reshaped the region, with elaborate cathedrals, palaces, and public buildings adorning urban landscapes, exemplified by iconic structures in Braga, Lisbon, and Santiago.

Literary and Linguistic Vibrancy

The period witnessed a notable literary flourishing across languages—Portuguese, Castilian, and Galician—strengthening regional identities and promoting linguistic diversity. Literature often subtly asserted local pride, reflecting broader political and cultural autonomy movements emerging across the region.

Social and Urban Developments

Urban Expansion and Merchant Ascendancy

Significant urban growth characterized this era, driven by maritime commerce, industrial expansion, and the increasing wealth of merchant classes. Cities like Porto, Lisbon, Bilbao, Santander, and Vitoria-Gasteiz expanded substantially, providing enhanced infrastructure, vibrant marketplaces, and burgeoning civic institutions.

The rising merchant and artisan classes became influential in urban governance, shifting social structures toward increased social mobility, prosperity, and localized political power.

Strengthened Regional Autonomy and Identity

Throughout Atlantic Southwest Europe, particularly in the Basque Country, Navarre, Galicia, and northern Portugal, traditional rights (fueros) were persistently reaffirmed. These protections solidified local identities, empowering regional governance against centralized imposition from Madrid, ensuring sustained political resilience and autonomy.

Notable Regional Groups and Settlements

• Portuguese (Central and Northern): Experienced political restoration, maritime prosperity, and cultural renaissance in cities like Lisbon and Porto.

• Galicians and Asturians: Balanced maritime economic prosperity with persistent rural challenges, fostering strong regional identities.

• Basques, Navarrese, and Cantabrians: Leveraged local autonomy for economic growth, maintaining distinctive political and cultural identities despite imperial pressures.

• Northern Castilians and Riojans: Maintained effective local governance, contributing to regional stability despite broader Spanish imperial decline.

Long-Term Significance and Legacy

From 1540 to 1683, Atlantic Southwest Europe:

• Achieved critical political transformations, notably Portugal’s restoration of independence and northern Spain’s affirmation of regional autonomy.

• Experienced significant maritime and economic prosperity, firmly integrating the region into European and global trade networks.

• Fostered vibrant cultural expressions through Renaissance humanism and Baroque aesthetics, enriching regional identities and artistic legacies.

• Strengthened local governance structures, particularly via the preservation of fueros, ensuring lasting political stability and regional resilience.

This formative period profoundly influenced Atlantic Southwest Europe's historical trajectory, embedding a legacy of economic vibrancy, cultural distinctiveness, and enduring regional autonomy that would persist well beyond the seventeenth century.

All Swedish resistance in the south of Germany had ended by the spring of 1635.

After that, the two sides meet for negotiations, producing the Peace of Prague (1635), which entail a delay in the enforcement of the Edict of Restitution for 40 years and allows Protestant rulers to retain secularized bishoprics held by them in 1627.

This protects the Lutheran rulers of northeastern Germany, but not those of the south and west (whose lands had been occupied by the Imperial or League armies prior to 1627).

Negotiations towards the agreement had been instigated by the Elector of Saxony, John George, who whilst being a Lutheran prince had nonetheless been an ally of the Emperor until the Swedish intervention in 1630.

Years of fighting, an inability to reimpose Roman Catholicism by force, and the need to put an end to the intervention of foreign powers in German affairs all combine to bring Ferdinand to the table with a degree of willingness to make concessions towards the Lutheran princes.

Calvinist Brandenburg is reluctant to sign, since besides the announced annulment of the Edict of Restitution, toleration of Calvinism is not mentioned.

To get Brandenburg to sign up, Sweden and Ferdinand promise her the succession in the Duchy of Pomerania in return.

France, although Roman Catholic, is a rival of the Holy Roman Empire and Spain.

Cardinal Richelieu, the Chief Minister of King Louis XIII of France, feels that the Habsburgs are too powerful, since they hold a number of territories on France's eastern border, including portions of the Netherlands.

Richelieu had already begun intervening indirectly in the war in January 1631, when the French diplomat Hercules de Charnace signed the Treaty of Bärwalde with Gustavus Adolphus, by which France agreed to support the Swedes with one million livres each year in return for a Swedish promise to maintain an army in Germany against the Habsburgs.

The treaty also stipulated that Sweden would not conclude a peace with the Holy Roman Emperor without first receiving France's approval.

After the Swedish rout at Nördlingen in September 1634 and the Peace of Prague in 1635, as Sweden's ability to continue the war alone appears doubtful, Richelieu makes the decision to enter into direct war against the Habsburgs.

With Imperial forces threatening dominance in Germany, Spanish troops firmly settle on the western bank of the Rhine, and thus Habsburg armies surround France.

Thus, in alliance with the Protestant Dutch and Swedes and some of the German Protestant princes, Catholic France declares war on Spain in May 1635, thereby opening a second front in the Catholic Low Countries.

The open war with Spain starts with a promising victory for the French at the Belgian village of Les Avins on May 20, 1635, in what is at this time the bishopric of Liège.

The Spanish army, inferior in numbers, is surrounded and completely defeated in just a few hours.

Some five thousand Spanish are killed or wounded, fifteen hundred captured and the rest scattered.

It is the first serious engagement for the French, which had entered the war only three months before.

The Peace of Prague, a treaty signed on June 15, 1635, between the Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand II, and most of the Protestant states of the Empire, effectively brings to an end the civil war aspect of the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648); however, the war will still carry on due to the continued intervention on German soil of Spain, Sweden, and, from mid-1635, France.

The main terms of the treaty are:

* The Edict of Restitution of 1629 is effectively revoked, with the terms of the Peace of Augsburg of 1555 being reestablished as at November 12, 1627.

* Formal alliances between states of the Empire are prohibited.

* The armies of the various states are to be unified with those of the Emperor as an army for the Empire as a whole.

* Amnesty was granted to the enemies of the Emperor (with the exception of the former Elector Palatine, Frederick V).

As well as bringing to an end the fighting between the various states, the treaty also brings to an end religion as a source of national conflict; the principle of cuius regio, eius religio (“his religion; their religion”) is established for good within the Empire.

In return for making concessions in this area, Ferdinand gains the alliance of the Lutheran princes both in the struggle against the Swedish intervention, and against the expected intervention of France.

Ferdinand is also forced to make individual concessions to some of the major states to get them to sign the treaty: Saxony is granted the Margraviates of Lower and Upper Lusatia by Ferdinand in his capacity as King of Bohemia, Brandenburg has its claim to Pomerania confirmed, and even Bavaria, which has supported the Emperor throughout the war, extracts some minor concessions.

This treaty fails to satisfy France, however, because of the renewed strength it grants the Habsburgs.

France now enters the conflict, beginning the final period of the Thirty Years' War.

The French army had joined up with the Dutch coming from the north, but their disagreements have given the Spanish the time to reorganize themselves.

They harass the French with quick cavalry raids.

The French army also suffers from lack of supplies and money, which has led to widespread desertions.

After the Peace of Prague (1635), Imperial troops are free to reinforce the Spanish.

Spain responds in early 1635 to France's increasingly belligerent posturing by intervening against the Elector of Trier, a significant move that effectively forces a French declaration of war.

By this stage, Olivares' advice to the king is that this conflict with France will be for all or nothing: Spain will win or fall by the result.

Nonetheless, French victory is far from certain in the 1630s; Olivares' invasion plan in 1635 involves four different armies and two navies, being described as 'the most ambitious military conception of early modern Europe.'

France, having declared war on Spain in May 1635, aligns her strategy with the allied Swedes in the Treaty of Wismar, signed on March 20, 1636, by France and Sweden at Wismar in Mecklenburg.

The accord is negotiated for Sweden by Count Axel Gustafsson.

The signatories agree to unite forces against the Habsburgs, with France attacking on the left bank of the Rhine River and Sweden fighting in Silesia and Bohemia.

France, although overwhelmingly Roman Catholic, is a rival of the Holy Roman Empire and Spain.

Cardinal Richelieu, the Chief Minister of King Louis XIII of France, feels that the Habsburgs are too powerful, since they hold a number of territories on France's eastern border, including portions of the Netherlands.

Richelieu had already begun intervening indirectly in the war in January 1631, when the French diplomat Hercules de Charnace had signed the Treaty of Bärwalde with Gustavus Adolphus, by which France had agreed to support the Swedes with one million livres each year in return for a Swedish promise to maintain an army in Germany against the Habsburgs.

The treaty also stipulated that Sweden would not conclude a peace with the Holy Roman Emperor without first receiving France's approval.

After the Swedish rout at Nördlingen in September 1634 and the Peace of Prague in 1635, as Sweden's ability to continue the war alone appeared doubtful, Richelieu had made the decision to enter into direct war against the Habsburgs.

France, already at war with Spain, declares war on the Holy Roman Empire in August 1636, opening offensives against the Habsburgs in Germany and the Low Countries.