Revolt of The Comuneros - Later Influence

Later Influence

The revolt, fresh in the memory of Spain, is referenced in several literary works during Spain's Golden Age. Don Quixote references the rebellion in a conversation with Sancho, and Francisco de Quevedo uses the word "comunero" as a synonym for "rebel" in his works.

In the 18th century, the comuneros were not held in high regard by the Spanish Empire. The government was not amenable to encouraging rebellions, and only used the term to condemn opposition. In the Revolt of the Comuneros in Paraguay, the rebels did not take the name willingly; it was only meant to disparage them as traitors. Another Revolt of the Comuneros in New Granada (modern Colombia) was similarly unrelated to the original except in name.

At the beginning of the 19th century, the image of the comuneros began to be rehabilitated by scholars such as Manuel Quintana as precursors of freedom and martyrs against absolutism. The decline of Castilian liberty was linked to the later decline of Spain. The first major commemorative event came in 1821, the third centenary of the Battle of Villalar. Juan Martín Díez, a nationalistic liberal military leader who had fought in the resistance against Napoleon, led an expedition to find and exhume the remains of the three leaders executed in 1521. Díez praised the comuneros on behalf of the liberal government in power at the time, likely the first positive governmental recognition for their cause. This view was challenged by conservatives who viewed a centralized state as modern and progressive, especially after the anarchy and fragmentation of the 1868 Revolution in Spain. Manuel Danvila, a conservative government minister, published the six-volume Historia critica y documentada de las Comunidades de Castilla from 1897–1900, one of the most important works of scholarship on the revolt. Drawing on collected original sources, Danvila emphasized the fiscal demands of the comuneros, and cast them as traditionalist, reactionary, medieval, and feudal. Though a liberal, intellectual Gregorio Marañón shared the dim view of the comuneros that once again prevailed in Spain; he cast the conflict as one between a modern, progressive state open to beneficent foreign influence against a conservative, reactionary, and xenophobic Spain hypersensitive to religious and cultural deviance with an insistence on spurious racial purity.

General Franco's government from 1939–1975 also encouraged an unfavorable interpretation of the comuneros. According to approved historians such as José María Pemán, the revolt was fundamentally an issue of petty Spanish regionalism, something which Franco did his best to discourage. Additionally, the comuneros did not properly appreciate Spain's "imperial destiny."

Since the mid-twentieth century, others have sought more materialist reasons for the revolt. Historians such as José Antonio Maravall and Joseph Pérez portray the developing revolt as alliances of different social coalitions around shifting economic interests, with the "industrial bourgeoisie" of artisans and woolworkers combining with the intellectuals and the low nobility against the aristocrats and the merchants. Maravall, who views the revolt as one of the first modern revolutions, especially stresses the ideological conflict and intellectual nature of the revolt, with features such as the first proposed written constitution of Castile.

With Spain's transition to democracy following Franco's death, celebration of the comuneros started to become permissible again. On April 23, 1976, a small ceremony was held clandestinely in Villalar; only two years later, in 1978, the event had become a huge demonstration of 200,000 in support of Castilian autonomy. The autonomous community of Castile and León was created in response to public demand in 1983, and it recognized April 23 as an official holiday in 1986. Similarly, each February 3 since 1988 has been celebrated by the Castilian nationalist party Tierra Comunera in Toledo. The celebration highlights the roles of Juan de Padilla and María Pacheco, and is done in memory of the rebellion in 1522, the last event of the war.