The idea of Spain as a nation during the ancient regime is difficult to define since it is a loose and imprecise concept. The Spanish monarchy during the 16th and 17th centuries is a much more complicated reality. It was a fragmented political network with a plurinational empire, whose domain reached extensive territories, many of them far in between, thus constituting a pluriterritorial monarchy as well as a supranational one, where several kingdoms and possessions with particular idiosyncrasies and differentiating traits converge. These differences were at times difficult to reconcile, as the only common denominator was that they all shared the same King- a foreign one to most territories- but with absolute power and sovereignty over his domains, a factor that was by no means stable. Continue reading →