Studia Historica: Historia Moderna (Dec 2019)

Without Leon, Spain would never have existed. History, religion and propaganda in an Early Modern city

  • Alfredo MARTÍN GARCÍA

DOI
https://doi.org/10.14201/shhmo2019412123153
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 41, no. 2
pp. 123 – 153

Abstract

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The aim of this study was to analyse print production in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries in order to elucidate an intentional strategy on the part of the political and religious authorities in the city of León aimed at disseminating an idealised vision of its past, in the context of the development of local history in Early Modern Spain. The religious authorities sought to vindicate the antiquity of the Church in León by portraying it in the distant times of Roman persecution. Meanwhile, the political authorities aimed to consolidate the idea of León as the origin of the Catholic Monarchy, depicting the mediaeval León monarchs as responsible for the future glories of the Crown. These images were propagated not only through the medium of print, but also through the annual calendar of religious and civic holidays.

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