Austria, Casa de , España, 1516-1700

\"Habsburg Spain refers to Spain over the 16th and 17th centuries (1516-1700), when it was ruled by kings from the House of Habsburg (also associated with its role in the history of Central and Eastern Europe). The Habsburg rulers (chiefly Charles I and Philip II) reached the zenith of their influence and power. They controlled territory that included the Americas, the East Indies, the Low Countries, Belgium, Luxembourg, Italy, and territories now in France and Germany in Europe, the Portuguese Empire from 1580 to 1640, and various other territories such as small enclaves like Ceuta and Oran in North Africa. This period of Spanish history has also been referred to as the \"Age of Expansion\". Under the Habsburgs, Spain was the major political and military power in Europe and the world for much of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but experienced a gradual decline of influence in the second half of the seventeenth century under the later Habsburgs kings. The Habsburg years also ushered in the Spanish Golden Age of cultural efflorescence. Among the most outstanding figures of this period were Teresa of Ávila, Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Miguel de Cervantes, El Greco, Domingo de Soto, Francisco Suárez, Diego Velázquez, and Francisco de Vitoria. \"Spain\" or \"the Spains\" in this period covered the entire peninsula, politically a confederacy comprising several nominally independent kingdoms or realms in personal union: Aragon, Castile, León, Navarre and, from 1580, Portugal. In some cases, these individual kingdoms themselves were confederations, such as the Crown of Aragon, the Principality of Catalonia, the Kingdom of Valencia, and the Kingdom of Majorca. The marriage of Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon in 1469 had enabled the union of two of the greatest of these kingdoms, Castile and Aragón, which led to their largely successful campaign against the Moors (reconquista), peaking at the conquest of Granada in 1492. Isabella and Ferdinand were bestowed the title of Most Catholic Monarchs by Pope Alexander VI in 1496, and the term Monarchia Catholica (Catholic Monarchy, Modern Spanish: Monarquí­a Católica) remained in use for the monarchy under the Spanish Habsburgs. The Habsburg period is formative of the notion of \"Spain\" in the sense that was institutionalized in the 18th century. From the 17th century, during and after the end of the Iberian Union, the Habsburg monarchy in Spain was also known as \"Spanish Monarchy\" or \"Monarchy of Spain\", along with the common form Kingdom of Spain. Spain as a unified state came into being de jure only after the Nueva Planta decrees of 1707 (that were a unilateral Royal edict) from the contested successor to the multiple Crowns of its former realms. After the death in 1700 of Charles II and with it the extinction of the Spanish Habsburg dynasty, the Spanish Succession war lasted for many years between its contesting dynasties from France and Austria and their respective supporting allies, until the ascension of Philip V and the inauguration of the Bourbon dynasty when this centralizing legal vehicle for new State formation, without legal precedent in the Iberian realms (or the ratification of the dismissed Courts of Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia, whose Laws were not sworn in order to be crowned) and of clear foreign origin, in all comparable after those in France under the Old Regime Absolutism, were established after de facto.\"

\"Casa de Austria es el nombre con el que se conoce en España a la dinastí­a Habsburgo reinante en la Monarquí­a Hispánica en los siglos xvi y xvii; desde la proclamación como rey de Carlos I en 1516, hasta la muerte sin sucesión directa de Carlos II, que provocó la Guerra de Sucesión Española. La Monarquí­a Hispánica o Monarquí­a Católica fue durante toda esa época la mayor potencia de Europa. Durante los llamados Austrias mayores Carlos I y Felipe II , alcanzó el apogeo de su influencia y poder. La herencia territorial de Carlos I, procedente de los Habsburgo Paí­ses Bajos y Condado de Borgoña en 1506 y de los Trastámaras Coronas de Aragón y Castilla en 1516 , junto con la conquista de América, conformó la base de lo que se conoce como Imperio español. Sin embargo, los reinados de los llamados Austrias menores Felipe III, Felipe IV y Carlos II , coincidentes con lo mejor del Siglo de Oro de las artes y las letras, significaron la \"decadencia española\": la pérdida de la hegemoní­a europea y una profunda crisis económica y social. En la segunda mitad del siglo xvii, los españoles fueron sustituidos en la hegemoní­a europea por la Francia de Luis XIV.\"