Castile (historical region)
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A former kingdom, Castile (Spanish: Castilla; usually pronounced Cast-EEL in English), gradually merged with its neighbors to become the Kingdom of Spain. in modern-day Spain, it comprises the regions of Castilla y León in the north-west, and Castilla-La Mancha in the center of the country. Modern Spanish monarchs are numbered according to the system of Castile.
Castile's name means land or region of castles, in reference to the castles built in the area to consolidate the Christian re-conquest from the Moors.
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[edit] History
Historically, the Castilian Kingdom and people were the architects of the Spanish State by a process of expansion to the South against the Muslims and of marriages, wars, assimilation, and annexation of their smaller Eastern and Western neighbours. From the advent of the Bourbon Monarchy following the War of the Spanish Succession until the arrival of parliamentary democracy in 1977, the Castilian language alone had an official status in the Spanish State.
Previously an eastern county of the kingdom of León, Castile in the 11th century became an independent realm with its capital at Burgos and later Valladolid, and the leading force in the northern Christian states' 400-year Reconquista ("reconquest") of central and southern Spain from the Muslim rulers who had dominated the peninsula since the 8th century.
The capture of Toledo in 1085 added New Castile to the crown's territories, and the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa (1212) heralded the Muslim loss of most of the south. León was finally reunited with Castile in 1230, and the following decades saw the capture of Córdoba (1236), Murcia (1243) and Seville (1248). By the Treaty of Alcaçovas with Portugal on March 6, 1460, the ownership of the Canary Islands was transferred to Castile.
The dynastic union of Castile and Aragon in 1469, when Ferdinand II of Aragon wed Isabella of Castile, would eventually lead to the formal creation of Spain as a single entity in 1516 when their grandson Charles V assumed both thrones. See List of Spanish monarchs and Kings of Spain family tree.
Nowadays many people consider that the territory traditionally regarded as Castile is now divided into the Spanish autonomous communities of Cantabria, Castile and Leon, Castile-La Mancha, Madrid and La Rioja, although this territory was conquered by Castile's Crown and separated of Navarrese Kingdom, as the Basque Country. However, the territory of the Castilian Crown actually comprised all other autonomous communities within Spain with the exception of Aragon, Balearic Islands and Catalonia, which all belonged to the late Crown of Aragon, and Navarre, heir of the older Kingdom of the same name.
[edit] Language
The language of Castile emerged as the primary language of Spain — known to many of its speakers as castellano and in English as Castilian, but more often as Spanish. See Names given to the Spanish language.
[edit] Castilian identity and cultural expansion
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Castilians are a community of inhabitants with common Culture and History. Their origin is, as well as most of other parts of the Spain, a heterogeneous mixture of European, Celtiberian, Roman, Visigoth, Berber, Arab and Jewish, roots (See Spanish people.) Thus, it is not correct to establish a strict common origin, but a common cultural identity. Over time, most Castilians have mixed with other Spaniards due to their past political dominance, and present-day cultural dominance. Castilians and their cultural influence spread throughout the entire plateau of central Spain during the Reconquista, carried out principally by the Kingdom of Toledo which was renamed "New Castile". Castilian "ethnicity" is the product of the conquest, by a small kingdom in northern Spain, of vast tracts of sparsely populated lands (the central "mesetas"). These lands were populated, during the reconquest, by peoples from all over the peninsula (even from southern Spain (see exile of Mozarabes -christians- from Al Andalus and even the dispersal of Moriscos from Granada in the 16th century).
Their language, (modern day Spanish) has been adopted as the language of Spain although it is still referred to as "Castilian" in Spain and frequently in Latin America. At present, Castilians are known as the inhabitants of those regions of Spain where there is no regional identity which conflicts with that of "Castilian". The Castilian regions roughly coincide with the plateaus of north-central Spain, historically sparsely populated highlands. Castilian identity is now defined negatively rather than positively. The reason for this is that Castilian nationalism was the first to have been destroyed by the Spanish Crown during the revolt and war of the Castilian communities against the Spanish Monarchy, between 1520 and 1521. Castilian identity is thus excluded from the historical nationalities of Spain such as Catalonia and the Basque regions, but also other regions which due to historical reasons have their own identity, culture and dialects such as the 8 million strong Andalusian region, and the Canary islands. Both Andalusia and the Canary islands experienced an early Castilian colonisation and subsequent immigration, but the survival and absorption of (or by) local populations allowed for a culture particular to those regions. Certain regions are not considered Castilian, such as Valencia and the Balearic Islands because historically they belong to the Crown of Aragon and because their local language is Catalan. Galicians are not considered to be Castilian, although their region was annexed by the Crown of Castile. Their language, Galician is akin to Portuguese, and they possess a local culture and identity. Navarre, a historical kingdom in its own right, is Basque in the north and more Castilian in the south whereas Extremadura, a region in western Spain is considered to be Castilian in the north and Andalusian in the south. The list goes on with Murcians, Leonese, Manchegos etc... but establishing whether these people are to be considered "Castilian" is a more difficult matter.
[edit] Castile in literature and poetry
Antonio Machado, perhaps one of Spain's greatest poets, and part of the auto-critical moment that was Generation of 98, wrote several books of poems to Castile. He focused that pesimisic point of view in the place of Castile and Castilians in Spanish history with these verses:
Castilla miserable, ayer dominadora,
envuelta en sus andrajos desprecia cuanto ignora.
¿Espera, duerme o sueña? ¿La sangre derramada
recuerda, cuando tuvo la fiebre de la espada?
Todo se mueve, fluye, discurre, corre o gira;
cambian la mar y el monte y el ojo que los mira.
¿Pasó? Sobre sus campos aún el fantasma yerra
de un pueblo que ponía a Dios sobre la guerra.
-Antonio Machado, 'A orillas del Duero'
(Miserable Castille, yesterday dominating,
wrapped in her rags despising as much as she ignores.
Wait, does she sleep or dream? The spilt blood does she
remember, when she had the fever of the sword?
Everything moves, flows, runs, or spins;
they change: the sea, the mountain and the eye that watches them.
Did it happen? On its fields still lingers the ghost
of a people who put God to war.)
But this critical opinion of Machado was in the internal contradiction of an Andalusian, not-Castilian, who loved and felt Castilla as his own homeland:
—yo tuve patria donde corre el Duero
por entre grises peñas,
y fantasmas de viejos encinares,
allá en Castilla, mística y guerrera,
Castilla la gentil, humilde y brava,
Castilla del desdén y de la fuerza—
-Antonio Machado
(I had my Fatherland where River Duero runs
beneath grey rocks,
and beneath the ghosts of the old holm oaks,
there, in Castile, mystic and warrior,
Gentile, humble and brave Castile,
Castile of disdain and strength.)
[edit] See also
- Castile-La Mancha
- Castile and León
- Old Castile
- New Castile
- Crown of Castile
- Early history of the Kingdom of León
- Later history of Spain
- List of Castile Kings
- Castile soap
- Music of Castile, Madrid and Leon
Two places in the United States of America have been named after this kingdom: Village of Castile and Town of Castile. Both are located in the state of New York.
