Talk:Spanish Empire

An explanation of the Spanish Coat of Arms

I think trying to explain the Coat of Arms is in order as it gives a good background on the ideological claims and history of the Catholic Monarchs... I will take a stab at adding such an explanation in the "Understand" section, but it may be better placed as the image caption. Hobbitschuster (talk) 10:52, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

• I'm glad to know. As always, I'll watch and help. It's a very amusing and rewarding activity, to play ball on historical writing from the traveller's point of view with my old dear wiki-colleague Hobbitschuster.

About this specific situation, right now I'm baffled to not read the old very familiar Spanish motto "Plus Ultra" written on this coat of arms. Maybe it could be a reason related to the transition from a Habsburg to a Bourbon dynasty. However it is, whatever solution we achieve here, I'm willing to replicate on the other articles about other empires that we have been working on lately. Putting the appropriate coat of arms at the beginning of Understand felt really nice on Portuguese Empire and should become default, IMHO. Ibaman (talk) 11:29, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

"Plus Ultra" was the personal motto of Charles I/V, the indirect successor of the Catholic monarchs and later became Spain's Hobbitschuster (talk) 16:41, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Reconquista

@Hobbitschuster: It's a minor, non-travel-related detail, but this revision leaves out the wars that took place on the Iberian Peninsula that were a key contributing factor to the prevalence of Catholic Christianity in Spain. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 17:48, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. How is it leaving out the wars? In the Spain article it is explicitly mentioned that "700 years of war between unified Christians on one side and unified Muslims on the other" is a bit too simplified, but the era of Spain's greatest power on the international stage mostly postdates Al-Andalus anyway... Hobbitschuster (talk) 18:35, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

I think I understand what the paragraph is saying, now I'm reading it in context. I think those early sentences could be separated into separate paragraphs. I'll take another look now. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 19:43, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

For hundreds of years, the Moorish people (Muslims from Northwest Africa) controlled parts of Spain. Eventually, however, the ... Catholic monarchs Isabella of Castille and Ferdinand of Aragon pushed the Moorish rulers off the European continent to conclude the Reconquista [and] forc[ed] Muslims and Jews to convert or leave. [This] enabl[ed] the ruling couple to claim the title reyes católicos and ... focus on exploring new lands.

An alternative showing changes made in alternative draft --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 19:46, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

• well, "Los Reyes Católicos" = "Catholic Monarchs" is an honorific bestowed, or conquered, by F & I precisely *because* they threw the infidel kingdoms out of the peninsula. We are working on an Understand/History section of a historical travel guide, and must be careful with wording here, identifying causes and consequences, being brief, being fair. Let's keep tweaking. Ibaman (talk) 19:55, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes, but they were Catholic, and they were monarchs. Maybe there is an alternative wording that is not controversial. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 19:59, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

I aimed for that. I hope it's an improvement. Ibaman (talk) 20:25, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

I think the current draft is an improved summary of that part of Spanish history. The term Reconquista is now rightly included, because whether it is a biased name or not, it is an important term for tourists to know if they plan on visiting Spain. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 21:21, 18 April 2020 (UTC)