Costa Liviea Part3

Partial view of the Romanesque interior of the Cathedral of
Santiago de Compostela
In the 9th century, the rise of the cult of the Apostle James in Santiago de
Compostela gave Galicia particular symbolic importance among Christians, an
importance it would hold throughout the Reconquista. As the Middle Ages went on,
Santiago became a major pilgrim destination and the Way of Saint James (Camiño
de Santiago) a major pilgrim road, a route for the propagation of Romanesque
art and the words and music of the troubadors. During the 10th and 11th centuries, a
period during which Galician nobility become related to the royal family, Galicia was
at times headed by its own native kings, while Vikings (locally known
as Leodemanes or Lordomanes) occasionally raided the coasts. The Towers
of Catoira[33] (Pontevedra) were built as a system of fortifications to prevent and stop
the Viking raids on Santiago de Compostela.
In 1063, Ferdinand I of Castile divided his realm among his sons, and the Kingdom
of Galicia was granted to Garcia II of Galicia. In 1072, it was forcibly annexed by
Garcia's brother Alfonso VI of León; from that time Galicia was united with
the Kingdom of León under the same monarchs. In the 13th century Alfonso X of
Castile standardized the Castilian language (i.e. Spanish) and made it the language
of court and government. Nevertheless, in his Kingdom of Galicia the Galician
language was the only language spoken, and the most used in government and legal
uses, as well as in literature.
An illustration of the Cantigas de Santa Maria (13th

century)
During the 14th and 15th centuries, the progressive distancing of the kings from
Galician affairs left the kingdom in the hands of the local knights, counts, and
bishops, who frequently fought each other to increase their fiefs, or simply to plunder
the lands of others. At the same time, the deputies of the Kingdom in
the Cortes stopped being called. The Kingdom of Galicia, slipping away from the
control of the King, responded with a century of fiscal insubordination.
Gothic painting at Vilar de Donas' church, Palas de Rei

On the other hand, the lack of an effective royal justice system in the Kingdom led to
the social conflict known as the Guerras Irmandiñas ('Wars of the brotherhoods'),
when leagues of peasants and burghers, with the support of several knights,
noblemen, and under legal protection offered by the remote king, toppled many of
the castles of the Kingdom and briefly drove the noblemen into Portugal and Castile.
Soon after, in the late 15th century, in the dynastic conflict between Isabella I of
Castile and Joanna La Beltraneja, part of the Galician aristocracy supported Joanna.
After Isabella's victory, she initiated an administrative and political reform which the
chronicler Jeronimo Zurita defined as "doma del Reino de Galicia": 'It was then when
the taming of Galicia began, because not just the local lords and knights, but all the
people of that nation were the ones against the others very bold and warlike'. These
reforms, while establishing a local government and tribunal (the Real Audiencia del
Reino de Galicia), and bringing the nobleman under submission, also brought most
Galician monasteries and institutions under Castilian control, in what has been
criticized as a process of centralisation. At the same time the kings began to call
the Xunta or Cortes of the Kingdom of Galicia, an assembly of deputies or
representatives of the cities of the Kingdom, to ask for monetary and military
contributions. This assembly soon developed into the voice and legal representation
of the Kingdom, and the depositary of its will and laws.
Early Modern
[edit]
See also: Junta of the Kingdom of Galicia
Tomb of the knight Sueiro Gómez de Soutomaior

The modern period of the Kingdom of Galicia began with the defeat of some of the
most powerful Galician lords, such as Pedro Álvarez de Sotomayor, called Pedro
Madruga, and Rodrigo Henriquez Osorio, at the hands of the Castilian armies sent to
Galicia between the years 1480 and 1486. Isabella I of Castile, considered a usurper
by many Galician nobles, defeated all armed resistance and definitively established
the royal power of the Castilian monarchy. Fearing a general revolt, the monarchs
ordered the banishing of the rest of the great lords like Pedro de Bolaño, Diego de
Andrade, or Lope Sánchez de Moscoso, among others.
Map of the Kingdom of Galicia, 1603

The establishment of the Santa Hermandad in 1480, and the Real Audiencia del
Reino de Galicia in 1500—a tribunal and executive body directed by the Governor-
Captain General as a direct representative of the King—implied initially the
submission of the Kingdom to the Crown,[34] after a century of unrest and fiscal
insubordination. As a result, from 1480 to 1520 the Kingdom of Galicia contributed
more than 10% of the total earnings of the Crown of Castille, including the Americas,
well over its economic relevance.[35] Like the rest of Spain, the 16th century was
marked by population growth up to 1580, when the simultaneous wars with the
Netherlands, France, and England hampered Galicia's Atlantic commerce, which
consisted mostly in the exportation of sardines, wood, and some cattle and wine.
In the late years of the 15th century the written form of the Galician language began
a slow decline as it was increasingly replaced by Spanish, which would culminate in
the Séculos Escuros "the Dark Centuries" of the language, roughly from the 16th
century through to the mid-18th century, when written Galician almost completely
disappeared except for private or occasional uses but the spoken language
remained the common language of the people in the villages and even the cities.
Maria Pita, heroine of the defense of A Coruña during the

English siege of 1589
From that moment Galicia, which participated to a minor extent in the American
expansion of the Spanish Empire, found itself at the center of the Atlantic wars
fought by Spain against the French and the Protestant powers of England and the
Netherlands, whose privateers attacked the coastal areas, but major assaults were
not common as the coastline was difficult and the harbors easily defended. The most
famous assaults were upon the city of Vigo by Sir Francis Drake in 1585 and 1589,
and the siege of A Coruña in 1589 by the English Armada. Galicia also suffered
occasional slave raids by Barbary pirates, but not as frequently as the Mediterranean
coastal areas. The most famous Barbary attack was the bloody sack of the town
of Cangas in 1617.[36] At the time, the king's petitions for money and troops became
more frequent, due to the human and economic exhaustion of Castile; the Junta of
the Kingdom of Galicia (the local Cortes or representative assembly) was initially
receptive to these petitions, raising large sums, accepting the conscription of the
men of the kingdom, and even commissioning a new naval squadron which was
sustained with the incomes of the Kingdom.[37]

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Partial view of the Romanesque interior of the Cathedral of

An illustration of the Cantigas de Santa Maria (13th

Gothic painting at Vilar de Donas' church, Palas de Rei

Tomb of the knight Sueiro Gómez de Soutomaior

Map of the Kingdom of Galicia, 1603

Maria Pita, heroine of the defense of A Coruña during the

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