Bourbon Absolutism & Liberal Revolutions

Castile and the unified Spanish monarchy.

1 chapter

1516 - 1707

Under the Habsburg monarchy, imperial consolidation and Counter-Reformation Catholicism reshaped Aragon's cultural landscape. The most devastating event was the Morisco expulsion of 1610: approximately 70,000 Moriscos — one-sixth of Aragon's population — were deported from towns across the Ebro valley, including Calanda, Albalate, and Híjar. Entire communities vanished, leaving Arabic-derived place names as the only visible trace of their centuries-long presence. The Pilar devotion, documented from the 12th century as a pious tradition, was amplified by Counter-Reformation energy: the feast was moved from January 2 to October 12 in 1613, probably to coincide with the end of harvests, absorbing an agricultural rhythm into the Marian calendar. The coincidence with Columbus's 1492 landfall would later make October 12 a doubly loaded signifier — harvest celebration and Hispanic-world patronage.

From 1900

The 20th century constructed many Aragonese traditions that today feel ancient. The Fiestas del Pilar acquired their most iconic acts under Franco: the Ofrenda de Flores (1950s), Ofrenda de Frutos (1949), and Reina de las Fiestas (1949, discontinued after democracy). The Holy Week drumming of Bajo Aragón — the Rompida de la Hora at Calanda, the Tamborrada at Híjar — received UNESCO intangible heritage recognition in 2018, though the founding 1127 legend remains undocumented and the possible Morisco roots of the tradition are unexplored. The jota aragonesa, now Aragon's signature dance, may have Mediterranean-wide roots: recent research links it to the tarantella healing tradition of southern Italy, with 'accelerated jotas' danced as antidotes to tarantula bites in towns like Fraga and Ariño. The Aragonese language (fabla), spoken by fewer than 12,000 in Pyrenean valleys like Ansó and Hecho, and Catalan in La Franja towns like Mequinenza, face political headwinds — the 2013 LAPAO law refused to name either language directly, and subsequent PP-Vox governance introduced 'lahueo' as yet another circumlocution. Rural depopulation (28.5% of Aragon's localities experiencing accelerated decline) now threatens the small-town communities that maintain these distinct practices, from the Bielsa carnival's Tranga and oso to the nine towns of the Ruta del Tambor y Bombo.

1035 - 1516

The Kingdom of Aragon, emerging from Pyrenean counties after 1035, expanded through a frontier process that was as much about alliance, tribute, and cultural exchange as about military conquest. The result was Mudéjar coexistence: Muslim craftsmen building churches for Christian patrons in a style that fused Islamic decorative technique with European architectural forms. UNESCO recognizes ten Aragonese Mudéjar buildings as 'an authentic testament to the peaceful co-existence of Christianity and Islam with contributions from Jewish culture' — the towers of Teruel, La Seo's parroquieta in Zaragoza, and the Aljafería's repurposed palace all embody this fusion. The fueros (local laws) guaranteed communal self-governance and shaped a political culture of negotiated autonomy that festival traditions would carry forward even after the institutions were abolished. San Juan de la Peña, the first royal pantheon of Aragon, and Castle of Loarre — one of Europe's finest Romanesque fortresses — anchor the Pyrenean origins of this kingdom.

711 - 1035

Islamic al-Andalus transformed the Ebro valley into a network of fortified towns and irrigation systems that still shape Aragon's landscape. The taifa of Zaragoza (Saraqusta) became one of the most brilliant courts of 11th-century Iberia: the Aljafería Palace, built by Abu Jaffar Al-Muqtadir around 1060, stands as the finest surviving taifa-era palace. Arabic-derived place names — Alquézar (al-qasr, fortress), Mequinenza (Miknasa Berber tribe), Guadalaviar (white river) — form an involuntary but persistent record of Islamic cultural geography. The Pyrenean valleys north of the Pre-Pyrenees remained outside intensive Islamic settlement, preserving earlier linguistic layers that would become the Aragonese fabla.