Bourbon Centralization & Absolutist Reform

Castile and the unified Spanish monarchy.

1 chapter

1238 - 1707

The Crown of Aragon conquered the Islamic kingdom of Balansiya in 1238, establishing the Kingdom of Valencia as a separate political entity with its own Furs (laws promulgated by James I in 1261), its own Generalitat, and its own Corts Valencianes — institutions distinct from those of Aragon and Catalonia. This foral self-governance is the institutional memory that makes Valencian identity politically distinct. Stand before the Torres de Serranos, the 14th-century gates where the city's liberties were symbolically guarded, and you face the physical boundary of a self-governing medieval kingdom. The Conquest also created the cultural conditions for two of Valencia's defining festival traditions: the Misteri d'Elx, a mystery play performed in Valencian in the Basilica de Santa Maria since the mid-15th century (Consueta manuscripts survive from 1625), and the Moros i Cristians of Alcoy, documented since the 16th century, commemorating a 1276 battle against Muslim raiders. Both traditions are complex: the Misteri is a liturgical drama in Valencian that may have survived the Council of Trent's prohibition through a papal exemption (widely claimed but not verified), and Moros i Cristians re-enacts an imagined Islam through Orientalist costume while the actual Islamic-descended community was being systematically expelled. In 1609, Philip III ordered the expulsion of all Moriscos from Valencia; within three months, approximately 116,000 people — 33% of the population — were removed. Over 200 villages disappeared. The interior mountain regions where Moriscos had cultivated the land became deserted. Arabic place names (Beni-, -ena) survived as landscape fossils, and the acequia irrigation system continued under Christian management, but the community that created these was gone. This rupture — the single largest in Valencian cultural continuity — means any claim of unbroken Islamic-era tradition must account for this gap. Walk the medieval streets of Morella in Castellón's interior and you pass through a landscape emptied by that expulsion and slowly repopulated by settlers from elsewhere.

1808 - 1936

The Napoleonic invasion, liberal revolution, and industrialization of the 19th century reshaped Valencian society and created the conditions for modern festival formalization. The silk industry that had centered on La Lonja since the 15th century fed directly into the elaborate fallera costumes that emerged as Fallas evolved from neighborhood bonfires into organized spectacle. In 1928, José María Py formalized the Hogueras de San Juan in Alicante, combining pre-existing midsummer solstice bonfire traditions with Fallas-style artistic structures — a documented case of calendar-layering where solstice fire ritual, Fallas satirical sculpture, and Saint John Christian naming all remain visible. The Carlist Wars of the 19th century, fought bitterly in Valencia's interior mountains, left fortified towns like Buñol marked by conflict — a context that later shaped local festival traditions. In Ibi, the toy manufacturing industry that emerged in this period created the economic base for distinctive local celebrations; the Museo Valenciano del Juguete preserves that industrial-era material culture. This era also saw the codification of Valencian as a literary and political language: Lo Rat Penat organized satirical verse contests in Valencian as part of Fallas, a practice that would become crucial during the Franco-era suppression of the language.

711 - 1238

Islamic civilization transformed Valencia into Balansiya, a thriving Taifa kingdom whose engineering, agriculture, and urbanism still shape the region's physical landscape. The Caliphate of Córdoba laid out the Palmeral of Elche with elaborate irrigation in the 10th century; the same groves still produce white palms for Palm Sunday processions today — a rare case where Islamic-era landscape infrastructure feeds directly into Christian liturgical practice. Abd-ar-Rahman III founded the Tribunal de les Aigües around 960 CE to govern the acequia irrigation network; every Thursday at noon, that same tribunal still convenes at the Cathedral's Puerta de los Apóstoles, adjudicating in Valencian using Arabic-origin terminology (acequia, síndic). Climb to Santa Bárbara Castle above Alicante and the 9th-century Islamic walls are still visible beneath later Christian additions. The Islamic-era agricultural calendar — organized around water allocation and seasonal planting — may be the deepest temporal rhythm underlying Valencian festival timing, though this continuity must be read cautiously: the Morisco community that maintained these practices was expelled in 1609, and the surviving terminology is a landscape fossil of an absent community, not evidence of living Islamic ritual tradition.

1936 - 1975

The Spanish Civil War and Franco dictatorship subjected Valencian festival traditions to censorship, co-optation, and redirection — a documented case of how political control can overlay religious meaning on a popular practice. Fallas were suspended in 1937-1939, then permitted but censored: 'the celebration lost much of its satirical nature because of censorship,' and religious customs 'originally unrelated to the celebration' were imposed, most notably the Ofrena floral to Mare de Déu dels Desamparats. The Ofrena has since become a beloved tradition — illustrating how imposed elements can become authentic through community adoption. Walk into the Museu Fallero and the censored ninots from the Franco era are preserved: physical evidence of what was removed and what was permitted. The Basilica of Our Lady of the Forsaken, where the Ofrena floral is presented, became a symbolic pivot between regime-imposed Catholicism and genuine popular devotion. Lo Rat Penat continued organizing satirical verse contests in Valencian during this era, serving as a vehicle for language preservation when Valencian was excluded from public institutions. Avoid the romantic narrative of pure resistance: Fallas were not 'forbidden' during most of the Franco era, they were censored and redirected, and many falleros collaborated with the regime's framing. The complexity of survival under authoritarian conditions — both resistance and accommodation — is the real story.