Liberal Revolution & Industrial Modernization

Castile and the unified Spanish monarchy.

1 chapter

1707 - 1808

The Bourbon victory in the War of Spanish Succession brought the Nueva Planta decrees of 29 June 1707, signed by Philip V — a foundational trauma in Valencian collective memory. The decrees completely abolished the Furs of Valencia, the Corts Valencianes, and the Generalitat, incorporating the Kingdom of Valencia into the Crown of Castile under Castilian law. Stand before the Palau de la Generalitat in Valencia: after 1707, the building that housed Valencian self-governance was repurposed as the seat of the new Bourbon Audiencia, a visible symbol of institutional erasure. Xàtiva, which had resisted the Bourbons, was burned and its name officially changed to 'San Felipe' — the birthplace of the Borgia popes was literally erased from the map as punishment. Climb to Xàtiva Castle and the scars of that destruction are part of the site's story. The Nueva Planta was not merely administrative modernization: it was a rupture of institutional continuity that directly shapes how Valencian identity relates to the Spanish state to this day. Do not romanticize the pre-1707 Kingdom — the Furs served an elite, and the Morisco population had already been expelled — but do not erase the specificity of what was lost: named, functioning institutions of self-governance that had existed for over four centuries.

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.

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.

From 1975

Spain's democratic transition restored Valencian self-governance and unleashed a revival of festival traditions that had been censored or co-opted under Franco. With the end of the dictatorship, 'the critical falles reappeared, and obscene satirical ones with them' — the Museu Fallero now displays the full arc from censored ninots to contemporary political satire. The Estatut d'Autonomia of 1982 created the Generalitat Valenciana and the Corts Valencianes; the Palau de la Generalitat became once again the seat of Valencian self-government, architecturally refurbished from 1982 onwards. The Statute was reformed in 2006, reaffirming the Comunitat Valenciana as a historic nationality. UNESCO inscribed the Misteri d'Elx (2001/2008), the Tribunal de les Aigües (2009), and the Fallas (2016) as Intangible Cultural Heritage — international recognition that simultaneously preserves and can smooth over internal conflicts about festival meaning and censorship history. In Castellón de la Plana, the Fiestas de la Magdalena commemorate the city's 1251 founding with the Gaiata lighted procession — a Castellón-specific tradition rooted in the same calendar of fire and light that runs through Fallas and Hogueras. Today, watch the Tribunal de les Aigües convene every Thursday at noon at the Cathedral's Puerta de los Apóstoles, hear oral proceedings in Valencian, and see a 1,000-year-old Islamic-era institution operate in a 21st-century democratic community. Stand in the Basilica de Santa María in Elche on August 14 and watch La Magrana — the medieval aerial device — descend through the basilica's nave as it has since the 15th century. The key question for today: how do these traditions navigate between tourist spectacle, political instrumentalization, and genuine community practice?