3 - The city of Toledo

Summary

THE POPULATION, 1528–1625

The sixteenth-century chronicler, Luis Hurtado, acclaimed Toledo as the heart and principal city of Castile, and, even allowing for the partiality of the author, a native of the city, his judgment was correct (‘Memorial’, p. 523). When Hurtado wrote his history in 1576, Toledo, known also as the Imperial City, was the second largest city in Castile. One need only glance at a map of Spain to see that the city is situated close to the geographic centre of the peninsula, a location that made it a logical spot for the development of trade, commerce and manufacture. During the reign of Charles V the city was frequently host to the itinerant Castilian court and Cortes, but Philip II convened only one Cortes in Toledo (1559–60) and when the king and his court left the Imperial City in May 1561 Madrid became the unofficial capital of Castile. Philip's decision to establish his court in Madrid, only 70 kilometers to the north of Toledo, had disastrous effects for the prosperity and prestige of the Imperial City. Trade routes, commerce and population began to shift northward, leaving Toledo shorn of most of her pretensions to the title of the principal city of Castile.

Toledo possessed one dignity never lost to Madrid, for the city remained the spiritual centre of Castile, the residence of the archbishop of Toledo, primate of the Spanish church.