James Casey is Senior Lecturer in European History at the University of East Anglia.

'A persuasive overview of the characteristics and governing assumptions of life for the six to twelve million or so people who lived in Iberia during the early modern centuries.' - The Sixteenth Century Journal, winter 2000

• Introduction 1 An inhospitable land 2 The fewness of people 3 The limits of a peasant economy 4 Treasure and the cost of empire 5 Feudal lords and village potentates 6 Patricians and paupers: the urban commonwealth 7 The consolidation of an aristocracy 8 Obedience to the law 9 The policing of the family 10 The community of the faithful

James Casey is Senior Lecturer in European History at the University of East Anglia.

'A persuasive overview of the characteristics and governing assumptions of life for the six to twelve million or so people who lived in Iberia during the early modern centuries.' - The Sixteenth Century Journal, winter 2000

• Introduction 1 An inhospitable land 2 The fewness of people 3 The limits of a peasant economy 4 Treasure and the cost of empire 5 Feudal lords and village potentates 6 Patricians and paupers: the urban commonwealth 7 The consolidation of an aristocracy 8 Obedience to the law 9 The policing of the family 10 The community of the faithful

James Casey is Senior Lecturer in European History at the University of East Anglia.

'A persuasive overview of the characteristics and governing assumptions of life for the six to twelve million or so people who lived in Iberia during the early modern centuries.' - The Sixteenth Century Journal, winter 2000

• Introduction 1 An inhospitable land 2 The fewness of people 3 The limits of a peasant economy 4 Treasure and the cost of empire 5 Feudal lords and village potentates 6 Patricians and paupers: the urban commonwealth 7 The consolidation of an aristocracy 8 Obedience to the law 9 The policing of the family 10 The community of the faithful