Honor, Commerce and Industry in Eighteenth-Century Spain by W.J. Callahan (review)

232 THE CANADIAN HISTORICAL REVIEW To achieve these ends Louis centralized the arts under his direct control and established academies tomaintain norms andtoguarantee thetraining andsupply of the bestavailable talent.Theyweregreatdaysfor musicians, singers, dancers, and designers, whowerewell trainedandwellpaid.Theywerenot, however, greatdaysfor composers or poets unless theyhappened to be Lully or Quinault,for herewasa virtualmonopoly andsuch composers asLalande and Marc-Antoine Charpentier had to wait in thewingsuntil Lully died. Professor Isherwood describes all this.He startswith a chapteron musical philosophy, wherehediscusses Platonism andNeo-Platonism, asfar astheyaffectmusic andpoetry,at length;at toogreata lengthperhaps since thefinal results remainonly superficially relatedto them.He thenproceeds to a description of the usesthat the Frankishand Valoiskingsfoundfor musicand the maturationof the balletde courduringthereignof Louisxni. The restof the bookdescribes and discusses the reignof the SunKing, with special emphasis on the musicof J.-B.Lully, the firstof that succession of greatFrench operacomposers whowerenot Frenchthemselves butwhoweretemperamentallycapable ofplacingbutterontherightsideof theirbread. Isherwood isnot a musicologist, ratherishe an historian with a considerable knowledge of and a likingfor music.This is refreshing, for he doesnot write in musicologese, justplain English,evenusingwordslike gimmickwherethe purpose isserved. His discussion of themusic andtextsissolidandintelligent. Althoughthereisnothingherethat isnotgenerally known,andnoperceptible pointof view emerges, he does present us,in a fascinating way,with an enormousweightof corroborative evidence to reinforce what isknown.He mustbe takento taskon two counts:on pages23I and 233 he refersto B asthe relative major of g (c minor); were this bookwritten in German, B would be rightbutin English therelative majorof g is•b.Second, themusical examples (some of whichareratherpointless astheytellusverylittle) contain misprints .If thesemisprints are in the source he oughtto notethem (he doesin oneinstance),otherwise he hascommitted in the composers' nameserrorsin grammar(ex. •6) andin matching wordsandmusic, misplacing syllablesan unforgivable sinin Frenchmusic.Althoughthesethingsmustbepointedout theyin nowaydetractfromtheexcellent text. GODFREY RIDOUT Universityo[ Toronto Honor,Commerce andIndustryin Eighteenth-Century Spain.w.j. Boston,KressLibrary Series,Harvard Graduate Schoolof Business Administration ,•972.PP.x, 8•. $4.0o. Withintheconfines of a briefmonograph, Professor Callahan haspacked an extraordinary amountof thought-provoking data regarding the effortsof the Bourbon kings of Spainto develop theircountry commercially andindustrially in theeighteenth century. Thisfascinating examination ofwhatmustultimately be considered a failingattemptto modernize the Spanish economy should, at REVIEWS 233 least,bringpausefor reflection to those who tendto gloss overfundamental differences whichsetSpainapartfromotherEuropean countries aswell asto those steeped in the beliefthat economic factors are what basically governa nation's historical development. Bothof these points of viewarechallenged by Callahan's study which,in thelastanalysis, demonstrates thatit wasa peculiar valuesystem, the keyto whichwasa religiously derivedvalueof honour,that frustrated attempts to transform a wealthylandedaristocracy intoa commercial nobility, involve wealthy commoners in commerce andindustry, dignifymanual tradesin an industrialcontext, and to rid the countryof an endemic idleness which impededthe economic development envisaged by Spain'seighteenthcenturymonarchs . The fundamentalproblemfacingthe Bourbonkingswasmanifested in a varietyof ways.Thus, evenamongthosewho urgedcommercial involvement on the nobility,therewouldbe an awareness that 'A noblemustnot sethis heart on the acquisition of wealth... If he seeks riches,he mustnot do sofor himselfbut for hisnativeland' (quotedby Callahan,p. 9). The corollaryto thiswouldbethat,whilecommerce couldberegarded aslicitandpraiseworthy because,as Callahan observes, 'it arosefrom the divine commandmentthat menshould lovetheirneighbors andassist oneanotherthroughthemutualexchange of necessities,' retailtrade'wasseen asmorallyreprehensible' because it 'led inevitably to the sinsof avariceand dishonesty' (p. 9). Retail tradewas not permissible for nobles in Spainbecause, asonewriterput it, 'nobilitycan neverbe reconciled with actions opposed to Christianpurity' (p. 9). With regardsto commoners, the lure of ennoblement had to be held before themin orderto attractthemto mercantile or manufacturing enterprise, frequentlywith the admonition that nobletitlesand privileges wouldbe revoked in cases whereindividuals abandoned the enterprises for whichtheyhad been granted(p. 35). Evenso,Callahancitesonewriterwhocomplained that 'few sonssucceed their fathersin large-scale commerce' while anotheroneblamed the cessation of operations of several importantmercantilehouses of CSdizon 'the vanity of parentsdecorated with somehonor' (p. 35). Projectsto eliminateidleness by creatingworkhouses (hospicios) to shelter the idle while teachingthema tradealsofacedobjections relatedto the preoccupation with a religiously-derived notionof honor.The bishop of Barcelona thus opposedthe use of taxesto financethe workhouses 'lest the faithful be deprivedof the spiritualbenefits obtainedfrom personal actsof charityrepresentedby alms distributedto the hospicios' (p. 62). The effort to make the hospicios self-sufficient encountered opposition on the groundsthat 'self-sufficient workhouses would contradictthe charitablepurposewhich had led to their creationin the firstplace' (p. 64) whileotherswouldcomplainthat 'employmentin the rudework of operatingmachines wouldbe intolerable for the poor'(quotedbyCallahan,p. 64). Ultimately,the hospicios...