Discussion: What should the Spanish have done with all that silver?

True - but even with that, Spain had the pop. potential to make up for it while still keeping their stupid Peninsular-Christian values intact.
It's far more realistic to see a smart, Espana-centric high ranking bureaucrat instituting school reform for the peasantry and children of the bourgeoisie then butterflying the inquisition or the wide reaching effects from it

Can you please avoid the phrase "Stupid Peninsular-Christian values" that's a little offensive for us here given that like it or not its part of our culture...

"high ranking bureaucrat instituting school reform for the peasantry and children of the bourgeoisie" - Keep the Cortes strong as the Peninsular Kings usually used them to gain support from the Bourgeoisie and the common people to fight the power of the Nobility or/and the Church. Also "School Reform"? How? There was no curriculum to impose in all the monastic/cathedral schools also the Peninsula had a surprisingly high number of Universities from where most bureaucrats where draft from (7 in Spain pre-1500 and 1 in Portugal. In comparison France had 4, England 2, Scotland 3, Germany 9 and Italy 13).
 
If they avoid Charles, then they avoid the Dutch Revolt, they wouldn't be dragged to the Habsburg-Valois conflict and into the Habsburg-Ottoman Wars.

The first one: indeed; the other two: Not really.

Spain will be a participant in the Italian Wars and/or the aforementioned border disputes, if the Spanish Kingdoms were ok with the French they wouldn't ally the Habsburgs under the pretext of containing French power after all. For the Ottomans, conflict with the Aragonese already existed since then (as the Ottos threatened the Aragonese thalassocracy in the region), so a Trastamara/Aviz Spain will have to do some action against the Ottomans (which involves aiding their Austrian allies).

So yeah, Spain will get involved in some of the Habsburgs messes until the French stop being a threat to their interests (in OTL it happened in the late 1500's) and the Ottomans being contained (which is a bit harder to do).
 
The first one: indeed; the other two: Not really.

Spain will be a participant in the Italian Wars and/or the aforementioned border disputes, if the Spanish Kingdoms were ok with the French they wouldn't ally the Habsburgs under the pretext of containing French power after all. For the Ottomans, conflict with the Aragonese already existed since then (as the Ottos threatened the Aragonese thalassocracy in the region), so a Trastamara/Aviz Spain will have to do some action against the Ottomans (which involves aiding their Austrian allies).

So yeah, Spain will get involved in some of the Habsburgs messes until the French stop being a threat to their interests (in OTL it happened in the late 1500's) and the Ottomans being contained (which is a bit harder to do).

Read the other post in which I admit Spanish-Ottoman Wars but they would mostly be naval and I doubt Spain would be willing to support Austria in their conquest of Hungary. If for some reason a Aviz Spain is created (Portugal-Castille-Aragon in PU) then expect the kingdom to just ignore everything north of the Pirineus because it would go against the African policy that the Aviz followed but in this scenario a Aviz-Ottoman war would be quite brutal with war being fought in the Indian ocean and in Arabia by the Portuguese Navy while the Aragonese-Castillian forces would fight in the Med.

Why would Spain involve itself into the Habsburg wars? They didn't shared interests, Spain was more focus on Southern Europe and their only rival in the area that could fight them was the Ottoman Empire while Austria's interests where in Hungary and the HRE. Without the Spanish Netherlands the only points of potential conflict are Navarre and Roussillon as by 1516 both had accept Spanish dominance in Naples while Spain accept French control of Milan and the only reason France allied with the Ottoman Empire was the fear of Habsburg encirclement with them controlling Spain and Austria.
 
I'm a capitalist tovarisch ;) get your fancy native American jewelry here! Aztec, mayan, Olmec, Toltec, inca, yo .. you cant get a better deal! this month 40% off black Friday deals!
I meant native Spanish industry.A lot of the stuff from otl seemed to have promoted the growth of foreign industry instead.
 
Can you please avoid the phrase "Stupid Peninsular-Christian values" that's a little offensive for us here given that like it or not its part of our culture...

"high ranking bureaucrat instituting school reform for the peasantry and children of the bourgeoisie" - Keep the Cortes strong as the Peninsular Kings usually used them to gain support from the Bourgeoisie and the common people to fight the power of the Nobility or/and the Church. Also "School Reform"? How? There was no curriculum to impose in all the monastic/cathedral schools also the Peninsula had a surprisingly high number of Universities from where most bureaucrats where draft from (7 in Spain pre-1500 and 1 in Portugal. In comparison France had 4, England 2, Scotland 3, Germany 9 and Italy 13).

Just a correction passing by : there were 14 universities in France pre-1500 (Angers, Aix, Bordeaux, Bourges, Caen, Cahors, Grenoble, Montpellier, Nantes, Orléans, Paris, Poitiers, Toulouse, Valence, not counting the nearby Avignon and Orange) v. the 10 spanish ones (Alcala, Barcelona, Gerona, Huesca, Lleida, Perpignan, Salamanca, Santiago, Siguenza, Valladolid). Opening the colegios mayores (or rather, making them stay true to their founding rationale) could be an useful reform, though.
 
Can you please avoid the phrase "Stupid Peninsular-Christian values" that's a little offensive for us here given that like it or not its part of our culture...

"high ranking bureaucrat instituting school reform for the peasantry and children of the bourgeoisie" - Keep the Cortes strong as the Peninsular Kings usually used them to gain support from the Bourgeoisie and the common people to fight the power of the Nobility or/and the Church. Also "School Reform"? How? There was no curriculum to impose in all the monastic/cathedral schools also the Peninsula had a surprisingly high number of Universities from where most bureaucrats where draft from (7 in Spain pre-1500 and 1 in Portugal. In comparison France had 4, England 2, Scotland 3, Germany 9 and Italy 13).

I was talking more about about the whole Moorish or Jewish = Undesirable thing that accompanied the inquisition.
 
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