The experience in Flanders and Portugal’s union with the Spanish Monarchy

Abstract

The degree to which the Portuguese adhered to the Habsburgs’ Catholic project following the Iberian unification (1580) remains something of a mystery. Madrid’s “anti-heresy crusade” in Europe was seemingly incompatible with the Portuguese political imaginary centred in the overseas empire. However, there are signs that the European battlefields of the Habsburgs, particularly Flanders, generated great fascination in Portugal, entering into the stock of Portuguese cultural references. In fact, those battlefields sometimes seemed to have stolen the leading role of the empire in the Portuguese martial imaginary. This study focuses on the Portuguese experience in Flanders, deconstructing its immediate appropriation and the way it has lodged itself in country’s historical memory.