Enlightenment in Spain Enlightenment in Spain The ideas of the Age of Enlightenment (in Spanish, "Ilustración") came to Spain in the eighteenth century with the new Bourbon dynasty, following the death of the last , Charles II, in 1700. "Like the Spanish Enlightenment, the Spanish Bourbon monarchs were imbued with Spain's Catholic identity." The period of reform and 'enlightened despotism' under the Bourbons focused on centralizing and modernizing the Spanish government, and improvement of infrastructure, beginning with the rule of King Charles III and the work of his minister, José Moñino, count of Floridablanca. In the political and economic sphere, the crown implemented
Bourbon claim to the Spanish throne around 824 when they rebelled against nominal Carolingian authority. In 905, a coalition of neighbors forced Fortún Garcés, a grandson of Íñigo Arista, to retire to a monastery, and enthroned in his place a scion of a new dynasty, under which, the name Navarre began to supplant that of Pamplona. With the assassination of Sancho IV, the last king of the aforementioned dynasty, Navarre was invaded by his cousins Alfonso VI of Castile and Sancho Ramirez of Aragon, and the latter made king, leading to a half-century of Aragonese control. The death of Alfonso led to a succession crisis in