The Making of an Enlightened Ruling Class. Basque and Navarrese Elites in the Educational System of the Spanish Monarchy (1717-1808)

Abstract

During the 18th century, the Bourbon dynasty promoted and created an array of educational institutions that would serve its own reformist project by training its military and political agents. This paper approaches this educational system through four of its most important centres: the Naval Officer’s Royal Academy, the Noble’s Royal Seminary, the Royal Academy of Artillery and the Royal Patriotic Seminary of Vergara. The prosopographical analysis of the pupils is the empirical foundation and the core of our work. For the sake of detail, we focus on the Basque and Navarrese students that attended these institutions, who were part of a broader elite closely linked to the Spanish state-building process. Many of the region’s most important families, the ones controlling the regional political space, sent their children to these academies while they took important careers in the imperial political structures. Moreover, our work shows these families’ role in transmitting reformist ideas in their local communities. Therefore, our approach stresses the need to analyse education not in an isolated way, but in close relation with the other elements of the system.