The opening decades of the seventeenth century, in particular the period 1615–25, witnessed the publication of an unprecedented volume of polemical literature in Spain that focused on the acute crisis – demographic and economic in its broad dimensions – engulfing its kingdoms. The authors were a heterogeneous group of commentators, collectively known as the arbitristas, who, via their treatises, put forward a range of expedients (arbitrios) for curing the ills afflicting the body politic. Foreign observers, political theorists and members of the Cortes, among others, also presented their advice to the monarch and his ministers within what was a remarkably open forum of public debate. Although the arbitristas were criticized by their contemporaries for being irrational in their judgements, and indeed were satirized in the writings of Cervantes and Quevedo, their role has been favourably reassessed by modern scholars. The arbitristas included academics, clergymen and merchants, as well as members of central and local government. Accordingly their approaches varied, encompassing a broad social, political and intellectual spectrum. When viewed collectively, their treatises provide historians with a unique insight into how Spaniards perceived their nation's decline.

One of the common concerns to which the arbitristas drew attention in their writing, little studied to date, is the contribution that the Spanish Church made to the crisis in which the country found itself. The excessive growth of the clerical estate, so they argued, had created a demographic imbalance, seriously reducing the size of the potential labour force. As a profession, the Church encouraged idleness and a lack of interest in economically productive activities. The exemptions and privileges enjoyed by the clerical estate were regarded as having a polarizing effect on society, protecting its own members while accentuating the plight of those who carried the burden of service and tribute. Contemporaries observed that a disproportionate amount of wealth had been absorbed by the Church, instead of being channelled into more productive areas of investment. At certain levels, they claimed, it had also allowed itself to succumb to corrupt practices of preferment. Beyond the small arbitrista circle, many Spaniards’ fundamental perception of the Spanish Church was that of an institution responsible for taking away the potential force and vitality of an ailing nation, for widening the contrast between privilege and poverty in society, and for readily accepting those without training or calling into its ranks.