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The term has its roots in the Iberian Peninsula of the late 16th and 17th centuries, a time when Spanish and Portuguese empires were both hugely important and visibly decadent. In the late 15th and early 16th centuries these two relatively underpopulated an unsophisticated kingdoms had leapt to world prominence on the basis of their ferocity (honed in the centuries-long frontier struggle against the Muslim “heathen”) and their precocious understanding of naval technology. Between 1470 and 1550 these came to control much of Africa, all of Central and South America, and substantial pieces of Europe (much of southern Italy, the Low Countries and a good part of today’s Germany and Austria). But no sooner did they establish control of these places then, as could be expected, resistance to their rule began to grow.

In the Americas, the Iberians’ relative military and naval superiority allowed them to overwhelm the opposition until the beginning of the 19th century. In Europe, however, things were far more complicated.