Las milicias en el Mediterráneo occidental. Valencia y Cerdeña en la época de los Austrias

In evolutionary terms, it is generally accepted that in the early decades of the sixteenth century the art and scale of war changed. The increase of the professional component in royal armies caused logistical and economic difficulties to solve by the royal administration. With a great empire to defend, the Hispanic Monarchy focused on their military resources to the most strategic borders. For this and other reasons, traditional forms of military organizations, suchs as local militias, were far from being former things: defending the cities, towns and villages of the kingdom was the responsability and the right of the neighbours. This is the subject of our reseach and focusing on kingdoms of Valencia and Sardinia during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. According to the documentation found, in both kingdoms traditional forms of military contribution were revised with a different operational scale and service conditions after the fall of La Goleta in 1574. About this reality shared at the end of sixteenth century, our main objective is to make a comparative study between the two forms of territorial militia.