PAU History of Spain (Castilla y León) study guide
PAU History of Spain (Castilla y León) · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The PAU (Prueba de Acceso a la Universidad, also called EBAU) in History of Spain is the university-access examination set for students in Castilla y León who sit the history paper within the regional access procedure. It is aimed at school-leavers finishing Bachillerato and at candidates entering through other routes who need a scored, exam-based subject for admission. The PAU History of Spain (Castilla y León) study guide has 7 sections and about 3,192 words.
01Prehistory and Antiquity: from Atapuerca to the Visigothic kingdom
This domain runs from the first human occupation of the peninsula to the collapse of the Visigothic kingdom in 711. Local weight falls on the Sierra de Atapuerca (Burgos), on the Iron Age peoples of the Duero basin, and on the two colonising processes that reshaped Iberia: Roman and Visigothic.
460 words, about 2 min02Medieval Spain: Al-Andalus, the Christian kingdoms and the Crown of Castile-León
The passage from the Muslim conquest to a peninsula of competing Christian crowns, with the Crown of Castile-León at the centre: its repoblación methods, legal instruments, pastoral economy and late-medieval crisis. 711 Guadalete; 714–756 walis dependent on Damascus; 756 independent emirate (Abd al-Rahman I); 929 Caliphate (Abd al-Rahman III); 1031 fitna and taifa kingdoms.
475 words, about 2 min03The Hispanic Monarchy in the Modern Age: Catholic Monarchs, Habsburgs and Bourbons
From the dynastic union of 1469 to the end of Charles II and the War of the Succession: how the Hispanic Monarchy worked as a composite of kingdoms, what Habsburg imperial policy cost, and how the Bourbons centralised the state. 1469 marriage; 1474 Isabella in Castile, 1479 Ferdinand in Aragon: a dynastic union, not a unified state - each kingdom kept its laws, Cortes and coinage.
465 words, about 2 min04Crisis of the Old Regime, liberal revolution and the nation-state (1808–1874)
The collapse of the absolutist monarchy under the impact of revolutionary France and Napoleon, the birth of Spanish liberalism in Cádiz, and the long contest between moderados and progresistas that built the liberal state between 1833 and 1874. 1808: Aranjuez (March), the abdications at Bayonne, 2 May in Madrid; war to 1814; juntas; guerrilla warfare; local episodes such as Medina de Rioseco (July 1808).
427 words, about 2 min05Restoration, Second Republic and Civil War (1874–1939)
The functioning and collapse of the Restoration regime, the reformist and polarising experience of the Republic, and the military rupture of July 1936 with the war that followed. Cánovas designs the Constitution of 1876 : shared sovereignty between Crown and Cortes, bicameralism, restricted suffrage (universal male suffrage only from 1890 under Sagasta).
445 words, about 2 min06Franco dictatorship and democratic transition (1939–present)
Francoism as a dictatorship with changing international alignments and economic phases, and the negotiated transition from that regime to a parliamentary monarchy consolidated in the 1978 Constitution. Repression and institutions: Law of Political Responsibilities (1939), trade-union and party persecution; Cortes created 1942; Fuero de los Españoles 1945; Law of Succession 1947 (Spain declared a kingdom, Franco as regent); Organic Law of the State 1966; Juan Carlos designated successor in 1969.
485 words, about 2 min07Historical skills: sources, maps, graphs, images and historical argumentation
Every option contains a document - text, map, graph, image - and the marks reward a repeatable analytical procedure plus a structured argument. A description of the source with no historical interpretation is the classic low-mark answer.
435 words, about 2 min