[2] Joanna's husband, Philip I, reigned briefly; he was replaced by Archbishop Cisneros as regent for a short time, and then by Isabella's widower Ferdinand who ruled from Aragon.

[3] Ferdinand's claim to continue ruling Castile as regent was somewhat tenuous after Isabella's death, but no plausible alternatives existed as the sovereign, their widowed daughter Joanna, was mentally unfit to reign on her own.

[3] The landed nobility of Castile took advantage of the weak and corrupt Royal Council to illegally expand their territory and domain with private armies while the government did nothing.

[8] Additionally, Ferdinand had invaded and occupied the Iberian part of Navarre in 1512, and forces were required to garrison it against Navarrese revolts and French armies.

With the arrival of the new king in late 1517, his Flemish court took positions of power in Castile; young Charles only trusted people he knew from the Netherlands.

One of the first public protests involved placards posted in churches, which read: You, land of Castile, very wretched and damned are you to suffer that as noble a kingdom as you are, you will be governed by those who have no love for you.

The order came on April 15; one day later, as the councilors prepared to leave, a large crowd opposed to the departure rioted and drove out the royal administrators instead.

A revolutionary Cortes, La Santa Junta de las Comunidades ("Holy Assembly of the Communities"),[b] held its first session in Ávila and declared itself the legitimate government deposing the Royal Council.

New members now joined the Junta of Ávila and the Royal Council looked discredited; Adrian had to flee to Medina de Rioseco as Valladolid fell.

[30] A total of thirteen cities were represented in the Junta of Tordesillas: Burgos, Soria, Segovia, Ávila, Valladolid, León, Salamanca, Zamora, Toro, Toledo, Cuenca, Guadalajara, and Madrid.

Murcia stayed with the rebel cause, but did not coordinate much with the Junta, and the rebellion there had a character closer to the nearby Revolt of the Brotherhoods in Valencia in Aragon.

[35] A close correlation can be drawn between poor economic fortunes over the previous twenty years and the rebellion; central Castile suffered from agricultural failure and other setbacks under the Royal Council, while Andalusia was relatively prosperous with its maritime trade.

The comuneros organized their militias in the major cities and levied new taxes on the countryside; they also took measures aimed at eliminating waste, routinely auditing their treasurers and dismissing those thought to be corrupt.

[48] The royal government, which had lost much of its revenue due to the revolt, sought loans from Portugal and from conservative Castilian bankers, who saw reassuring signs in the switch of the allegiance of Burgos.

[53] This situation continued until December 2, when Girón, apparently thinking the royal army would remain entrenched,[c] moved his forces west to the small town of Villalpando.

[54] Morale fell among the rebels, and much angry criticism was directed towards Pedro Girón for his maneuvering of the troops out of position and for his failure to attempt to retake Tordesillas or capture Medina de Rioseco.

[58] In the far north of Castile, the rebel army began a series of operations conducted by Antonio de Acuña, bishop of Zamora.

[51][59] In mid-January, Pedro de Ayala, Count of Salvatierra, joined the comuneros and organized an army of about two thousand men who set about raiding the north of Castile.

[62] Meanwhile, the rebellion in Burgos scheduled for January 23 was a failure due to poor coordination with the besieging army; it started two days early and was easily crushed.

[59][62] After abandoning the siege of Burgos due to the failure of its revolt, Padilla decided to return to Valladolid, while Acuña opted to resume his skirmishing and harassment of noble properties around Tierra de Campos.

The Constable of Castile moved his troops (including soldiers recently transferred from the defense of Navarre) southwest from Burgos to meet with the Admiral's forces near Tordesillas.

Castile had withdrawn some of its troops from occupied Navarre to fight the comuneros, and King Francis I of France used the opportunity to invade with support from the Navarrese.

[85] María Pacheco continued her presence in the city and refused to hand over all the hidden weapons until Charles V personally signed the agreements reached with the Order of St. John.

Embarrassingly large numbers of important people had supported the comuneros, or at least were suspiciously slow to declare allegiance to the king, and Charles thought it unwise to press the issue too much.

As a consequence, Charles was nearly constantly at war, fighting France, England, the Papal States, the Ottoman Turks, the Aztecs, the Incas, and the Protestant Schmalkaldic League during his reign.

[98] If anything, the co-option of the middle class worked too well; when Charles' successor King Phillip II demanded a ruinously large tax increase in the 1580s, the Cortes was too dependent on the Crown for money to effectively resist policies that would wreck the economy.

Don Quixote references the rebellion in a conversation with Sancho, and Francisco de Quevedo uses the word "comunero" as a synonym for "rebel" in his works.

[106] Drawing on collected original sources, Danvila emphasized the fiscal demands of the comuneros, and cast them as traditionalist, reactionary, medieval, and feudal.

Historians such as José Antonio Maravall and Joseph Pérez portray the developing revolt as alliances of different social coalitions around shifting economic interests, with the "industrial bourgeoisie" of artisans and woolworkers combining with the intellectuals and the low nobility against the aristocrats and the merchants.

The celebration highlights the roles of Juan López de Padilla and María Pacheco, and is done in memory of the rebellion in 1522, the last event of the war.