José Eloy Hortal Muñoz (Madrid, 1974), was graduated in Early Modern and Modern History (1997) and History of Art (1999) at the UAM. After completing doctoral studies at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen (Netherlands), he obtained his PhD in Early Modern History at UAM in 2004, with the highest distinction, defending the dissertation El manejo de los asuntos de Flandes, 1585–1598. He also holds a master’s degree in Archivists from UNED. He is currently Full Professor at the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (Madrid), where he works since 2009.
His research focuses on the political history of the Habsburg Netherlands in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the courts of Brussels and Madrid, the royal guards of the Spanish Habsburgs, and, most prominently in recent years, the study of Royal Sites and Geographies in Europe as political, social, and cultural spaces.
He has been visiting researcher at numerous international institutions, with a total of 24 months of research stays abroad. These include PRIVACY (Denmark, Salvador de Madariaga Fellowship, 2022), the Bodleian Library at Oxford (David Walker Memorial Fellowship, 2018), Leiden University (NWO Visiting Grant, 2017), the Université de Liège and KU Leuven (FNRS Visiting Researcher, 2016), Ghent University (Onderzoeksfondsen UGent, 2013 and 2015), and The Graduate Center, CUNY (Research Project, New York, 2012).
He has recently conducted research and collaborated on projects at institutions such as Universidad Autónoma of Madrid, Ghent University, Leiden University, Utrecht University, University of Silesia in Katowice, York University and the Centre de recherche du château de Versailles. He has organized and co-organized numerous international conferences in Spain, France, England, or the Netherlands.
His major works include the monographs Las guardas reales de los Austrias hispanos (Madrid, 2013); and (with Gijs Versteegen), Las ideas políticas y sociales en la Edad Moderna (Madrid, 2016). He has also edited Politics and Piety at the Royal Sites of the Spanish Monarchy in the Seventeenth Century (Turnhout, 2021); and coedited (with René Vermeir and Dries Raeymaekers), A Constellation of Courts: The Households of Habsburg Europe, 1555-1665 (Leuven, 2014); (with África Espíldora García and Pierre-François Pirlet), El ceremonial en la Corte de Bruselas del siglo XVII. Los manuscritos de Francisco Alonso Lozano (Brussels, 2016), which was awarded the Henry Pirenne Prize in 2019; and (with Merlijn Hurx), Building the Presence of the Prince: The Institutions Responsible for the Construction and Management of the Buildings of European Courts (14th-17th Centuries) (Turnhout, 2024). As well, he has published widely in leading international journals, including The Court Historian, e-Spania, Mediaevalia Historica Bohemica, Studia Historica. Historia Moderna or Royal Studies Journal, on topics such as courtly space, royal households, ceremonial practices, and the political role of royal sites and geographies.
Interview at the spanish newspaper El Mundo, 11/12/2014
Interview at Radio Enlace Hortaleza, 18/01/2018
Interview at Madri+D about The Night of the Researcher´s, 04/09/2018
Apparition at some documentaries of the Spanish Television: Aguila Roja
Expert consulted to the documentaries Eighty Years War (1568-1648) for the NTR broadcasting company (The Netherlands)
Expert consulted and interviewed for the channel Arte for the program Invitation au voyage (France):
- Plaza Mayor de Madrid, 27/02/2018
- San Lorenzo de El Escorial, 17/04/2018 (after minute 31:00)
Expert consulted for the television contests ¡Ahora caigo! and Boom of the spanish channel Antena 3