Catholic Kings

• The Catholic Monarchs founded the Spanish monarchy through the dynastic union of the crowns of Castile and Aragon and the subsequent incorporation of Granada, Navarra, the Canary Islands and other regions. The expansionist policy of the Catholic Monarchs led them to sponsor the voyages of Christopher Columbus that led to the European discovery of America.
• The Catholic Monarchs laid the foundations for a centralized monarchy. It is usually considered the first step towards the construction of a modern State in Spain, with a Crown army, a centralized tax system, an administrative bureaucracy and local organization mechanisms in towns and cities.
• The Catholic Monarchs caused the definitive defeat of the Muslims of the peninsula in 1492, the final episode of the so-called “Reconquista”. The policy of religious unification led to the expulsion or forced conversion of Jews and Muslims, and the creation of the Spanish Inquisition.

The Catholic Monarchs and dynastic unity

The war of Castilian succession

In 1469 the marriage of Isabel of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon took place. Both belonged to the ruling families in Castile and Aragon, where different branches of the Trastámara dynasty reigned.

After the death of Henry IV of Castile in 1474, a civil war broke out over the succession in Castile, which pitted the supporters of:

• The sister of Henry IV, Isabella of Castile which had the support of the crown of Aragon.
• The alleged daughter of Enrique IV, Juana “la Beltraneja” supported by the kingdom of Portugal.

The succession conflict culminated in the battle of Toro in 1476 and the peace of Alcazovas with Portugal in 1479. Isabel I was recognized as queen of Castile .

The dynastic union

In 1479, the same year that Isabel I was recognized as queen of Castile, Ferdinand II was crowned king of Aragon after the death of his father, Juan II. Since Isabel and Ferdinand had already married, this situation caused the dynastic union between the two most powerful kingdoms of the peninsula: Castile and Aragon .

Next, the new kings set out to unify the entire Iberian Peninsula under their crown:

• In January 1492, the conquest of the Nasrid kingdom of Granada was completed, the last stage of the so-called “Reconquista” that ended with the last Muslim State on the peninsula.
• Starting in 1490, the Catholic Monarchs used the marriage policy to link themselves to the crown of Portugal, although the dynastic union of Castile and Portugal was only carried out in 1580, under the reign of Philip II.
• After the death of Isabel I in 1504, Ferdinand II conquered Navarre in 1512 and, in 1515, The incorporation of Navarra into Castile was declared.
• Previously, with the signing of the Treaty of Barcelona in 1493, Aragon had recovered the territories of Roussillon and Cerdanya from France, and Castile had completed the conquest of the Canary Islands in 1496.

In this way the process of unification of Spain took place. The unity was, however, a dynastic union. Although the different kingdoms remained under the authority of the same monarchs, they continued to maintain different laws and institutions. .

The conquest of the Canary Islands and the approach to Portugal

The crowns of Castile and Portugal were rivals over the rights to conquer the Canary Islands. Finally, in 1479, Portugal renounced the islands by the Treaty of Alcazovas. In 1478, the Catholic Monarchs ordered the conquest of Gran Canaria . In 1493 the island of La Palma was annexed and the union with Castile concluded in 1496 with the conquest of Tenerife.

The conquest process was very similar to that later applied in America.. Was carried out by individuals who signed contracts (called “capitulations”) with the crown of Castile, which granted them permission to explore and conquer lands.

The guanches , the indigenous population of the Canary Islands, were decimated . The violence of the conquerors and the contagion of diseases from Europe were the key to the demographic disaster.

The conquerors, especially Andalusians and Extremaduransenslaved the dwindling indigenous population, despite the legal prohibitions of the kings and the Pope . Given the demographic decline, they began to take slaves obtained on the African coast to the Canary Islands. Sugar became the main source of wealth on the islands.

The administrative structure was copied from the Castilian one, with a captain general in charge of the archipelago and two in charge in Tenerife and Gran Canaria. Christopher Columbus stopped in Gran Canaria, and then set sail from the island of La Gomera on the voyage that took him to America in 1492.

With respect to Portugal, the Catholic Monarchs used marriage policy systematically as an instrument of foreign policy:

• In 1490, they married their daughter Isabel to Prince Alfonso of Portugal, the first-born son of King John II.
  
• The death of Alfonso in 1491 and of King John II in 1495 left the monarch's brother, Manuel I, called “the Fortunate,” as heir. In 1497, Manuel I married Isabella.
• Isabel died in 1498, during the birth of her son Miguel, and he died two years later. Marriage diplomacy led to the marriage of the Infanta María, also daughter of the Catholic Monarchs, with King Manuel I of Portugal.

Even though This marriage policy did not lead to the union with the crown of Portugal during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs. the complex network of family relationships allowed, in 1580, Philip II to successfully claim his right to the throne of Portugal.

The organization of the State under the Catholic Monarchs

The Catholic Monarchs carried out a work to strengthen the power of monarchs . The task began during the years of the civil war in Castile (1475-1479) and continued throughout his reign.

Isabella and Ferdinand put an end to the conflict between noble power and royal power that had characterized the Late Middle Ages. With the Catholic Monarchs, the authority of the monarchs was restored and government institutions and public finances were consolidated:

• The Treasury system was reorganized in the Cortes of Toledo in 1480, when the mercedes (grants to the nobles) made during the reign of Henry IV. This measure mainly harmed the nobles who had supported Juana “la Beltraneja” in the war of Castilian succession and allowed the monarchs to recover more than half of their income.
• The constitution of the Holy Brotherhood was approved in 1476, in the Cortes gathered in Madrigal de las Altas Torres. It was a police and judicial body that also carried out important work in tax collection. The Holy Brotherhood was key in the pacification and restoration of order in the kingdom.
• The Royal Council was reorganized in 1480, which gave a central role to the literate, graduated from universities with a solid legal training. The nobles were relegated to a purely advisory role.
• Royal power was also reinforced at the local level with the extension of the corregidors. These were delegates of the power of the monarchs in towns and cities, they presided over the town councils and had judicial and police functions.
• It was established actual control of military orders (Santiago, Calatrava, Alcántara) and the strengthening of the administration of justice, with two royal chanceries located in Valladolid and Granada.
• In the crown of Aragon, the monarchical power had more difficulties that in Castile for become stronger, due to the “pactist” political tradition of Aragon (where the king had to make pacts with the nobility and the Cortes). However, the power of the lieutenants general, temporary delegates of the king who became important due to the frequent absences of Ferdinand II from the kingdom of Aragon, was reinforced.

The religious policy of the Catholic Monarchs

The “Catholic Kings” received this name at the initiative of Pope Alexander VI in 1496. It was due to recognition of his defense of the Catholic faith throughout the peninsula, which included the conquest of the Nasrid kingdom of Granada (1492), the expulsion or conversion to Catholicism of the Jews of the peninsula (1492) and the creation of the Spanish Inquisition (1478).

The Court of the Inquisition in the kingdom of Castile was created by Pope Sixtus IV, at the initiative of the Catholic Monarchs. with the aim of investigating and punishing people accused of heresy. The activity of the Spanish Inquisition in these years focused mainly on Jewish converts. who were believed to continue professing the Jewish faith in secret.

Unlike the papal Inquisition, The inquisitors of the Spanish Holy Office were appointed by the Crown and they depended directly on it. The first inquisitor general of Spain was Tomás de Torquemada. The political objective of this institution was achieve religious unification of the Iberian Peninsula to consolidate the dominance of the centralized monarchy.

The foreign policy of the Catholic Monarchs

The conquest of the Nasrid kingdom of Granada and its consequences

The war of Granada began in 1482 and It was marked by Christian military power and internal divisions in the Muslim kingdom. . Its main moments were the conquests of Ronda (1485) and Málaga (1487).

The final siege of the city of Granada, between April 1491 and January 1492, culminated in the final surrender of Boabdil, the last sultan of the Nasrid kingdom, on January 2, 1492.

The war and the conquest of Granada were so important for the reign of the Catholic Monarchs that The remains of both rest in the royal chapel of the cathedral of Granada . This importance can be identified in the following aspects:

• The conquest of Granada It served to reinforce the prestige of the monarchs.
• For the kingdom of Castile, this conquest ratified the victory of Isabella and Ferdinand in the succession conflict and secured their position vis-à-vis the nobility, who were made to participate massively in the war.
• This confrontation encouraged the development of the tax system and Castilian military capacity. A Crown army was formed, which represented a key moment in the construction of the modern State.
• The war in Granada It consolidated the unity of Castilians and Aragonese, who participated, (although unequally) both militarily and financially, in this first great common enterprise of the new monarchy.
• In international politics, this conquest made it possible to strengthen the defense of the Mediterranean coast, against the advance of the Ottoman Empire.
• The taking of Granada He left the Catholic Monarchs free to concentrate their forces on the other fronts of their foreign policy, especially their rivalry with France in Roussillon, Italy and Navarra.

Expansion in Italy

While Castile embarked on Atlantic expansion and the progressive conquest of American lands, The Catholic Monarchs clashed with France for predominance in the Italian peninsula .

Sardinia and Sicily were integrated into the crown of Aragon and in Naples a bastard branch of Alfonso V of Aragon reigned. At first, Ferdinand the Catholic and the French monarch, Charles VIII, sought an agreed solution. The result of this attitude was the Treaty of Barcelona (1493) by which Aragon recovered Roussillon and Cerdanya.

However, The pact was broken when Charles VIII conquered Naples in 1495 . The Spanish reaction was immediate: troops commanded by a Castilian nobleman, Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, known as the Great Captain. After a long military campaign, Spanish troops incorporated the kingdom of Naples into the Hispanic monarchy in 1504. Spain thus became a great European power.

Expansion in North Africa and America

After the conquest of Granada, The Castilians followed an expansionist policy in North Africa that sought to neutralize the Barbary pirates supported by the great power of the eastern Mediterranean, the Ottoman Empire.

The conquest of Melilla (1497) and Oran (1509), as well as the establishment of protectorates in Bujia, Tripoli and Algiers, seemed to anticipate the Spanish conquest of the Maghreb. However, the defeat on the Gelves islands frustrated the expansionist project. The Hispanic monarchy maintained some fortified points in North Africa but he did not manage to put an end to the Barbary piracy.

During the reign of the Catholic Monarchs There was also the arrival of Spanish ships to the coasts of America in 1492, company in charge of Christopher Columbus. The arrival in America triggered a process of exploration, evangelization and conquest that continued during the time of the Austrians.

The incorporation of the kingdom of Navarra

During the late Middle Ages, the kingdom of Navarre had oscillated between French influence (predominant) and the ambitions of the Aragonese and Castilian crowns . Starting in 1451, the civil war between two noble factions, the Agrammonteses and the Beamonteses, aggravated the weakness of the kingdom, which had already been hit by the economic crisis and epidemics.

Ferdinand the Catholic intensified his intervention in Navarra supported by the Beamontés side, despite the fact that this side had been defeated in the Navarrese civil war (1451-1464). The Agramontese sought support from France and this was considered by Ferdinand the Catholic as a hostile act.

The invasion of Navarre took place in 1512 . Despite the resistance of the Navarrese faction allied with France, the annexation was consolidated. In 1513, the Cortes of Navarre, convened in Pamplona and with the exclusive attendance of Beamonteses, named Ferdinand the Catholic king of Navarre.

On July 7, 1515, the Cortes of Castile in Burgos annexed the kingdom of Navarra to that of Castile. The new king undertook to respect the kingdom's privileges and, from now on, Navarra preserved its own legal system its institutions and its autonomy.

References

• Álvarez Palenzuela, VA (coord.) (2011). History of Spain in the Middle Ages. Ariel.
• Azcona, T. de (2023). Ferdinand II. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/
• Highfield, J. (2022). Isabella I. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/