History of the Kingdom of Aragon. Catholic kings (1496–1516) Unification of Castile and Aragon

To strengthen order in the country, Isabella created a kind of special police force, supported by each city or village. She wanted to cleanse the country of the crime that had overwhelmed it, which always grows in crisis conditions. And she quickly achieved this, but at what cost! For the slightest theft, a hand was cut off or executed. And the corpses remained hanging on the trees as a warning to others. The Queen never missed an opportunity to preside over trials here and there.

At this time, Queen Isabella said that four things were most pleasant for her: a warrior on the battlefield, a bishop in the cathedral, a beautiful lady in bed and a thief on the gallows.

But she did all this alone, since Ferdinand at that time was in Barcelona, where his father, Juan II of Aragon, died on January 19, 1479, and it was necessary to take care of receiving the throne due to him.

Also in 1479, Ferdinand became king and Isabella became queen of Aragon. From this point on, both crowns were united into a dual monarchy.

Historian Christian Duverger gives us the following explanation: “Ferdinand ... took the throne of Aragon. Two crowns united. In addition to Aragon itself, with its center in Zaragoza, its Crown belonged to Catalonia - the former kingdom of Valencia, the Balearic Islands and Sicily. These territories, with a population of one million, joined Castile, which in 1479 had a population of four million, not counting the inhabitants of Navarre and Granada. The new entity on the map of Europe, which became the Spain of Ferdinand and Isabella, was still little compared to France with its thirteen or fourteen million inhabitants. But Spain could rival Northern Italy (5.5–6 million people), England (3 million) or the Netherlands (2.5–3 million). Germany at that time was demographically insignificant than Portugal (about one million inhabitants).

But although on paper the Spain of 1479, which became the fruit of a successful marriage, inheritance and victory in civil war, came into existence, it was still more of an abstraction than a reality. Both Aragon and Castile maintained their own internal structure, and within these “borders” each province sought to emphasize its identity. In Castile, Galicia, Asturias, the Basque Country, Leon, Extremadura, Andalusia, Cordoba, Jaén, Murcia and Toledo coexisted, forming a very unstable entity around Burgos, the capital of Old Castile. In Aragon, things were no better: the Catalans zealously cultivated their particularism, while in Valencia, which was distinguished by a strong concentration of Moriscos, a spirit of rebellion was in the air. To this we must also add the independent position and military strength of the nobles who settled in their estates, the economic power spiritual knightly orders, liberties granted to cities, university freedoms and impunity for highwaymen... What else is left of royal power?

In M. V. Barro’s essay about Torquemada we read: “The two largest kingdoms of Spain were thus united into one political whole, although at first only nominally.”

Nevertheless, both kingdoms continued to maintain autonomy for some time.

The historian Jean Sevilla writes on this occasion: “Castile and Aragon retained their institutions of power, their money and their languages (Castilian would later take over), and their crowns remained separate until the 18th century. The personal union of Isabella and Ferdinand, however, became the trigger for the formation of Spain. It is the Catholic kings - this name was given to them by Pope Alexander VI - who will give the country a strengthening of the state, inner world, pacification of the nobility and a new social equilibrium. These are decisive things, without which the continuation of Spanish history could not be written."

Thus, the marriage between Isabella and Ferdinand was not in itself the birth of the nation-state of Spain. And yet, it was from then on that most of the Iberian Peninsula was united into a dual monarchy with two equal rulers (in 1474, Isabella and Ferdinand became queen and king of Castile, and from 1479 - queen and king of Aragon and Valencia, as well as countess and Count of Barcelona).

In this dual monarchy, Castile was the leader: it had many more inhabitants, Castile accounted for 65 percent of the joint territory, and the royal couple lived almost exclusively in Castile (a viceroy or regent was appointed to manage Aragonese affairs, and from 1494 also a special council at court).

Exacerbation of class struggle

Royalty and the Cortes

In all the kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula in the XII-XIII centuries. class monarchies emerge. Royal power was limited to meetings of representatives of the estates - the Cortes. The estates sat in them separately. The Castilian Cortes had three chambers: the clergy, the nobility and the cities. Until the beginning of the 15th century. representatives of cities sometimes sat together with representatives of peasant communities. This was a feature of the Castilian Cortes. A feature of the Aragonese Cortes was that the small and middle nobility sat separately from the large feudal lords. There, the Cortes consisted of four chambers: the highest nobility, the minor and middle nobility, the clergy and the cities. Cortes were also in Portugal, Catalonia and Valencia. They limited the actions of monarchical power, voted taxes, resolved controversial issues of succession to the throne, influenced the internal and foreign policy.

K. Marx noted that during the formation of the kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula, there were favorable conditions for limiting royal power: “On the one hand, during the long struggle with the Arabs, small parts of the territory were in different times conquered and turned into special kingdoms. During this struggle, folk laws and customs arose. Gradual conquests, carried out mainly by the nobility, enormously increased his power, while at the same time weakening the power of the king. On the other hand, settlements and cities within the country acquired great importance, for the inhabitants were forced to settle together in fortified places and seek protection there from the continuous invasions of the Moors; at the same time, Spain's position as a peninsula and constant relations with Provence and Italy contributed to the formation of first-class commercial coastal cities on the coast. Already in the 14th century, representatives of the cities constituted the most powerful part of the Cortes, which also included representatives of the clergy and nobility.”

The development of commodity-money relations in the states of Spain entailed increased exploitation of the feudally dependent peasantry. The free peasantry also felt the power of the lords to a large extent. The development of sheep farming in Castile resulted in the XIV-XV centuries. massive conversion of peasant lands into pastures. All this intensified the class struggle in the Castilian countryside, which was complicated by conflicts between feudal lords and cities and the struggle of the feudal lords themselves for power.

Particularly famous was the uprising of the “Hermandinos” (brothers) in Castile, suppressed by the government in 1437. Peasant uprisings took place in the 14th-15th centuries. in the Balearic Islands, where the peasants were joined by the urban poor oppressed by the merchants.

The arena of particularly persistent and massive peasant movements during several decades of the 15th century. There was Catalonia, where, as noted, the situation of the peasantry was especially difficult. A movement among Catalan serfs arose at the beginning of the 15th century. The peasants demanded the abolition of personal dependence and “bad customs.” In 1462-1472, a real peasant war broke out in the north of Catalonia. The rebel serfs were also joined by free peasants, land-poor and landless, who demanded the redistribution of land. The uprising took on a fairly organized character: its participants were divided into military detachments, and contributions for military needs were collected among them. The rebels were led by the poor hidalgo Verntaliat. The Aragonese king Juan II, who was at enmity with the Catalan nobility and cities, used the uprising for his own purposes. With the help of Vertagliat and his peasant army, Juan II asserted his power over Catalonia. Verntaliat received rich land holdings and the title of viscount for this, and the peasants were reassured by some insignificant concessions, which, however, were soon canceled by the Cortes.

In 1484, a new powerful uprising began in Catalonia under the leadership of the peasant Pedro Juan Sala. The actions of government troops against the rebels were unsuccessful, since the soldiers were reluctant to oppose the peasants. The capture and execution of Sala did not stop the movement. In 1486, the government had to come to an agreement with the rebels and abolish the personal dependence of the peasants in Catalonia, which was recorded in the “Guadalupe Maxim”. “Bad customs” were abolished, but almost all for a large ransom. The peasants became personally free and could leave the land with their movable property, but their plots still remained the property of the lords and feudal rent was collected for them. Extortions in favor of the church were completely preserved.

Thus, peasant wars in Spain in the 15th century. unlike the vast majority peasant uprisings The Middle Ages achieved at least partial success. The intensification of the class struggle accelerated the process of centralization of the state.

Relying on an alliance with the church, cities and minor nobility, with large incomes from maritime trade, the royal power of both Castile and Aragon in the XIV-XV centuries. launched a decisive attack on the political rights of large feudal lords and deprived them of a significant share of independence. By the end of the 15th century. she deprived large feudal lords of the right to mint coins, wage private wars, and confiscated many lands from them. The king also took possession of the lands of the spiritual knightly orders.

In 1479 Aragon, and. Castile united into a single state under the rule of a married couple - Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile. This event was one of important stages in strengthening royal power in Spain. In crushing the power of large feudal lords, the royal authorities were supported by the cities. In 1480, the cities of Castile entered into an alliance with each other - the “holy hermandada”, which organized its own militia to fight the feudal lords. But, having used the military forces of the cities to curb the feudal lords, the royal power gradually curtailed the independence of the cities themselves. The church also provided enormous support to royal power, especially the Inquisition, introduced in Spain in 1480.

Fighting all kinds of anti-church heresies, the Inquisition thereby persecuted all social and political opposition to the existing system. In Spain, according to Marx, “thanks to the Inquisition, the church became the most indestructible weapon of absolutism.” The first to lead the Spanish Inquisition was the ferocious Torquemada, whose name became a household name.

Having strengthened their positions within the country, the Spanish kings directed their attack on the Emirate of Granada - the last possession of the Arabs in Spain. After a long siege in 1492, Granada capitulated. With its fall, the entire Iberian Peninsula, with the exception of Portugal, fell into the hands of the Spanish kings. The Moors surrendered Granada on the condition that they and the Jews retained property and freedom of religion. But these promises were not kept. The persecuted Muslims launched a series of uprisings. They were faced with a dilemma: either be baptized or leave Spain. A significant part of the Muslims and Jews who lived in the south of the country moved to Africa. Thus, most of the trade and craft population, who played an important role in economic development countries. The Moors (Moriscos) who remained in Spain and converted to Christianity were subjected to constant persecution by the church.

Under Ferdinand and Isabella, an absolute monarchy is established in Spain. Large feudal lords lost their political independence and turned into a court aristocracy. The Cortes are losing their former importance and are convened less and less often. Management takes on a bureaucratic character, concentrating at the center in the hands of royal councils, and locally in the hands of royal officials (corregidors). However, the provincial and class disunity of Spain that has developed over centuries is reflected in the extreme cumbersomeness and lack of coordination of the administrative apparatus.

They both came from the Trastámara dynasty and were second cousins, both descended from Juan I of Castile; in this regard, they received permission to marry from Pope Sixtus IV.

They received the title of Catholic kings in 1496 from Pope Alexander VI, a native of Spain.

The wedding took place on October 19, 1469 in Valladolid; Isabella was 18 years old, Ferdinand was a year younger.

Thanks to their marriage, two crowns were united in one family - Aragonese and Castile.

Although many historians, such as John Elliott, believe that the unification of Spain began with the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella, there is no historical justification that under their rule Spain had already become a unified monarchy.

Castile and Aragon remained independent state entities for a long time.

The court of Ferdinand and Isabella constantly moved in order to receive support from individual feudal lords.

Inheritance rights

Isabella inherited the throne of Castile from her half-brother Enrique IV by the Treaty of the Bulls of Guisando.

She became Queen of Castile in 1474. Her niece, Juana of Castile, attempted to seize the throne with the help of the Portuguese King Afonso V, starting the War of the Castilian Succession.

If the question of the legitimacy of Juana's claims to the throne was controversial, then Isabella was able to prove her rights.

Isabella's supporters were able to find a way out thanks to the support of Ferdinand of Aragon, and the war officially ended in 1479 with the Treaty of Alcazovas.

Ferdinand became king of Aragon in 1479.

Thanks to this marriage, both kingdoms were united under the rule of one family, which marked the beginning of the creation of modern Spain, but they ruled their kingdoms independently, both kingdoms had their own laws and governments for several centuries.

Domestic policy

Catholic kings made every effort to strengthen royal power in Spain. To achieve this goal they created the Holy Hermandade.

These were city police units, maintained at public expense and created to maintain order. In addition, with their help, the Catholic kings tried to control the nobility.

Judicial reform was carried out, a Royal Council was created and magistrates (judges) were appointed to govern the cities. This strengthening of royal power was one of the most important steps towards the creation of one of the first strong national states in Europe.

Isabella also took various measures to reduce the influence of the Cortes General in Castile, but Ferdinand respected Catalan customs and was a Catalan himself, and did not carry out similar measures in the Kingdom of Aragon.

Even after his death and with the unification of the crowns under the rule of one monarch, the Aragonese, Catalan and Valencian Cortes (cat. corts) retained significant influence in their regions.

Subsequently, the rule of monarchs continued in the form of medieval contractualism, which had two characteristic manifestations.

First, Catholic kings constantly moved around their country from city to city, which undoubtedly increased the loyalty of their subjects, rather than leading the country from a single administrative center.

The second manifestation was that each community or province could contact them directly, bypassing bureaucratic barriers.

Ferdinand and Isabella are known as the monarchs who united Spain and opened a new chapter in its history.

The Catholic kings sought to achieve their goal - the completion and conquest of the Muslim Emirate of Granada.

A series of military campaigns known as the Granada War began with an attack on Alhama de Granada. This attack was led by two Andalusian nobles, Rodrigo Ponce de Leon and Diego de Merlo.

The city fell to Andalusian troops in 1482.

Help in the Granada War was provided by Pope Sixtus IV, who transferred tithes and introduced a crusade tax to finance military expenses.

Ten years later, after many bloody battles, the Granada War ended in 1492 when Emir Boabdil handed over the keys to Castilian soldiers.

Expulsion of non-Christians and Inquisition

Ferdinand and Isabella ordered the expulsion of everyone and Jews from Spain.

Conversion to Catholicism avoided expulsion, but between 1480 and 1492 hundreds of converts (Marranos and Moriscos) were accused of secretly practicing their former religion (crypto-Judaism) and were arrested, imprisoned, tortured and in many cases executed at the stake, both in Castile and Aragon.

The Inquisition was created back in the 12th century. Pope Lucius III to combat heresy in the south of modern France.

The Catholic kings decided to introduce the Inquisition in Castile and asked the pope for permission. On November 1, 1478, Pope Sixtus IV published the bull Exigit sinceræ devotionis, which established the Inquisition in the kingdom of Castile; subsequently her powers extended to all of Spain.

The bull gave monarchs the exclusive right to appoint inquisitors.

During the reign of the Catholic kings and beyond, the Inquisition actively persecuted people for crimes such as crypto-Judaism, heresy, Protestantism, blasphemy and polygamy.

The last trial on crypto-Judaism took place in 1818.

In 1492, Ferdinand and Isabella ordered the creation of closed quarters for non-believers, which later became known as “ghettos.”

This segregation, common at the time, also served to increase pressure on Jews and other non-Christians through increased taxes and social restrictions.

As a result, in 1492, according to the Alhambra Decree, Spanish Jews received four months from the kings in order to convert to Catholicism or leave Spain.

Ten thousand Jews were deported from Spain to Portugal, North Africa, Italy and the Ottoman Empire.

Later in 1492, Ferdinand wrote a letter to the Jews who had fled Castile and Aragon, inviting them to return to Spain if and only if they became Christians.

Discovery of new lands

The Catholic kings sent the expedition of Christopher Columbus, who received from them the title of Admiral of the Sea-Ocean, who discovered the New World for Europeans.

Columbus's first expedition, in which he reached the Indies, was marked by his landing in the Bahamas on October 12, 1492.

He landed on the island of Guanahani and named it San Salvador. Subsequently, he continued sailing to Cuba (naming it Juana) and discovered the island of Haiti, giving it the name Hispaniola.

The second voyage began in 1493, this time he discovered a number of islands in the Caribbean archipelago, including Puerto Rico. Now it's main goal was the colonization of open lands, for which he took with him about 1,500 people.

Columbus returned from his last expedition in 1498, discovering Trinidad and the coast of modern Venezuela.

These discoveries and the subsequent colonization and conquest of the Americas brought enormous wealth to Spain just a few decades later, and contributed significantly to making Spain the most powerful European state.

Death

Isabella died in 1504. Ferdinand remarried Germaine de Foix; he died in 1516

Photo gallery

End date: 1516

Useful information

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Children and marriage alliances

Isabella sought to ensure Spain's long-term political stability by arranging political marriages for all of her five children; political security was important for a country that was playing an increasingly important role on the European stage.

Her first-born daughter Isabella married the Portuguese Prince Afonso, forming an important link between the neighboring countries, which made it possible to look forward to peace and a future alliance between them.

Juana, Isabella's second daughter, married Philip, son of the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I.

This successful alliance with the powerful Holy Roman Empire subsequently significantly expanded the territories controlled by the Spanish monarchs and ensured political security.

Isabella's first and only son Juan married Margaret of Austria, strengthening the dynastic connection with the Habsburg dynasty, an alliance with which his parents considered very important.

The fourth child, Maria, married King Manuel I of Portugal, again creating a dynastic link with Portugal after the death of her older sister Isabella, who was in her second marriage to Manuel.

The fifth child, Catherine, first married Arthur, Prince of Wales, and after his untimely death, Henry VIII, King of England, becoming the mother of the future Queen Mary I of England.

Motto and emblem

The motto of the Catholic kings was "Tanto monta, monta tanto".

This motto was coined by Antonio de Nebrija and was either an allusion to the Gordian knot: Tanto monta, monta tanto, cortar como desatar (“The result is one, cut or untie”), and/or spoke of the equality of monarchs: Tanto monta, monta tanto, Isabel como Fernando (“Everything is one, Isabella is the same as Ferdinand”)

Their symbol was el yugo y las flechas, a yoke, perhaps with an allusion to the Gordian knot, and a fasces of arrows. Y and F are the initials of Isabella (Ysabel in archaic spelling) and Ferdinand.

FERDINAND II of Aragon(Fernando II) (March 10, 1452, Sos - January 23, 1516, Madrigalejo), king of Sicily from 1468, Aragon from 1479, Castile (as Ferdinand V and husband of Queen Isabella) in 1479-1504; from the Trastámara dynasty, son of Juan II of Aragon and Juana Enriquez. Ferdinand united Aragon and Castile on the basis of a dynastic union, which was the beginning of a single Spanish state.

The wedding of Ferdinand and Isabella, heir to the Castilian throne, took place in 1469. Isabella came to the throne in 1474 and ruled the kingdom with her husband. The royal couple managed to pacify the willfulness of the nobility, reform the financial system and government of the country. By raising the authority of royal power, Ferdinand and Isabella laid the foundations of Spanish absolutism. In 1479, Ferdinand inherited Aragon with all its possessions, however, he rarely visited there, spending almost all his time in Castile. Together with Isabella, he pursued an active Catholic policy. By patronizing the church, they brought it under their control, and carried out a number of measures to increase its prestige and moral level clergy. In 1478, Ferdinand and Isabella established an Inquisition tribunal in Castile and intensified the persecution of the Moors, who were forcibly converted to Christianity. In 1481, a war began against the Emirate of Granada, which was victoriously completed in 1492 with the liquidation of the last Muslim enclave on the Iberian Peninsula. During the war with the Moors, Ferdinand showed himself to be a talented commander and proved his personal courage. With the conquest of Granada the Reconquista was completed. Along with Muslims, Jews were also persecuted in Castile; in 1492, a decree was issued on their expulsion. The activities of Ferdinand and Isabella for good catholic church was highly regarded by the Pope, and in 1496 he awarded them the title of Catholic Kings.

In 1486, Ferdinand issued the Guadalupe Maximum, which regulated relations between peasants and lords in Aragon. United Spain, having solved its most pressing internal problems, was able to pursue a more active foreign policy. As a continuation of the Reconquista, strategically important fortresses on the African coast (Melilla, Oran) were conquered. However, France becomes Spain's main enemy at this time. In confrontation with her, Ferdinand of Aragon showed his diplomatic skill. At the end of the fifteenth century, French kings sought to conquer Italy. Ferdinand promised France his neutrality and, according to the Treaty of Barcelona in 1493, took possession of Roussillon and Cerdagne in the Pyrenees. However, during Italian wars From 1494 to 1559, he actively opposed the French, provided full support to their opponents and succeeded in thwarting plans to establish French domination in Italy. In turn, Ferdinand of Aragon captured the Kingdom of Naples in 1504, and assumed the Neapolitan crown under the name Ferdinand III.

During the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, America was discovered and Spanish colonial expansion began. The friction with Portugal that arose after the first voyage of Christopher Columbus was settled by the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494 on the division of zones of influence in the Atlantic. Ferdinand and Isabella entered into a series of dynastic marriages of their children with the Portuguese royal house, the Austrian Habsburgs and the English Tudors. However, the only son, eldest daughter and eldest grandson did not live long. After the death of Queen Isabella in 1504, Ferdinand was declared regent of Castile under his daughter Juana the Mad and virtually single-handedly ruled Spain and its possessions in Europe and overseas. In 1505, the widowed Ferdinand married Germaine de Foix, the niece of the French king. Ferdinand of Aragon invariably sought to establish absolutism. He took measures to centralize the state apparatus, significantly limited the privileges of large feudal lords, and then the privileges of cities. In 1512, Upper Navarre was conquered, thus completing the unification of Spain. The only heir of Ferdinand and Isabella was their grandson Charles V of Habsburg, who united the Spanish and Habsburg possessions under his rule. From 1513, Ferdinand himself raised his grandson and prepared him to rule the empire.

ISABELLA I of Castile(Isabel) (April 22, 1451, Madrigal de las Altas Torres, Avila - November 26, 1504, Medina del Campo), Queen of Castile since 1474, from the Trastámara dynasty, daughter of King Juan II of Castile and Isabella of Portugal, wife of Ferdinand II of Aragon.

In 1469, Isabella married her cousin, Prince Ferdinand of Aragon. Of the three contenders for her hand (including the King of Portugal), Isabella chose Ferdinand and insisted on marrying him without the blessing of her brother, the Castilian King Henry IV (Enrique IV). Subsequently, this marriage led to the dynastic union of Castile and Aragon, and to the actual unification of Spain. In 1474, Isabella inherited the Castilian throne after the death of Henry IV. She defended her right to the throne of Castile in a stubborn struggle with supporters of the daughter of Henry IV, Juana, who enjoyed the support of Portugal and a significant part of the Castilian nobility. Isabella ruled the country jointly with her husband Ferdinand, who in turn became King of Aragon in 1479. She had little interest in Aragonese affairs, but in Castile she retained independent political significance.

At the beginning of their reign, Ferdinand and Isabella encountered resistance from the feudal nobility, which they managed to break after stubborn struggle with the help of a union of cities (hermandade). Having reformed the financial system, Ferdinand and Isabella were able to further limit urban liberties and lay the foundations for a system of centralized management of Spain. The Cortes increasingly lost their independence. During the reign of Isabella, the Reconquista was completed and the expeditions of Christopher Columbus were equipped.

Catholic Majesties

Fanatical Catholics Ferdinand and Isabella patronized the church, although they brought it under their control and reformed the structure of the church in Spain to raise the moral level of the clergy. The Inquisition, introduced in Castile in 1478, gave free hands to deal with heretics and infidels. In 1492, all Jews who did not want to be baptized were expelled from the country. The Muslims of conquered Granada were forcibly converted to Christianity. In 1496, the Pope awarded Ferdinand and Isabella the title of Catholic Kings.

Europe is the beautiful face of the world: important in Spain, cute in England, playful in France, sensible in Italy, ruddy in Germany..." These words belong to the Spanish writer Baltasar Gracian, who lived in the 17th century. However, they are still true today, and were more true at the end of the 15th century - when the brow of Spain acquired this significant importance.

At that time, Spain faced the most difficult tasks of a political and military nature: to unite the country, divided into several kingdoms, to expel the Arabs from the Iberian Peninsula. These problems were successfully solved. Thanks to this, as well as the stunning results of Christopher Columbus's voyages - the conquest and colonization of the New World - Spain has the right to be proud of itself. At the origins of these achievements stood the royal couple - Isabella and Ferdinand.

Isabella (1451-1504), daughter of King Juan II of Castile, as often happened among the crowned heads of Europe, was intended to be the wife of the Portuguese monarch Alfonso V (1438-1481). There were other contenders for her hand and heart, but... The 18-year-old princess daringly challenged traditions and court etiquette. Few chivalric novels of that era could compare in the sharpness and unpredictability of the plot with the story of her marriage.

Sometimes they say that a man seeks happiness, and a woman waits for him. Isabella was disgusted by the role of a princess of marriageable age, obediently going to the royal chambers of Lisbon... Love, escape, secret negotiations with Archbishop Carrillo - and on October 19, 1469, she tied the knot with her nephew, the 17-year-old heir to the Aragonese throne Ferdinand ( 1452-1516).

A slender, beautiful girl with a lively gaze of enchanting eyes, similar to Andalusian grapes, and golden hair turned out to be not only a good wife, but also a wise statesman. The chosen one of her heart was in many ways the complete opposite of her: of average height, with rough features, and not very picky about clothes. As one of Ferdinand’s contemporaries wrote, “there was something soldierly in his appearance.” This not very attractive portrait was complemented by his inherent cunning and stinginess.

Isabella's act outraged her brother Enrique IV, who was ruling in Castile at that time, who deprived her of the right of succession to the throne for arbitrariness. However, the charm of the young princess was so great that the very next day after the death of the king (December 11, 1474), the Castilian crown passed to Isabella. From the beginning of 1475, she began to rule together with her husband. Both had absolutely equal rights and opportunities to rule the country and went down in history under the name of the Catholic kings Isabella I and Ferdinand II of Aragon and V of Castile.

The energetic queen delved into literally everything: she reorganized the army, strengthened the state apparatus, decisively suppressed the desire of individual territories for separatism and, moreover, either by persuasion or by force of arms, persuaded her neighbors to an alliance with Castile and Aragon, of which Ferdinand became king in 1479. late 80s they managed to unite all of Spain, with the exception of Granada.

Almost eight centuries of Spanish history (VIII-XV centuries) were associated with the struggle for the liberation of the Iberian Peninsula from Arab conquerors. By the end of the 15th century, they retained power only over the fabulously beautiful Granada.

The Moors had a special, incomparable cult of the city. Refined taste, combined with amazing luxury and extravagance, created brilliant examples of landscape gardening and palace decoration. Truly inconsolable was the grief of the young emir of Granada, Abu Abdala Mohammed Boabdilla, who was forced to hastily flee at the beginning of 1492 from his unique Alhambra palace. His mother reproachfully reproached him: “Mourn like a woman for what you could not protect as a man.” "Mourn like a woman..."? But it was the woman who made him throw out the white flag. The flight of the emir and the liberation of Granada is the result of more than 10 years of struggle by the Spaniards, and all these years Isabella was at the center of events and largely determined their course. It would be unfair not to give due credit to Ferdinand, who led a number of military operations.

Despite the complexity of domestic political problems, the kings paid attention to national culture. The Queen, more at the behest of her heart than because of her high position, became the patroness of the arts, helping universities, talented writers and scientists. Thanks to her concerns, the star of the outstanding philologist Elio Antonio Nebrija, professor at the universities of Seville, Alcala and Salamanca, and author of the famous books “Latin Grammar” and “Castilian Grammar”, rose. The emergence of the latter in 1492 turned out to be especially timely: the country was freed from Arab influence not only on political, but also on spiritual life. Isabella's statesmanship was also reflected in the fact that, unlike the monarchs of Portugal, England and France, she understood the promise of Christopher Columbus's projects.

However, not everything that was done by the Catholic kings was conducive to the development of Spain. In 1478, an Inquisition tribunal was created, and in 1492, Jews were expelled from the country. And although Ferdinand and Isabella allegedly acted in the interests of a single faith and single state, both of these actions caused enormous damage to Spain.

Having resolved many internal problems, the kings began to significantly influence European ones, especially since the discovery of the New World overnight made Spain one of the most influential states in Europe. International relations were under the jurisdiction of Ferdinand, although Isabella's opinion and advice were sometimes decisive.

In 1492, the kings moved their residence to Barcelona. From that time on, the queen significantly limited the range of decisions she made. state problems. A difficult period began in her personal life. Son Juan dies, then daughter Isabella, and soon grandson Miguel, and mental disorders in the heir to the throne, daughter Juana, progress. These shocks do not pass without leaving a trace: Isabella’s health is weakening. She is gradually fading away, perhaps also because the man sitting next to her on the throne, who was once passionately in love and beloved by her, now more and more often adds the poison of betrayal to the bitter cup of her present life. On November 26, 1504, the queen said goodbye to life, bequeathing to bury her in Granada.

After this loss, Ferdinand would live another 12 years and rightfully become, together with his wife, one of the most prominent kings of Spain. Over these years, he will successfully solve the most complex problems associated with conquest campaigns in the New World, further strengthen Spain’s position in Europe, and do a lot to give stability to the newly created unified Spanish state.

At this time, Queen Isabella said that four things were most pleasant for her: a warrior on the battlefield, a bishop in the cathedral, a beautiful lady in bed and a thief on the gallows.

Also in 1479, Ferdinand became king and Isabella became queen of Aragon. From this point on, both crowns were united into a dual monarchy.

But although the Spain of 1479 came into being on paper, the fruit of a successful marriage, an inheritance, and a victory in a civil war, it was still more an abstraction than a reality. Both Aragon and Castile maintained their own internal structure, and within these “borders” each province sought to emphasize its identity. In Castile, Galicia, Asturias, the Basque Country, Leon, Extremadura, Andalusia, Cordoba, Jaén, Murcia and Toledo coexisted, forming a very unstable entity around Burgos, the capital of Old Castile. In Aragon, things were no better: the Catalans zealously cultivated their particularism, while in Valencia, which was distinguished by a strong concentration of Moriscos, a spirit of rebellion was in the air. To this we must also add the independent position and military strength of the nobles settled in their estates, the economic power of the spiritual knightly orders, the liberties granted to the cities, university freedoms and the impunity of highway robbers... What else is left of royal power?

In M. V. Barro’s essay about Torquemada we read: “The two largest kingdoms of Spain were thus united into one political whole, although at first only nominally.”

Nevertheless, both kingdoms continued to maintain autonomy for some time.

The historian Jean Sevilla writes on this occasion: “Castile and Aragon retained their institutions of power, their money and their languages (Castilian would later take over), and their crowns remained separate until the 18th century. The personal union of Isabella and Ferdinand, however, became the trigger for the formation of Spain. It is the Catholic kings - this name was given to them by Pope Alexander VI - who will give the country a strengthening of the state, internal peace, pacification of the nobility and a new social balance. These are decisive things, without which the continuation of Spanish history could not be written."

Moriscos (Spanish moriscos) - this is the name given to the Moors who were baptized.