THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE AGE OF COLUMBUS
(1474-1525)
The limits of Portuguese discovery and dominion were soon reached; and
as the fifteenth century advanced, Spain emerged not only as one of the
great powers of Europe but as the first exploring, conquering, and
colonizing nation of America. A century before any other European state
obtained a permanent foothold in the New World, Spain began the
creation of a great colonial empire there, which was soon occupied by
her settlers, administered by a department of her government, converted
by her missionaries, and made famous throughout Europe by the wealth
which it brought to the mother-country. Such a work at such a time
could only be accomplished by a vigorous and rising nation, and, in
fact, Spanish advancement in Europe during this period corresponded
closely with her achievements in America. There are few recorded
instances of a development so rapid and a transformation so complete as
that which took place in Spain under Ferdinand and Isabella, between
1474 and 1516.
For a career destined to be scarcely inferior to that any of the great
empires of history, Spain had at the beginning of this period an
inadequate and undeveloped political organization. Even that royal
power which was the condition precedent to distant conquest and
colonial organization was new. Spanish national unity, royal
absolutism, and religious uniformity, which were famous throughout
Europe in the sixteenth century, were all of recent growth; the
centralized control over all parts of her widely scattered colonies
which Spain, above all colonizing countries, exercised, was a power
attained and a policy adopted only at the moment of the acquisition of
those colonies.
When, in 1474, Isabella inherited the crown of Castille, and, in 1479,
her husband, Ferdinand, became king of Aragon, they united, by close
personal and political bonds, what had formerly been near a score of
domains, variously joined or detached.
The king of Aragon had already incorporated into a personal union three
separate countries--the kingdom of Aragon, the kingdom of Valencia, and
the ancient principality of Catalonia, each with its own body of
representatives, its own law, its peculiar customs, and its separate
administrative systems. Castile was in name a political unity, having
one monarch and one body of estates. Nevertheless its provinces
represented well-marked ancient divisions. Leon had once been a
separate kingdom, and was still coupled with Castile itself in the full
title of that monarchy; while Galicia, Asturias, and the three Basque
provinces were inhabited by peoples of different political history, of
different stock, and living under different customs. Navarre, Granada,
and Portugal, although within the Iberian peninsula, were, at the
accession of Ferdinand and Isabella, still independent; though the
first was destined to be united to Aragon, the second to Castile, and
even the third was to be amalgamated for eighty critical years with the
greater monarchy. Thus Spain was a congeries of states, joined by the
marriage bond of the two rulers of its principal divisions, but by no
means yet a single monarchy or a united nation. It was the work of the
Catholic sovereigns to carry this unification far towards completion by
following common aims, by achieving success in many fields of common
national interest, and by imposing the common royal power upon all
divergent and warring classes and interests in the various Spanish
states.
The personality of Ferdinand and Isabella was the first great factor in
the strengthening of the monarchy; for they were both individuals of
authority, energy, and ability. [Footnote: Burgenroth, Col. Letters and
State Papers, Spain, I., 34, etc.] Their union was the next element;
for the royal power of the united monarchies could be used to break
down opposition in either. Great achievements in Spain and in Europe
increased their authority and power by the prestige of success.
Finally, the discoveries, conquests, and colonization of America gave a
unique position to the rulers of these distant possessions. Not only
did the products of the American mines American commercial taxation
furnish a material basis of strength and influence; not only did a
great commercial marine and a great navy grow up around the needs of
intercourse with the colonies; but the romantic interest of the
discoveries, the wild adventures, and the wonderful success of the
conquistadores, and the extent of the colonies, filled the imagination
and gave an ideal greatness to the monarchs in whose name these
conquests were made, and by whom the New World was ruled.
There was need for all the authority of the new sovereigns at the time
of their accession in 1474. Under the weak rule of Isabella's brother,
Castile had become a prey to disorder amounting almost to anarchy; in
Galicia brigandage was so common as to be unresisted, except by
townsmen staying within walls; in Andalusia private warfare among the
great noble houses had let loose all the forces of disorder and
violence; Isabella's claim to the crown was disputed and her rival
upheld by foreign support. [Footnote: Maurenbrecher, Studien und
Studien, 45, 46.] The united sovereigns met these difficulties with
vigor, and the first two years of Isabella's rule in Castile gave
repeated instances of victorious warfare, of successful assertion of
authority, and of harsh justice. The turbulent districts were reduced
to order and the foreign invader expelled.
The disorder in Andalusia seemed to demand personal action. In 1477,
therefore, the two sovereigns made a formal entry into Seville, and the
queen asserted her royal power in a way that could not be
misunderstood. In true patriarchal fashion she established her tribunal
in the Alcazar, sitting in a chair on an elevated platform surrounded
by her council and officers, in all solemnity and according to
traditional forms, listening to the complaints of high and low, rich
and poor, and granting summary justice to all who claimed it,
irrespective of rank or means. Her decrees were carried out, ill-doers
forced to make amends, and turbulent nobles reduced to promising to
keep the peace. The visit of Isabella to Seville may well be taken as
the beginning of the work of the new monarchy in Spain. [Footnote:
Perez, Los Reyes Catolicos in Sevilla, 1477-1478, p. 13.]
The next step towards an enforcement of royal authority taken by the
new monarchs involved the acknowledgment of an institution seemingly
independent of the monarchy. Spanish cities and communes had at various
times formed hermandads, leagues or brotherhoods, to enforce order, to
support themselves against great nobles, or to strengthen themselves
for the carrying out of some object of common policy. Instances could
be found in which their combined strength had been used against the
king himself or his officials. On the other hand, their united power
had been used efficaciously to form a sort of rural police, each city
undertaking the protection of certain roads and stretches of country.
[Footnote: Antequera, Hist. de la Legislacion Espanola, 194-197.]
Two influential ministers, with the approval of Ferdinand and Isabella,
in 1476, obtained the agreement of the Cortes of Castile and of a junta
of the towns for the formation of a santa hermandad, or "holy
brotherhood," for three years, for which rules were drawn up, submitted
to the monarchs, and filially promulgated. The nobles gave a reluctant
assent to the requirements of these rules, so far as they affected
their estates and vassals. Altogether two thousand horsemen were to be
equipped, each horseman supported by a body of one hundred households.
These were grouped into companies under eight captains and placed in
detachments at certain distances along all the roads. Besides the armed
soldiers of the brotherhood, a whole system of alcaldes was organized
with exclusive jurisdiction over certain kinds of offences. A common
treasury existed for the support of expenses.
When any theft, assault, arson, or rape was discovered or complained
of, immediately the bells Were rung, and the nearest detachment of
soldiers of the brotherhood started on a pursuit which was carried to
the boundaries of the next district, where its detachment took up the
pursuit, and so on until the culprit was seized or the boundaries of
the kingdom reached. No town, house, or castle could refuse the right
of search. When arrested, a decision of the nearest alcalde was given
within five days. If convicted, the culprit had hand or foot cut off or
was put to death. The favorite mode of execution in earlier times had
been to bind the offender to a stake, and shoot him with arrows "till
he died naturally"; but Isabella required that he should be hanged
first, and that only then might his body be used as a target and a
warning for others. The rapidity of pursuit and the certainty of
capture of offenders, the promptitude of justice, and the barbarism of
the punishments made a strong impression; and the combination of
popular vengeance with official sanction made the hermandad an
effective form of national police. It was introduced into Aragon in
1488.
Although this system seemed to emanate from the people, the general
control over it was preserved by Ferdinand and Isabella by placing in
influential positions in its administration trusted ministers of their
own, and by joining themselves in its organization. When its work of
insuring order was measurably accomplished and the people began to
complain of its expense, the sovereigns were able to transfer the
military force into a contingent for the Moorish war, and the treasury
into an addition to the commissariat for the same purpose. In 1498 it
was reduced to the proportions of a petty and inexpensive local police.
It had proved itself, as utilized by these strong monarchs, a means of
obtaining order and recruiting an army without cost to the royal
treasury.
The vigor of the royal administration, however, expressed itself rather
in the development of purely royal organs than in those which were so
largely popular as the hermandad. A group of royal councils became,
under Ferdinand and Isabella, the most powerful instruments of the
royal will, the most effective means for obtaining additional power and
beating down all opposition. Early in the reign, the old royal council,
which traditionally consisted of twelve members, including
representatives of each of the three orders of the state, was
reconstituted so as to consist of one ecclesiastic, three nobles, and
eight or nine letrados, or lawyers. [Footnote: Cortes de los Antiguos
Reinos, 112, etc.] The last class, who made up its majority, were men
learned in the Roman law, and therefore devoted to the idea of absolute
monarchy; without connection with the church or the nobility, and
therefore interested in the strengthening of the kingship against both;
shrewd, trained, capable, and hard working.
From this time forward the council, in constant attendance on the king,
well organized, provided with a corps of clerks and officers, and
holding daily sessions, became the serviceable and effective auxiliary
of royal power. It had duties of consultation, advice, and in some
cases decision, on matters of internal and external policy, of
legislation and administration; and, in fact, of action in the whole
sphere of the affairs of state. In time the council was gradually
subdivided into three bodies: the Council of Justice, the Council of
State, and the Council of the Finances, whose functions were indicated
by their titles. The first of these was, in a certain sense, the direct
representative of the old single royal council, and was frequently
known as the Council of Castile. Its president was always considered
the highest personage in the kingdom, next the king; its members were
of that class of letrados whom the king could most securely rely on,
and to it fell the duty of enforcing the royal supremacy as against all
ancient claims, privileges, and liberties.
In addition to these outgrowths from the primitive council of the king,
new councils were created from time to time, analogous in powers, but
holding oversight over special spheres of national interest. Some of
these were temporary, others permanent. Among them were the Council of
the Hermandad, which lasted only for the twenty-two years of the
existence of that institution; the Council of the Suprema, or of the
Inquisition; the Council of the Military Orders, the Council of the
Indies, and the Council of Aragon. [Footnote: Antequera, Hist. de la
Legislation Espanola, 347, 348.] These great administrative boards were
a characteristic part of the Spanish system of government, a natural
outgrowth of its wide-spread fields of action.
The Council of the Indies was constituted in 1511, under the presidency
of Juan de Fonseca, archdeacon of Seville, and was exactly analogous to
the other councils. It accompanied the king, and had under him all
ultimate control in policy, in jurisdiction, and in legislation over
the Spanish possessions in America and in the East. Its members were
habitually drawn from those men who had had experience as public
servants in the West Indies or in the Philippines. The more direct
oversight of individual voyages to the Indies, the regulation of
details of colonial affairs, and a large sphere of general activity
were possessed by the powerful Casa le Contractacion at Seville. A
Bureau of Pilots also existed, whose office it was to collect nautical
information, provide charts, and give assistance to Spanish navigators.
But both of these offices were under the control of the Council of the
Indies. [Footnote: J. de Veitia Linage, The Spanish Rule of Trade to
the West Indies, trans. by Captain J. Stevens, book I., chap. iii.]
All these councils were stronger in discussion than the execution;
their archives came to include a vast mass of records and special
reports on subjects falling within their respective fields, and their
procedure favored penetrating investigation and full debate. But
decision was hard to come at, and the consciousness that final decision
after all rested with the king paralyzed effectiveness. The custom of
submitting all questions of policy to investigation by the appropriate
council became invariable in later Spanish history, and it resulted in
cumbrous ineffectiveness. Interminable inquiry and discussion ended
frequently only in suspension of judgment or a divided report. Points
of policy of imminent importance had to await a dilatory investigation
and equivocal conclusions. This impotence of the central organs of
government did not come in the time of Ferdinand and Isabella and their
immediate successors, and the growing inefficiency of the councils was
long overcome by the resolution of the monarchs. Nevertheless the
system was part of the price paid for centralized government, acting
independently of local initiative or independence.
The preponderance of power that was being obtained by the sovereigns in
the affairs of central government by means of the royal councils was
gained in the local affairs of provinces, towns, and communes, by the
appointment of corregidores. Such officials were appointed from time to
time by earlier sovereigns to represent them in various towns, but the
system had never been extended widely. In 1480 the king and queen sent
one or more corregidores into every self-governing town and city in
Castile where such officials did not exist already. [Footnote: Pulgar,
Cronita de los Reyes, II., chap. xcv.] They were to act alongside of
the older local regidores and alcaldes as special representatives of
the crown, defending its rights and claims, and fulfilling its duties
of general oversight and protection. As a matter of fact, the great
work they accomplished was the enforcement of royal supremacy over
local privileges. Little by little they extended their powers and
encroached upon the local self-government, bringing to bear all the
weight of the central government upon local conditions. [Footnote:
Mariejol, L'Espagne sous Ferdinand et Isabelle, 172-174.] The steady
pressure of the corregidores was supplemented by the periodical visits
of the pesquidores, veidores, or inspectors, whose duty it from time to
time to visit the various localities, examining into the conduct of the
corregidores and other officials, listening to complaints against them,
reporting on the revenues, condition of the roads, and other local
conditions and needs.
Councils, corregidores, inspectors, and various other instruments of
royal power fast sapped the strength of older institutions and gave
authority and efficiency to the royal government; but they were
expensive and the crown was poor. Moreover, these institutions were
only the permanent elements in a policy which had a thousand temporary
occasions of expense. Not even Ferdinand and Isabella could carry out
so vigorous a regime unless provided with larger revenues. They
determined, therefore, to emancipate the crown from its poverty. A few
years after their accession they felt themselves strong enough,
supported by the representatives of the towns, in the Cortes of Toledo,
to convoke the great nobles and churchmen of the kingdom and demand
from them an investigation into the conditions under which the ancient
domains of the crown had been alienated. [Footnote: Pulgar, Cronica de
los Reyes, II, chap. xcv.; Calmeiro, Introduction to Cortes de los
Antiguos Reinos, II., 63, 64.] The Cardinal Pedro de Mendoza and the
queen's confessor, Ferdinand de Talavera, were appointed to judge of
the propriety of the gifts of former sovereigns. They did their work so
adequately that pension after pension, estate after estate, endowment
after endowment, were resumed by the crown. These resumptions were
principally to the loss of the great noble families which had enriched
themselves at the expense of the crown. None, it is true, were
impoverished thereby, but a more normal relation of comparative income
between sovereign and subject was established in the process.
[Footnote: Mariejol, L'Espagne sous Ferdinand et Isabelle, vi., 24.]
Another and more permanent addition to the royal income was made by the
absorption into the crown of the grand masterships of the three
military orders which existed in Castile, the Knights of Santiago, of
Calatrava, and of Alcantara. In the course of three centuries of
conquest from the Moslems these orders had added estate to estate,
territory to territory, town to town, benefice to benefice, till their
possessions extended widely through Spain, their income perhaps
equalled that of the king, and their rule as landlords extended over
almost a million people, or one-third the population of Castile.
[Footnote: Vicente de la Fuente, Hist Generale de Espana, V., 79.] At
the head of each of these orders was a grand master, whose rich income,
military following, and prestige made him one of the greatest nobles in
Europe. There was reason in the claim that these grand masterships were
antagonistic to royalty. Those who held them were the most turbulent
nobles of Spain, and in earlier times had been the leaders in many a
revolt against the crown. Their military system was co-ordinate with,
and sometimes in conflict with, that of the king; their estates
surrounded royal fortresses and sometimes excluded royal forces from
frontier districts.
In 1487 when the grand mastership of the order of Calatrava became
vacant, Ferdinand presented himself in the chapter of the commanders of
the order, exhibited a papal bull giving him the administration of the
order, and forced the assembly to elect him grand master. In 1494, with
less formality, the grand master of Alcantara was induced to resign to
the king his office, receiving, in recompense, the dignity of
archbishop of Seville. Two years later, when the grand master of the
order of Santiago died, Ferdinand had himself elected without
difficulty. [Footnote: Maurenbrecher, Studien und Skizzen, 54.] Some
time after this Isabella issued a pragmatic decree, declaring that the
grand masterships of the orders should always be annexed to crown.
These dignities were of great value; not only did they bring in a
princely income, but they practically extended the estates and
patronage of the crown by all the broad lands, cities, and villages,
the offices, honors, and benefices with which the piety and chivalry of
three centuries had endowed the orders.
When once such foundations had been laid, the crown extended rapidly
its aggressions upon the old powers, privileges, and customs of classes
and local bodies. To the nobility were interdicted the possession of
fortified castles, the practice of private warfare, the use of
artillery, the duel, [Footnote: Mariejol, L'Espagne sous Ferdinand et
Isabelle, 35.] the use of quasi-royal formulas in their documents,
[Footnote: Cortes de los Antiguos Reinos, IV., 191, 192.] and other
proud old feudal customs. No slight influence was exercised upon the
nobility by the increasing ceremony, size, and expenditure of the
court, to which they came to be attached in positions of nominal
service and honorable dependence, a position altogether favorable to
the supremacy of the monarchs and unfavorable to the independence of
the nobility.
Side by side with the consolidation of royal power went the creation of
the territorial unity of the Spanish peninsula. The greatest step was
the conquest of Granada. Rich, warlike, and proud, this ancient Moorish
state resisted the persistent attacks of the Catholic sovereigns for
eleven years, from 1481 to 1492. [Footnote: Prescott, Ferdinand and
Isabella, chap. ix.] At least once Ferdinand wearied of the struggle
and the expense, and longed to turn the efforts of the united Castilian
and Aragonese arms eastward, where the natural ambitions of his own
kingdom drew him towards France, Italy, and the islands of the
Mediterranean. [Footnote: Mariejol, L'Espagne sous Ferdinand et
Isabelle, 63.] Isabella's determination, however, never wavered, and in
1492 Granada opened her gates to her conquerors, the Moorish dynasty
disappeared from Spain, and their mountains and plains were added to
the kingdom of Castile.
In the very next year Ferdinand reunited to his dominions, by amicable
treaty with the king of France, the two northern provinces of
Catalonia, Cerdagne and Roussillon--which had been detached for thirty
years. There remained Portugal and Navarre. The first of these
independent kingdoms had already attained a degree of national
independence, power, and wealth which prevented its absorption, though
it was in the days of Spain's greatest power to be dragged for eighty
years in her train. Navarre, balanced on the Pyrenees, had long been
drawn alternately to France and to Aragon. In the closing years of the
fifteenth and the opening years of the sixteenth century, neutrality
became impossible; and in 1512 a powerful Spanish army under the duke
of Alva marched into Navarre; its castles and towns capitulated, the
latter under a promise of the maintenance of their privileges; the king
retreated to the trans-Pyrenean part of his kingdom, and Ferdinand
added to his other titles that of king of Navarre. [Footnote:
Boissonade, Reunion de la Navarre a la Castille.] By the time of the
death of Ferdinand, the unity of the peninsula, except for Portugal,
was complete. The immediate successors of the Catholic sovereigns wore
the crowns of all the countries that ever have made part of Spain.
Just as Spain became territorially one, she was made homogeneous in
race and religion so as ultimately to become a land of one race and one
faith. The Jew and the Moor were both destined to disappear; every
element alien in blood and every element unorthodox in religion to be
driven out of the land. This complete purity of blood and unity of
belief were only attained long afterwards, in a period when Spain had
little else than her orthodoxy to pride herself upon, but they were
well begun in the time of the Catholic sovereigns.
The Jews were the first to meet with serious persecution. They were
very numerous: in one town, Ciudad Real, an assessment at one time
showed 8828 heads of families, or other adult males of the Jewish race.
[Footnote: Lea, The Moriscos of Spain, 383.] They were famous as
physicians and merchants, and, as in other lands, were often money-
lenders. From time to time waves of religious antagonism swept over the
country, and under the terrible pressure of slaughter and imminent
danger, great numbers of Jews were baptized and became conversos, or
"New Christians." These converts, freed from the disabilities of their
religion and gifted with superior natural abilities, rapidly attained
to high positions in church and state. Intermarriages between the New
Christians and those of Castilian blood were frequent, and many
families of great eminence had Jewish blood in their veins.
The conversos were under constant suspicion of being Christians only
formally; it was believed that in their hearts they retained their
ancient faith and secretly performed its rites; they were credited with
antagonism to Christianity and suspected of practising sorcery to
destroy the "Old Christians." There was some basis for the first, at
least, of these suspicions. Many doubtless failed to abandon completely
their ancestral ceremonies; and not only they but even some Old
Christians felt the attraction of their mysterious and ancient
traditions. [Footnote: Mariejol, L'Espagne sous Ferdinand et Isabelle,
44.] The practice of Jewish rites, known as "Judaizing," under the wide
relationships and high connections of the conversos, long went on
unchecked. In 1475 the pope conferred on his legate in Castile full
inquisitorial powers to prosecute and punish "Judaizing" Christians;
but the mandate was not carried out. [Footnote: Lea, in Am. Hist. Rev.,
October, 1895, p. 48.]
In 1480, however, the Catholic sovereigns requested from the pope
authorization for the appointment by themselves of inquisitors to root
out this heresy. A bull for the purpose was granted them, and on
September 27, 1480, the Spanish Inquisition was established at Seville.
In January, 1481, it began its work, and branches were gradually
established in other centres till it had extended its tribunals to
cover all Castile. Its work proved heavy; in its first eight years the
tribunal of Seville alone put to death seven hundred persons and
condemned five thousand more to severe penalties. [Footnote: Bernaldez,
Hist. de los Reyes, chap. xliv., quoted by Mariejol, L'Espagne, 46.]
One of the great councils of the realm was formed to direct its
operations, at the head of which was the inquisitor-general. The third
in the line of inquisitors-general extended the Inquisition to America.
The authority of the Inquisition extended only over baptized persons;
and, therefore, Jews who had never given up their religion, although
under many disabilities, were not subject to its jurisdiction; but
immunity to unconverted Jews could not consistently be continued during
a harsh persecution of Judaizing Christians, and from the commencement
of the work of the Inquisition pressure was brought to bear by clergy
and populace upon the sovereigns to force all Jews either to be
baptized or to emigrate. [Footnote: Lea, Religious History of Spain,
437.] The policy of enforced conversion or expulsion was steadily
advocated by the inquisitors; since, if the Jews were baptized they
would come under the jurisdiction of the Inquisition; if they left the
country, Spain would be free from the reproach of harboring heretics.
Isabella seems to have hesitated to carry out this policy, as well she
might. But the tide of popular hatred rose higher and higher, driven on
by the famous case of El Santo Nino de la Guardia, the reputed murder
of a Christian child by Jews to obtain its heart for purposes of
sorcery. [Footnote: Lea, Religious History of Spain, 437-468.] Finally,
by the edict of March 31, 1492, all Jews were expelled from Spain, as
they had been from England as early as 1290, and successively from many
other states of Europe at intervening periods. [Footnote: Amador de los
Rios, Los Judios de Espana y Portugal, III., 603.] The same year that
saw the discovery of America and the capture of Granada saw the
expulsion of some one hundred thousand Jews and the enforced baptism of
the fifty thousand that remained. [Footnote: Isidore Loeb, in Revue des
Etudes Juives, 1887, p. 182, quoted in Lea, The Moriscos of Spain, 16.]
One great and costly step had been made in the direction of unity of
race and religion in Spain.
The Moors in Spain were still more numerous than the Jews, though more
concentrated. Through the later mediaeval centuries, in the process of
reconquest, Moorish populations which made formal surrender were
preserved as subjects of the Christian kings; while those that were
taken prisoners in battle were retained as slaves. Both classes,
protected by the laws in their religion and their property, [Footnote:
Las Siete Partidas, pt. i., tit. v., ley 23, etc., quoted in Lea, The
Moriscos of Spain, 2.] frequently still practised their Mohammedan
faith. Practically the whole rural population of the kingdom of
Valencia was Moorish, and in the cities of the southern provinces of
Castile they made a considerable part of the population. In the century
and a half of peace just preceding the war with Granada they increased
steadily in numbers and in economic value to Spain.
The conquest of Granada, in 1492, brought the population of that
country under the rule of Ferdinand and Isabella. The old body of
Moorish subjects of Aragon and Castile, now reinforced by all the
teeming population of the south, made an element of the population of
united Spain of infinite promise. They were skilful, industrious,
temperate, and moral; their agriculture and manufactures were far more
advanced than those of the Christians, and they were more laborious,
thrifty, and peaceable. They might be relied upon to furnish through
taxation a steady and abundant income to the crown, and through their
labor to make the landed estates of the nobles profitable.
Though treaty guarantees and the permanent material interests of the
new sovereigns alike favored the protection and pacification of the
Moorish inhabitants of Granada, other motives antagonized this policy.
Religious enthusiasm and racial antipathy, as well as immediate greed,
urged a disregard of the terms of capitulation, or, at least, such an
interpretation of them as would drive the Moors either to conversion or
exile. The latitudinarianism of earlier centuries had disappeared. The
whole spirit of the time was now averse to tolerance or anything
approaching local, national, or religious independence. At first, under
Talavera, a sincere, earnest, and partially successful effort was made
to convert the Moors individually to Christianity; but soon a demand
arose and became ever more urgent that the Moors, like the Jews, should
be given the simple and immediate alternative of baptism or exile. In
1500 this policy was adopted in Granada; in 1502, by royal edict signed
by Isabella, it was applied to all the dominions of the Castilian
crown; and in 1525 it was promulgated in Aragon, Valencia, and
Catalonia. As a result many of the Moors emigrated to Africa; the rest
became Moriscos--that is to say, Christians in religion, although Moors
in blood. Thus religious uniformity was attained in Spain. In theory,
at least, every inhabitant of the united kingdom was a Catholic
Christian. But the enforced Christianity required of the Moriscos
produced only an outward and imperfect conformity, and the problem of
this alien element remained long unsolved to plague the Spanish
monarchs, and to bring untold misery on the Moriscos themselves.
[Footnote: Lea, The Moriscos of Spain, chaps. v.-xi.]
Thus the fragmentary and embryonic group of Iberian nations of the
fifteenth century grew into the powerful Spanish monarchy of the
sixteenth. A single centralized government was created, and the divided
currents of national life were gathered by it into one great stream.
Notwithstanding many survivals of mediaeval conditions and later
reversions to the earlier type, internal warfare and domestic disorder
disappeared from the peninsula, and divergence of foreign policy no
longer weakened its influence in Europe. The absolute monarchy was
founded, and whatever there was of ability, enterprise, and wealth in
Spain came under its control. The sovereign was in a position to give
patronage to voyages of adventure, to legislate for distant dominions,
and to make the most remote Spanish possessions contributory to the
general objects of Spanish policy.
Spain stood out as one of the greatest states in Europe. With her close
approximation to a united nationality, her all-powerful monarchy, her
highly elaborate bureaucracy, her increasing body of law, soon to be
codified into a great whole, her nascent literature, her military gifts
and resources, the wealth and romance of the Indies, she stood on the
threshold of the sixteenth century with imposing power and dignity. The
part she played during that century was a conspicuous one. Her generals
and her troops became the most famous and the most successful in
Europe. Her diplomatic representatives were able to take the highest
tone and to win most successes among European states, in the
international intrigues of the sixteenth and early seventeenth
centuries. She was rich enough to pension or bribe the ministers and
courtiers of half the courts of Europe, and even to dazzle the eyes and
impose upon the judgment of such a sovereign as James I. of England.
Her literature and her art flourished with her political greatness, and
she had all the external appearance of a great, cultured, and
flourishing nation.
We know now, as was recognized by some observers even then, that Spain
was a hollow shell. After the reign of Charles V. population stood
stationary, or declined, and wealth decreased. Philip II. enforced
orthodoxy, excluded all non-Catholic literature, and summoned home all
Spanish students in foreign universities, thus dooming Spain to
intellectual stagnation. She exhausted her resources in unwise or
hopeless foreign struggles, like the war of conquest of Italy and the
effort to reconquer the Netherlands; she wasted her peculiar
opportunities by driving from her borders the enterprising Jews and
industrious Moriscos, and by allowing commerce and finance to fall into
the hands of foreigners. But most of these errors were, at the death of
Ferdinand, in 1516, still in the future; and the Spanish monarchy and
nation had much of the reality as well as the appearance of greatness.