CATHOLIC KINGS SWORD

The sword of the catholic kings was famous in all its empire.

Isabel I of Castile, "la Católica", daughter of Juan II of Castile and Isabel of Portugal, second wife of this, was born in Madrigal of the High Towers in April of 1451.

Fernando, son of Juan II of Aragon and Juana Enriquez, contracted marriage in the 19 Valladolid of October of 1469, between strong oppositions to the same one. The consanguinity of both spouses (they were prime) was solved through one bula signed by Calixto Pope, bula that had been falsified by the bishop of Segovia. 

To the death of king Juan II of Castile, his brother Enrique IV inherited the throne of Castile. When finding out Enrique IV that the marriage had been completed without its consent, declared to his daughter Juana like legitim and heiress to the throne. This real decision caused a series of you intrigue around two sides, those that supported to Juana and those in favor of Isabel. The death without naming successor to the throne of Enrique IV unleashed a war of succession, that lasted seven years, in charge of those in favor of the legitimacy of Juana and those of Isabel. The 13 of December of 1474, in Segovia, Isabel was recognized propietary queen of Castile, Fernando was absent and to his return he demanded his rights on Castile like descendant of the House of Trastámara. The Concord of Segovia, signed in 1475, would determine the part that to each one corresponded to him in the government.

Image of the sword of Catolics Kings .

Conflict between Isabel and Juana followed present after coronation, since Alfonso V of Portugal, husband of Juana, sent an offensive in support of this one, offensive that was disputed in the battles of Toro and Albuera after who Isabel, that winner left, was recognized queen by Cortes of Madrigal. 

Meanwhile Fernando was named inheriting after the death of his brother Carlos. In 1468 he received the throne of Sicily and to the death of his father in 1479, the one of the crown of Aragón. It participated in the fights with its sword in favor of its Isabel wife and as of this date one took place the dynastic union of Aragón and Castile and the beginning of the joint reign, following the agreements that had been signed in 1475 in the Concord of Segovia by which both monarchs maintained their equality in the referred thing to Justice, currency and expedition of privileges, but reserved to Isabel the fidelity of the possesors of Castles and the questions of Property. 

Picture of the Virgin of Catolics Kings.

This marriage has been considered like the departure point of the unit and the greatness of Spain. Immediate goal of the new monarchs was the one to restore the real authority for which they used as a powerful organization, Santa Hermandad created in 1476 which it was a species of judicial police that persecuted the disturbers of the order. 

Also they constituted the Real Council who replaced Cortes and named corregidores to control the cities and tied the direction of the Mesta of the Real Council. This way it was controlled the policy of the kingdom, because its main objective was to adjust the existing institutions and to create other that could serve their authority, although these measures weighed more on the kingdom of Castile that on the one of Aragon. 

The following mission was to conclude reconquers it in the nazarí kingdom of Granada which obtained in 1492. 

Tomb where the rest of Kings Catolicos rest .

Inner La Paz and the good organization of the kingdom allowed that the real coffers filled and with them new companies like the support were carried out to the admiral genovés Cristobal Columbus who would discover America in 1492, contributing to wealth for the kingdom and the strong outer expansionism. 

The success of the antiMuslim war and the pressure of the confesores of the queen induced the Kings to unify the religion of their subjects thus in 1492 was come to expel to the granadinos Jews and mudéjares, forced to become. In 1478 the Inquisición had been created already to persecute the new Christians who returned to their old beliefs. 

The contribution of the kingdoms of Fernando extended the Castilian horizons, only Granada stayed as last Arab redoubt, and the possessions in the Balearic ones, Sicily, Sardinia and the Rosellón, in agreement with the treaty of Barcelona in 1493, formed the territory reigned by Isabel and Fernando.

Also in Italy one faced the French monarch obtaining the conquest of the kingdom of Naples in 1504. In that same year queen Isabel passed away and although she left as she runs of the heiress to the throne, Juana I, to his husband Fernando the Catholic, the Castilian nobility did not support it reason why this one marched to its states of Aragón. This way the one in charge of the government of Castile had left Felipe of Austria, the Beautiful one, husband of queen Juana I of Castile, the Crazy person. 

But the death of Felipe in 1506 forced to restitute to Fernando, called by Cisneros Cardinal to Castile in 1507. The last years of their reign were characterized by the confrontations with Italian land France. To the death of Fernando the Catholic inherited the throne his grandson Carlos I of Spain. 

Image of the Catolics Kings.

From the artistic point of view this stage characterizes by the survival of the gothic tradition and the slow penetration of the new Renaissance molds. Under the impulse of the monarchs or the high nobility numerous buildings were elevated, churches, universities, hospitals, castles, etc., specially in Castilian earth given the economic supremacy of this kingdom then. In the field of the painting they continued developing to his work painters who or had begun time back like Huguet, Gallego, Bermejo simultaneously who the new Renaissance style showed to works of artists like Rodrigo de Osona Viejo or Pedro Berruguete.

Although Isabel and Fernando governed of joint form, this one was centered more in making decisions in the matter of inner policy and obtaining the religious unit by means of the selection of the bishop, a reform of the clergy, the establishment in 1478 of the new Inquisición, directed in principle to the conversos that judaizaban in Andalusia and extended later by all the kingdom, the expulsion of the Jews, that forced to them by means of decree to become or to emigrate, and the conversion of other religious minorities like the moriscos of Granada. On the other hand, Fernando was centered more in the government of the foreign policy.

Isabel and Fernando designed a policy of connections for their children, through a series of marriages that they had as purpose of strengthening the crown like an international power and of isolating France.

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