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The marriage in 1469 of Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon led to the dynastic unification of Spain’s two largest kingdoms. Isabella, the only reigning queen in the first century of the Renaissance, was the sponsor of Columbus’s voyages to the New World. She enacted programs to restore and solidify the predominance of the Roman Catholic Church in the Iberian Peninsula.
The Iberian monarch Queen Isabella (Isabel in Spanish) I of Castile, also known as Isabella the Catholic, completed the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula along with her husband, Ferdinand (Fernando in Spanish) II of Aragon (1452–1516). Royal sponsor of the New World voyages made by Christopher Columbus, she was the daughter of John II of Castile and Isabella of Portugal.
Isabella was named Queen of Castile after the death of her brother Alfonso in 1468, although not without incident. As a result of Isabella’s marriage (1469) to Ferdinand II of Aragon—later Ferdinand V of Castile—Isabella’s half-brother Henry IV promptly chose to disinherit her and appoint as the new heir apparent his own daughter, Juana. Upon the death of Henry IV (1474) Isabella appointed herself as the rightful Queen of Castile in the city of Segovia, causing a bitterly fought civil war and international conflict to erupt between the faction supporting Isabella and the faction supporting Juana (1475–1479). The Concordat of Segovia (1475) set forth the rules and regulations governing the individual participation of Isabella and Ferdinand in the governing of Castile, and the subsequent Treaty of Alcacovas (1479) put an end to the civil war. From this point forward, Isabella and Ferdinand ruled as equal Catholic Kings, a title conferred upon them by the Spanish-born Pope, Alexander VI, a member of the influential Borgia family.
The marriage of Isabella and Ferdinand II created a union that eventually led to the dynastic unification of Spain’s two largest kingdoms, Castile and Aragon. Contrary to popular belief, neither the Catholic Queen Isabella I nor the Catholic King Ferdinand V wished to be known as monarchs of a unified Spanish kingdom. Instead, they preferred to be known in the traditional fashion as “King and Queen of Castile and Leon, Aragon, and Sicily, Toledo, Valencia, Galicia, Mallorca, Seville, Sardinia, Corsica, Murcia, Jaen, Algarve, Algeciras, Gibralter, Count and Countess of Barcelona, Lords of Viscaya and Molina, Dukes of Athens and Neopatria, Counts of Roussillon and Cerdagne.”
After the death of the sons of Isabella and Ferdinand, their daughter Juana became the heir and future Queen of the Crown of Castile. With her husband, Philip of Austria, Juana would give birth to the future Emperor Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire, or Charles I of Spain. Another of Isabella’s daughters, Catherine, married Henry VIII of England. The inability of Henry VIII to obtain a divorce from Catherine of Aragon would trigger the break of England from the Roman Catholic Church.
Isabella’s historical significance lay not only in the fact that she was the only reigning queen in the first century of the Renaissance, but also in the sweeping programs she pursued in her mission to restore and solidify the predominance of the Roman Catholic Church in the Iberian Peninsula. Notorious among these programs were the establishment of the Spanish Inquisition, the expulsion of the Jews from all Spanish kingdoms, the reform of the Spanish Church and of the religious orders, the wars against the Muslims of North Africa, and the eventual Conquest of Granada (1492), the last Muslim enclave on the Iberian Peninsula. Isabella also supported the conquest of the Canary Islands and the New World endeavors of Christopher Columbus, through which Spain would gain a new overseas empire.
The Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) was perhaps the most important international arbitration treaty signed during Queen Isabella’s reign. Drawn up to ease confusion between Spain and Portugal with regard to the right of possession of New World territories, it basically divided all newly discovered lands between the two countries. Upon the death of Queen Isabella I, the Catholic, she was laid to rest in the Royal Chapel adjacent to the Cathedral of Granada, as was her dying wish. She lies entombed alongside her husband, King Ferdinand, the Catholic, and their daughter Juana and her husband, Philip.
Isabella’s reign gave birth to a Renaissance decorative and architectural style known as Isabellaine. Along with her desire to bring the Catholic faith to an ever greater number of people, Isabella also empowered one of the most crucial tools of empire and civilization—the first grammar of a European language, compiled by the Spanish humanist Elio Antonio de Nebrija.
Bibliography:
- Boruchoff, D. A. (2003). Isabella la Catolica, queen of Castile: Critical essays. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
- Carroll, W. H. (1991). Isabella of Spain: The Catholic queen. Front Royal, VA: Christendom Press.
- Earenfight, T. (2005). Queenship and political power in medieval and early modern Spain. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Pub.
- Weissberger, B. F. (2003). Isabella rules: Constructing queenship, wielding power. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
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