Spain in the 15th century was experiencing a process of change. It is the moment of its emergence as a great international power, at the hands of Isabel of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon, the Catholic Monarchs. With them, Castile and the kingdoms of the Crown of Aragon preserved their own institutions. Neither did they create a Spain as a cohesive state, as began to be mythologized in the 16th century, nor was the “Spain” of their times limited to a purely geographical concept, in which its parts only had the person of the sovereign in common.
A great specialist in the reign, Miguel Ángel Ladero Quesada, points out that already in the Middle Ages there was an awareness of Spain as a sociocultural reality compatible with the existence of diverse kingdoms. The idea may seem strange to a 21st century reader, accustomed to more or less centralized nation states, but in reality it is not so strange. In ancient times, the inhabitants of Athens considered themselves as Greek as those of Sparta.
Certainly, in the middle of the 15th century the project of a peninsular unity was floating in the air. Since monarchs from the same dynasty, the Trastámara, reign in Castile and Aragon, might it not be possible to go one step further? The Aragonese king, Juan II, is very interested in marrying his son Ferdinand to the Castilian princess, Isabel. He knows well the demographic weakness of his domain, and knows that he cannot compete alone with the booming France. To do this, he needs the support of his peninsular neighbor, much more extensive and populated.
But this geostrategic consideration, while important, is not the only factor. Juan II, a native of Medina del Campo, was, in the words of his biographer Jaume Vicens Vives, “a pure-blooded Castilian linked to Castile by his birth and by his tastes and, likewise, by the material interests he received there. ”.
When he speaks of “material interests,” Vicens Vives refers to the immense lands that his protagonist owned as Duke of Peñafiel and Lord of Castrojeriz. His father, the infant Fernando de Antequera, had been the candidate chosen as king of Aragon in the Compromise of Caspe, after Martín the Human died without legitimate descendants.
The future Ferdinand the Catholic is, therefore, Castilian through and through. Not so Isabel, half-Portuguese on her mother's side. They married in 1469 against the will of her half-brother, Henry IV of Castile, a very controversial figure.
There has been much discussion about whether or not the sovereign was the true father of his only daughter, Juana, nicknamed Beltraneja due to suspicions that her father was the aristocrat Beltrán de la Cueva. In reality, these rumors, spread by the monarch's enemies, have never been proven. It is worth thinking, on the other hand, that in the War of the Castilian Succession Beltrán did not support the rights of Juana, but those of Isabel.
She proclaimed herself sovereign of Castile as soon as Henry IV died, even though at that time she was no longer the princess of Asturias, a title that fell to her niece Juana, a girl of barely twelve years old. It can be said, therefore, that the future Catholic queen carried out a coup d'état, as Alfredo Alvar Ezquerra, among other researchers, points out. From this point of view, her actions amounted to a full-fledged usurpation. Her admirers, on the other hand, prefer to talk about a gesture of political audacity.
Thus began the civil war against the supporters of Isabel and those of Juana, the latter with the support of the king of Portugal. Fernando immediately took up arms to support his wife, while ensuring that she gave him the role she desired in her government. The spouses agreed on the so-called Concordia of Segovia. From now on, none of them would be a simple consort.
The Castilian civil war ended in 1479 with the victory of Isabel and Ferdinand. Beltraneja would spend the rest of her long life – she would die in 1530 – secluded in a convent in Coimbra, Portugal, always convinced that she was her rightful sovereign.
Shortly before the end of the conflict, with the death of John II on January 20, 1479, Ferdinand had inherited Aragon. For the first time, then, this kingdom and that of Castile had the same sovereigns. The authorities of the city of Barcelona, when addressing those of Seville, reflected this change with a statement full of content: “Now that we are all brothers.”
The monarchs themselves express their unifying will. In the Cortes of Toledo, in 1480, they were pronounced in unequivocal terms: “Well, by the grace of God, our kingdoms of Castile and León and Aragon are united, and we have hope that, by his piety, from now on They will be in union.”
Nobody intended, obviously, that from that date onwards the rivalries between the different peninsular territories would magically disappear. Cardinal Cisneros himself, after the death of Ferdinand the Catholic, acted, according to Joseph Pérez, in a strongly Castilian and Castilianist sense, as if Castile were the only component of the monarchy. That is why he protested vigorously when, from Brussels, the future Charles V appointed an Aragonese, Pedro de Urrea, ambassador to Rome.
But, although tensions and mistrust continued to exist, what does seem clear, as the prestigious modernist Antonio-Miguel Bernal pointed out, is that “the union of the two peninsular kingdoms produced synergies whose most eloquent results were the broadening of the base territorial of both kingdoms while accentuating the prestige of Isabel and Ferdinand in the international sphere.
The country that emerges in those moments, in short, makes unity compatible with diversity. From now on, the various kingdoms follow a common project, while preserving their own identity, a uniqueness that monarchs must respect. As the chronicler Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo said in the 16th century, “not all vassals of the royal crown of Spain have similar customs or similar languages.”
Monarchs have an extraordinary power base to impose their political program. In his management, lights and shadows will mix, with brilliant decisions, but also with controversial measures, destined to condition the future of his vassals for a long time, such as the establishment of the Inquisition or the expulsion of the Jewish minority from his kingdoms.
This text is part of an article published in number 649 of the magazine Historia y Vida. Do you have something to contribute? Write to us at redaccionhyv@historiayvida.com.
