74-

ld, 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 b

ition 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;

, Ferdinand, became king of Aragon, they united, by close personal and political b

upled 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

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 c

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

tting 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

oods, 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

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 compan

le 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 tha

ion. 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 commis

nal 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 l

inistration; 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 sing

ent. 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,

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 Burea

ctiveness. 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 equiv

ials 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 a

os 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 th

he 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 t

illery, 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 nobil

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 isla

reatest 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

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 wer

ts, 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

r 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

egan 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.

ng 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

68.] 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 c

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

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

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 m

ing 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 ther

xteenth 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 s

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 enterpris