With the political union of the two major crowns of Spain secured after the marriage of los reyes católicos, the next phase of consolidation was religious.  Establishing the Spanish Inquisition in Castile in 1478 with papal approval, the queen, a fervent Catholic, and with an eye toward internal control, had measures passed by the Toledo Cortes that were brutally oppressive to the Jews, leading ultimately to their expulsion.  The tribunal dealt with the problem of Marranos, Jews who through coercion or social pressure had insincerely converted to Christianity.  After 1502, the Spanish Inquisition turned its attention to similar converts from Islam, the Moriscos, or converted Moors.[1]  The Spanish Inquisition, to a great degree, was more an instrument of the state than of the Church, although highly educated clergy, especially Dominicans, functioned as its officers. The most notorious inquisitor, during the reign of the Catholic monarchs, was Tomás de Torquemada.[2]  At the same time, Isabella was determined to correct ecclesiastical problems in Spain for the sake of religious and political unity.  She undertook serious reform efforts with the help of Franciscan friar Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros, bishop of the important see of Toledo. Their joint efforts proved somewhat successful in improving the well being of the Church; yet this work also brought further strictness that carried over into the political realm.[3]

With Castilian and Aragonese crowns politically secure and with religious unity and reform underway, the two monarchs began to consolidate power on a geographic level.  A portion of the Iberian Peninsula was still in Muslims’ hands, representing a threat to Spain’s political, religious and geographic hegemony.  Following Isabella’s and Ferdinand’s union of crowns in 1474 the idea of the crusade, with popular religious and emotional overtones, was therefore ready at hand.  A vigorous renewal of the war against Granada would rally the country behind the new rulers, and associate crown and people with a heroic enterprise, making the name of Spain ring through Christendom.[4]  Flowing from this sense of a national religious mission, the goal of geographic unity of the Spain was achieved.  On January 2, 1492, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella rode out from their encampment of Santa Fe at the head of fifty thousand soldiers, Cardinal Cisneros riding beside them.  The last Moorish king, Boabdil, with only fifty horsemen, rode out of the besieged Granada to hand over the keys to the citadel.  Hispania – except for Portugal -- was again united under common rule after nearly 800 years.[5]

With the spirit of the final reconquista victory fresh in mind, Ferdinand and Isabella signed a contract with Columbus three months later, on April 17, 1492, at the camp of Santa Fe.  The agreement named Christopher Columbus, and his heirs admiral of the ocean sea and appointed him viceroy and governor of all the lands and continents he might discover or acquire, and granted him one-tenth of all the precious stones, gold, silver, spices, or other articles of trade he might obtain “by purchase, barter or conquest...”[6]  With the drying of the ink of that contract the reconquista of Spain was converted into the conquista of the Americas.  The force of nearly eight-hundred years of intermittent peninsular warfare was unleashed on the Americas.  This restless bellicose spirit found a fresh outlet, with new lands to conquer and more Christian converts to gain. The end of one religious crusade was really the beginning of a new one, yet now with greater international and religious consequences.  Columbus returned from the Indies in March of 1493 and received an enthusiastic reception from the Spanish monarchs and confirmation of the honors guaranteed by his contract.[7]  This opening of the New World by Columbus made Spain the richest and most powerful European State of the 1500’s, the century of the Hapsburg Dynasty.

Prior to the transition from the Catholic kings to their Hapsburg grandson, Charles, a series of papal bulls were proclaimed.  These had a profound impact on the conquest and the Church in the Americas.  From 1493 - 1510 popes Alexander VI and Julius II gave the Spanish kings patronato real over the Church in the new lands of the Americas.[8]  As this evolved, it meant that the kings had the right to nominate -- and therefore practically to appoint -- bishops and other high ecclesiastical officers for the Americas.[9]  With few exceptions, the crown was also able to administer tithes and other offerings and to be responsible for all the expenses of the Church.  The result was that the Church had reduced direct contact with Rome, becoming practically a national Church under the leadership of the Spanish kings and their appointees.[10]  Moreover, with the signing of the Treaty of Tordesillas on May 4, 1493, the Spanish Pope Alexander VI defined the demarcation boundary line between Spanish and Portuguese spheres of possessions in the New World, an agreement modified and further sanctioned by Pope Julius II in 1506.

Notes