Ferdinand II (Aragonese: Ferrando II; Catalan: Ferran II; Basque: Errando II; Spanish: Fernando II; 10 March 1452 – 23 January 1516), called the Catholic (Spanish: el Católico), was King of Aragon[1] from 1479 until his death. In 1469, he married InfantaIsabella, the future queen of Castile, which was regarded as the marital and political "cornerstone in the foundation of the Spanish monarchy".[2] As a consequence of the marriage, in 1474 he became de jure uxorisKing of Castile as Ferdinand V, when Isabella held the crown of Castile, until her death in 1504. At Isabella's death the crown of Castile passed to their daughter Joanna, by the terms of their prenuptial agreement and Isabella‘s last will and testament, and Ferdinand lost his monarchical status in Castile. Joanna's husband Philip became de jure uxoris King of Castile, but died in 1506, and Joanna ruled in her own right. In 1504, after a war with France, he became King of Naples as Ferdinand III, reuniting Naples with Sicily permanently and for the first time since 1458. In 1506, as part of a treaty with a France, Ferdinand married Germaine of Foix of France, but Ferdinand's only son and child of that marriage died soon after birth. (Had the child survived, the personal union of the crowns of Aragon and Castile would have ceased.) In 1508, Ferdinand was recognized as regent of Castile, following Joanna's alleged mental illness, until his own death in 1516. In 1512, he became King of Navarre by conquest.
Ferdinand had a role in inaugurating the first European encounters in the future Americas, since he and Isabella sponsored the first voyage of Christopher Columbus (1451–1506), in 1492. That year was the final victory in the war with Granada which defeated the last Muslim state in Iberia and all of Western Europe. This brought to a close the centuries-long Christian reconquest of Iberia. For that Christian victory, Pope Alexander VI, born in the Kingdom of Valencia, awarded the royal couple the title of Catholic Monarchs. At Ferdinand's death Joanna's son, Ferdinand's grandson, Charles I, became ruler of all the several Iberian kingdoms except for Portugal. Ferdinand is often considered the first king of Spain by virtue of his marriage to Isabella I of Castile up to her death in 1504, followed by his regency of Castile in the name of his daughter Joanna, known as "queen of Castile" as opposed to Ferdinand "king of Spain".[3]
The completion of the Reconquista was not the only significant act performed by Ferdinand and Isabella in that year. In March 1492, the monarchs issued the Edict of Expulsion of the Jews, also called the Alhambra Decree,[9] a document which ordered all Jews either to be baptised and convert to Christianity or to leave the country.[10] It allowed Mudéjar Moors (Islamic) and conversoMarrano Jews to stay, while expelling all unconverted Jews from Castile and Aragon (most Jews either converted or moved to the Ottoman Empire). 1492 was also the year in which the monarchs commissioned Christopher Columbus to find a westward maritime route for access to Asia, which resulted in the Spanish arrival in the Americas.
In 1494 the Treaty of Tordesillas divided the entire world beyond Europe between Portugal and Castile (Spain) for conquest and dominion purposes – by a north–south line drawn down the Atlantic Ocean.
Forced conversions
Ferdinand violated the 1491 Treaty of Granada peace treaty in 1502 by dismissing the clearly guaranteed religious freedom for Mudéjar Muslims. Ferdinand forced all Muslims in Castile and Aragon to convert, conversoMoriscos, to Catholicism, or else be expelled. Some of the Muslims who remained were mudéjar artisans, who could design and build in the Moorish style. This was also practised by the Spanish inquisitors on the conversoMarrano Jewish population of Spain. The main architect behind the Spanish Inquisition was King Ferdinand II.
Wedding portrait of Ferdinand and Isabella
The latter part of Ferdinand's life was largely taken up with disputes with successive kings of France over control of Italy, the Italian Wars. In 1494, Charles VIII of France invaded Italy and expelled Alfonso II, who was Ferdinand's first cousin once removed and step nephew, from the throne of Naples. Ferdinand allied with various Italian princes and with Emperor Maximilian I to expel the French by 1496 and install Alfonso's son, Ferdinand II, on the Neapolitan throne. In 1501, following Ferdinand II's death and accession of his uncle Frederick, Ferdinand signed an agreement with Charles VIII's successor, Louis XII, who had just successfully asserted his claims to the Duchy of Milan, to partition Naples between them, with Campania and the Abruzzi, including Naples itself, going to the French and Ferdinand taking Apulia and Calabria. The agreement soon fell apart and, over the next several years, Ferdinand's great general Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba fought to take Naples from the French, finally succeeding by 1504.
The King of France complains that I have twice deceived him. He lies, the fool; I have deceived him ten times and more.
Some time before 1502 Andreas Palaiologos, the last exiled claimant to the Byzantine throne of his house, sold his titles and royal and imperial rights to Ferdinand. Those, however, had never been made use of, due to the doubtful nature of the deal.[12]
After Isabella
Isabella made her will on 12 October 1504, in advance of her 26 November 1504 death. In it she spelled out the succession to the crown of Castile, leaving it to Joanna and then to Joanna's son Charles. Isabella was dubious of Joanna's ability to rule and was not confident of Joanna's husband Archduke Philip. Ferdinand moved quickly after his wife's death to continue his role in Castile. On the day of his wife's death, he formally renounced his title as king of Castile and instead became governor (gobernador) of the kingdom, as a way to become regent. Philip deemed his wife sane and fit to rule. A compromise was forged between Philip and Ferdinand, which gave Ferdinand a continued role in Castile.[13] Ferdinand had served as the latter's regent during her absence in the Netherlands, ruled by her husband Archduke Philip. Ferdinand attempted to retain the regency permanently, but was rebuffed by the Castilian nobility and replaced with Joanna's husband.
In the Treaty of Villafáfila of 1506, Ferdinand renounced not only the government of Castile in favor of Philip but also the lordship of the Indies, withholding half of the income of the "kingdoms of the Indies".[14] Joanna and Philip immediately added to their titles the kingdoms of Indies, Islands and Mainland of the Ocean Sea. But the Treaty of Villafáfila did not hold for long because of the death of Philip; Ferdinand returned as regent of Castile and as "lord of the Indies".[15]
The widowed Ferdinand made an alliance with France in July 1505 and married Germaine of Foix, cementing the alliance with France. She was the granddaughter of his half-sister Queen Eleanor of Navarre and niece of Louis XII of France. Had Ferdinand's son with Germaine, John, Prince of Girona, born on 3 May 1509, survived, "the crown of Aragon would inevitably been separated from Castile"[13] and denied his grandson Charles the crown of Aragon. But the infant Prince John died within hours and was buried in the convent of Saint Paul in Valladolid, Kingdom of Castile and Leon, and later transferred to Poblet Monastery, Vimbodí i Poblet, Catalonia, Kingdom of Aragon, traditional burial site of the kings of Aragon.[16]
Ferdinand had no legal position in Castile, with the cortes of Toro recognizing Joanna and her children as heirs and Ferdinand left Castile in July 1506. After his son-in-law Philip's untimely death in September 1506, Castile was in crisis. Joanna was allegedly mentally unstable, and Joanna's and Philip's son, Charles, the future Emperor Charles V, was only six years old. Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros, the Chancellor of the Kingdom, was made regent, but the upper nobility reasserted itself. Ferdinand led an army against Pedro Fernández de Córdoba y Pacheco, the marquis of Priego of Córdoba, who had seized control there by force.[17]
In 1508 war resumed in Italy, this time against the Republic of Venice, in which all the other powers with interests on the Italian peninsula, including Louis XII, Ferdinand II, Maximilian, and Pope Julius II joined together against as the League of Cambrai. Although the French were victorious against Venice at the Battle of Agnadello, the League of Cambrai soon fell apart, as both the Pope and Ferdinand II became suspicious of French intentions. Instead, the 'Holy League' was formed, in which now all the powers joined together against Louis XII and France.
In November 1511 Ferdinand and his son-in-law King Henry VIII of England signed the Treaty of Westminster, pledging mutual aid between the two against Navarre and France ahead of the Spanish invasion of Navarre as of July 1512. After the fall of Granada in 1492, he had manoeuvred for years to take over the throne of the Basque kingdom, ruled by Queen Catherine of Navarre and King John III of Navarre, also lords of Béarn and other sizeable territories north of the Pyrenees and in Gascony. Ferdinand annexed Navarre first to the Crown of Aragon, but later, under the pressure of Castilian noblemen, to the Crown of Castile. The Holy League was generally successful in Italy, as well, driving the French from Milan, which was restored to its Sforza dukes by the peace treaty in 1513. The French were successful in reconquering Milan two years later, however.
Ferdinand and Isabella established a highly effective sovereignty under equal terms. They utilised a prenuptial agreement to lay down their terms. During their reign they supported each other effectively in accordance to his joint motto of equality: "Tanto monta [or monta tanto], Isabel como Fernando" ("They amount to the same, Isabel and Ferdinand"). Isabella and Ferdinand's achievements were remarkable: Spain was united, or at least more united than it ever had been; the crown power was centralised, at least in name; the reconquista was successfully concluded; the groundwork for the most dominant military machine of the next century and a half was laid; a legal framework was created; the church was reformed. Even without the benefit of the American expansion, Spain would have been a major European power. Columbus' discovery set the country on the course for the first modern world power.
During the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, Spain pursued alliances through marriage with Portugal, Habsburg Austria, and Burgundy. Their first-born daughter Isabella was married to Alfonso of Portugal, and their first-born son John was married to Margaret of Austria. However, the deaths of these children, and the death of Isabella, altered the succession plan forcing Ferdinand to yield the government of Castile to Philip of Habsburg the husband of his second daughter Joanna.[18]
In 1502, the members of the Aragonese Cortes gathered in Zaragoza, and Parliaments of the Kingdom of Valencia and the Principality of Catalonia in Barcelona, as members of the Crown of Aragon, swore an oath of loyalty to their daughter Joanna as heiress, but Alonso de Aragón, Archbishop of Saragossa, stated firmly that this oath was invalid and did not change the law of succession which could only be done by formal legislation by the Cortes with the King.[19][20] So, when King Ferdinand died on 23 January 1516, his daughter Joanna inherited the Crown of Aragon, and his grandson Charles became Governor General (regent).[21] Nevertheless, the Flemish wished that Charles assume the royal title, and this was supported by his paternal grandfather the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I and by Pope Leo X. Consequently, after Ferdinand II's funeral on 14 March 1516, Charles I was proclaimed King of Castile and of Aragon jointly with his mother. Finally, the Castilian Regent, Cardinal Jiménez de Cisneros accepted the fait accompli, and the Castilian and Aragonese Cortes paid homage to him[22] as King of Aragon jointly with his mother.[23]
Ferdinand's grandson and successor Charles, was to inherit not only the Spanish lands of his maternal grandparents, but the Austrian and Burgundian lands of his paternal family, which would make his heirs the most powerful rulers on the continent and, with the discoveries and conquests in the Americas and elsewhere, of the first truly global Empire.
With his wife Isabella I the Catholic (whom he married 19 October 1469), King Ferdinand had seven children:
Isabella (1470–1498), Princess of Asturias (1497–1498). She married first Afonso, Prince of Portugal, then after his death married his uncle Prince Manuel, the future King Emanuel I of Portugal. She died in childbirth delivering her son Miguel da Paz, Crown Prince of both Portugal and Spain who, in turn, died in infancy.
John (1478–1497), Prince of Asturias (1478–1497). He married Margaret of Habsburg (daughter of Emperor Maximilian I). He died of tuberculosis and his posthumous child with Margaret was stillborn.
Joanna I (1479–1555), Princess of Asturias (1500–1504), Queen of Castile (1504–1555), Queen of Aragon (1516–1555). She married Philip I(Philip the handsome) (son of Emperor Maximilian I); and was the mother of King Charles I of Spain (also known as Charles V as Holy Roman Emperor). Ferdinand made her out to be mentally unstable and she was incarcerated by him, and then by her son, in Tordesillas for over 50 years. Her grandson, Philip II of Spain, was crowned in 1556.
A stillborn daughter, twin of Maria. Born 1 July 1482 at dawn.
Catalina, later known Catherine of Aragon, queen of England, (1485–1536). She married first Arthur, Prince of Wales, son of and heir to King Henry VII of England and, after Prince Arthur's death, she married his brother Henry, Duke of York, who also became Prince of Wales and then King Henry VIII. She thus became Queen of England and was the mother of Queen Mary I.
Joanna, known historically as Joanna the Mad, was Queen of Castile from 1504, and of Aragon from 1516. Modern Spain evolved from the union of these two crowns. Joanna was married by arrangement to Philip the Handsome, Archduke of the House of Habsburg, on 20 October 1496. Following the deaths of her brother, John, Prince of Asturias, in 1497, her elder sister Isabella in 1498, and her nephew Miguel in 1500, Joanna became the heir presumptive to the crowns of Castile and Aragon. When her mother Queen Isabella I of Castile died in 1504, Joanna became Queen of Castile, while her father, King Ferdinand II of Aragon, proclaimed himself 'Governor and Administrator of Castile'. In 1506 Archduke Philip became King of Castile jure uxoris, initiating the rule of the Habsburgs in the Spanish kingdoms, and died that same year. Despite being the ruling Queen of Castile, she had little effect on national policy during her reign as she was declared insane and imprisoned in Tordesillas under the orders of her father, who ruled as regent until his death in 1516, when she inherited his kingdom as well. From 1516, when her son Charles I ruled as king, she was nominally co-monarch but remained imprisoned until her death.
Philip of Habsburg, called the Handsome or the Fair, was Duke of Burgundy from 1482 to 1506 and the first member of the house of Habsburg to be King of Castile as Philip I.
John II, called the Great or the Faithless (29 June 1398 – 20 January 1479), was the King of Navarre through his wife from 1425 and the King of Aragon in his own right from 1458 until his death. He was the son of Ferdinand I and his wife Eleanor of Alburquerque. John was also King of Sicily from 1458-1468.
Joanna la Beltraneja was a claimant to the throne of Castile, and Queen of Portugal as the wife of King Afonso V, her uncle.
The term Catholic Monarchs refers to Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon, whose marriage and joint rule marked the de facto unification of Spain. They were both from the House of Trastámara and were second cousins, being both descended from John I of Castile; on marriage they were given a papal dispensation to deal with consanguinity by Sixtus IV. They married on October 19, 1469, in the city of Valladolid; Isabella was eighteen years old and Ferdinand a year younger. It is generally accepted by most scholars that the unification of Spain can essentially be traced back to the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella. Spain was formed as a dynastic union of two crowns rather than a unitary state, as Castile and Aragon remained separate kingdoms until the Nueva Planta decrees of 1707–1716. The court of Ferdinand and Isabella was constantly on the move, in order to bolster local support for the crown from local feudal lords. The title of "Catholic King and Queen" was officially bestowed on Ferdinand and Isabella by Pope Alexander VI in 1494, in recognition of their defense of the Catholic faith within their realms.
The Kingdom of Castile was a large and powerful state located on the Iberian Peninsula during the Middle Ages. Its name comes from the host of castles constructed in the region. It began in the 9th century as the County of Castile, an eastern frontier lordship of the Kingdom of León. During the 10th century its counts increased their autonomy, but it was not until 1065 that it was separated from León and became a kingdom in its own right. Between 1072 and 1157 it was again united with León, and after 1230 this union became permanent. Throughout this period the Castilian kings made extensive conquests in southern Iberia at the expense of the Islamic principalities. The Kingdoms of Castile and of León, with their southern acquisitions, came to be known collectively as the Crown of Castile, a term that also came to encompass overseas expansion.
Germaine of Foix was queen consort of Aragon as the second wife of Ferdinand II of Aragon, whom she married in 1506 after the death of his first wife, Isabella I of Castile in 1504.
Miguel da Paz, Prince of Portugal and Prince of Asturias was a Portuguese royal prince, son of King Manuel I of Portugal and his first wife, Isabella of Aragon, Princess of Asturias (1470-1498).
The Crown of Castile was a medieval polity in the Iberian Peninsula that formed in 1230 as a result of the third and definitive union of the crowns and, some decades later, the parliaments of the kingdoms of Castile and León upon the accession of the then Castilian king, Ferdinand III, to the vacant Leonese throne. It continued to exist as a separate entity after the personal union in 1469 of the crowns of Castile and Aragon with the marriage of the Catholic Monarchs up to the promulgation of the Nueva Planta decrees by Philip V in 1715.
Isabella, Princess of Asturias was a Queen consort of Portugal and heir presumptive of King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile, as their eldest daughter. Her younger siblings were John, Prince of Asturias, Queen Joanna I of Castile, Maria, Queen of Portugal and Catherine, Queen of England.
The Council of Castile, known earlier as the Royal Council, was a ruling body and key part of the domestic government of the Crown of Castile, second only to the monarch himself. It was established under Queen Isabella I in 1480 as the chief body dealing with administrative and judicial matters of the realm. With the 1516 ascension of King Charles I to the throne of both Castile and Aragon, the Royal Council came to be known as the Council of Castile because Charles was king of many dominions other than Castile, while the Council retained responsibility only over Castile.
Duke of Medinaceli is a title of the Spanish nobility. The Catholic Monarchs, Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, created the title and awarded it to Luis de la Cerda y de la Vega on 31 October 1479. Luis also held the title of 5th Count of Medinaceli, which title was first awarded in 1368 to his ancestor, Bernal de Foix.
Isabella I reigned as Queen of Castile from 1474 until her death. Her marriage to Ferdinand II in 1469 became the basis for the de facto unification of Spain. After a struggle to claim her right to the throne, she reorganized the governmental system, brought the crime rate to the lowest it had been in years, and unburdened the kingdom of the enormous debt her brother had left behind. Her reforms and those she made with her husband had an influence that extended well beyond the borders of their united kingdoms. Isabella and Ferdinand are known for completing the Reconquista, ordering conversion or exile to their Jewish and Muslim subjects, and for supporting and financing Christopher Columbus's 1492 voyage that led to the opening of the New World and to the establishment of Spain as a major power in Europe and much of the world for more than a century. Isabella, granted together with her husband the title "the Catholic" by Pope Alexander VI, was recognized as a Servant of God by Catholic Church in 1974.
Louis of Beaumont was a noble in the Kingdom of Navarre. He was the 2nd Count of Lerín in southern Navarre, Marquis of Huesca, and Constable (condestable) of Navarre.
↑ Edwards, John. The Spain of the Catholic Monarchs 1474–1520. Blackwell Publishers Inc, 2000, pp. 1–37
↑ Edwards, John. The Spain of the Catholic Monarchs 1474–1520. Blackwell Publishers Inc, 2000, pp. 38–39
↑ Joseph F. O'Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1983), 24. ISBN0-8014-9264-5. Preview of cited page available on Google Books as of 10 March 2011. See also: Richard Fletcher, "The Early Middle Ages, 700–1250", in Spain: A History, ed. Raymond Carr (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000). ISBN0-19-280236-4.
↑ Michael C. Thomsett, The Inquisition: A History (Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company, Inc., 2010), 158.
↑ Bernard Lewis, Cultures in Conflict: Christians, Muslims and Jews in the Age of Discovery (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 35–36. ISBN0-19-509026-8
↑ Miles H. Davidson, Columbus then and now: a life reexamined, University of Oklahoma Press 1997, ISBN0-8061-2934-4, p. 474.
↑ Norwich, John Julius, Byzantium: The Decline and Fall, p. 446
1 2 Edwards, The Spain of the Catholic Monarchs, p. 288.
↑ De Francisco Olmos, José María: Estudio documental de la moneda castellana de Carlos I fabricada en los Países Bajos (1517), Revista General de Información y Documentación13, 133–153, 2003. URL: L. Külső hivatkozások
↑ Edwards, The Spain of the Catholic Monarchs, pp. 288–289.
↑ Elliot, J. H. Imperial Spain 1469–1716. Penguin Books (New York: 2002), p. 208. ISBN0-14-100703-6
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1474–1492.
