Text/Patrick Wyman
Although Britain and France each rose to the throne through the Hundred Years' War, a long period of turmoil ensued, and Spain became the first country in Europe to have a solid royal power and a mature system. After the game between society and the state, the representative system began to gather power for the state, and Spain was able to promote the great geographical discoveries and dominate the Americas.
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The rise of the kingdoms of Europe
Isabella is a concentrated manifestation of all the most important political trends of a pivotal era.
Rulers across Europe, supported by a group of highly educated and capable assistants, wanted to give themselves more power. As the royal courts interpreted the law on an ever-larger scale, rulers intervened in areas that had almost never been touched in the past.
These people want to wage war, as they did in the past in the Middle Ages, but they now have more resources available to them to fight wars. Armies were larger and more specialized, equipped with expensive cannons, and could be served by mercenaries who could fight well on the open market.
The more money is spent on fighting a war, the more the country needs to innovate in ways of raising money. As a result, in order to support a siege or major campaign somewhere, the new sources of taxation and credit arrangements that these highly educated and competent officials found for the state treasury became increasingly complex.
This is the old story of the "great cause of rejuvenation", which has become a well-known story when it is developed to the extreme: the monarchs had the foresight, and the civil servants around them reformed the huge and inefficient feudal government structure into an efficient bureaucratic machine with the rudiments of modernization.
It was these emerging states that set the precedent for the absolutist monarchies of the early modern period and the nation-states of today.
The slow but steady pace of progress began in Sri Lanka, starting with visionary rulers, and gradually moving to the germ of modernization. This may sound like a rational, linear, and intentional process, but it is far from it.
The rulers of this period did not initially want to establish a prototype of a modern government;
By the late 15th century, some things – many things – had changed radically. Rulers like Isabella had no intention of following a certain blueprint to eventually achieve a modern state, but there is no doubt that royal power did expand during this time.
Rulers deliberately look for ways to increase resources and control, and they basically do. This is related to their own ingenuity and a set of favorable conditions at that time.
The Western European dynasties of the late 15th century were not the administrative, financial-military states of the 18th century, nor the bureaucratic nation-states of the 19th century and beyond, but the ruling dynasties, which had accumulated over the centuries and happened to possess certain territories.
More precisely, it is the claim of a group of rulers to a set of rights over some particular territory.
The King of France did not own his kingdom, but he had a claim to rule over it. Others have larger or smaller claims that are recognized by many or very few.
In addition to this, the degree to which tax rights, judicial powers, monopoly salt taxes or customs rights are asserted, may vary from territory to territory. For example, the King of France claimed his right to rule the Duchy of Burgundy, but this had nothing to do with his rights in the Duchy of Aquitaine or the province of Artois.
These claims are taken by the ruler personally and are embodied in him, which he can take back or give to others as the case may be.
Local aristocrats and representative bodies, often referred to as "estates", could dispute or resist these claims of the rulers, seeking to obtain privileges and exceptions for themselves.
A strong ruler maximizes the value of his claims, while a weak ruler has to struggle to collect even the most basic taxes and exert the most basic authority.
The mature political map of Europe in the 13th and 14th centuries was a three-dimensional tapestry of densely woven claims.
Because the aristocracy, monasteries, bishoprics, chartered towns, and kings all vied for their own power, the system was always in conflict. Their claims overlap and collide with each other, forming a confrontation.
Whether the taxes of a high-value estate belonged to a noble family or to the king, who had the right to collect the salt tax, whether it was the local lord or the bishop, and whether the courts belonged to the lord or the crown were the subject of political struggles in the Middle Ages.
According to historian John Watts, the big winner in these many political disputes of the late Middle Ages was the "kingship," a precise but somewhat reluctant choice of wording.
A kingship is typically a kingdom, but not necessarily a kingdom, and its ruler is usually a king, but not necessarily a king. The institutions of government are centred around a person who can successfully exercise the powers of justice, taxation and essentially the exclusive use of force.
Monarchy – such as England, France, Castile, Aragon, etc. – were not the only players in European politics, nor did they necessarily become the default form of political organization.
Their competitors fall into two categories. In several regions, the city-states were very powerful and their territory was not small. An example of this is Venice, which had its own overseas empire, while Strasbourg in the Rhineland, on the other hand, only had control over its periphery.
Even Venice is like this
A city-state that has mastered a large number of overseas territories
The expansion rate is also much less than that of the kingdom
In fact, a city-state governed by an elite merchant elite of commercial prowess was most likely to use the most advanced methods of governance and taxation than a kingdom that had to look at the squire's face.
Venice, though its core territory was small and its population was not comparable to that of France or even Aragon, was extremely powerful against the Ottoman Empire and other great powers.
In some areas, the town alliance is more powerful. The Hanseatic League controlled the lucrative Baltic trade, with urban centres such as Lübeck, Hamburg, Gdansk and Riga among its members.
The Swiss Confederation, centered in Bern, Zurich, and Schwyz, also began to emerge as it thwarted the ambitions of the Duke of Burgundy, Charles the Daring, expanding its territory and destroying some of the most advanced armies of the time.
In fact, all forms of government in the late Middle Ages, not just kingdoms, underwent a common evolution and had a common characteristic. Their financial transactions have become more intensive and complex, and their military and political personnel have increased in number and capacity.
During this time, there was no sign that the city-states and city-leagues would one day be replaced by the royal family as their rivals.
In the end, the monarchy prevailed, and this period was a fundamental turning point. What drives the whole process is the internal merger and the external merger.
Internally, the ruler consolidated the royal power within the boundaries of his territory at the expense of other claimants. The rulers expanded their power and resources, although they did not use their power and resources as efficiently as the city-states.
Externally, the rulers of the kingdoms merged with each other. Large countries eat small nations, occasionally by bloody conquest, but more often by marriage.
Monarchy is ruled by members of the royal family. They are essentially dynastic states: the state as a whole is the sum of the claims of the rulers, who in turn pass them on from generation to generation.
The easiest way to get more claims is through marriage. This has been done since the Middle Ages, but by the end of the 15th century, the process had accelerated considerably, and more and more territories gradually fell into the hands of fewer and fewer people.
Not only did these dynastic states merge internally, but the process became more efficient and complex, and they did get bigger, and they changed very quickly, as the rulers strategically arranged the marriages of their children and added new claims to territorial domination.
The scale at which city-states and town leagues merged and expanded is hardly matched.
Why Isabella chose Ferdinand
The most active direct participant in the merger of dynasties during this time was Isabella.
After Hiron failed to marry her, Enrique IV was still reluctant and planned to try again. However, Isabella has made up her mind and decides to take control of her own destiny.
Marriage was her biggest problem, but it could also be the solution to the problem she faced, and that was where she was in 1468.
The challenge arose three years ago in the city of Ávila, not far from Madrid, where the fortified city walls were densely lined with battlements that meandered along the surrounding mountains.
It was here that several leading figures of the Castilian nobility and monks spoke out, harshly criticizing Enrique IV for his misgovernance.
They said that the king liked the Muslims too much. They also said that the king had a weak personality, like a feminine homosexual, lacking the ability to rule, and even that he was not the father of his three-year-old daughter, Juana, and therefore could not be the heir to the throne of Castile.
These aristocratic rebels supported Isabella's younger brother Alfonso, and unlike Juana Jr., the energetic and vengeful boy was of pure blood.
The plotters also threw a wooden statue of Enrique IV to the ground and proclaimed Alfonso king, adding to the drama of what became known as the "farce of Ávila".
But with Alfonso's death three years later, Isabella became the de facto alternative center of power, a role she had previously seemed impossible.
When she was a child, Enrique IV drove her and her mother to live in Arévalo, and refused to give her the income that was due to her daughter as a former king.
Isabella likes to talk about her difficult childhood, which she claims was the development of her political leadership.
Arévalo may be a little remote, but it is not a matter of political exile to live there, but Isabella's rhetoric does give us a rough idea of her self-image, and we can see that she knows how to get the people to accept a leader.
At the age of 17, she already knows the rules of the political game. Moreover, she was the legitimate daughter of the previous king, and if there was a question of the young Princess Juana's bloodlines, which had been explicitly questioned and politically hyped, then Isabella should be Enrique's legal heir.
That's what she thought: A few weeks after Alfonso's death, she described herself in a letter as "the princess and rightful heir of the kingdoms of Castilla and León by the grace of God."
This passage not only explains her origins and intentions, but also clearly reflects Isabella's style: direct, confident, and convinced that it is all God's will. To maintain and take advantage of her new status, she needs allies. To get married, the best strategy is to get married as soon as possible.
There is no shortage of people who pursue Isabella. As Enrique's best candidate to rule Castile after his death and the first heir to the throne of Coloria, she was coveted by any power-hungry nobleman or royal family, as her husband might be able to share in or even dominate the rule of a large Western European country.
Due to the favorable conditions, every castle, every territory and every palace in this corner of the European continent has emerged many candidates who are interested in marrying her. There were also people among the Castilian elite who were eager to try it, but Isabella didn't like it.
Isabella is very sought-after in the dating market
Enrique IV and certain courtiers around Isabella supported King Alfonso of Portugal, but unfortunately the princess was not interested.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester, 17, the younger brother of King Edward IV of England, was loud: he would become Richard III, murder his nephew, and become Shakespeare's villain, and before that time he had proven himself to be a man of great courage and good warfare.
But at that time, the political situation in England was unstable, and the War of the Roses was going on, which made him lose a lot of color, and besides, England was too far away. Richard eventually usurped the throne, but died in disrepute and did not make it to the Spanish throne.
Another option was Charles, Duke of Guillène and Berry, brother of King Louis XI of France and heir to the kingdom at the time.
Unlike Richard of Gloucester, Charlie is a lackluster person. His main achievement had only been to take hostage to his brother's enemies in a bloody civil war, La guerre du Bien public (more on this later).
Although he owns large tracts of land that can be used as an independent base of power, Charlie does not have the ability to put them to good use and make Isabella look at them. Although his lineage and relatives are not dishonorable, the French duke is not unnoble.
Isabella has already made her choice. The object of her affection was Ferdinand, king of Sicily and heir to the throne of Aragon, at the age of seventeen.
Aragon, like Portugal and Castile, was a great kingdom on the Iberian Peninsula, and it was a force to be reckoned with on the Mediterranean coast. Its central cities are Zaragoza and Valencia, while Barcelona is a powerful semi-independent power in the kingdom.
The kings of Aragon had long held overseas interests in Sardinia, Sicily, and occasionally in the Kingdom of Naples. Once married to Ferdinand, Isabella was able to unite Spain's two largest and most important dynasties, along with claims to several more distant territories.
This is the essence of dynastic merger. Castile itself was the result of the merger of two older kingdoms, Castile with León. Ferdinand was the heir to the royal family of Aragon, which was formed by the merger of several territories, including the Countdom of Barcelona, the city of Valencia and its extension in the Mediterranean.
Each territory has its own history, and often its own institutions, customs, representative institutions and laws, which can only be united by the rulers who claim rights over it.
Not only that, but they may have completely different inheritance laws and completely different rules about what the ruler has the right to do internally.
Castile and Aragon were not unique in this regard, at this time each of the great kingdoms of Europe was a complex, only the large (Holy Roman Empire) and the small (England) were different.
This is a problem that every ruler in the region often faces, and it is also a source of constant tensions, internal conflicts, and even civil wars.
Ferdinand was indeed Prince Charming
Isabella, of course, knew what it meant to marry Ferdinand: Spain's two largest kingdoms would form a union. It will be an unprecedented consortium.
Ferdinand's father, the scheming King Juan II of Aragon, was determined to have his son by Isabella's side and rule the Iberian Peninsula together.
And Enrique IV was equally determined not to let it become a reality. He strongly supported the marriage with the Portuguese, and even instigated a group of Portuguese emissaries to restrain Isabella by force when she tried to marry the Aragonese.
Once Isabella and Ferdinand were done, Enrique IV's reign would come to an end, and his daughter Juana would have no chance of succession.
The unfortunate thing about Enrique IV was that Isabella understood the people's feelings. In a letter to her brother, the princess wrote: "I, deprived of the liberty of fairness and justice, deprived of the principle that free will must be exercised by the grace of God in the negotiation of marriage, I have privately consulted the Grand Duke, the High Clergy, the Knights, your people. ”
If the attitude of the Castilian magnates, all of whom had received the generosity of the King of Aragon, was not clear enough, and if they listened to the "banner of Aragon" chanted by children playing on the roadside, even they thought that they should choose to marry Aragon rather than Portugal.
Eighteen-year-old Isabella was so patient and resourceful to push Enrique IV to the corner of the chessboard.
Still, her situation is precarious. Seeing that his bride was besieged by potential enemies, Ferdinand did not wait any longer. Disguised as businessmen, he and several of his companions walked hundreds of miles through the perilous region to Valladolid.
Enrique IV's men searched everywhere for his whereabouts, and Ferdinand was in danger of being captured or assassinated at any moment. But if it was for the union of Aragon and Castile, then Ferdinand was willing to take the risk.
He rode to Valladolid to meet Isabella under the cover of night, and the two immediately fell in love.
When Ferdinand arrived at Valladolid to meet his future bride for the first time, Isabella was confronted by a 17-year-old man of sturdy, medium-sized build, with brown hair and a round face that often smiled.
That face full of leadership charm and attractiveness makes it easy for men to bond with him and make women fascinated by him, and Isabella will naturally be angry about it in the future.
Ferdinand was indeed handsome
From his childhood, Ferdinand began to be trained as future leaders, and was deliberately instilled with the chivalry and kingly demeanor that the political elite of the time valued most.
He was enthusiastic and skilled in spear jousting on horseback, and was involved in the field as a teenager: he was only 12 years old when he first entered the battlefield.
Over time, he gradually became a particularly ruthless and even unprincipled politician in the political arena, and the equally shrewd Isabella felt a lot of affection for him.
Just a year before they met, Ferdinand presided over his mother's funeral and made a touching speech in front of the Valencian municipal authorities, which brought an end to the factional struggle within the city.
Even in his youth, Ferdinand was particularly adept at creating dramatic moments, which made him a favorite of his brides.
Although it was not a simple romantic act for the prince to express his determination to marry Isabella by riding alone through the Spanish countryside, it was indeed the basis for the two to stay together for a lifetime.
The art of domination in the late Middle Ages was not only about ruthless realpolitik and the great cause of rejuvenating the country by any means that sought the end or the means. Both the king and the future king were members of the noble social group, and they had their own clear rules and norms of behavior.
This complex code of conduct required not only courtesy to women, but also of great gratitude, and of personal courage, which was essential for an ideal chivalric king.
Risking the odds to meet his bride in Valladolid was a smart PR move and a sign that Ferdinand had what it takes to be a capable leader of the future.
For Isabella, the process of choosing a husband is full of pitfalls, and the slightest mistake can lead to disaster, imprisonment, or victimization of Enrique IV, or the wrong person, or the wrong time.
But after all, she walked through the tightrope, not only found her ideal husband, but also grasped the time very well.
On October 12, 1469, she wrote to her brother, who was king, saying: "By my letter and the messenger I have sent, I have the honour to inform your majesty that I have made up my mind about my marriage. She did not ask the king for approval. Isabella had already decided that she would marry Ferdinand in two days.
Isabella's union with Ferdinand – broadly speaking, the unification of Castile and Aragon – is the best example of the explosive mix of structural forces and serendipity.
No matter how many mergers have taken place, the marriage of this young couple is the result of the peculiar political circumstances of Castile at the end of the sixties of the fifteenth century and the need for alliances during the civil war, and more importantly, the personal qualities of Isabella and Ferdinand.
The two protagonists, especially Isabella, have a bright and sharp eye when faced with choices, and play their political roles to the extreme.
Their intellect matched perfectly with the structural trends of the time, which in turn drove the trend forward, propelled the rise of the country, and brought about a huge change in the whole world.
The way in which medieval kingship was promoted
In the late Middle Ages, ambitious leaders like Isabella of Castile did not pursue objective, purely national interests in an ideological vacuum.
In fact, there is a feedback loop between the cold reality of power and a political environment that values certain qualities of leaders.
In a large social environment that believes in Christianity, the people expect the king to use the royal power to do justice and wage war, and those who cannot do it are not worthy of being rulers, and their thrones are in jeopardy.
Ambitious rulers can also use justice and war to extend their authority and state power.
This was not a new phenomenon in the late 15th century. For hundreds of years, medieval rulers with ambitions to rejuvenate the country were more or less successful on both paths.
Although the general trend is the gradual rise of royal power, the rise and fall of different times and places have varied.
In the mid-14th century, England under Edward III achieved absolute superiority over its French rivals at the height of the Hundred Years' War, so the Plantagenet king's prestige reached its peak.
France's prestige fell to rock bottom after the disastrous defeat at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. Later, the territory of France was divided into three, and the king was locked in a deep palace due to madness, and he was unable to handle the government for several years.
At the beginning of the reign of Isabella and Ferdinand in the sixties of the 15th century, the royal power of Castile and Aragon was at a low ebb. At this time, the whole of Europe, not just the Iberian Peninsula, was suffering from civil war and internal strife.
England had been in a state of political instability for almost a generation, and the Wars of the Roses continued. The rebellion of the French elite against King Louis XI led to an open civil war, known as the "War of the League of the Commons", which led to extreme turmoil in France in the middle of the decade.
Not exactly the same in every kingdom, but all of these struggles have a central grievance: fierce dissatisfaction with the role and conduct of the king and the power of the royal government, which people either think are too weak or too arbitrary.
What rights did the King of France have over the land of the Duke of Burgundy, and if the King of England was mentally ill and unable to take care of the matter, was there any legal basis for which high-ranking nobleman should take the throne?
In addition, such conflicts are often complicated by the intervention of foreign rulers in favor of a party with whom they have a dynastic marriage.
There are no clear boundaries between kingdoms, and the leading politicians of one country can establish relations with the magnates or kings of another country, and the political elite even considers them to be God-given to engage in such political games.
In the end, the civil war was not a disparate civil war, but a violent, intricate web of political entanglements that shrouded the continent, stretching from the meadows of central Spain to the Scottish borders.
They are all structural entanglements, rather than interpersonal entanglements, rooted in the genes of late medieval politics and a general reaction to the growing trend towards kingship over the course of medieval history.
It was in this environment of internal strife that Isabella and Ferdinand matured politically.
Aragon fought a ten-year civil war with the Duchy of Catalonia, which was bent on independence. The peasants rebelled several times, and their representative group, the Corts, placed the duchy under the jurisdiction of Henrique IV of Castile.
Louis XI supported Juan II, King of Aragon, Ferdinand's father, against Catalonia, and later supported Catalonia against Juan II, hoping to take advantage of the opportunity to gain a little Aragonese territory.
Enrique IV, Isabella, and Ferdinand eased tensions for the time being, and the agreement between them was based on the idea that Isabella would succeed to the throne in the event of Enrique IV's death.
However, when Enrique IV died in 1474, this solution collapsed. Isabella and Ferdinand on one side, and Henrique IV's 12-year-old daughter Juana on the other, who may not be his biological daughter.
The Castilian aristocracy took sides. Another complication is the fact that Juana is married to Portugal's 50-year-old king, Alfonso V.
Theoretically, it was a civil war, but because it involved Alfonso V, it was less than that, and it became the product of a web of strife that entwined several kingdoms together.
The War of the Succession of Castile lasted for 4 years, and in 1479 it ended with the victory of Isabella and Ferdinand.
Castile and Aragon on the eve of the annexation
The Battle of the Castilian Succession provided a chaotic and brutal environment for Isabella and Ferdinand to familiarize themselves with the ways of rule. The conflicts of previous years had taught them to find ways to exercise royal power while maintaining good relations with the nobility and town officials, who ultimately played a key role in their supporters.
In particular, Isabella Zu had a strong tradition of royal privileges, believing that the royal family had the right to tax, land ownership, and jurisdiction, which her father did, but by the time Enrique IV it was a bit of a mess. By the time she came to power, these royal privileges were not only restored, but strengthened.
This was the practice of the current generation of rulers across Europe at this time: centuries of wars and political turmoil over the boundaries of royal power were finally resolved by the victory of the rulers, and the victorious royal family learned how to expand its power.
Within Castile, the royal power was vested in Isabella, not Ferdinand. This is clearly stated in the marriage contract signed by the two, but it is even more clear after she ascends to the throne.
Ferdinand ruled as the "lawful husband of Her Majesty the Queen", meaning that he was a "royal husband" and was not the ruler of Castile himself.
Isabella reassured her husband that she must obey him, like other dutiful wives in the late fifteenth century, but the fact of co-governance is clear.
As long as Isabella lives, she intends to rule in partnership with him, rather than being a puppet at the mercy of her scheming husband.
The constant friction between the two men is a common problem of any co-cure, and the conflict is exacerbated by Ferdinand's frequent troubles, but in general, the two men are very cooperative and effective in the general direction.
After the Battle of the Castilian Succession, they quickly figured out what to prioritize. They convened the Cortes, the representative bodies of Castile, which strengthened the royal family's control over the system, with the aim of centralizing power and strengthening management.
One result was that they brought in jurists closely related to the interests of the crown to codify Castilian law. Specific reforms were several: greater reliance on royal edicts, the creation of a court directly accountable to the ruler, and a reorganization of the courts dealing with legal matters.
The most important thing is that they took back much of the land that once belonged to the royal family and took back from the Castilian nobility the privileges they had gained for supporting the crown for generations – especially the right to appropriation.
All of this was done under the banner of the royal court, which was one of the traditional practices of expanding royal power throughout Europe in the late Middle Ages.
However, while the royal court could be used to expand royal power, there was no more effective way to centralize power than to create an emergency of armed conflict with another ruler.
The expectation that the king would wage war was a fundamental part of the idea of kingship developed in the Middle Ages and part of the connection between the king and his people, both high and low.
The war required the king to be in close contact with the nobles who held important positions in the army, and the king could take advantage of the opportunity to draw them to the side of the royal family. In medieval warfare, every step required money, especially in the 15th century, when winning wars increasingly required expensive cannons and mercenaries who could fight.
The ruler's private resources, the royal assets, were far from enough to cover the costs of years of incessant wars. So the king had to find another way to get the money: in short, to collect taxes.
Taxation required a consensus between the royal government and power brokers, whether they were representative agencies, town officials, or aristocrats. This brings the governed closer into contact with the central government.
The same is true of the royal judiciary, which needs a group of learned bureaucrats loyal to the royal family to run it, so that the state can take advantage of the opportunity to further expand its power. The well-known sociologist Charles Tilly said that war makes nations, and nations make wars.
For Isabella and Ferdinand, the war against Spain's last Muslim regime, the Emir State of Granada, was a welcome hand.
This article is an excerpt from The Transformation of Europe: Forty Years 1490-1530 That Shook the West and Shaped the Modern World. The book uses nine celebrities in this period as clues to summarize the key points of the "great divergence" between the West and the East, which is very inspiring, and is recommended by interested friends.
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