The City of Granada
Ibn Battuta describes Granada as a city without an equal in the world, ringed by orchards, groves, flowering meadows and vineyards, and filled with splendid buildings. The meaning of its Arabic name is unknown; its conquerors gave it the Christian name Granada, "full of seeds," perhaps because of its many pomegranates. Granada meant not only the city but a province that included Jaén, Almería, Málaga and other towns, with a population of about four million (the book's figure). Its capital, with a tenth of that population, stood like a watchtower above wide valleys, which, thanks to careful irrigation and scientific farming, gave two harvests a year. A wall with a thousand towers guarded it. The nobles lived in spacious, well-designed houses; fountains in the public squares cooled the heat of the sun; and in the great halls of the Alhambra the emir or sultan lived with his court.
The government took a seventh of all farm produce, and probably about as much went to the ruling class in return for economic management and military leadership. Rulers and nobles gave part of their income to artists, poets, scholars, historians and philosophers, and paid for a university in which Christian and Jewish scholars held chairs and sometimes the rectorship. Over the door of the college were five lines: "The world rests on four things: the learning of the wise, the justice of the great, the prayers of the good, and the courage of the brave."
Women also shared freely in the cultural life of the community. Learned women of Granada's Moors are often named, but study did not keep them from passionate loves or from chivalric devotions. A contemporary praises them for graceful figures, beautiful bodies, long flowing hair, white teeth and light movements, for charm of speech and fragrant breath. Personal cleanliness and public hygiene surpassed those of contemporary Christendom. People wore rich clothes and had dignified manners. Tournaments and splendid shows brightened feast days. Morality rested on tolerance and ease, though harshness had not disappeared; but the generosity and honor of the Moors drew admiration from Christians. A Spanish historian writes that the people of Granada were so famous for fidelity and trustworthiness that their word could be trusted more than our written contracts. Yet amid this refinement, the pursuit of pleasure drained the life and strength of the nation, and internal discord prepared the way for attack from outside.
Why Granada Fell
Christian Spain, slowly strengthening and uniting its own principalities and increasing its wealth, looked with envy and hostility at these Muslim lands enclosed in its territory, whose religion seemed to Christians a form of paganism and whose ports were dangerous gates open to infidel armies. The fertile fields of Andalusia could also make up for the dry and barren lands of the north. Granada lived free only because Catholic Spain was split among rival factions and kings. Even so the emirate agreed (1457) to send Castile a yearly tribute. When an unruly emir, Ali Abu'l-Hasan, refused to send this tribute, which guaranteed peace, Henry IV (the book dates this refusal to 1446) was too sunk in dissipation to compel obedience.
But as soon as Ferdinand and Isabella took the Castilian throne, they sent ambassadors demanding the old tribute. Ali replied boldly: "Tell your sovereigns that the emirs of Granada who paid tribute are dead; now our mint strikes not coins but sword blades." The reckless emir did not realize that Ferdinand had more will and endurance than all the iron in the Moors' mint. Using Christian border raids as a pretext, he attacked the Christian frontier town of Zahara, took it, and carried its inhabitants to Granada to be sold as slaves (1481). The Marquis of Cádiz answered by seizing and sacking a Moorish fortress (1482). From this point the conquest of Granada began.
A Kingdom Divided
Love complicated the war. Abu'l-Hasan became so infatuated with one of his concubines that his wife, the sultana Aisha, urged the people to depose him and enthrone her son Abu Abdallah Muhammad XI, whom Europeans call Boabdil (1482). Abu'l-Hasan fled to Málaga. A Spanish army marching to besiege Málaga was almost wiped out in the mountain passes of the Ajarquía by troops loyal to the emir. Boabdil, jealous of his father's victories, came out of Granada with a large army to attack the Christian forces near Lucena. He fought bravely but was defeated and taken prisoner, and won his freedom by promising help to the Christians against his father and a yearly tribute of 12,000 ducats to the Spanish crown.
Meanwhile his uncle Abu Abdallah, called al-Zaghal ("the Valiant"), made himself emir of Granada. A three-cornered war broke out among father, son and uncle. The father died; the son took the Alhambra; the uncle withdrew to Guadix and from there attacked Spanish forces whenever he could. Boabdil, imitating his father, broke his pledge to Spain, refused to send tribute, and prepared his capital to resist the inevitable Christian assault.
The Siege
Ferdinand and Isabella set 30,000 soldiers to destroy the plains that fed Granada. Mills, granaries, fields, vineyards, olive groves and citrus orchards were trampled and ruined. The Spaniards besieged Málaga so that no food could pass from it to Granada or back, and the siege lasted until the inhabitants killed and ate the horses, dogs and cats in the city, and then dozens and hundreds died of hunger or disease. Ferdinand forced unconditional surrender, took twelve thousand of the survivors captive (the book's figure), but let the notables go on payment of all their wealth as ransom. Al-Zaghal surrendered. Now the whole emirate of Granada except its capital was in Christian hands.
The Catholic monarchs built beside the besieged citadel a real city for their troops, Santa Fe, and waited for hunger to put the pride of Andalusia in their hands. Moorish horsemen rode out of Granada and challenged Spanish knights to single combat. The knights answered with equal courage, but when Ferdinand saw his fighters falling one by one, he ended this dangerous game. Boabdil led a detachment against the besiegers but was beaten back. He asked the sultans of Turkey and Egypt for help but got no answer. Islam, like Christianity, was divided.
The Surrender
On November 25, 1491 Boabdil signed a treaty that gave the victors unexpected honor. Under it the people of Granada could keep their property, language, dress, religion and customs; their cases would be heard in their own courts by their own judges and laws; they were exempt from taxes for three years and afterward would pay only what they had paid their Muslim rulers. The Spaniards would occupy the city, but any Moors who wished could leave, and transport would be provided for those who wanted to go to Muslim Africa.
Even so, the people of Granada protested against Boabdil's surrender and rose in revolt, and the revolt so frightened Boabdil that he handed the keys of the city to Ferdinand (January 2, 1492). With his relatives and fifty horsemen he passed through the Christian ranks to the mountain principality he was to govern as a vassal of Castile. When he came to the pass he turned to look one last time at Granada, the wonderful city he had lost.
That height is still called "the Moor's Last Sigh." His mother reproached him for the tears now running down his face: "You weep like a woman for what you could not defend like a man." Meanwhile the Spanish armies poured into the city. Cardinal Mendoza raised a great silver cross over the Alhambra, and Ferdinand and Isabella knelt in the great square to thank God who, after 781 years, had driven Islam from Spain.
Spain Before Ferdinand and Isabella
The century between the death of Henry of Trastámara (1379) and Ferdinand's accession in Aragon was for Spain a time of preparation through suffering. A series of weak rulers let the nobles tear up the fabric of order with their quarrels; the government was careless and corrupt; private revenge was common; civil wars were so frequent that roads were unsafe for trade and fields so trampled by soldiers that farmers left them unsown. After the long reign of John II of Castile (1406–1454), who loved music and poetry more than he could attend to state business, came the disastrous reign of Henry IV, nicknamed (in the book's wording) "the Incompetent" for his poor administration, corruption, debasement of the currency and waste of state revenue on favorites.
By his will he left the crown to Juana, whom he called his daughter; critical nobles challenged her parentage and fitness and urged the choice of his sister Isabella. But at his death (1474) the claim of Juana was affirmed again. Out of this very confusion, which defeated every effort, Isabella and Ferdinand created an order and a government that for a century made Spain the strongest power in Europe.
The Marriage
Statesmen prepared the way by persuading eighteen-year-old Isabella to marry her seventeen-year-old cousin Ferdinand (1469). Both descended from Henry of Trastámara. At the time of the wedding Ferdinand was king of Sicily and would inherit Aragon on his father's death, so the marriage joined three realms into a strong kingdom. Pope Paul II refused to issue the dispensation that would make the marriage of cousins lawful in the papal view; Ferdinand, his father and the archbishop of Barcelona forged the needed document (as the book tells it). After the marriage was completed, they obtained a genuine dispensation from Pope Sixtus IV.
A second difficulty was the poverty of the bride, whose brother disliked the match, and of the groom, whose father was busy with wars and could not afford a royal wedding. A Jewish lawyer smoothed the path with a loan of 20,000 sueldos, and Isabella repaid the debt when she became queen of Castile (1474).
Alfonso V of Portugal, who had married Juana, claimed the Castilian crown. A war settled at Toro decided the claim: Ferdinand led Castilian troops to victory (1476). Three years later Aragon passed to Ferdinand. Now all of Spain except Granada and Navarre was under one government. Isabella remained queen of Castile; Ferdinand ruled Aragon, Sardinia and Sicily and shared in the government of Castile with his wife. Isabella managed Castile's internal affairs, but royal decrees were issued by both, and the new coins bore both heads. Their complementary qualities made them the most effective couple in history.
Isabella
Courtiers say Isabella was unrivaled in beauty, which means she was fairly good-looking: medium height, blue eyes and chestnut hair tinged with red. She had more schooling than Ferdinand but less intelligence, and was more compassionate. She could patronize poets and talk guardedly with philosophers, but preferred the company of priests to both, and chose the sternest and most sour moralists as confessors and guides. Though married to an unfaithful husband, she is thought to have kept her vows to the end of her life. In an age as morally lax as our own, she was a model of modesty. Among corrupt officials and misguided politicians she alone stayed fearless, frank and incorruptible.
Her mother had raised her devout and strictly orthodox; Isabella cultivated these traits to the point of asceticism, and was as severe and merciless in suppressing heresy as she was kind and conciliatory in other matters. She was all tenderness to her children and a pillar of loyalty and gratitude to her friends. She gave freely to churches, monasteries and hospitals. Her faith and zeal did not stop her from disapproving some Renaissance popes. Her moral and physical courage exceeded that of all around her. She faced down powerful, unruly nobles and made them submit to discipline; she bore the most crushing losses calmly, and met the hardships and dangers of war with a courage that spread to others.
She thought it wise to keep the splendor of a queen before the people, and wore extravagant royal dress and priceless jewels in public; in private she dressed plainly, even meagerly, and spent her leisure embroidering for churches she loved. She took on the labor of government knowledgeably, led fundamental reforms and enforced justice with a severity that was perhaps unnecessary. She wanted to rescue her country from the disorder of lawlessness and make it obedient to law, and so bring it peace. Foreign contemporaries such as Paolo Giovio, Guicciardini and the Seigneur de Bayard ranked her among the ablest rulers of the age and compared her to the heroic women of antiquity. Her subjects, though they could barely get along with the king, adored her.
Ferdinand
The Castilians could not forgive Ferdinand for being a foreigner from Aragon. Even when proud of the victories of his leadership, statecraft and war, they saw many faults in him. They compared his cold, cautious character with the queen's warmth, his calculating dishonesty with her frankness, his thrift with her generosity, his niggardliness toward his followers with her generous rewards to her servants, and his marital infidelities with her chastity, and found his side lacking. They probably did not dislike him for founding the Inquisition or for using their religious feeling in war: they welcomed the crusade against unbelief, the conquest of Granada and the expulsion of the unconverted Jews and Moors. They loved the very actions of Ferdinand that later ages disliked, and we find no protest in proportion to the harshness of laws like cutting out the tongue for blasphemy or burning for sodomy.
They noticed that wherever personal privilege or the nation's policy was not concerned, he could be just and even mild and lenient. They noted that although he preferred to use brains in negotiation and treaty rather than soldiers in war, he could lead his troops with dash and daring. And they saw that his thrift was not to spend money on luxuries and personal comforts but to pour it into the costly and grand undertakings that made Spain great. They looked favorably on his devout habits, his steadiness in adversity, his moderation in prosperity, his judgment in choosing friends and aides, his tireless devotion to governing, and his pursuit of far-off, difficult goals by cautious means and flexible persistence. They overlooked, as statesmen's matters, his double-dealing and repeated breaches of promise; did not other rulers try the same methods to cheat him and plunder Spain? He is reported to have said grimly: "The king of France complains that I have deceived him twice; the fool lies, I have deceived him ten times and more."
Machiavelli studied Ferdinand's life closely, showed his shrewdness, praised his deeds "all of which were great and some extraordinary," and called him "the greatest king in Christendom." Guicciardini writes of the great gap between this prince's words and deeds and the depth and secrecy of his purposes. Some thought Ferdinand lucky, but his luck was the result of careful preparation to meet events and instant use of opportunities. Weighing his virtues and vices, what seems certain is that he used every means, foul or fair, to raise Spain from division and weakness to power and unity, the power and unity that, a generation later, made Spain the arbiter of Europe.
Centralizing the Crown
Ferdinand worked with Isabella in every field: establishing security of money and life in Castile; reviving the "Holy Brotherhood" as a local militia to keep order; suppressing highway robbery; ending illicit relations at court; reorganizing the courts and reforming the law; recovering crown lands that earlier kings had given to favorites; and forcing the nobles to full obedience to royal authority. Here, as in France and England, the liberties and disorders of feudalism gave way to central security and absolute monarchy. Municipal bodies gave up their privileges; provincial assemblies and courts rarely met, and when they did it was only to vote the state's money bills. Under this stern rule, the frail democracy that existed struggled and died.
Even the Spanish Church lost some of its property and all its rights of civil jurisdiction to these "Catholic sovereigns." Isabella set about reforming and purifying the morals of the clergy. Pope Sixtus IV had to yield the right to appoint the Church's high clergy in Spain to the crown, and powerful churchmen like Pedro González de Mendoza and Jiménez de Cisneros were archbishop of Toledo and chancellor of the realm at once.
Cardinal Ximenes
Cardinal Ximenes, like the king, had a strong and positive character. Born into a noble but poor family, he was given to the Church as a child. At twenty he took a doctorate in both civil and canon law at Salamanca (the book's account). For a time he was vicar-general under Mendoza in the diocese of Sigüenza. Despite success, he was a man of heavy heart, indifferent to wealth and worldly rank, and entered the most austere order in Spain, the Observants of the Franciscans. Only austerity pleased him: he slept on cold, hard ground, fasted constantly, scourged himself and wore a hair shirt under his clothes. In 1492 the pious Isabella chose this gaunt, ascetic friar as her confessor and guide. Ximenes accepted on condition that he be allowed to stay in his monastery and keep to Franciscan life.
The Franciscans chose him as their local head and submitted at his order to hard reforms. When Isabella named him archbishop of Toledo (1495), he refused; after six months of resistance he yielded to a papal order calling him to the post. He was then nearly sixty, and is thought to have wished with all his heart to live as a monk. Though head of the Spanish clergy and president of the royal council, he went on with his austerities, wearing under his splendid robes the plain coarse habit of the Franciscans and, beneath it, the old hair shirt. Despite opposition from the high clergy, but with the queen's backing, he enforced in all religious communities the reforms he had begun on himself. It was as if St. Francis, apart from his humility, had suddenly been given the power and talent of St. Bernard and St. Dominic.
Court Jews and the New Christians
This solemn, grave holy man did not like to see two unconverted Jews favored at court. One of Isabella's most trusted advisers was Abraham Seneor. He and Isaac Abravanel collected the state's revenue for Ferdinand and raised the cost of the Granada war. The king and queen turned their attention especially to the New Christians, hoping that time would turn the converts into sincere Christians. Isabella in particular ordered a catechism in question-and-answer form prepared for their instruction. Even so, many of them remained secretly faithful to their old religion and passed that loyalty to their children.
Catholic hatred of unbaptized Jews subsided for a time, while their dislike of "New Christians" rose. Riots and uprisings against them broke out at Toledo (1467), Valladolid (1470), Córdoba (1472) and Segovia (1474). The religious problem took on a racial color too, and the young king and queen sought a way to reduce disorder, unite diverse peoples, languages and beliefs, and create social peace. No way occurred to them except to establish the Inquisition in Spain.