Kamen is describing the gradual assembling of power in Spain just prior to 1492. We who are born and raised in nation states, can easily overlook the recency of that institution and how chaotic and messy things were before the structures which we so take for granted.
The territory known as Spain consisted of two main political units, the Crown of Castile and that of Aragon. Their rise to empire is, by common agreement, traced to the political accords that put an end to the long decades of civil war during the fifteenth century. The claimant to the throne of Castile, Princess Isabella, had the support of a group of powerful nobles, who during ten years of conflict backed her claim to succeed to the crown after her half-brother Henry IV. Various projects to marry the princess to powerful nobles ended when in January 1469 she agreed by treaty to marry the son of King Juan II of Aragon, the seventeen-year-old titular king of Sicily, Ferdinand. She herself was aged eighteen. Ferdinand travelled across the peninsula in disguise, with only a few attendants, until he reached the safety of the territory controlled by Isabella. The marriage was celebrated on 18 October 1469, in a simple ceremony at Valladolid. For some time to come, Ferdinand had little effective political power, since the realms he subsequently inherited in Catalonia were also involved in a civil war (1462–72). Isabella was recognized as queen of Castile in 1474, but the military struggles continued up to 1479. In this year Juan II of Aragon died and Ferdinand succeeded him on the throne. The young monarchs were at last able to set about pacifying their realms.
The lands they ruled were by no means a promising inheritance. Civil war had ended, but the kingdoms continued to be beset by instability. The countryside was effectively in the hands of the nobles, warlords who controlled the rural economy and enjoyed the allegiance of thousands of vassals. In order to survive, the crown had to make alliances. With firmness, the monarchs began to develop institutions and mechanisms that would enable them to collaborate with the nobles, the cities, the Church and the commercial sectors. They enjoyed few economic resources, however. Spain was a poor region that suffered from extremes of climate, bad land distribution, poor communications, and inadequate raw materials. The main industry was the wool trade, with Spanish wool going principally to northern Europe. In return the peninsula imported many of its basic necessities, especially textiles, grain, armaments, paper and small manufactures. In addition to internal tensions in their states, the new rulers were faced with military threats from neighbouring France and Portugal, as well as from the emirate of al-Andalus, which had its capital at Granada and commanded the greater part of the coastline facing Africa. With a total population of perhaps 5.5 million people around the year 1500, Castile and Aragon appeared destined to remain as two more small states marginal to the life of Europe. Yet Ferdinand and Isabella, with few means at their disposal, were able to bring peace to their kingdoms and initiate overseas enterprises. Castile, with eighty per cent of the country's population and two-thirds of its territory, inevitably became the basis of their power.
When the civil conflicts ended in Spain, the monarchs brought peace by the brilliant strategy of organizing rather than eliminating violence. In parts of northern Castile, they backed the formation of urban vigilantes, known as Hermandades (brotherhoods), whose task was to execute rough and ready justice on delinquents and who became famous for their brutality. They soon also set the entire south of Spain on a war footing, actively encouraged citizens to keep arms, and took steps to raise local militia, partly for peacekeeping and partly to offset a new threat from the Muslim rulers of al-Andalus. Commentators quickly recognized them to be efficient rulers. They took care to be present at all times wherever they were required, and in their ubiquity lay the unique contribution they made to the strengthening of royal authority. They moved around their realms tirelessly, certainly the most-travelled rulers of their time in Europe. In 1481 Isabella accompanied her husband to visit the Crown of Aragon (which comprised the provinces of Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia) and was confirmed as co-ruler. They did not return for six years. During their absence viceroys ruled the provinces in their name. Ferdinand spent most of his time in Castile, where he was in charge of the wars against Granada, and where the Cortes had promised support only on condition that he resided there. In a total reign of thirty-seven years he spent less than three in Aragon proper, only three in Catalonia and a mere six months in Valencia. Isabella, for her part, was almost permanently resident in Castile. During her reign she visited every corner of the kingdom, covering in some years well over two thousand kilometres of terrain. Few residents of Castile did not see her directly at some time in their lives. The judges of the royal council travelled with her and she dispensed justice personally, even in small towns and villages. Ferdinand continued to handle all business of Aragon through his team of traveling secretaries. Both rulers used their presence to impose their authority and pacify the country. The policy undoubtedly worked: ‘everyone trembled at the name of the queen', a foreign visitor reported in 1484. However, it was a personal monarchy based not on fear but on collaboration. The rulers used their presence to build up alliances, and nobles who had warred against each other were encouraged to sink their differences in a common cause. The élite came to recognize the achievement of their king and queen. One of the grandees, the admiral of Castile, reminisced years later in 1522 that ‘they were rulers of our realm, of our speech, born and bred among us. They knew everybody, gave honours to those who merited them, travelled through their realms, were known by great and small alike, and could be reached by all.
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The reality of power in Spain was very much less comforting than royal propaganda claimed. Ferdinand of Aragon's authority was more that of a constitutional ruler than of an imperial conqueror. In the peninsula the three provinces of the Crown of Aragon over which he ruled were wholly autonomous states, each with its own laws, taxes and parliament. He was also king of Sicily and Sardinia, and had hereditary claims to the crown of Naples, which he came to rule after 1504. Since all these realms were independent of each other, the king had no way of creating a common government, administration or army. His marriage to Isabella of Castile did not resolve the problem. Castile and Aragon remained as independent entities in every way. The notion of ‘Spain’, found commonly in speeches and writings and used habitually since medieval times, referred to the association of the peoples in the peninsula; it had no concrete political meaning, any more than the words ‘Germany’ or ‘Italy’ had for the people of those parts. The Aragonese writer Diego de Valera, in a work dedicated to Isabella in 1481, wrote that ‘Our Lord has given you the monarchy of all the Spains’, a term in which he also included Portugal. The rulers constantly used the word ‘Spain’ but because of its imprecision never put it in their formal title, calling themselves instead ‘King and Queen of Castile, León, Aragon, Sicily’ and so on. The union between these realms was always precarious. When Isabella died in 1504, Ferdinand had to resign his position as ruler of Castile to his daughter Juana, and then left the peninsula for his Italian realms. He returned only in 1507, and agreed to resume governing Castile because of Juana's mental health.
Because there was no overall ‘Spanish’ government, Ferdinand was forced to operate through a network of personnel and alliances that made it more possible for him to rule over his diverse territories. He thereby helped bring into existence the entire web of relationships that came to characterize Spanish power. It was a web, moreover, in which non-Spaniards frequently played a decisive role, because the Spanish realms were not in a position to supply all the needs of the monarchy. Castilian commentators at the time paid little attention to the existence of the network, limiting their accounts mainly to acclaim of the exploits of their own people.
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