Isabella, the conquest of Granada, Columbus and related matters

 Isabella of Castille was married to Ferdinand of Aragon in 1469 (hence F&I). She ascended the throne of Castille in 1474 when her brother died. At first, F&I were concerned to unite the area under their rule and defeat an invasion from Portugal 1475-1479).

The first image is of statuary from the rotunda of the State Capital in Sacramento, California. It is a Getty Image (showing Isabella and Columbus and I think Isabella's daughter who was also named Isabella). 

Beginning in 1482, F&I began the conquest of Granada. Ronda was captured in 1485, Malaga in 1486 and Baza (east of Granada city) in 1489. Granada city was besieged in 1491 and surrendered in early 1492.  



The success of the F&I army of Christians was due to a number of factors. One political factor was that the Christians were more united and the Muslims quarreled among themselves. A military factor was that the Christians had better artillery. The Christians recruited military experts from outside the country to improve their war making. The Christians also spent time and effort to control of the countryside outside the center of towns which in many cases led to the Muslims surrendering when they ran out of supplies.  A treaty (the 1491 Treaty of Granada) between the Sultan and F&I allowed religious toleration for both Muslims and Jews (better terms for Muslims). 

Our local guide at Alhambra gave us a fanciful version of the 1482 to 1491 process by claiming various clever negotiation victories for Isabelle vs the Muslims (not mentioning the military and political issues) and claiming that the purpose of the treaty of Granada was to get revenue to finance Columbus's voyage. However, Columbus's expedition is thought to have been relatively inexpensive, especially compared to the cost of financing an enormous standing army during 1482-1491 (much of the financing was done under the direction of Don Isaac Abarbanel). Much of the standing army had been decommissioned by mid 1492. The Spanish army continued to decrease in later years but the navy got bigger.

Thus, near as I can tell very little of our local guide's negotiation stories are likely to be true although Isabelle may have been a persuasive speaker and a dominating presence. Also, Isabelle probably did most of the political work in the F&I marriage. Some say this is because she was the smarter of the two. Others say it was because her kingdom (Castile) was the more important kingdom than Ferdinand's (Aragon). Others say it was because Ferdinand was busy with military matters and thus Isabelle had to do the political work. The reasons are not mutually exclusive.

The second image is a statute of Isabelle from about 1530. It is near the Cathedral of Granada. 

The third image is from the Royal Chapel of that Cathedral and shows the caskets that hold the remains of F&I.



Columbus began meeting with F&I (mostly I) in 1484.  A deal was reached in early 1492 granting Columbus 10% of the profits from his voyages as well as other rights.

The edict of expulsion in 1492 was against the Jews (abrogating part of the treaty of 1491).  After a riot in 1499 and some further events (which some think may have been instigated by agents of F&I), the Muslims were subject to a similar expulsion in 1502 (abrogating the rest of the treaty of Granada).

In Portugal, King Alfonso V was fairly tolerant of Jews (Abarbanel was his finance minister)). He died in 1482 (at which time Abarbanel went to Spain, and as noted above, served the F&I monarchy) and John II became King of Portugal. He was not as tolerant but also not interested in persecution. He allowed Jews from Spain to come to Portugal in return for a heavy bribe, although in many parts of Portugal, the new residents were badly treated and some were enslaved. John II died in 1495. 

Manuel I (fourth image from a 16th century painting on wikipedia) became King in 1495 and released most of the enslaved Jews. However, in 1497 he married Isabella of Aragon (daughter of Isabella I and heiress to the throne of Spain). As a condition of marriage, Manuel agreed (apparently in 1496 during the marriage negotiations) to persecute the Jews (i.e., the expulsion and later compulsory conversion order).  Isabella, the wife of Manual, died in 1498 during childbirth; her mother, Isabella I of Castile died in 1504.  Thus, had Manuel held out a few years, the Portuguese compulsory conversion might have been averted.

The initial Portuguese decree in Dec 1496 was expulsion or conversion but then that was changed in early 1497 to compulsory conversion to Christianity (Muslims were also required to convert or leave by this later decree, with the Portuguese providing the boats for the Muslims at a high cost). Probably because the Jews were promised 30 years without their religious practice being investigated, the number of Jews who refused conversion and were executed (primarily by burning) in 1497 is thought to have been fairly low (I can't find any estimates). In October 1497 Jews in Lisbon were told a ship would take them away and about 20,000 people gathered in the harbor. However, what happened instead was that priests went through the crowd throwing holy water on people and telling them they were now Christians.

In 1506 (Manuel I was still King then - a different version of Manuel is in the fifth image which is the next to last) a pogrom (a.k.a., massacre) in Lisbon resulted in several thousand deaths of New Christians (former Jews). The woodcut (sixth image) is a German product of the 16th century that depicts the pogrom. It resides in a church in Lisbon (image from wikipedia).

Manuel, who was not in Lisbon during the pogrom and was, per a number of reports, unhappy about it, modified the decree allowing several years (I could not determine how many) in which New Christians could leave Portugal. Of course, as the New Christians were generally poor and not well connected with foreign officials, few could afford and arrange passage. The Portuguese Inquisition began in 1536.

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