We want to help students to be able to do their schoolwork better according to each course, which is why we have already been seeing how to do such important work such as that of the Second World War or that of the Industrial Revolution, now and for the 2nd of Baccalaureate, we see how to do the work on the Catholic Monarchs.
Points that we will deal with for the work of the Catholic Monarchs
- Who were the Catholic Monarchs
- Work of the Catholic Monarchs
- Other ideas for your work on the Catholic Monarchs
- PDF of the Catholic Monarchs
- Videos of the Catholic Monarchs
Who were the Catholic Monarchs
The Catholic kings were Isabel I, also known as Isabel la Católica and Fernando. During his government they promoted a series of companies and made a series of important decisions that have decisively marked the history of Spain, so the aforementioned role is not undeserved.
His reign covers the period from 1474-1516 so to do your job it is better to opt for what is known as a schematic map, and with which we are going to summarize everything much better.
On October 23, 1469, in Valladolid, the marriage was celebrated between the two heirs of the two most important crowns in Spain: Isabel de Castilla (1451-1504) and Fernando de Aragón (1452-1516). This event will seal the personal union between the two kingdoms, which however will only be founded in 1516 with Charles V of Habsburg (1500-1558).
Isabella and Fernando will be the first monarchs to receive the honorary title of “Catholic Majesties”, still reserved for the kings of Spain. Their joint kingdom will see a series of epochal events: the reconquest of Granada (1492), the voyages of Christopher Columbus, the consolidation of the Spanish Inquisition, and the expulsion of Jews and Muslims who would not convert to the Catholic faith. It is in this period that the first bases of a long Spanish domination in Europe and in the new world.
The Crown of Aragon
The Crown of Aragon exercised its rule over a federation of clearly separated regions. Its important merchant cities on the coast (such as Barcelona and Valencia) were populated by a dynamic nobility and strongly committed on the commercial side, in particular the one that dominated the Cortes of Catalonia.
The Catalan expansion was directed towards the Mediterranean reaching, without exercising a clear dominance over the local elites, up to the Kingdom of Naples. In the mid-fifteenth century, the Crown of Aragon was experiencing a certain decline from an economic point of view, offset by an aggressive expansionist policy in the Mediterranean.
The Crown of Castile
The Castilian crown was undoubtedly the larger and more prosperous of the two: also in this case, the complex agglomeration of territories under its rule was the result of a long process of expansion towards the south against Muslim possessions (the so-called reconquest) . When he ascended the throne in 1454, King Henry IV (1425-1474) inherited a complex agglomeration of states firmly controlled by the nobility, whose economy was maintained especially in the property of the land. The Castilian nobility, however, was strongly divided.
After Elizabeth’s death, Ferdinand achievement annex to his own domains also the kingdom of Navarre located in the extreme northeast of the Iberian Peninsula, marrying in the second marriage Germana de Foix (1505), with an heir to the throne, and thus obtaining the pretext to invade Upper Navarre in 1512, annexing almost the entire kingdom to the crown of Aragon.
The new Spanish crown: domains outside the Iberian Peninsula
On Ferdinand’s death his nephew Carlos V will inherit a complex agglomeration of territories that for centuries would have been subject to the monarchy: the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon (including Catalonia, Valencia) and the Balearic Islands), Navarra to the Pyrenees and the Canary Islands. To this were added possessions in Italy (Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia), in the Americas, and in North Africa.
All these complex domains, however, were subject to their own laws. : for a long time it was not a real merger. Heir to the Habsburgs, Charles V would have joined in his person, and until his abdication, also the Holy Roman Empire, uniting these two separate domains to the House of Habsburg for many centuries. But that is another story.
The Catholic Monarchs and the conquest of America
in 1486 Christopher Columbus I would offer a project to the Catholic kings to create a new route to the Indies across the Atlantic Ocean. At that time, since the conquest of Grenade, the project was harshly questioned.
After achieving the objective imposed by the crown, it was decided to carry the project forward, in order to create its own route for commercial transport, without having to depend on Genoa either Portugalsplitting the Santa Maria and the two caravels (the paint and the Little girl).
It was like that October 12 ° the boats reach the mainland, not precisely to the desired destination, but rather encountering a new continent, beginning the colonization of the Indies. In these new lands, the bases and traditional administrative structures of the Castilian kingdom began to be established under the command of the kings.
Thanks to the Patronage granted by the Pope, the kings managed to control the implantation and diffusion of the Catholic Church in Americaestablishing the hard and controversial task of evangelization to the inhabitants of the place.
Today America it is composed of the legacies of these kings who applied the policy of the Church in the new continent. Not only did it completely change the culture that previously existed in that place, but also the large number of architectural legacies, structures, politics and cities that today make up the American continent.
Work of the Catholic Monarchs
As I have already mentioned, the scheme is perhaps the best option when doing your work on the Catholic Monarchs, in this way you will be able to develop all the information about it in a concrete way.
in your schematic map About the Catholic kings we can mention for example:
- The taking of grenade who completed, on January 2, 1492, the Christian Reconquest against Muslim rule in Spain.
- The discovery of America (October 12, 1942) by Christopher Columbus.
- The creation of the inquisition: a Court that not only had religious implications but was also an instrument that reinforced the power of the crown over the State.
- The expulsion of the jews. The search for unification did not end in the military victory of 1492, but was prolonged in the pursuit of religious and cultural uniformity that culminated in the expulsion, in the same year that the Reconquest ended, of the Jews who refused to convert. and the consequent expulsion of Muslims.
- The pacification of kingdoms. Reinforcing the state of royal power and making use of the legal and administrative institutions that already existed. The Spanish monarchy thus becomes one of the first modern states of Renaissance Europe.
- International marriage alliance policy and that was developed by the Spanish crown. This policy was born with the intention of creating a permanent state and using officials and diplomats trained in a unitary concept, and at the same time flexible and confederative, of the monarchical institution.
Other ideas for your work on the Catholic Monarchs
- Apart from the schematic map that I have mentioned, our work on the Catholic kings can count on all kinds of images not only about Isabel and Fernando, but we can also choose to make a map about the discovery of America, or make small biographies of the most prominent characters during the period of his reign.
Other articles of interest in Overhistory: