Queen of Castile: 1474-1504
Queen Isabel I of
Castile was an influential and effective ruler in Spain during the 15th
century, at a time when Castile was in the midst of constant civil wars and
Europe was under the threat of invasion from the Turks after the fall of
Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire, to the Ottoman Empire in 1453.
As Kristen Downey
points out in her book, Isabel the
Warrior Queen, Isabel I kept her focus on preventing further expansion of
Turkish rule in western Europe, and in so doing she sought the aid of Ferdinand
of Aragon, via the unification of Castile and Aragón, an important strategic
element which successfully completed the Reconquista:
the reconquest of the whole of Spain from Muslim rule, with the fall of
Granada in 1492.
Under the rule of
Isabel I of Castile, the Catholic Church became a powerful political force in
Spain, which led to the expulsion of the Jews and Moors, and the Inquisition;
policies that were already underway in Portugal. The exploration of the New
World by Columbus, which Isabel I funded, expanded the influence of the Catholic
Church as a political force, as well as the use of the Castilian language to
the continents of Central and South America, well into the present century.
Due to Isabel´s marriage
to Ferdinand II of Aragón as well as the newly appropriated lands from across
the Atlantic and the strategic marriages that Ferdinand and Isabel arranged for
their children to beneficiaries of the thrones to England, Portugal and the Low
Countries, Isabel´s grandson, Charles I of Spain, also known as Charles V Holy
Roman emperor, would inherit the largest Spanish Empire in history: extending eastward
into Italy and the lands of the Holy Roman Empire in eastern Europe in the 1500´s.
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