The Catholic kings embody the entire Greco-Roman, Visigoth, Christian heritage of the ancient and medieval world. Is through them that we are able to understand what later became and is now called the Spanish Empire. It was actually the Catholic Monarchy, that’s how it was popularly known throughout that era. Calling it a “Spanish Empire” is a term that emerged in the late 19th century, it was always known as The Catholic Monarchy, The Hispanic Monarchy, The Federative and Missionary Catholic Monarchy. Which continued to be Federative with the Augsburg’s and later broken by the Bourbon dynasty.
The reign of the Catholic Monarchs is precisely the axis ━━ I insist on this concept ━━ that is fundamental to understanding 1) The entire history of Spain 2) A good part of Europe in what was then called Christendom 3) Hispanic America, including North America. The Catholic Monarchs were largely responsible for beginning to evangelize, and colonize all of America. Because of all the repercussions that the Catholic Monarchs and their reign have had on the history of the Catholic Church and of the Catholic peoples, this is why I consider the reign of Isabel of Castile and Fernando of Aragon to be so important.
…By the way, important to remind people wanting to study the topic, to be mindful of the Black Legend which is anti-Spanish and therefore anti-Catholic. Knowing this will save you quiet some time. The Black Legend always set their sights on launching poisonous darts of slander, defamation, pure and simple lies, unsupported by the reality of the facts, historical events, and by documents. Black Legend historiography cannot present documents, when it does is out of context. Decontextualizing documents, facts, and characters to hide and silence positive events and focusing only on the negative ones, thus, distorting them because they are magnified.
Personally, this history is important because San Juan started with the Catholic Monarchs. The first church, university, our coat of arms, were all the creation of the Catholic Monarchs, signed by King Ferdinand himself. The will of Queen Isabel before she died was about San Juan. That Spaniards and Indians will marry and be treated equal. Their properties respected and that no harm must come to them. We were to be considered her children and treated as such. We all have a history and instead of spending so much energy on Israel, Ukraine, Middle East and bloody empire, our leaders should concentrate on our civilization and culture.
Th success of the Catholic Monarchs ━━ to summarize it ━━ was the creation of a series of institutions that were specific, concrete, and with a very well defined purpose. The success of the Catholic Monarchs is not due to one institution but to the interaction of all of them simultaneously. The Catholic Monarchs founded the Inquisition and this is part of their plan to promote national unity and social homogeneity. The multicultural diversity thing is a resounding and utter failure and is clearly being demonstrated in Europe and the US. The Catholic Monarchs aspired to the unity of the different kingdoms, to the federative monarchy, not the centralized monarchy of the Bourbons which was the fruit of enlightened ideology.
What the Catholic Monarchs intended with the creation of the Inquisition was the national unity, because evidently, the greatest unity is the unity of faith, the unity of spirit. Without this, ladies and gentlemen, there is no unity. This is clearly evident in Europe and The United States. For example in modern day Spain, with the loss of Catholic unity, the unity of the Spaniards no longer exists they are always fighting. They even don’t have unity of language, Vascongada, Galizia, Valencia, Aragon, they all have their regional dialects. When the Catholic unity and faith is broken the rest falls under its own weight.
The Catholic Monarchs have this very clear and they are out to establish the unity of the kingdoms and the unity of the faith. When the Inquisition was formed that was the goal to protect the union of the Catholic faith, which is the faith of the majority of the people. They want to protect their subjects faith, traditions, the entire ecosystem of their people. Also thanks to that, project it, unity is strength. During the eight centuries of the Reconquista, the lesson was learned. The Catholic monarchs knew that the Visigothic kingdom fell due to fragmentation and internal division. One detail that many people don’t know, most of the fighting during La Reconquista was not only against Muslims but Visigoths that bent the knee to the Muslims. In other words, they converted to Islam. They did that to keep their chair, their land, their castle, etc. Just like modern politicians.
The Catholic Monarchs had this very clear when the Inquisition was created. They had it perfectly perfectly perfectly clear. Protection of the faith. Protection of the people. Why? Because they were the Catholic Monarchy, they are the Hispanic monarchy, their people are christian. This is the axis of all the legislative work of the Catholic Monarchs and that leads to the creation of the Court of the Holy Inquisition.
That’s essentially the backdrop of all those books. I still have notes to organize but my intention is to dive deeper on the people behind the Inquisition because this left me quiet dumbfounded and retarded. I even had to go to the bible and look at some passages.
