Page 59 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

only to make marginal (and in some cases tem- holy war" against Granada. Maria, subsequently became archbishop of the
porary) improvements in the overall quality of Contemporaries considered Granada's sur- same city. Thousands of other Jews converted
royal justice. Yet the reforms helped Ferdinand render ten years later, on 2 January 1492, as solely to escape persecution and continued to
and Isabella establish a reputation for being just Ferdinand and Isabella's greatest achievement, practice Judaism secretly. Clergymen viewed
rulers who successfully ended the "anarchy" certainly one far surpassing their sponsorship them with increasing alarm and used their pul-
and "tyranny" of previous regimes. of Columbus' voyage. Congratulations poured pits to denounce these marranos as dangerous
Even more important for the monarchs' repu- in from across Europe. Calling Ferdinand and heretics and apostates who threatened to sub-
tation was their success at what contemporaries Isabella "athletes of Christ," a grateful pope vert the faithful. Most Old Christians, however,
labeled the "arts of war." Like other medieval bestowed on the rulers the title of Catholic failed to distinguish the judaizers from other
rulers, Castile's were expected to be warriors, Monarchs. Others called Ferdinand a "new converses, and by the middle of the fifteenth
and for all practical purposes this meant per- Charlemagne" and claimed that he should now century the entire population of New Christians
sonal participation in the liberation of the pen- embark on the liberation of North Africa and in many cities was subjected to increasing dis-
insula from Islam. Muslims first entered Iberia Jerusalem from Islam. "This triumph is reserved crimination and armed attack.
in A.0.711, when combined Arab and Berber for you," wrote Hieronymus Miinzer, a German In order to resolve this particular dilemma
armies toppled the weak regime of the Visi- traveler who urged the monarchs to follow in King Henry iv in 1461 had asked for papal per-
goths and conquered the whole of the peninsula the footsteps of Louis ix of France and King mission to establish an inquisition under royal
with the exception of some small Christian Richard of England and to add "this jewel to control. This request represented a departure
7
enclaves in the north. What is generally called your diadem." Ferdinand never attacked Jeru- from the medieval inquisition, which was sub-
the reconquest began in the late eleventh cen- salem, but his aspirations to increase his realms ject to episcopal jurisdiction, and the papacy
tury as the westward leg of the Crusades and in North Africa were manifest, starting in 1493, refused. Ferdinand and Isabella renewed this
culminated in the conquest of Seville in 1248. in a series of crusades directed against Oran. In request in 1477 after a visit to Seville, a city
Following the capture of Gibraltar in the mid- the end Ferdinand's imperial ambitions were with a large converse community, convinced
fourteenth century, however, a combination of thwarted, but his dream of a universal Christian Ferdinand that a new inquisition was absolutely
weak kings and civil war brought the progress empire under Spanish dominion lived on in essential. Isabella's initial commitment to the
of the reconquest to a virtual halt. Granada, the the person of his grandson and heir, Emperor inquisition is not entirely clear. Fernando de
last Moorish stronghold, survived by paying Charles v (1500-1556). Pulgar, a converse himself, counseled the queen
a regular tribute, usually in gold, to Castile's that education was the best way to resolve the
rulers, its nominal overlords. Hostilities contin- converse problem since he believed that most
ued along the frontier, but in the course of a A Catholic Monarchy judaizers were ignorant souls lacking basic
century the two states developed a workable Ferdinand and Isabella's idea of a monarchy instruction in the rudiments of Catholicism.
modus vivendi partially reflected in Castile's "constituted in the service of God" did not end But Ferdinand, a firm believer in religious
taste for Islamic decoration in architecture, pot- with the reconquest and the war against Islam. orthodoxy, was determined to make religion the
tery, and the minor arts, the so-called mudejar It accounts for Isabella's particular interest business of state. He pressed the issue, and in
style. Yet the dream of completing the recon- in monastic reform, a policy that led to the November 1478 Pope Sixtus iv authorized what
quest and restoring Hispania to Christianity appointment of Fray Jimenez de Cisneros, her is now known as the Spanish Inquisition.
remained. confessor and a member of the reformed or This new inquisition began operation in
Ferdinand and Isabella revived this dream in "spiritual" branch of the Franciscan order, as Seville late in 1481. News of its coming spread
January 1482 by announcing the start of a cru- archbishop of Toledo in 1495. Once installed in panic among the city's converses. Those who
sade to liberate Granada from the clutches of this powerful office, Cisneros instituted a series could — four thousand by one estimate — fled,
Islam. Granada's rulers had provided the mon- of measures aimed at improving monastic dis- but by 1486 six hundred heretics had been
archs an excuse for this war with a raid on the cipline, and founded the University of Alcala de burned at the stake. By this date tribunals were
Christian enclave of Zahara, but the motivations Henares, an institution designed expressly to functioning in other Castilian cities as well as
for the crusade actually went deeper. Granada, a improve the clergy's education. Yet Cisneros in Aragon, where Ferdinand forcibly managed
prosperous silk-producing region, was a tempt- was also a prelate whose intolerance for other to overcome opposition to their establishment.
ing prize. The war also provided an opportunity faiths led to the forced conversion of the Mus- In 1483 the monarchs also had named Fray
for Ferdinand and Isabella to unite their king- lims of Granada in 1498. Tomas de Torquemada as Spain's first inquisitor
doms under the banner of a crusade. Religious The idea of a monarchy dedicated to God also general.
considerations also played a part in their deci- helps to explain why Ferdinand and Isabella The purpose of the Holy Office is frequently
sion to restart the reconquest. The fall of Con- sought to establish an inquisition to investigate misunderstood. By law its authority extended
stantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453 had heresy among Castile's converted Jews (conver- only to Catholics; neither Jews nor Muslims
sparked growing fear of Islam throughout much ses). The monarchy's so-called converse prob- were subject to its authority. In the sixteenth
of Christendom, and there were calls for a new lem began after a series of violent pogroms had century its jurisdiction encompassed a variety of
crusade after the Turks captured the southern swept across Castile and Aragon during the religious crimes, but initially the inquisition
Italian town of Otranto in 1480. In view of Ara- summer of 1391. In the decades that followed as had only one mission: to try converses sus-
gonese interests in the region, many looked to much as half the Jewish population-estimated pected of judaizing and to reconcile these "here-
Ferdinand as their savior, and he responded by at two hundred thousand in 1391 — underwent tics" to the faith at the auto da fe, the public
sending a fleet to Italy the following year. Thus baptism. Many Jews did so sincerely, one of the ceremony at which the inquisitors solemnly
Ferdinand had already emerged as the champion more famous New Christians being Salomon pronounced penances that ranged from whip-
of Mediterranean Christendom when the mon- Ha-Levi (13507-1435), chief rabbi of Burgos, ping and public humiliation for repentant
archs announced the beginning of a "just and who, after having been baptized Pablo de Santa judaizers to death by fire for those who proved

58 CIRCA 1492