page_title: Catholic Monarchs of Spain
section_title: Religious policy
hierarchical_section_title: Catholic Monarchs of Spain / Religious policy
caption_attribution_description: English: The Capitulation of Granada, by Vicente Barneto y Vazquez Português: A Capitulação de Granada, por Vicente Barneto y Vazquez
context_page_description: The term Catholic Monarchs refers to Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon, whose marriage and joint rule marked the de facto unification of Spain. They were both from the House of Trastámara and were second cousins, being both descended from John I of Castile; on marriage they were given a papal dispensation to deal with consanguinity by Sixtus IV. They married on October 19, 1469, in the city of Valladolid; Isabella was eighteen years old and Ferdinand a year younger. It is generally accepted by most scholars that the unification of Spain can essentially be traced back to the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella. Spain was formed as a dynastic union of two crowns rather than a unitary state, as Castile and Aragon remained separate kingdoms until the Nueva Planta decrees of 1707–1716. The court of Ferdinand and Isabella was constantly on the move, in order to bolster local support for the crown from local feudal lords. The title of "Catholic King and Queen" was officially bestowed on Ferdinand and Isabella by Pope Alexander VI in 1494, in recognition of their defense of the Catholic faith within their realms.
context_section_description: Along with the desire of the Catholic Monarchs to extend their dominion to all the kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula, their reign was characterized by religious unification of the peninsula through militant Catholicism. Petitioning the pope for authority, Pope Sixtus IV issued a bull in 1478 to establish a Holy Office of the Inquisition in Castile. This was to ensure that Jews and Muslims who converted to Christianity did not revert to their previous faiths. The papal bull gave the sovereigns full powers to name inquisitors, but the papacy retained the right to formally appoint the royal nominees. The inquisition did not have jurisdiction over Jews and Muslims who did not convert. Since in the kingdom of Aragon it had existed since 1248, the Spanish Inquisition was the only common institution for the two kingdoms. Pope Innocent VIII confirmed Dominican Tomás de Torquemada, a confessor of Isabella, as Grand Inquisitor of Spain, following in the tradition in Aragon of Dominican inquisitors. Torquemada pursued aggressive policies toward converted Jews (conversos) and moriscos. The pope also granted the Catholic Kings the right of patronage over the ecclesiastical establishment in Granada and the Canary Islands, which meant the control of the state in religious affairs.
  The monarchs began a series of campaigns known as the Granada War (1482–1492), which was aided by Pope Sixtus IV's granting the tithe revenue and implementing a crusade tax so that the monarchs could finance the war. After 10 years of fighting the Granada War ended in 1492 when Emir Boabdil surrendered the keys of the Alhambra Palace in Granada to the Castilian soldiers. With the fall of Granada in January 1492, Isabella and Ferdinand pursued further policies of religious unification of their realms, in particular the expulsion of Jews who refused to convert to Christianity.
  After a number of revolts, Ferdinand and Isabella ordered the expulsion of all Jews and Muslims from Spain. People who converted to Catholicism were not subject to expulsion, but between 1480 and 1492 hundreds of those who had converted (conversos and moriscos) were accused of secretly practicing their original religion (crypto-Judaism or crypto-Islam) and arrested, imprisoned, interrogated under torture, and in some cases burned to death, in both Castile and Aragon.
  The Inquisition had been created in the twelfth century by Pope Lucius III to fight heresy in the south of what is now France and was constituted in a number of European kingdoms. The Catholic Monarchs decided to introduce the Inquisition to Castile, and requested the Pope's assent. On 1 November 1478, Pope Sixtus IV published the papal bull Exigit Sinceras Devotionis Affectus, by which the Inquisition was established in the Kingdom of Castile; it was later extended to all of Spain. The bull gave the monarchs exclusive authority to name the inquisitors.
  During the reign of the Catholic Monarchs and long afterwards the Inquisition was active in prosecuting people for violations of Catholic orthodoxy such as crypto-Judaism, heresy, Protestantism, blasphemy, and bigamy. The last trial for crypto-Judaism was held in 1818.
  In 1492 the monarchs issued a decree of expulsion of Jews, known formally as the Alhambra Decree, which gave Jews in Spain four months to either convert to Catholicism or leave Spain.  Tens of thousands of Jews emigrated to other lands such as Portugal, North Africa, the Low Countries, Italy and the Ottoman Empire.
caption: Capitulation of Granada 1492. Painting of the 1900s.
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