Catholic Monarchs in the context of "Spain"

Christopher Columbus (/kəˈlʌmbəs/; between 25 August and 31 October 1451 – 20 May 1506) was an Italian explorer and navigator from the Republic of Genoa who completed four Spanish-based voyages across the Atlantic Ocean sponsored by the Catholic Monarchs, opening the way for the widespread European exploration and colonization of the Americas. His expeditions were the first known European contact with the Caribbean and Central and South America.

The name Christopher Columbus is the anglicization of the Latin Christophorus Columbus. Growing up on the coast of Liguria, he went to sea at a young age and traveled widely, as far north as the British Isles and as far south as what is now Ghana. He married Portuguese noblewoman Filipa Moniz Perestrelo, who bore a son, Diego, and was based in Lisbon for several years. He later took a Castilian mistress, Beatriz Enríquez de Arana, who bore a son, Ferdinand.

The Crown of Castile was a medieval polity in the Iberian Peninsula that formed in 1230 as a result of the third and definitive union of the crowns and, some decades later, the parliaments of the kingdoms of Castile and León upon the accession of the then Castilian king, Ferdinand III, to the vacant Leonese throne. It continued to exist as a separate entity after the personal union in 1469 of the crowns of Castile and Aragon with the marriage of the Catholic Monarchs up to the promulgation of the Nueva Planta decrees by Philip V in 1716.

In 1492, the voyage of Christopher Columbus and the discovery of the Americas were major events in the history of Castile. The West Indies, Islands and Mainland of the Ocean Sea were also a part of the Crown of Castile when transformed from lordships to kingdoms of the heirs of Castile in 1506, with the Treaty of Villafáfila, and upon the death of Ferdinand the Catholic. The discovery of the Pacific Ocean, the conquest of the Aztec Empire, the conquest of the Inca Empire, the Spanish conquest of New Granada as well as the conquest of the Philippines all helped shape the Crown of Castile into a global empire in the 16th Century.

Ferdinand II, also known as Ferdinand I, Ferdinand III, and Ferdinand V (10 March 1452 – 23 January 1516), called Ferdinand the Catholic, was King of Aragon from 1479 until his death in 1516. As the husband and co-ruler of Queen Isabella I of Castile, he was also King of Castile from 1475 to 1504 (as Ferdinand V). He reigned jointly with Isabella over a dynastically unified Spain; together they are known as the Catholic Monarchs. Ferdinand is considered the de facto first king of Spain, and was described as such during his reign, even though, legally, Castile and Aragon remained two separate kingdoms until they were formally united by the Nueva Planta decrees issued between 1707 and 1716.

The Crown of Aragon that Ferdinand inherited in 1479 included the kingdoms of Aragon, Valencia, Mallorca, Sardinia, and Sicily, as well as the Principality of Catalonia. His marriage to Isabella is regarded as the "cornerstone in the foundation of the Spanish monarchy". They played a major role in the European colonization of the Americas, sponsoring the first voyage of Christopher Columbus in 1492. That year the couple defeated Granada, the last Muslim state in Western Europe, thus completing the centuries-long Reconquista.

West Iberian is a branch of the Ibero-Romance languages that includes the Castilian languages (Spanish, Judaeo-Spanish), Astur-Leonese (Asturian, Leonese, Mirandese, Extremaduran (sometimes), Cantabrian), Navarro-Aragonese and the descendants of Galician-Portuguese.

Until a few centuries ago, they formed a dialect continuum covering the western, central and southern parts of the Iberian Peninsula—excepting the Basque and Catalan-speaking territories. This is still the situation in a few regions, particularly in the northern part of the peninsula, but due to the differing sociopolitical histories of these languages (independence of Portugal since the early 12th century, unification of Spain in the late 15th century under the Catholic Monarchs, who privileged Castilian Spanish over the other Iberian languages), Spanish and Portuguese have tended to overtake and to a large extent absorb their sister languages while they kept diverging from each other.

Both the perceived nationhood of Spain, and the perceived distinctions between different parts of its territory derive from historical, geographical, linguistic, economic, political, ethnic and social factors.

Present-day Spain was formed in the wake of the expansion of the Christian states in northern Spain, a process known as the Reconquista. The Reconquista, ending with the Fall of Granada in 1492, was followed by a contested process of religious and linguistic unification and political centralisation, which began under the Catholic Monarchs and continued intermittently into the 20th century. Peripheral nationalism in its modern form arose chiefly in Catalonia and the Basque Country during the 19th century. The modern division of Spain into Autonomous Communities embodies an attempt to recognise nationalities and regional identities within Spain as a basis for devolution of power.

The Kingdom of Galicia was a political entity located in southwestern Europe, which, at its territorial zenith, occupied the entire northwest of the Iberian Peninsula. In the early 10th century, the Kingdom of Galicia was formed following the division of the Kingdom of Asturias after the death of Alfonso III in 910. His sons split the kingdom, with Ordoño II inheriting Galicia. While Galicia became a distinct political entity, it remained closely tied to the Leonese and Asturian realms through dynastic connections. Later, Ordoño II would integrate Galicia into the Kingdom of León when he inherited the latter. Though the Kingdom of Galicia had moments of semi-independence, it was typically seen as part of the Kingdom of León. Compostela became the capital of Galicia in the 11th century, while the independence of Portugal (1128) determined its southern boundary. The accession of Castilian King Ferdinand III to the Leonese kingdom in 1230 brought Galicia under the control of the Crown of Castile.

Galicia resisted central control and supported a series of alternative claimants, including John of León, Galicia and Seville (1296), Ferdinand I of Portugal (1369) and John of Gaunt (1386) and was not brought firmly into submission until the Catholic Monarchs imposed the Santa Hermandad in Galicia. The Kingdom of Galicia was then administered within the Crown of Castile (1490–1715) and later the Crown of Spain (1715–1833) by an Audiencia Real directed by a Governor which also held the office of Captain General and President. The representative assembly of the Kingdom was then the Junta or Cortes of the Kingdom of Galicia, which briefly declared itself sovereign when Galicia remained free of Napoleonic occupation (except during January–July 1809). The kingdom and its Junta were dissolved by Maria Cristina of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Regent of Spain, in 1834.

Spanish America refers to the Spanish territories in the Americas during the Spanish colonization of the Americas. The term "Spanish America" was specifically used during the territories' imperial era between 15th and 19th centuries. To the end of its imperial rule, Spain called its overseas possessions in the Americas and the Philippines "The Indies", an enduring remnant of Columbus's notion that he had reached Asia by sailing west. When these territories reach a high level of importance, the crown established the Council of the Indies in 1524, following the conquest of the Aztec Empire, asserting permanent royal control over its possessions. Regions with dense indigenous populations and sources of mineral wealth attracting Spanish settlers became colonial centers, while those without such resources were peripheral to crown interest. Once regions incorporated into the empire and their importance assessed, overseas possessions came under stronger or weaker crown control.

The crown learned its lesson with the rule of Christopher Columbus and his heirs in the Caribbean, and they never subsequently gave authorization of sweeping powers to explorers and conquerors. The Catholic Monarchs' conquest of Granada in 1492 and their expulsion of the Jews "were militant expressions of religious statehood at the moment of the beginning of the American colonization." The crown's power in the religious sphere was absolute in its overseas possessions through the papacy's grant of the Patronato real, and "Catholicism was indissolubly linked with royal authority." Church-State relations were established in the conquest era and remained stable until the end of the Habsburg era in 1700, when the Bourbon monarchs implemented major reforms and changed the relationship between crown and altar.