Crown of Castile and Crown of Aragon- Short Summary

Image: ForoCoches.com

The two most important Crowns that make up the current kingdom of Spain were not united from the beginning, indeed, we will have to wait until the year 1715 with the end of the War of the Spanish Succession and the entry of the Bourbons into Spain to find a true territorial union. In this lesson from a TEACHER we are going to talk about Crown of Castile and Crown of Aragon- Short Summary, here we will discuss the differences between the two crowns and how was the process of the unification of both.

Index

1. Differences of government between the Crown of Castile and that of Aragon
2. Economic differences between crowns
3. Differences in foreign policy
4. Artistic differences between the Crown of Castile and that of Aragon
5. The unification of the two Crowns

The differences between the Crown of Castile and the Crown of Aragon there are many and this will explain the historical evolution that each of them will take from their creation to their unification. In the same way, we will be able to better understand some of the conflicts that occurred after its final unification and other more recent problems. We will begin by talking about the governmental differences that existed in the two crowns:

Castilla's crown

In this case we will find a complete fusion of the two kingdoms that made up the monarchy (Castilla y León) and the territories that were conquered throughout the Reconquest. The most important characteristics for this point can be found in:

• There will be a single king, who will have power over all the kingdoms under his jurisdiction.
• The law will be the same for all territories.
• We will only find some Cortes, which did not legislate (only the monarch legislated) but approved taxes.

Crown of Aragon

This Crown was made up of four territories (Catalan Counties, Kingdom of Aragon, Valencia and Mallorca), but they did not have a government union. The most important characteristics of the operation of these were:

• A single king who was highly controlled and limited by the courts of the different territories.
• Each territory maintained its customs and its institutions.
• We will find four courts, which could also legislate, in addition to approving taxes, which made it very difficult for the king to control the territories. that is to say, they were quite autonomous territories.

Image: The Late Middle Ages

In the Castilla's crown we will find that the economy was divided between the agriculture and livestockTherefore, we will see a series of confrontations for power between these two, because if there were more cultivable land, there would be less land for livestock and vice versa. Within livestock production, the star product would be the wool of the merino sheep (which would be imported to Flanders to make the famous tapestries).

The livestock that we will also find was extensive, that is, livestock routes and the Mesta, in which large amounts of Head of cattle crossed the peninsula annually to find good pastures (these were in the hands of the nobles and the Church). The crafts and commerce that we will find in these kingdoms was closely related to the Sheep farming (giving output to the products through the northern ports in the hands of the merchants of Burgos).

Conversely, the Crown of Aragon was fundamentally agricultural, although we will find a great trade that left from Catalonia, Valencia and Mallorca and was directed towards European, African and even Asian cities.

The Castilian crown always had as a fundamental objective expand to the atlantic In order to link with the commercial routes, this was thanks to the phenomenon known as the Reconquest. After conquering the kingdom of Granada on January 2, 1492, it was thought of making a crusade destined to conquer the lands of North Africa until reaching Jerusalem (this idea was thought by Cardinal Cisneros), although the discovery of the New World in October of the same year caused the tables to turn and they proceeded to expand into those far away land.

However, the Aragonese Crown had a predilection for the Mediterranean, taking first the Balearic Islands, later Sicily and Sardinia, then Naples and the counties of Athens and Neopatria, this entered into the mercantile idea of ​​him with the rest of the world bathed by the Mediterranean (they had the idea of ​​a Christian Mediterranean and that is why it will be one of the ideas carried out throughout the entire age modern).

Map: Blinklearning

Finally we will focus on the differences between the Crown of Castile and the Crown of Aragon in the arts. The Crown of Castile had a strong development of Romanesque and Gothic art from the ideas that came to their territories from the Camino de Santiago. Thanks to these ideas and to the different territories that made up the crown, we will observe a union of diverse cultures originating Asturian art and Mudejar art.

The Crown of Aragon for its part also developed the early Romanesque in the Pyrenean territories, due to the influence of the Franks. While the development of the Gothic came from the hand of the different commercial treaties they had, being reflected in the commercial architecture and in the religious buildings. The Mudejar style would also occur in their lands, the area of ​​the Ebro Valley and Valencia being the favorite, for have a large number of Muslim population (partly from Granada after its conquest by the kings Catholics.

In this section we will say that new artistic ideas came first to the Crown of Aragon, due among others to the fact that they owned land in Italy (the place where most of the movements of these arts came from). And that they arrived in Castile by way of Santiago or by the strong link that existed between the two kingdoms.

Within this short summary on the Crowns of Castile and the Crown of Aragon We must speak very briefly about their union, which is very complex and long in time.

It is generally said that with the arrival of the Catholic Monarchs the union of the two Crowns takes place but only in a dynastic way, that is to say, each kingdom would continue to have its own institutions and would continue to function as before.

After the death of the Catholic kings, the first attempt at total unification in the peninsula at the hands of Emperor Charles V took place, which failed and remains as king in the two kingdoms having to swear each one separately and having to allow the maintenance of the institutions as They were.

Throughout the Habsburg dynasty, this remained so, encountering uprisings in the territories of the crown of Aragon every time a monarch tightened the bureaucratic cables more than necessary and made them lose freedoms.

It was from the arrival of Felipe V, after the War of Succession (1701-1715) Spanish when the Crowns were definitively united, Aragon losing all the rights and privileges they had and becoming governed from Madrid, as one more territory. This can give us an idea of ​​the different uprisings that occurred during the period of the modern age and part of the contemporary age by the attempt by some powerful lords to regain their freedoms and privileges.

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