Ferdinand V

Paper Summary:

Born on March 10, 1452, at Sos in Aragon, Ferdinand V was the son of John II of Aragon and Juana Enriquez of Castile. This paper shows that as Ferdinand the Catholic of Spain and the husband of Isabella I, heiress apparent to the Castilian crown, this dynamic monarch laid the foundations of Spanish unity and imperial power. The paper explores how Ferdinand was instrumental in the "discovery" of America by Christopher Columbus in 1492 and the introduction of Spanish power in the "New World" which altered the entire history of the Western hemisphere.

From the Paper:

"In Aragon, Ferdinand approached his problems connected with Catalonia in a more constitutional way. The Sentence of Guadalupe in 1486 offered a compromise solution to the difficult peasant question in Catalonia, where the municipalities were assured a degree of autonomy. In Catalonia, the king remained essentially what he had been in medieval times, namely a supreme lord but with strict limits on his powers. But in Castile, the Crown was in a position to exercise absolute power, while in Catalonia and throughout Aragon, power was limited by the traditional contractual relationship. This contrast was to be profoundly important for the later history of the two Crowns and lay at the root of the major rebellions, especially that of 1591, that the citizens of Aragon were to undertake against Castile."

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