The Renaissance: Political Renewal and Intellectual Change 237pogroms and a wave of forced conversions between
1390 and 1450. Many of these conversions were
thought to be false, and the Spanish Inquisition, an or-
ganization wholly unrelated to the Papal Inquisition,
was founded early in Ferdinand and Isabella’s reign to
root out conversoswho had presumably returned to the
faith of their ancestors. Large numbers of converts were
executed or forced to do penance during the 1480s,
and their property was confiscated to help finance the
Granadan war. The Inquisition, as a church court, had
jurisdiction over only those who had been baptized.
The Jews who had escaped forced conversion were
comparatively few and usually poor, but even a small
minority was seen as a threat to the faith of the conver-
sos.Those who still refused conversion were at last ex-
pelled. Some fled to Portugal, only to be expelled by
the Portuguese as well in 1496. Others went to North
Africa or found refuge within the Turkish Empire, while
a few eventually settled in the growing commercial
cities of the Low Countries.
The war for Granada and the supplies of money
guaranteed by the perpetual taxes and cooperative leg-
islature of Castile enabled Ferdinand to create a formi-
dable army that was put to almost constant use in the
last years of the reign. Through bluff, diplomacy, and
hard fighting, he restored Cerdanya and Rosseló to
Cataluña and conquered the ancient kingdom of
Navarre. When Charles VIII of France invaded Italy in
1495, Ferdinand used his actions as a pretext to inter-
vene. This first phase of the Italian wars lasted until- Under the command of Gonsalvo de Córdoba,
“the Great Captain,” Spanish armies devised a new
method of combining pikes with shot that defeated the
French and their Swiss mercenaries and drove them
Ebro
R.Danube
R.Rhin
eR
.Po R.Euphrat
esR
.Atlantic
OceanNorth
SeaMediterranean SeaBlack SeaDnie
perR
.Adr
iati
cSe
aDublinDENMARKLondon
CalaisCologneParisHamburg LübeckBrandenburgCracowBuda PestBelgradeRome NaplesVenice
GenoaMilanOrléansPoitiersLyonsBarcelonaGranadaCórdobaLisbonToledoTunisAthensConstantinopleAlexandriaJerusalemSmolenskAzovMoscowNovgorod
RigaMainz Prague KievSardiniaCorsicaSicilyCrete CyprusPyrenees
Mts.AlpsMts.TaurusMts.HABSBURG
LANDSSCOTLANDIRELANDNORWAY SWEDENPORTUGALARAGONNAVARRECASTILEFRANCE
BURGUNDYHOLY
ROMAN
EMPIREPOLANDTEUTONIC
ORDERLITHUANIAMOLDAVIA
HUNGARYBULGARIA
SERBIA
MONTENEGRO
RUMELIAOTTOMAN EMPIREMAMLUK SULTANATEPAPAL
STATESPRINCIPALITY
OF MOSCOWBOHEMIA
CRIMEAWALESENGLANDStockholmHABSBURG
LANDSBalearicIslandsCarpathia
n
M
ts
.NurembergFlorenceAugsburg ViennaOxfordDanzigEdinburghDonR.0 300 600 Miles0 300 600 900 KilometersMAP 13.1
Europe in the Renaissance