40 CHAPTER 2 THE HISPANIC BACKGROUND
over three states—Aragón, Valencia, and Catalo-
nia—each regarded as a separate reino (kingdom)
and each having its own Cortes. The upland state
of Aragón was the poorest and most backward of
the three. Valencia was the home of a large Mus-
lim peasant population that was subject to a Chris-
tian landowning nobility. The dominant role in the
union was played by Catalonia and its great city of
Barcelona, which had given Aragón its dynasty
and most of its revenues. A thriving industry and
powerful fl eets had made Barcelona the center of a
commercial empire based on the export of textiles.
Catalán arms had also won Sardinia and Sicily for
the crown of Aragón. In Aragón, therefore, the rul-
ing class was not the landed nobility, which was
relatively poor, but the commercial and industrial
oligarchy of Barcelona. The constitutional system
of Aragón refl ected the supremacy of this class by
giving legislative power to the Cortes of Catalonia
and by providing special watchdog committees of
the Cortes, which guarded against any infringe-
ment of the rights and liberties of the subjects.
In the fourteenth and fi fteenth centuries, the
prosperity of Barcelona was undermined by the ra-
vages of the Black Death, agrarian unrest in the
Catalán countryside, struggles between the mer-
chant oligarchy and popular elements in Barcelona,
and, above all, by the loss of traditional Catalán
markets to Genoese competitors. This economic
decline sharpened Catalán internal struggles, in
which the crown joined on the side of the popular
elements. The result was the civil war of 1462–
1472, which ended in a qualifi ed victory for the
king, John II, but that completed the ruin of Cat-
alonia. The weakness of Aragón on the eve of its
union with Castile ensured Castilian leadership of
the united kingdoms.
The chain of events that led to the union of
Castile and Aragón began with the secret mar-
riage in 1469 of Isabella, sister of Henry IV of Cas-
tile, and Ferdinand, son of John II of Aragón. This
match was the fruit of complex intrigues in which
the personal ambitions of the young couple, the
hostility of many Castilian nobles to their king, and
the desire of John II to add Castile to his son Ferdi-
nand’s heritage all played their part. On the death
of Henry IV in 1474, Isabella proclaimed herself
queen of Castile with the support of a powerful fac-
tion of Castilian nobles and towns that declared
that Henry’s daughter Juana was illegitimate, a
claim that led to a dynastic war in which Portu-
gal supported Juana. By 1479, the struggle had
ended in Isabella’s favor, John II had died, and Fer-
dinand had succeeded to his dominions. Ferdinand
and Isabella now became joint rulers of Aragón and
Cas tile, but the terms of their marriage contract
carefully subordinated Ferdinand to Isabella in
the government of Castile and excluded Isabella
from the administration of Aragón. Nonetheless,
the union of Castile and Aragón, under Castilian
leadership, marked a decisive advantage in whatIsabella and Ferdinand transformed Spain into
one of the strongest European kingdoms of the
fi fteenth century. [Reunion des Musées Nationaux/Art
Resource, NY]