The History of the Church through 100 Masterpieces

Victory in the South

The History of the Church 142 Victory in the South On January 2, 1492, the Catholic armies of the royal couple Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabel of Castile triumphantly entered a liberated Granada. This was the crowning moment of seven centuries of crusading efforts, to which knights from all of Christendom contributed their share. This is how it came to be that in the ninth century, the nobility of “the nation of Auvergne” in France played an important role in the deliverance of Portugal. Toledo had been recovered in 1085, thanks to Rodrigo Días de Bivar, known as El Cid. In 1212, the victory of Las Navas de Tolosa opened the way to the retaking of Majorca, Cordoba, Murcia, and Seville. Gibraltar, in its turn, had succumbed in 1309. All that was left to the Moors was the small kingdom of Granada, which King Boabdil abandoned in 1492. This territorial reconquest would be followed by an offensive of another kind: the religious reunification of the people of Spain. Jews and Muslims were mercilessly chased out of the kingdom or ordered to convert.* And the Inquisition was there to track the false conversos. Thus, it was customary to send acolytes out to the streets on Friday evenings and Saturdays, to note which chimneys did not discharge any smoke, a sign that those within practiced the Jewish Sabbath. Two stern verses of Victor Hugo denounce this practice: “Would you then demand that the Jews of Toledo be happy to be baked alive in ovens?” Jusepe Ribera (1591–1652) The Capture of Granada Cathedral of Burgos * Queen Isabel granted safe conduct to Jews en route to leave Spain.— Trans. ...