The beginning of the

Modern Age
from the middle ages to the modern age
The Modern Age was the period after the Middle Ages.

Society and the feudal economy

The basic structure of society was the same as in the Middle Ages. Social groups were divided
according to privileges.

THE THREE ESTATES OF THE REALM

At the very top of the social system was the king. However, his power and position depended
largely on the powerful privileged estates – the nobles and the clery.
• The nobles did not work. They did not pay taxes to the king unless it was agreed on in the
parliaments. They collected taxes from the inhabitants and administered justice.
• The clergy had the social and spiritual function of looking after the souls of people. They
continued to enjoy privileges, such as collecting tithes for their own benefit. Like the
nobles, they did not pay taxes to the king, unless it was accepted in the courts.
• Below theses two estates, there was the third estate of the common people, mostly
peasants (predominantly crop and livestock farmers), but also craftsmen, traders, doctors,
jurists, etc.

COLLECTIVE PRIVILEGES: CITIES

Monarchs granted cities privileges such as collecting taxes, and administering justice.
The city council was in charge of exercising these privileges. In theory, they were for all the city’s
inhabitants, but in practice, they were restricted to its richest members: landowners, rich traders
and craftspeople.

At the beginning of the Modern Age

CULTURAL CHANGES

New artistic styles appeared, including Renaissance art and architecture. There were also new
cultural movements, such as Humanism. Culture reached more people than ever, thanks to the
revolutionary invention of the printing press. Europeans also discovered and explored continents
that were previously unknown to them.
Humanism: movement based on human reason and knowledge.

POLITICAL CHANGES

Monarchies gained power.

The factors behind geographical discovery

The 15th and 16th centuries are known for the geographical discoveries made through sea
voyages. There were several factors in Europe at that time that led people to explore the world.

ECONOMIC FACTORS

Europeans needed gold and silver to produce coins. They also depended on products from the
East, such as silk and spices. When Byzantium was taken by the Ottoman Turks in 1453, the
traditional trade route to obtain spices closed, so they had to search for alternate routes.

DEMOGRAPHIC FACTORS

After the demographic stagnation of the Late Middle Ages, the population went through a period
of growth. This increased the demand for precious metals and products from the East.

SOCIOLOGICAL FACTORS

The spirit of the Renaissance inspired people to discover and explore. Books like The Travels of
Marco Polo acted as inspiration.

SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL FACTORS

Advances were made in navigation with new ships, such as caravels. Many geographers also
started to believe that the world was round and not flat.
The spice trade: The spice trade was important for Europeans because spices did not exist in
Europe, and people wanted them for their food. They used them to season and preserve food, and
to provide variety in a very monotonous diet based on cereals and pulses. The most common
spices were cinnamon, cloves, pepper, nutmeg and ginger.

authoritarian monarchies and society

The most powerful monarchies

Monarchs were frequently involved in wars with other kings. Because of this instability and the
need to secure the throne, monarchs created permanent royal armies so they did not have to
depend on the nobility.
It’s a fact!: The creation of permanent armies was a sympton of the growing power of the
monarchies.
This development is considered to be the origin of the modern state.
As stability increased and the monarchs gained prestige and power, it was eier for them to rule
their kingdoms. However, monarchs continued to need the nobility, the Church and the urban
middle class to maintain their privileges and involve them in government work.

The 15th and 16th centuries

ECONOMY

At the beginning of the Modern Age, Europe’s economy continued to be a rural economy based on
working the land (agriculture and livestock farming). However, craftwork and trade became more
important too. This development affected rural life and shaped a dynamic network of cities in
Europe.
The influence of markets continued to grow.
Artisans’ guilds were an example of privilege. They had special rights over the production of crafts.
Castilian livestock farmers were also privileged as they had exclusive rights to certain pastures.

SOCIETY

Urban areas: There was a rich middle class consisting of merchants, bankers and moneylenders,
who were very important for monarchs because they lent them large sums of money. Monarchs
delegated the administration of the cities to them.
Beneath the middle class were artisans in guilds. And shopkeepers who traded in the local and
regional areas.

Rural areas: Below them were less wealthy peasants found in rural areas, such as blacksmiths and
carpenters.

At the bottom of society were people who had a lot of debt and little or no property. They were
poor peasants.

the catholic monarchs

The birth of a new monarchy

At the beginning of the Modern Age, there were five kingdoms on the Iberian Peninsula: Castilla,
Aragón, Navarra, Portugal and Granada.
In 1469, Fernando II of Aragón married Isabel I. To gain her right to the throne of Castilla, Isabel I
had to defeat Juana, the king’s daughter and heir, in a civil war that ended in 1479. Isabel and
Juana were supported by Aragón and Portugal, respectively.
The marriage of Isabel and Fernando laid the foundations for the development of modern Spain,
and also for the Catholic Monarchy. The pope bestowed the title of Catholic Monarchs on the
couple in 1496, after they had conquered the Kingdom of Granada and expelled the Jews.
The new monarchy was a dynastic union because it was the result of a marriage between two
monarchs, not a fusion of two kingdoms. It was therefore a composite monarchy, where each
crown kept its symbols, laws, institutions and borders, and the subjects of one kingdom were
considered foreign in the other. The monarchs only shared policies in specific areas, such as foreign
policy and religion.

The authoritarian monarchy of the catholic monarchs

THE MONARCHY AND THE ESTATES OF THE REALM

The Catholic Monarch’s main objective was to restore the authority of the monarchy.

Cities: Corregidores were appointed throughout Castilla. These representatives of royal power
controlled the kingdom’s towns and territories.

The Church: During their reign, the pope gave the Catholic Monarchs the authority to intervene in
the appointment of important figures in the Church.
The king was appointed Master of the Military Orders.

The Nobility: Fernando II issued the Sentencia de Guadalupe, an act that abolished harsh feudal
taxes for Catalan serfs, although they still had to pay compensation to their lords.

THE RELIGIOUS POLICY OF THE CATHOLIC MONARCHS

The Catholic Monarchs imposed a policy of religious unification. The first step in this process was
establishing the Spanish Inquisition. The role of this institution was to persecute heretics.
In 1492, the Catholic Monarchs expelled all Jews that did not convert to Christianity from their
kingdoms. The Inquisition was not convinced that the conversos (the Jews who remained) had
really converted, so they were under suspicion and socially marginalised. These Jews were called
marrano. Sephardi Jews were the Jews who were expelled from the Peninsula.
Following the conquest of Granada in 1492, the mudéjares in that kingdom were forced to convert
ot Catholicism. The majority converted, but their sincerity was always under suspicion, so they
were marginalised. These converts were known as moriscos. They were finally expelled by king
Felipe III.
KINGDOMS UNDER THE CATHOLIC MONARCHS

The influence of the Catholic Monarchs was not as strong in Aragón as in Castilla. This was because
Castilla had a greater tradition of royal authoritarianism than Aragón, where royal influence was
more restricted by regional laws and institutions, such as courts (cortes).

Crown of Castilla:
• The Council of Castilla was an institution established during the Middle Ages that advised
the monarchs. The Catholic Monarchs reshaped this institution by giving it more authority.
• The Santa Hermandad was an armed force at the service of the monarchs. A permanent
royal army was created with mercenaries. It was paid to catch criminals. It might have been
the first organised police force in Europe.
• The Audiencias of Valladolid and Granada were created to centralise the justice system.
These were split into three salas the Sala General, for the general population, the Sala de la
Nobleza, which had its own legislation, and the Sala de Vizcaya, as this territory had its own
laws.

Crown of Aragón: The Council of Aragón was established in 1494 to manage the Crown’s matters in
its kingdoms. In addition, a viceroy was appointed to manage each kingdom, who represented the
monarch in all administrative, judicial and military matters.

The beginnings of hispanic dominance: Foreign policy

The Catholic Monarchs formed alliances by marrying their children to heirs of other kingdoms
with two main aims. The first was to maintain peace with Portugal after it had supported Juana.
The second was to reinforce their ties with countries such as England with whom they had strong
trade relationships because of the exports of Castillian wool. These alliances helped their rivalry
against France.
Castilla’s Atlantic expansion began at the completion of the conquest of the Canary Islands (1496)
and the discovery of America by Columbus (1492).

SOME ALLIANCES THROUGH MARRIAGE

The Infanta Isabel and Manuel I of Portugal.

The Infanta Juana and the Duke of Burgundy.
Catherine of Aragón and Henry VIII of England.

THE FOREIGN POLICY OF THE CATHOLIC MONARCHS

• The Kingdom of Granada, the last Moorish territory on the Iberian Peninsula, was annexed
by Castilla.The conquest ended in 1492.
• The cities of Melilla, Oran, Tunis and Tripoli were conquered to protect the Mediterranean
coast from Barbary pirates from North Africa.
• Between 1495 and 1503, the French monarchs occupied Naples.
• Fernando II invaded Navarra (1512), incorporating it into the Crown of Castilla.
the discovery of america

Portuguese discoveries

In the 15th century, the Kingdom of Portugal’s aim was to explore the coasts of Africa to find an
alternative route to Asia, avoiding the Ottoman Empire, in order to import spices and silk to
Europe.
The Portuguese also established trading posts on the African coast to obtain slaves, ivory and the
gold produced to the south of the Sahara.
Portuguese maritime exploration was supported by the country’s monarchs, particularly Henry
‘the Navigator’, who founded a school of navigators and mapmakers.

• The discovery of the archipielagos of Madeira and the Azores, and the exploration of Cape
Verde.
• The exploration of the southern coasts of Africa. One expedition, led by Bartolomeu Dias,
sailed around the Cape of Good Hope, opening the route to southern Asia.
• Vasco da Gama completed the route to Asia when he arrived in Calcutta (India) in 1498,
achieving the European objective of discovering a new route to Asia.
• Expeditions reached Macao (China). As a result, the Portuguese were able to control trade
in the Indian Ocean.

America before the arrival of Columbus

Before 1492, America was inhabited by many different peoples and cultures. In some cases, there
were large, advanced empires with hierarchical societies.

• The Aztecs created an empire in Central America. Its capital was Tenochtitlán, today’s
Mexico City. The Aztec emperor lived there. The Aztecs conquered other peoples, imposing
taxes and strict military control over them. They had an advanced society with an economy
based on well-developed agriculture and prosperous trade.
• The Mayan civilisation was older. When the conquerors arrived, this civilisation was in
decline.
They Mayans had their own systems of writing and mathematics, and also had a 365-day
calendar.
• The Inca culture formed an empire in the Andes and controlled the peoples of the area,
which was organised in provinces.
The Incas grew crops and farmed livestock. Although they could not write, they had a
complex political and social structure and extensive network of roads.
 The role of the Canary Island in the discovery of America

Portugal and Castilla both wanted to control the Canary Islands.

THE CONQUEST OF THE CANARY ISLANDS

The conquest of the Canary Islands by the Crown of Castille took place between 1402 and 1496.
It was more difficult to conquer Gran Canaria, La Palma and Tenerife because of the resistance of
the indigenous peoples, such as the Guanches in Tenerife.

Christopher
Christopher
Columbus’s
Columbus’s
plan plan

The discovery of America is associated with Christopher Columbus. His origins are unknown, but
we do know that he was an experienced sailor who travelled the African routes established by
Portugal. He was also familiar with the theories of Toscanelli, a geographer who believed that the
Earth was spherical.
With this experience and knowledge, Columbus formulated his plan to look for a new route to
Asia: he would sail to the west, avoiding Africa. Columbus explained his theory to the king of
Portugal, but a committee of experts rejected it, believing it to be wrong.
Finally, in 1492, the Catholic Monarchs and Columbus signed the Capitulations of Santa Fe.
According to this document, the Catholic Monarchs agreed to support Columbus’s mission. They
granted him the titles of admiral and viceroy of the lands he discovered, as well as one tenth of the
profit made from exploiting their riches.

Christopher Columbus’s
The discovery
plan

Christopher Columbus departed from the port of Palos (Huelva), on 3 August 1492 with a carrack,
the Santa María, and two caravels, the Pinta and the Niña. After stopping in the Canary Islands
and being pushed onwards by the trade winds, the expedition crossed the Atlantic Ocean and
arrived at the Island of Guanahani, in the Bahamas, on 12 October 1492.

Columbus the began to explore islands such as Cuba and Hispaniola, which he named La Española.
After three months, he travelled back to the Iberian Peninsula convinced that he had reachedthe
coast of Asia. He therefore called these lands the West Indies.

Columbus mad three other voyages. During the second, he founded the city of La Isabela on La
Española. Later, he discovered the rest of the Caribbean islands and the coasts of South America,
from the mouth of the Orinoco River to the coasts of Central America.

The Catholic Monarchs tried to legitimise their right to occupy the territories discovered. Portugal
opposed this. They therefore signed the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494), which established a line
dividing the planet into two areas of influence: all the lands to the west of the line belonged to
Castilla, and all of the lands to the east were for Portugal.