Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/91

 FERDINAND 81 Benavente (Leon) in 1188, and was succeeded by his son Alphonso IX. Mariana, Hist. Gen. dc Esjwna, XI. v., viii., xiii.,xvi. ; Gayangos, Mohammedan Dynasties, ii. 522. FERDINAND III. (1200-1 252), usually known as Saint Ferdinand, was the son of Alphonso IX. of Leon, and of Berenguela, sister of Henry I. of Castile. On the death of Henry without issue in 1217, the just title of Blanche, the elder of the surviving sisters, was set aside and Berenguela procured the proclamation of Ferdinand. He rapidly secured the homage of the towns and the submission of the nobles, especially of the brothers Alvaro and Fer nando de Lara. On the death of his father in 1230 he ultimately, though not without dispute, became king of Leon as well as of Castile, thus finally uniting the two kingdoms under one crown. Following up the advantage which had been gained for the Christian arms by his father and the allied kings in the great battle at Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212, he devoted all his energies to the prosecu tion of the Moorish war. Among his conquests may be mentioned those of Ubeda in 1234, of Cordova in 1236, of Jaen in 1245, and of Seville in 1248. He was planning an invasion of Africa when he died at Seville on the 30th of May 1252, leaving his kingdom to his eldest son Alphonso X. (Alonso el Sabio). Though not canonized till centuries afterwards (by Clement X. in 1671), he came to be popularly known as el Santo from a very early period. Distinguished though he was for great military talent, he was still more remarkable for his religious zeal. Like his younger cousin Saint Louis of France, he was supremely a champion of the Catholic faith. It was not on the field of battle alone that his ardour was displayed. His Spanish panegyrists never fail to relate how it was his wont to assist in carrying wood for burning the followers of the Albigensian heresy, and how sometimes with his own royal hands he applied the torch to the pile. 1 While as a crusader he is hardly eclipsed by Louis, he contrasts very favourably with him as a sincere friend of learning. He was the original founder (1243) of the university of Salamanca, which his son and successor did so much to foster and encourage. He it was also who caused to be translated into the vulgar tongue the Fuero J-uzgo (Forum Judicum) or code of Visigothic laws, which as collected and translated at his instance has the double interest of being one of the oldest extant specimens of Castilian prose, and also of being the foundation of Las Siete Partidas, the code for Christian Spain, which was finally drawn up by Alphonso the Wise. His body now lies in the Capilla Real of Seville Cathedral, where it is exhibited as a relic on certain annual occasions (in May, August, and November). His day in the Spanish calendar is May 30. Sec Mariana, Hist. Gen., XII. vii. XIII. viii; and compare Conde, Domination de los Arabcs en Espana, IV. iii.-vi. FERDINAND IV. (1285-1312), sometimes called el Emplazado, i.e., Cited or Summoned, succeeded his father Sancho IV. on the throne of Castile and Leon in 1295. The years of his minority were disturbed by a series of civil wars caused by the pretensions of his cousins Don Juan and Don Alonso de la Cerda to the crown, by the disputes of the Haros, Laras, and other nobles about their privileges, by the restlessness of the municipalities, and by the ambition of the neighbouring kings of Portugal, Aragon, and Granada. The queen-mother, Maria de 1 Thus Calderon, in his Auto Historial Aleyorico entitled El Santo Key Don Fernando (Madrid, 1690), introduces Ferdinand as de claring to St Dominic his firm determination to apply the cautery which alone can cure the cancer of heresy. He is ready to have his own arm destroyed should it fail him in this duty. Compare Mariana. Hist. Gen., XII. xi. Molina, on each new outbreak succeeded in procuring peace by diplomatic tact and judicious compromise. Secure at last in possession of his throne, Ferdinand was free to pursue the traditional policy of war against the Moors ; and in carrying it out he was aided by pecuniary grants both from his own nobles and also from the pope (Clement V.), as well as by the spoils of the Templars on the extinction of that order in 1310. His chief exploit, as recorded by the historians, both Spanish and Arab, was the expedition against Algeciras (1309), which, while unsuccessful in its main object, resulted in the surrender of Gibraltar and the cession of other strongholds (Gayangos, ii. 348; Conde, IV. xiv). In the course of a subsequent campaign he died sud denly at Jaen, September 7, 1312. According to Mariana, he had on the 8th of August preceding condemned to death without lawful trial two brothers of the name of Carvajal. These protesting their innocence had summoned him to meet them within thirty days at the bar of God ; hence his surname. He was succeeded by his infant son Alphonso XI. (See Mariana, XV. i.-xi.) FERDINAND V. of Castile, III. of Naples, II. of Aragon and Sicily, surnamed el Catolico (1452-1516), the younger son of John II. of Navarre and Aragon by his second wife Juana Henriquez of Castile, was born at Sos in Aragon on the 10th of March 1452. On the death of his elder brother Carlos in 1461, he was recognized by the Aragonese as heir-apparent to the crown, but the Catalans, rendered indignant by the cruelty and perfidy with which Carlos had been treated, refused to recognize any further claim on their allegiance, and rose in rebellion against King John. Fer dinand accompanied his father in the campaigns which followed, and gave early promise of distinction. In 1466 his father formally associated him with himself in th.e government of Aragon, and in 1458 declared him king of Sicily. In October 1469 he was married at Valladolicl, in circumstances of unusual secrecy, to Isabella, sister of Henry IV. of Castile, and heiress to that throne. On the death of Henry IV. in 1474, Ferdinand and Isabella were recognized by the nobles in the junta of Segovia as joint-sovereigns of Castile ; but a powerful party, including the marquis of Villena, the grand-master of Calatrava, the archbishop of Toledo, and numerous other notables, as well as some of the burghs, declared in favour of Juana &quot; la Beltraneja &quot; (i.e., daughter of Beltran), whom Henry had shortly before his death recognized as his own child, and by his will desig nated as his successor. Juana had also the support of Alphonso V. of Portugal (to whom she was betrothed in 1470) and of Louis XI. of France. The result was a civil war which continued with varying fortunes until victory finally declared for the Catholic sovereigns, and the peace of Lisbon was signed in 1479. In the same year, a few months previously, Ferdinand had succeeded his father on the throne of Aragon, though not on that of Navarre, which went to his sister Leonora de Foix. The union of Castile and Aragon, together with the prosperous termination of the civil war, gave the Catholic sovereigns leisure and opportunity for the development of a vigorous domestic policy. On their accession they had found themselves face to face with an almost anarchical condition of affairs : bitter feuds were raging in Andalucia between the great houses of Cadiz and Medina Sidonia; Galicia and other provinces were rent with hostile factions; robbery and outrage were paralysing commerce and agriculture throughout the king dom. One of their earliest measures for restoring the much-
 * ieeded order was the reorganization and development (1476)

of the ancient hermandad (brotherhood), a league which had Deen originally formed by some of the cities for mutual protection against the aggression of the nobles and of the; crown, and which had already more than once, by means of its &quot; cortes extraordinary,&quot; made its power to be felt. IX. ii