Reconciliation and Resistance in Early Modern Spain : Hernando De Baeza and the Catholic Monarchs

Foreword xii rare and fascinating approach to these matters focuses in particular on the question of what would happen, after the Christian victory and conquest, to the former Christians, known as elches, who had been living under Nasrid rule up to that point. Some of these may in fact have chosen to become Muslims, having fled, for whatever reason, from Christian territory, but Hernando, unlike many of his Castilian compatriots, was evidently aware that Christian captives were commonly forced to become Muslims, whatever their personal views. This was a problem which would continue to haunt Spaniards well into the modern period, in the context of North African piracy, in both the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. The most remarkable feature of Hernando de Baeza's memoir is, however, his ability to go beyond these obvious circumstances and recognize that some Christians may actually have wanted to become Muslims out of a positive attachment to that religion, as represented by pre-1492 Granada as a uniquely Islamic territory in the Iberian Peninsula. Tinsley rightly places this phenomenon in the context of the attempts by the first Catholic Archbishop of Granada after the 1492 conquest, Friar Hernando de Talavera, to win Muslims over to Christianity by persuasion, rather than the brute force that would be applied after 1500. Hernando's memoir is of course the centre and heart of this study, but it is by no means the only fascinating aspect of his life which Teresa Tinsley is able to highlight, by means of painstaking documentary research. Before the final Christian victory in Granada, Hernando de Baeza had entered the service of Don Alonso's brother Gonzalo, who was later known as the 'Great Captain' for his military exploits in Italy as well as Spain. Having acquired high-level diplomatic experience in the last days of the Granadan Emirate, Hernando proceeded to apply his skills and insights in the midst of the complex Italian politics of the period, thus meeting Popes and Cardinals, and participating in diplomacy on an international scale. This meant that, in the last decade of his life, he played a quite prominent role in the equally difficult politics of Spain, after the death of Queen Isabel 'the Catholic' in November 1504. Returning to his homeland, he found himself back in still-fractious political and social affairs of his native city and country, including the controversy that surrounded his family's old enemy, the Inquisition. Only recently have scholars begun to question the traditional narrative of Spanish history between 1504 and January 1516, when Isabel and Fernando's eldest grandchild, Charles, became King of both Castile and Aragon. Hernando de Baeza's home town of Cordoba was prominent in the conflict over the Castilian succession, in which Fernando tried, contrary to the provisions of his late wife's will, to retain power in Spain, using the excuse that his daughter and successor, there, Juana, was supposedly mentally unfit to govern. Between November 1504 and September 1506, Juana reigned with her Habsburg husband Philip, but after he died unexpectedly, conflict broke out again, and would outlast Hernando de Baeza's death. In the meantime, not only did the Cordoban's family continue to be enmeshed with the controversy of the Inquisition, in which its tribunal in that city played a crucial role, but Hernando and his surviving family were inevitably affected by the ensuing bitter conflict between Fernando and the senior line of the Fernández de Córdoba family, in the persons of the Marquis of Priego and the Great Captain. On top of all this, Hernando managed to find time to revisit Granada, witness the beginnings of the city and kingdom's 'Christianization' Foreword xiii and draw up the memoir which prompted this fascinating and commendable study of the life and times of an equally interesting Spaniard. As Teresa Tinsley rightly says, Hernando de Baeza, whose traditional loyalties combined with his serious questioning of the traditional religious certainties of his age, beautifully focuses the tensions that were affecting all of European society in the years up to and after 1500. Cover Contents List of illustrations Foreword by John Edwards Acknowledgements List of abbreviations Glossary of foreign words Maps Introduction Reconciliation Managing dissidence Approach and sources 1 Cordoba, the frontier and the Inquisition,1450–87 Competing visions for Christianizing Iberia Cordoban conversos Civil war in Castile, 1465–8 Anti-converso riots, 1473 The Inquisition comes to Cordoba The frontier with Granada – cross-cultural contacts and values 2 The conquest of Granada The first phase of the war, 1482–8 Changing alliances Ambassadors, spies and mediators The bias of surviving historical record The terms of surrender Celebrations of the conquest From propaganda to historiography 3 Among the Andalusian élite Reconciliation Rehabilitation Matrimonial strategies The new Marquisate of Priego Servants and masters The intellectual world surrounding Hernando de Baeza Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba Vatican intermediary Conclusion 4 The Spanish in Italy The conquest of Naples The papal conclaves of 1503 The capture of Cesare Borgia The schismatic Cardinal Carvajal Diplomacy in the succession crisis The conflict between the Gran Capitán and Fernando of Aragon Fernando in Naples Conclusion 5 Reconciliation and resistance to Fernando as governor of Castile Lucero and the intensification of Inquisition activity The campaign against Lucero The pursuit of ecclesiastical benefices The ‘rebellion’ of the Marquis of Priego Hernando de Baeza and the wider ideological struggle 6 Genesis of the memoir Baeza’s Granada Date of writing The manuscripts Baeza and Pulgar Baeza’s connection with other chroniclers Baeza’s work in its historiographical context 7 Castile in the mirror: A resistance narrative of the conquest of Granada Representations of the Catholic Monarchs Moors and Christians Conversos ‘under erasure’ Conclusion Hernando de Baeza’s history of Granada (translation) Notes Selected bibliography Index "This book offers an original perspective on the emergence of early modern Spain from multi-faith Iberia. It uses the eventful career of Hernando de Baeza - an interpreter, intermediary, and author positioned at the intersection of the so-called 'three cultures' of medieval Iberia (Judaism, Islam and Christianity) - as a thread to connect the conflicts, controversies and preoccupations of an age in which Christianising the whole world seemed an attainable dream. Teresa Tinsley draws on a wealth of extensive archival evidence, together with Baeza's own memoir on the downfall of Muslim Granada (translated here for the first time), to demonstrate the widespread resistance to the authoritarian and exclusionary Christianity which would come to be associated with Spain, the Inquisition, and the Catholic Monarchs of the period. In the process, Tinsley provides a nuanced alternative account of the tensions, compromises and competing interests which underlay Spain's emergence as a world power."-- Provided by publisher