CHAPTER 9 LESSON 2 : ROYAL POWER IN SPAIN AND THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE

• The Christian Reconquista (re-conquest) attempts to drive out theMoors (Spanish Muslims)

• King Ferdinand of Aragon marries Queen Isabella of Castile; unification of these two powerful Catholic monarchs provides enough strength to push out thelast Muslim stronghold in Granada on Iberian Peninsula by the year1492

Spain

• Religious toleration ends under their policy, “One monarchy, One law, One religion;” use of the Inquisition (Catholic Church courts to try heretics) causing extreme cruelty to Jews and Moors;

•Spanish economy declines when these educated ethnic groups are forced to leave the Iberian Peninsula.

THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE

• 300 German/Italian states loosely headed by Holy Roman emperors, atitle reserved for the descendants of the first king of German lands, Otto I;

“holy” because ever since Otto the Great, German emperors have always been crowned by a pope.

(Charlemagne

was the 1st unofficial Holy Roman Emperor because he too ruled German lands but the name, “Holy Roman Empire,” did not exist at the time he ruled as Emperor of the Romans)

• Frederick Barbarossa(the Red Beard)attempts to secure an empire that includeswealthy northernItalian cities but the pope and these Italian cities join together in an alliance called theLombard League to successfully defeat the emperor

"When the ravens cease to fly round the mountain,"

said the legend, "Barbarossa shall awake

and restore Germany to its

ancient greatness."  

• Frederick II continues to pursue ambitions in Italy while German feudal princes gain support against the emperor from the German middle class called burghers (from the German word“burg” meaning “town”).

• Unlike England, France, and Spain, whose royal power continued to grow, the H.R.E. would not unify for another 600 years when the country of

Germany is established in1871.