The Catholic sovereigns also turned their earnest attention to church reform. The relations between Church and State had always been close in Spain. The long Crusades against the Moors had given the crown a peculiar position of which it had taken advantage. It was the aim of Ferdinand and Isabella to subordinate still further the Church to the royal will, and use it as an engine at once for extirpating heresy, and increasing the royal authority. Having, in 1482, gained from Pope Sixtus IV. the right of exclusive nomination to the higher dignities of the Church, the sovereigns proceeded to make excellent use of their prerogative. The sees of Spain were filled with men of energy and devotion, and the work of reform begun. Cardinal Mendoza, Talavera (the first confessor of the queen), and, above all, the famous Franciscan friar, Francisco Ximenes de Cisneros, were the chief agents of the royal policy.
Ximenes was first appointed confessor to the Queen in 1492 at the instigation of Cardinal Mendoza, Archbishop of Toledo, and on the death of his patron (1492),Administration of Ximenes. was nominated as his successor to this, the richest see of Europe, as well as to the post of High Chancellor. The very elevation of this remarkable man was a blow to the privileged classes, since the see of Toledo had hitherto been exclusively reserved to men of noble birth. The appointment was even contrary to the wish of Ferdinand, who had hoped to secure the coveted position for his natural son, the Archbishop of Saragossa. The confidence of the Queen was not misplaced. The proud Castilian nobles learnt to quail before the inflexible integrity of this Franciscan friar, whom no terrors, no blandishments nor bribes could turn from his purpose. Nor were the energies of Ximenes confined to secular matters. Appointed Provincial of the Franciscans in 1494, he had zealously pressed for reform of his Order, which of late had departed from its primitive severity, owned large estates, and lived in luxury and indolence. He now extended his view, and aimed at a general reform, not only of the Franciscans, but of the monastic orders and the secular clergy in his province. In the face of much opposition, not only on the part of the General of the Franciscans, who in vain visited Castile, but of the Pope himself, the efforts of Ximenes succeeded. A Castilian writer of the following century asserts that the clergy, the monks, and the friars of Castile, once the most lax in Europe, could then compare most favourably with those of other countries. The energies of the Archbishop were also devoted to the promotion of theology and scholarship. He insisted on compliance with a papal Bull of 1474, by which stalls were to be reserved in each chapter for men of letters, canonists, and theologians. He reformed the old universities, founded and richly endowed the University of Alcala, started other schools, and caused the famous polyglot Bible to be published. This was an edition of the Scriptures in the ancient languages: the Old Testament in the Hebrew original, the Septuagint version, and the Chaldaic paraphrase with Latin translations thereof; the New Testament in the original Greek, and the Vulgate of Jerome. Under his influence there arose in Spain a school of Catholic Humanists free from the taint of heresy, and it is mainly due to the efforts of the Cardinal and his royal patrons, that Protestantism gained no hold in the country, and that Spain became the centre of the future Catholic reaction.
Unfortunately, the zeal of Ximenes was not confined to these excellent objects. He burned also to be the extirpator of heresy. By the terms of the capitulation of Granada in 1492, considerable privileges had been promised to the Moors. Freedom of worship and of education, as well as personal freedom, had been secured to them. They were to live under the Mahometan laws, administered by their own judges, and to be tried by mixed tribunals. Content with their position, the Moors had settled down in tranquillity, and many had been converted by the energetic but conciliatory policy of Talavera, Archbishop of Granada. But his measures were not stringent enough for the fiery Ximenes. The promises were violated. The Arabic copies of the Koran and other theological treatises were collected and consigned to the flames, and terror was called in to further the work of proselytism. A series of revolts ensued during the years 1500–1501, revolts which seriously taxed the military energies of Castile and embittered the relations of the two nationalities. Finally in 1502, on the suppression of the rebellion, a decree was issued offering the alternative of baptism or exile to the unfortunate Moors. Meanwhile, the Inquisition assailed the Jews and any Spaniard suspected of heretical views.
Mahometanism thus nominally driven from the Peninsula, it was natural that the Spaniards should cast their eyes across the narrow channel which divided them from Africa.Conquests in Africa. The ravages of Moorish pirates on the Spanish coasts, the desire of national aggrandisement, jealousy at the notable advances of the Portuguese on the eastern shores of Africa, the crusading spirit engendered of their past history, all these motives urged the Spaniards to extend their dominion in the north of the great dark continent. And we cannot be surprised to find that Ximenes, true Castilian as he was, eagerly advocated such a policy. At his instigation Mazarquiver, a nest of pirates on the Barbary coast, was taken in September, 1505. In 1509, the far more important reduction of Oran followed, while, in the following year, Algiers and Tripoli submitted to the Spanish arms.
But although these African exploits fill the pages of the Spanish chroniclers, the expeditions of Columbus and his followers, which received much less support from the royal exchequer, and which attracted far less attention, were destined to play a far greater part in the future of Spain and of Europe.
That the discovery of America was so long delayed will not surprise us if we remember the following facts. The Carthaginians, who had done something to explore the islands off the coast of Africa,The discovery of America. Why so long delayed. had been overthrown in their struggle with Rome. The Romans were not a seafaring people; Europe was large enough to monopolise their energies, and for the rest their gaze turned naturally enough to Africa, or to the East, which was inseparably bound up with their traditions. After the fall of the Roman Empire it was long before her Teutonic conquerors were strong enough, or consolidated enough, to think of foreign enterprise. When that time arrived, it was only natural that they too should look eastward. The East was the birthplace of their religion, and Palestine was in the hands of the Saracens and subsequently of the Turks; the East was the fabled treasure-house of riches and of luxury. Eastward therefore the adventurer, the trader, and the pilgrim turned, and found in the Mediterranean their natural pathway.
Besides all this, as a glance at a physical atlas will show, the winds and the currents of that part of the Atlantic which lies in the latitude of central Europe, are not favourable to western enterprise. There westerly winds prevail throughout the year, and with greater force than those winds which occasionally blow from the north and east. Moreover, the great ocean current known as the Gulf Stream sets continuously eastwards. To the north and south of these latitudes the conditions are different. In the north, the great arctic current runs southward from Davis’ Straits to Greenland, and thence to the North American shore. In the south, the equatorial current sweeps from the shores of Africa to Brazil; while immediately north of the Equator, the trade winds blow to the south-west, and south of the Equator to the north-west, continuously. It might therefore have been predicted that America would not be discovered until the northern or southern latitudes had been occupied by some seafaring nation with sufficient resources, and sufficient knowledge of navigation, to brave the unknown perils of the ocean.
In the tenth century, indeed, the Norsemen had discovered Labrador, Newfoundland, and even the mainland of North America, which they called ‘Wineland.’ But their numbers were insufficient, Europe offered plenty of scope for their inroads and for settlement, and the memories of Wineland remained in their sagas alone. In the southern latitudes there was little opportunity for such enterprise until the close of the fourteenth century. Then, however, as shown at [p. 85], the Genoese, and subsequently the Portuguese, had begun to creep down the African coast. The primary aim of the Portuguese in their expeditions had been to seek an oceanic route to India and the east, which since the appearance of the remarkable work of Marco Polo at the end of the thirteenth century, had assumed a new importance as an earthly paradise of gold and spices.
The African mainland, it was then believed, did not reach south of the Equator. But, as the continent continued to expand before the explorers in its endless length, these ideas faded away,The idea of reaching India by the Atlantic, abandoned by the Portuguese, is taken up by Columbus. and hopes were entertained of seeking Asia across the Atlantic. For, that the Atlantic washed the eastern shores of Asia, was a belief which gained strength in mediæval Europe. This idea, guessed at by some of the ancients, was first definitely revived by Roger Bacon, the Franciscan schoolman of Oxford, in the thirteenth century. From him it was adopted by Peter d’Ailly, the chancellor of the University of Paris, in his treatise de Imagine Mundi,