Treaty of Granada (1491)
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The Treaty of Granada, also known as the Capitulation of Granada or simply the Capitulations, was signed and ratified on November 25, 1491, between Boabdil, the
sultan Sultan (; ar, سلطان ', ) is a position with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", derived from the verbal noun ', meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it c ...
of
Granada Granada (,, DIN: ; grc, Ἐλιβύργη, Elibýrgē; la, Illiberis or . ) is the capital city of the province of Granada, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Granada is located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, at the c ...
, and
Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic Monarchs were Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon, whose marriage and joint rule marked the ''de facto'' unification of Spain. They were both from the House of Trastámara and were second cousins, being bo ...
, the King and Queen of Castile, León,
Aragon Aragon ( , ; Spanish and an, Aragón ; ca, Aragó ) is an autonomous community in Spain, coextensive with the medieval Kingdom of Aragon. In northeastern Spain, the Aragonese autonomous community comprises three provinces (from north to s ...
and
Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...
. It ended the
Granada War The Granada War ( es, Guerra de Granada) was a series of military campaigns between 1482 and 1491 during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs, Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, against the Nasrid dynasty's Emirate of Granada. It e ...
, which had started in 1482 and culminated in the siege and battle of Granada, which began in spring 1491. The treaty provided a short truce, followed by the relinquishment in January 1492 of the sovereignty of the Muslim Emirate of Granada (founded in the 13th century) to Catholic
Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = '' Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , ...
.''Early Modern Spain: A Documentary History'', ed. Jon Cowans, (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003), 15. The treaty guaranteed a set of rights to the
Moors The term Moor, derived from the ancient Mauri, is an exonym first used by Christian Europeans to designate the Muslim inhabitants of the Maghreb, the Iberian Peninsula, Sicily and Malta during the Middle Ages. Moors are not a distinc ...
, Muslim inhabitants, including religious tolerance and fair treatment in return for their surrender and capitulation. The Capitulations granted native
Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
in the surrendered territories the choice of either converting to Christianity or migrating to
North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...
within three years. That was subsequently superseded by the Alhambra Decree of 1492, which forced all Jews in Spain to choose between
conversion Conversion or convert may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * "Conversion" (''Doctor Who'' audio), an episode of the audio drama ''Cyberman'' * "Conversion" (''Stargate Atlantis''), an episode of the television series * "The Conversion" ...
or expulsion.


Terms

The capitulation of 1492 contained sixty-seven articles among which were the following: * That both great and small should be perfectly secure in their persons, families and properties. * That they should be allowed to continue in their dwellings and residences, whether in the city, the suburbs or any other part of the country. * That their laws should be preserved as they were before, and that no none should judge them except by those same laws. * That their mosques and the religious endowments appertaining to them should remain as they were in the times of Islam. * That no Christian should enter the house of a Muslim or insult him in any way. * That no Christian or Jew holding public offices by the appointment of the late Sultan should be allowed to exercise his functions or rule over them. * That all Muslim captives taken during the siege of Granada, from whatever part of the country they might have come, but especially the nobles and chiefs mentioned in the agreement should be liberated. * That such Muslim captives as might have escaped from their Christians masters and taken refuge in Granada should not be surrendered, but the Sultan should be bound to pay the price of such captives to their owners. * That all those who might choose to cross over to Africa should be allowed to take their departure within a certain time and be conveyed thither in the king's ships, and without any pecuniary tax being imposed on them beyond the mere charge for passage, and * That after the expiration of that time no Muslim should be hindered from departing provided he paid, in addition to the price of his passage, the tithe of whatever property he might carry along with him. * That no one should be prosecuted and punished for the crime of another man. * That the Christians who had embraced Islam should not be compelled to relinquish it and adopt their former creed. * That any Muslim wishing to become a Christian should be allowed some days to consider the step he was about to take.after which he was to be questioned by both a Muslim and a Christian judge concerning his intended change and if, after that examination, he still refused to return to Islam, he should be permitted to follow his own inclination. * That no Muslim should be prosecuted for the death of a Christian slain during the siege and that no restitution of property taken during the war should be enforced. * That no Muslim should be subject to have Christian soldiers billeted upon him or be transported to provinces of this kingdom against his will. * That no increase should be made to the usual imposts but that on the contrary all oppressive taxes lately imposed should be immediately suppressed. * That no Christian should be allowed to peep over the wall or into the house of a Muslim or enter a mosque. * That any Muslim choosing to travel or reside among the Christians should be perfectly secure in his person and property. * That no badge or distinctive mark be put upon them, as was done with the
Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
and Mudejares. * That no
muezzin The muezzin ( ar, مُؤَذِّن) is the person who proclaims the call to the daily prayer ( ṣalāt) five times a day ( Fajr prayer, Zuhr prayer, Asr prayer, Maghrib prayer and Isha prayer) at a mosque. The muezzin plays an important r ...
should be interrupted in the act of calling the people to prayer and no Muslim molested either in the performance of his daily devotions or in the observance of his fast or in any other religious ceremony, but if a Christian should be found laughing at them, he should be punished for it. * That the Muslims should be exempted from all taxation for a certain number of years. * That the Lord of Rome, the Pope, should be requested to give his assent to the above conditions, and sign the treaty himself. his request by the Moorish side was not carried out.


Implementation and breakdown

Initially, the Catholic conquerors implemented and reinforced the generous terms of the treaty. A joint municipal council was established in Granada, and the Muslims were allowed to elect their own representatives. Despite pressure from the Spanish clergy, Ferdinand chose a laissez-faire policy towards the Muslim in the hope that interaction with Catholics would make them "understand the error" of their faith and abandon it.
Hernando de Talavera Hernando de Talavera, O.S.H. (c. 1430 – 14 May 1507) was a Spanish clergyman and councilor to Queen Isabel of Castile. He began his career as a monk of the Order of Saint Jerome, was appointed the queen's confessor and with her support and ...
, a friar of converso origins known for his moderation and piety, was appointed as the archbishop of Granada. He was known for his preference of preaching based on "Catholic reasoning", as opposed to "punishments and lashes". When Ferdinand and Isabella visited the city in the summer of 1499, they were greeted by enthusiastic crowd, including Muslims. At the same time, Cardinal
Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros, OFM (1436 – 8 November 1517), spelled Ximenes in his own lifetime, and commonly referred to today as simply Cisneros, was a Spanish cardinal, religious figure, and statesman. Starting from humble beginnings ...
, the archbishop of Toledo, arrived in Granada and began working alongside Talavera. Cisneros disliked Talavera's approach, and began sending uncooperative Muslims, especially the noblemen, to prison where they were treated harshly until they agreed to convert. Emboldened by the increase in conversions, Cisneros intensified the efforts and in December 1499 he told
Pope Alexander VI Pope Alexander VI ( it, Alessandro VI, va, Alexandre VI, es, Alejandro VI; born Rodrigo de Borja; ca-valencia, Roderic Llançol i de Borja ; es, Rodrigo Lanzol y de Borja, lang ; 1431 – 18 August 1503) was head of the Catholic Churc ...
that three thousand Muslims converted in a single day. Cisneros's own church council warned that these methods might be a breach of the Treaty, the 16th-century
hagiographer A hagiography (; ) is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, as well as, by extension, an adulatory and idealized biography of a founder, saint, monk, nun or icon in any of the world's religions. Early Christian hagiographies might ...
Álvar Gómez de Castro described the approach as "methods that were not correct". In December 1499, amid the increasingly forced conversions and triggered by an incident involving an attempt by the authorities to reconvert a Muslim woman who had converted from Christianity, the population of Albayzín, the Muslim quarter of Granada, began an open and armed revolt. Talavera and Captain-General
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resolved the situation by negotiating with the Muslims. Meanwhile, Cisneros was summoned to the court in Seville to account for his actions. He convinced the Catholic monarchs to issue a collective pardons on the rebels on the condition that they converted to Christianity. Consequently, the whole city of Granada nominally became Christian, and the treaty began to unravel.


See also

*
List of treaties This list of treaties contains known agreements, pacts, peaces, and major contracts between states, armies, governments, and tribal groups. Before 1200 CE 1200–1299 1300–1399 1400–1499 1500–1599 1600–1699 1700–1799 ...
*
Reconquista The ' ( Spanish, Portuguese and Galician for "reconquest") is a historiographical construction describing the 781-year period in the history of the Iberian Peninsula between the Umayyad conquest of Hispania in 711 and the fall of the N ...
*
Morisco Revolt Moriscos (, ; pt, mouriscos ; Spanish for "Moorish") were former Muslims and their descendants whom the Roman Catholic church and the Spanish Crown commanded to convert to Christianity or face compulsory exile after Spain outlawed the open p ...
*
Timeline of the Muslim presence in the Iberian Peninsula This is a timeline of notable events during the period of Muslim presence in Iberia, starting with the Umayyad conquest in the 8th century. Conquest (711–756) * 711A Muslim force consisting of Arabs and Berbers of about 7,000 soldiers under ge ...


Notes


References

{{wikisourcelang, es, Tratado de Granada * ''Early Modern Spain: A Documentary History'', ed. Jon Cowans, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003
pp. 15–19 Conditions
* In Spanish, the original source is ''Historia de la Rebellión y Castigo de los Moriscos del Reino de Granada'' by Luis del Mármol Carvajal. * See also ''El Reino Nazarí de Granada'' by Cristobal Torrez Delgado and ''Los Moriscos del Reino de Granada'' by Julio Caro Barrata.
Granada Granada (,, DIN: ; grc, Ἐλιβύργη, Elibýrgē; la, Illiberis or . ) is the capital city of the province of Granada, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Granada is located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, at the c ...
1490s treaties Granada (1491) Peace treaties of Spain Granada (1491) Granada (1491) History of Granada Ferdinand II of Aragon Isabella I of Castile Treaties of the Emirate of Granada 1491 in Spain 15th century in Aragon 15th century in Castile 1491