1481, and lasted for a decade. The final victory in 1492 owed not a little to dissension among the Muslim leaders, though naturally this was played down by the propagandists. The end of the war also saw the culmination of waves of hostility to Muslims and Jews that had been developing over the previous century. The Jews were finally expelled in 1492, a popular act, presented as an act of Christian faith, and a remunerative one in the short term, since they were given little opportunity of taking their possessions with them. The Muslims of Granada were initially given favourable terms, being allowed by the peace treaty of 1492 to remain and to practise their religion. But the next ten years saw intense manoeuvring about this on the part of the ecclesiastical hard-liners, and the result was that in 1499 the Muslims of Granada were given a choice between conversion and departure, and this was extended to the Muslims of Castile in 1502. Those who stayed were further discriminated against, like the Jewish conversi, by the extension of the principle of purity of blood (limpieza de sangre), which barred them from many public offices and positions of eminence.

All this represents a concerted effort towards a sort of unity; not political unity, which would follow in the next century, but unity of purpose, sentiment, and 'Spanishness'. The ideology of conquest and conversion was accompanied by the development of the one organization which in practice was standardized throughout Aragon and Castile, the Church, which was also an overwhelmingly Spanish institution; the 'Catholic' kings allowed minimal interference by the pope, and the ecclesiastical personnel was controlled by them. The pope was even excluded from a significant role in the Spanish Inquisition. Set up in both Aragon and Castile to investigate the orthodoxy of converts from Judaism, the two branches were united in 1483, the first institution officially to span both kingdoms. The Inquisition was not, nor did it ever become, the secret police of legend, but it is an unsurprising assumption to make; Church and State, religion and politics, were uniquely close in their association.

Ferdinand and Isabella's rule was not 'absolute'. If anything it is interesting to note how they always opted for the popular policies, favouring reconquest and the Mesta, expelling Muslims

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