Other 1492: Ferdinand, Isabella, and the Making of an Empire

Isabella and Ferdinand--An Age of Reform (1x5)

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The monarchy's reform of the church and establishment of a vast, university-trained bureaucracy led to a blossoming of culture in the 16th century. A new class of royal administrators loyal to the crown seized control of municipal power, and the cortes was reduced to a rubber-stamp body. A centralized state in Castile with a "monopoly of legalized violence" was created.