The western peninsular kingdoms kingdoms find themselves, at the death of Isabel I of Castile, la Católica (Madrigal de las Altas Torres, Ávila, 22nd April 1451- Medina del Campo, 26th November 1504), facing a disquieting future. The customs, jurisdictions and rights of the different territories and diverse social groups had to be respected. The end of the fifteenth century did not see an end to the long period of conflicts and wars in the lands of the Crown of Castile and the sixteenth century would continue in part with the same warring dynamic. The long war of Christian expansion over Andalusian territory ended in 1492 with the conquest of the kingdom and city of Granada. But the social-economic problems and those of living together of the different ethnic and religious groups and the structuring of the territory were not over by this date, but would stretch out like an immense shadow towards the future. It was to culminate with the expulsion of the Jewish people and the Moor population, with the different revolts and demands of the nobility. The work of the Inquisition in the Castilian lands created a psychosis of insecurity and fear that was widespread amongst the people who realised that almost nobody was safe from its long arm –from any countrywoman and craftswoman to Teresa de Jesús, and to Hernando de Talavera, etc. The trials in search of any vestige or suspicion of non Catholic practices, that is, any indication of not being Christian or old Christian were to multiply. The Castilian lands were at the risk of losing the experience and knowledge that the women and men of the three cultures and the three religions of the Book had brought during centuries of living-together.

The chronicle of Hernando del Pulgar, the Crónica de la Guerra de Granada and others clearly illustrate the situation of the Castilian kingdoms, the shadows and lights that accompanied the women and men of these lands throughout the fifteenth century and the perspectives that open up and project towards the sixteenth century. And to the ethnic-religious and social complexity of the peninsular kingdoms would be added that of the new lands conquered and then colonised from the Canary Isles al continente americano –to the American continent – different Indian nations, different family and social organisations, different cosmo-visions and cultural, scientific traditions and systems of beliefs. The idea took shape and a new era was on the horizon.

Traditional historiography has studied, in quite a lot of detail, the political, social, economic and ethnic-religious situation of the peninsular kingdoms of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It has looked less at the cultural and mental transformations that were taking place, the important influence of writing and reading in maternal tongue in the passing from the late medieval period to the modern period. The economic evolution of the women and men peasants has been studied, and that of the women and men settlers of towns and cities. So too the evolution and structure of the population, of incomes, prices and salaries. Social history has been and is being made, but after superficially analysing the will of Isabel I de Castile I would like to emphasise other facts and establish other relationships. The relationships that are established setting out from the symbolic order of the mother, from the ordering work of the mother, of that one who gives us life, who gives the measure and gives us authority, with whom we are joined by a divine bond, with whom we will measure ourselves in a relationship of disparity and who we should not judge.

I will also evaluate the great weight that throughout the life and reign of Isabel, and by extension that of Fernando, carry aspects so important for the life and being a woman such as the pleasure of relationship, love, friendship, making pacts, working on conflict.

The will of Isabel I de Castile – In spite of being a document written in such a way as to give much weight to the diplomatic formula of this historical source, and being written with quite stereotyped language - tells us, on occasion, between lines, but on other occasions in a clear and reiterated way, of the permanent care and attention that the queen puts in the parts that affect her daughter. About the mediating position of the king, Fernando, so that she might lean on the political experience of her father and to accept the decisions that he might take, insisting greatly on the respect and love that she had for him throughout her life, so that it might serve the princess Juana.

The will of the queen shows the love and respect that united her to King Fernando. The queen gave him great authority not only in his role as knight and man of arms – in war or in the symbolic or real war events (tournaments and battles) – but also in questions of government. An authority founded on his long experience and his common sense, she was able to affirm his political supremacy by getting round, some times, working with them others, the conflict brought about by the position attributed to men in marriage. Her relationship with Fernando may have taken into account at some moment the postulated thoughts of Alfonso de Madrigal, el Tostado. Alfonso de Madrigal had suggested that since “man could not escape the bonds of love, the best thing he could do was to look for a good woman, because love and friendship joined individuals very deeply together, to each other and to God, and because to love was to have a friend that, at the same time, was other, and oneself, but she took into account above all the love that united them almost from the first time that they met in Valladolid –the fourteenth October 1469- and the friendship that they achieved throughout their shared life. Isabel and Fernando left in the hands of their collaborators what they had worked out as to their respective functions, their competences and degrees of power. But they cared for and enjoyed, many times, their relationship, as is shown in some chronicles: between the king and queen there was neither division nor anger, each day of those they were together they ate together in the public room, talking of things of pleasure like how the table was made, and they slept together…, their wills were equalled in love. … love had their wishes together …. This care did not mean that conflicts did not arise, both in their living together and in the aspects relating to the government of their house and kingdom. The same chronicles show that the king and queen were in disagreement on numerous occasions when one of them tried to benefit one or other of their advisors or inhabitants of their kingdoms, and other, big, obstacles made their relationship difficult, but it seems that their desire for agreement and making pacts was almost always greater than the conflicts.

The will of Isabel of Castile gives us examples of this primary and privileged relationship of the mother with her daughters. In spite of the somewhat stereotyped language of the will as a documental act, we see a relationship that the queen takes special care of. Isabel makes the Infanta Juana universal inheritor of her kingdoms on the death of her son Juan. Isabel is aware that she is transmitting to her daughter a heavy load for which she has not been specially prepared or educated. Her brother the Infante Juan, had been prepared, as the inheritor and future King of Castile. On his death, and that of her sister Isabel and her son Miguel, the inheritance falls with all its weight onto Juana.

Queen Isabel I had educated Juana painstakingly, like her sisters the Princesses Isabel, María and Catalina. But she had educated them to be princesses, not to be the inheritors of the throne of a kingdom in a complex period of its history. Isabel knew how hard this was, as she also had not been the inheritor of Castile; and was not able to or did not know how to avoid the hard confrontation that cost so much pain and loss to her, her family and the inhabitants of Castile in order to claim and win her right to rule, and she was fully aware that any preparation is insufficient to enable one to fulfil such a role; she had had to go through a hard apprenticeship, at times renouncing the dictates of her heart, her desires. But she always tried to maintain and demonstrate, while still affirming her rights, great courtesy in the face of monarchical institution and the person heading the representation of the kingdom.

I did not want to leave out or avoid one of the themes treated by historiography, and in which there are still discrepancies: I refer to the role that queen Isabel had or is attributed to have had in relation to the Inquisition. Why did the queen support the work of the Inquisition? Historians do not agree when analysing the relationship and the role of Isabel on more or less favouring the instauration and actuation of the Inquisition in the lands of the Crown of Castile. Possibly the queen, who knew well the value and the weight of the converts, some of them very close to her and to the institutions of government of the kingdom, tried to avoid the deaths caused by the popular revolts against the converts in Castilian lands and towns. In the first times of the instauration of the Inquisition, the revolts and revenge against the converts ceased, the massive killings of those Castilian people was avoided, but a period of ideological control was begun that would generate a deep, atavistic fear for generations of the power of the Inquisition. It is certain that fewer deaths were caused but I believe that does not justify in any way the attempt to solve the problem that had been created by a part of the converts on controlling a part of the power in the kingdom of Castile and on going back on their Catholicism. Some of the converts got very rich, they took over a large number of public roles of distinct importance and type, and they returned to their old faith – Judaism – doing so publicly and a bit fanatically. Why didn’t the old Christian settlers of Castile and Andalucía bear at a certain moment the behaviour of the converts? Firstly, because what was happening was a social, economic and power problem; some converts were altering the traditional social-economic and power composition in the country, in towns and cities of the Castilian crown, on monopolising many of the posts, from those of the councils to the Royal Council, and secondly, and this is very important, there exists a problem of ideas, of thinking and of knowledge. Christian western Europe was in a moment of insecurity; some theories had been questioned in some fields of knowledge (amongst others in geography, astronomy, etc.), and other areas of knowledge, such as philosophy and religion; it finds itself at a moment of uncertainty, or reformulation, and perhaps due to this it reacted by closing itself and imposing its truths and practices in an aggressive and violent way. And Castile which had remained quite on the margins of the religious intolerance and barbarity (against the Cathar heresy, against the Templars, against the “spirituals”, against the women and men mystics, against ways of understanding the religious fact and faith and against practices above all feminine, but also masculine, much freer) at this moment subscribed to them – with all the force that the new power structure being articulated by Isabel I of Castile and Fernando II of Aragon gave them – because in their land there are mixed a series of elements that favour them. But, I believe, some of us as historians might agree that there are not included amongst the elements that favour religious intolerance and persecution factors of biological hatred as we understand it today, that is, there is not anti-Semitism, not racism, there is anti-Jewishness, there is fanatical persecution of religious ideas and practices and there is also a hatred that was secularly accepted and sought after against the Jews.

The information that we can extract from the will and codicil of Isabel I of Castile is varied, some of it already picked up on by traditional historiography. But of the themes that have not been looked at, or have been looked at from very different perspectives, I would highlight, in the first place, the relationship of the Queen with her daughters and sons, her relationship with the King, her interest in the good government of the kingdoms, her care to mediate in the conflicts or in the future tensions between the future Queen Juana and Fernando el Católico, the insistence on love, the role of the maternal tongue and writing in this tongue both in the peninsular kingdoms and America. The role that she gives to preparation and experience. The care and effort put into ensuring that the different socio-economic groups that make up her kingdoms are listened to. The value given to the good government of the home and by extension the kingdom, to good organisation, to preparation. But, also, and as a contrast, the value given to the warrior, to the one who risks his life in battle and war, to her husband, King Fernando.

Part of historiography coincides in pointing to the deep falling in love of Isabel and Fernando from the first time that they are together and of the love and, possibly, passion that there was between them. The pairing formed by Isabel and Fernando was a strong pairing, in spite of some differences of temperaments, character and the difficulties that their union went through because of the king’s infidelities, and in the face of many other difficult situations. Isabel accepted and took into her charge the children that Fernando had outside of their marriage, and committed herself not only to guaranteeing them her care in bringing them up and her dowry, but also to maintaining their mothers. Without doubt this must have been a difficult decision for the queen, because as her daughter, Juana, writes, in a letter dated 3rd May 1505, the queen, like her, was a jealous woman, until time cured her.

Isabel and Fernando took many decisions together, and they would be together too in the face of the numerous problems and difficulties brought to them by the governing of their kingdoms; they were even close to one another in situations of war, such as when Isabel waited for her husband in the general encampment, while he fought before Toro against the King of Portugal in 1476. Fernando attacked the Portuguese army on the 1st March of the said year, sending the popular militias and set flight to the Portuguese troops. Isabel, meanwhile, would wait for the result of the battle in the camp or general barracks. Little after knowing the news of the victory, she orders the organisation of thanksgiving parties in the towns and villages of the kingdom, and promises to build in Toledo the church and monastery of San Juan de los Reyes, which began in 1478.

I am interested in underlining here that historiography picks up on the fact mentioning the presence of the queen surrounded by fourteen ladies. Isabel was always surrounded by women, her mother, her daughters, her ladies, maids and an endless number of women who were at her service and that of her House. In important moments for her the written and/or iconographical sources show her to be surrounded by ladies, such as is shown in the bas-relief of the Entrance into Granada – in which there are nine or ten women.

Isabel was surrounded from the death of her father, Juan II, by women; at some moments a good number coincide in the space in which the Infanta Isabel, future Isabel I, moves. In Arévalo, around 1454, a little after the death of her father, there were, amongst other women, her grandmother, her mother, her aunt María – sister of her father – queen of Aragon for almost twenty years, a powerful woman, she had ruled Aragón well and wisely, whilst Alfonso V, the Magnaminous, resided at the court of Naples. María came to Arévalo to mediate and negotiate with her nephew, Enrique IV, in the name of her brother-in-law the king Juan de Navarra – brother of Alfonso V-. María, queen of Aragon and María, the sister of Alfonso V, the Magnaminous, first wife of Juan II had been two important women for the history of Castile, both queens and cousins, they had mediated in many moments, some of them crucial, in the variable and sometimes difficult relations between Aragon-Catalonia and Castile.

Isabel felt accompanied by many women of trust who could give her advice above all while she was in Arévalo and in Madrigal where she spent a part of her childhood, but she would also be accompanied by some women when in 1461 her brother, the king Enrique IV, transferred her and her brother Alfonso to the court.

It is for sure that this feminine company and surrounding in Madrigal and Arévalo during her first ten years of life provided the Infanta Isabel, future Isabel I, the necessary stability and aplomb for the future. The histories of her two families would for sure have been told and explained to her by some of these women and they would have provided Isabel a strong pride in her royal lineage, a great sense of which were her legitimate rights, and a strong sense of responsibility. They would also have taught her the importance of the care of the body, the importance of beauty, of adornment, the importance of presenting oneself correctly dressed in public, and the importance of a regal bearing. Isabel, unlike other Castilian royal infantas and infantes, had enjoyed in this atmosphere of Madrigal and Arévalo, surrounded by her grandmother, her mother and other ladies, a greater stability and family intimacy; she had also enjoyed a great attention and care of personal relationships and a long stay in a physical space, a “palace”, built with a very human measure, very far from what would then be the palace of El Escorial or other big palaces, perhaps less apt for bringing up the royal princesses and princes.

Isabel thought of and/or tried to carry out a different politics in some matters to that of the King Fernando II of Aragon, in spite of the fact that some historians find it difficult to perceive or cover the difference on tracing a general profile of the reign. The politics thought of and traced by Isabel analysed from up close was different. As the woman that she was, she interested herself much more in relationships. She devoted an important part of her time and her presence in the government of Castile to drawing a complex world of relationships that allowed her in many cases to unblock important matters of state. She made relationships with some important women and some others who were not so important, and some of them she made out of necessity, the necessity of government, of her House and the kingdom, but many others she made out of the pleasure of being in relationship with another woman. With her old maid Beatriz of Bobadilla and with her new maid – now queen – Juana de Mendoza; with both it seems that the queen had great intimacy and a relationship of trust, which allowed them to move with great freedom within the relationships in the Castilian court of the time.

We perceive this close relationship for example in the promise that around 1466 Beatriz de Bobadilla makes to the then princess Isabel, when Enrique IV tries and wants to oblige her to marry the old but extremely rich man, the convert, Pedro Girón, although the king said that he loved his sister Isabel greatly.

Isabel’s close relationship with her maids and other ladies of the Court and the Castilian nobility or not, provided in many cases the request for mediation for various matters, whether or not they were to do with the governing of the kingdom. Thus, Beatriz de Bobadilla, already countess of Moya, would mediate with her husband Andrés Cabrera, and the latter would have an important role in the adhesion of the city of Segovia to the young princes in 1473.

Another clear example would be the mediation of the queen herself, Isabel, at the request of the Portuguese Infanta, Beatriz. Both met and began conversations in March 1479, at the border, in the town of Alcántara, in order to organise and establish definitive peace between Castile and Portugal, after long years of enmity due to the territorial appetites of the Portuguese monarchy, taking advantage, first, of the moments of weakness brought about by the fights amongst the factions of the future Isabel I and her niece Juana, la Beltraneja; and taking advantage of, later, and supporting the intentions of Juana, la Beltraneja, that allowed her to hide from Alfonso of Portugal her attempts to conquer Castilian lands. Two women, Isabel I of Castile and the Infanta de Portugal, Beatriz, mediated in a conflict that had almost become interminable, and it is sure that they agreed on a politics of union between both families that would be materialised years later, and that would serve to placate the warring desires of the noblemen and knights of both kingdoms. The Castilian queen could, for sure, due to her position and situation not accept the mediation, but Isabel valued too greatly the relationship between women to reject the offer, and besides she would surely feel close to a Portuguese woman; her mother was a Portuguese woman who lived until her death, in Arévalo, in Castilian lands. Isabel knew that she could get on with a Portuguese woman. Both knew that their mediation would be more positive and effective in order to achieve the long awaited peace, than that of some of their advisors, with those of Alfonso of Portugal. Besides, if the noblemen of both kingdoms and Fernando de Aragon and his, accepted the mediation of both women, it is because they knew that it would bear fruit and bring peace.

Isabel took into account to a great degree how people relate to each other and she also took into account, as has been also said by the US ex-Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, a woman who has been in second person, male, politics, but in a place of great relevance in international politics; she has pointed to some clear differences of being a woman at the moment of action even in the politics of the second person. Albright points out that as a woman, and she has perceived it in some other women – and we have seen it in analysing some points of the life trajectory of Isabel I of Castile , have, or can have, a greater capacity of peripheral vision; they are or we are capable of taking into account, of covering aspects that are not present at all moments in front of us and to develop or try to develop some kind of consensus.

Isabel, although giving authority to her husband Fernando as king, also recognises authority in other women. She recognises it in La Latina, Beatriz Galindo, her teacher in Latin and she trusts her son and daughters to her so that she can teach them this discipline, and she herself becomes a student, and she also recognises authority in women such as Beatriz de Bobadilla, Juana de Mendoza, etc.; their knowledge as mediators, and their knowledge as organisers as maids and as those entrusted with concrete matters, such as Juana de Mendoza as the person in charge of the campaign hospital founded by the queen. The queen would try to maintain the direction that she had traced on reaching the throne and others that she traced as she lived, the directions that she chose, and those that are suggested and pointed out to her by the king, her husband, advisors, and those devoted to the tasks of ruling correctly her House and her Kingdom. There would be at least two moments in her life when the queen would be guided by the politics of desire; she would put herself at the centre, her life would order the world, “bring the world to the world”. There are at least two great desires that the future queen Isabel I wishes for and would carry out: the first, rather, both, are two desires of love, love, or the search for love, guided her in the choice of her future husband, and second, the other desire, is the love of knowledge, of learning, of innate curiosity. This second desire she would develop in part, already adult, as queen. She would seek out the Latin teacher Beatriz Galindo, known as La Latina, to teach the prince and the princesses, but also to teach her Latin well, as her father, the king Juan, knew it. Isabel wanted to know Latin well in order to thus know more and better the literature and treatises that she liked. The education of Isabel was, initially, in the charge of the observing Franciscans of the convent situated outside the walls of the town of Arévalo. In this convent there were amongst others Alfonso de Madrigal el Tostado, a learned man and theologian, and also Lope de Barrientos, bishop of Cuenca – confessor of Juan II -, to whom the old king would charge with the supervision of the education of the future Isabel I and the Infante Alfonso.

We know that Isabel received the usual “training in the domestic arts” reserved for women, but, as we have already commented she was not taught to read or write well; not in Latin nor in Castilian, her maternal tongue. Isabel would learn to read and to write well in both languages when she was an adult and reigning. Her maternal tongue, Castilian, would be the language that she would hear from her wet nurse, her governess and other Castilian ladies of the court; but she would also hear, already, from the maternal womb, Portuguese; it was her mother’s language, one of the languages spoken in her home. It appears that neither did they teach the little girl to read and write in this language. If we know that in Castilian – and maybe also sometimes in Portuguese – she would hear the numerous legends, stories and tales of the life of knights fighting against the infidel, numerous stories of the lives of women and men saints. Lives of women saints that would have to act as a model of perfection to any little girl, how much more to a princess. But it is possible that Isabel, a little girl and later a very active adolescent and of lively character would learn straight away from these lives the pleasure of action, more than of passivity, and would learn to admire those women who managed to control their will and be disciplined. She would also see it in the story of a life that was beginning to circulate in peninsular lands, both Castilian and Catalan- Aragonese: the life of Juana de Arco. The life of Juana, known of in Castle as la poucella (the maiden) was widely accepted in Castile. In the area of the court we know that Juan II himself admired her greatly, and also other courtesans. Amongst them we should mention Chacón, the author of the chronicle of don Álvaro de Luna, Álvaro de Luna himself, and one of the esteemed advisors of the king, his secretary Rodrigo Sánchez de Arévalo. Sánchez de Arévalo had been an ambassador at the papal court and in the French court, and had known directly the facts about Juana de Arco. We do not know with certainty is amongst the advisors of Juan II who intervened in the education of the Infanta and the Infante, would be the cited cleric Rodrigo Sánchez de Arévalo – diplomat and writer – and decidedly a supporter – due to his own personal experience – of giving Isabel a formal education, but who might have also influenced Isabel in her great admiration of Juana de Arco. Juana de Arco was for Isabel a model of a life of action, one of the longings of the princess. Whatever the formal education that Isabel might receive, almost nonexistent at least in her childhood, she was a lucky child as they did not separate her from the environment of her grandmother, her mother and the other women that made up the court at Arévalo; they did not separate her from the diverse and rich realities of life made possible for her on living in a town that was small, but the meeting point of important business roads. Varied and rich life realities that she no doubt picked up on rapidly, because she was – according to a good number of chronicles and historiography – an intelligent child, curious, observant, who must have appreciated how much she learned seeing the world from the place of her childhood – Arévalo – surrounded by many women and some men who would give her attention and affection. Isabel would begin to discover from this inland Castilian town, how the Church and religions, with its festivities, its ceremonies and its ritual, marked the days, the hours, the events and cycles of the year. Religion marked and influenced the behaviour; it would even affect the emotions, and tried to explain human relationships, the natural world and the universe. Isabel lived in the heart of a pious family, in contact with devout monks, used to the devotion marked by the churches of Arévalo, whose bells ruled over its days. The parish church of the town, as was traditional in many other places in the Crown of Castile – had laid its foundations on the remains of the old mosque – it was dedicated to san Miguel, the militant archangel. Another of the churches of Arévalo was dedicated to santa María de la Encarnación, because the doctrine of the Incarnation was rejected by the Moslems. San Miguel and Santa María de la Encarnación would mean in Arévalo as in other Castilian cities, towns and villages, the Christian affirmation against the “infidels”. Isabel, as her will shows would have these devotions amongst her favourite, and would probably influence - we do not know to what extent – that the mosques of Granada would have those names.

Isabel, already queen, noticed her deficiency, and worried about not having received the instruction marked out by the mirrors of princes and, as we have pointed out, some of her father’s and subsequently, her, advisors. She should have learned the arts, which completed the education of someone high born like her, because that would rebound on the good royal image, and also the Latin necessary to understand better the good writings on laws and the arts of government and of war, the Latin that Juan II – her father – had learned. To give an example, the queen learned arts and Latin. Isabel was a great reader and promoted the relatively new art of printing.

Isabel I ruled as a woman, she took care of her House and the Kingdom in a different way – to how her brother king Enrique did it. Already queen, and therefore the head of the royal family, she had to arrange the marriages of the Infante and her daughters the princesses. As a mother, she tried, as well as arranging state marriages, for these commitments to take into account, in some way, a minimum approval of her daughters. Thus do we know what happened in the case of her firstborn, Isabel, on becoming a widow. Isabel I had promised the Infanta not to throw her into a new marriage, and to allow her to lead a life of retirement and an intense spiritual life in the convent or house of her choice. Isabel would intercede before her daughter on seeing the arguments that the Portuguese legate presents: he resorts to the qualities of the princess, the affection that the Portuguese profess her and the great moral support that this would mean for the people of this kingdom and, besides, he adds that the princess is of the age and disposition to provide the inheritor that the Portuguese throne needs. Isabel I in spite of having given her word as mother and queen, and in spite of knowing that the princess was given over to a concrete spiritual project; she was linked to the beata form of life – an experience that gave a profound spiritual dimension to the life of some women who did not want to profess in a monastic order, to those that wanted to maintain themselves in some way in the world of lay people, - reaches an understanding and pact with her daughter. The queen knew that the princess Isabel had a strong and decided will, and only her intervention as a mother and as queen would make her change her path of life. The queen, evidently, did not present, as some of her advisors did, merely political reasons, but rather religious reasons, the princess could with her position – again as queen of Portugal, influence decisively so that there be adopted a politics of religious unity like that of Castile, at a moment when the boats were ready to leave for the coasts of India, and when Portugal was being the refuge of numerous converts fleeing the Inquisition. These and other reasons of political/religious and family nature – and one of these would be, undoubtedly, the fact of helping her mother as queen – convinced the young princess Isabel who agreed to marry Manuel de Portugal and give him the heirs that he hoped for.

The will and other documentation allow us also to appreciate the close and special relationship that queen Isabel would establish with her daughter Juana. A relationship that was probably mediated by the mother herself of Queen Isabel I, Isabel of Portugal; it seems that the queen identified her mother’s ways of doing in the behaviour, sometime difficult to interpret, of her daughter Juana. She remembered thus her yearned after years in madrigal and in Arévalo, the period that I call of the “amongst women” space were the fifteen sixties, Isabel I was then eleven years old. Again, some years later she re-found this space; at sixteen she met her brother, Alfonso, again, to whom she was very close since she was a little girl, and with her mother in Arévalo, her ladies, maidens, maids and servants. In the warmth of what she considers her home, she would organise the festivities for the eleventh birthday of the king-child Alfonso in Arévalo, free of the scrutinising gaze of the court of Enrique IV. In this town she once again felt life close and organises the birthday party of her little brother, the Infante, Alfonso. At the party there is a poetic representation of greatly coloured fancy dress, what is called a momo. Isabel personally asked for the text from Gómez Manrique, one of the great poets of the time, who composed a text that has been conserved.

Gómez Manrique, as well as a poet, was a man of trust for the king and queen, and he is also a good eyewitness of the Castile of his time, and he had the role of chief magistrate of Toledo. His book Regimento de príncipes, published in 1482, was dedicated to Isabel and Fernando. In his treatise he makes numerous recommendations for good government, amongst others that it is necessary to punish less… and … reduce the outbursts of cruelty of greed in the practice of government. Very interesting are some of the recommendations that he makes to the queen, Isabel; the poet points out that she should place the tasks of government before her pious practices, prayers and bodily sacrifices and mortifications. The devotion of Isabel to the government of her House and Castile, and the organisation of the new conquered territories, is unquestionable, but as well, Gómez Manrique draws her as a sovereign with a deep concern for her spiritual and religious life, a concern that we know she transmits to her daughters. A concern that is perceived, clearly, in her will, the moment at which she has to prepare her soul to be received in Paradise. The concern for the spiritual life was possibly transmitted by some generations of women of the royal family. Many Castilian infantas went into convents or spent long periods of time in them; a clear example is the sister of Isabel, Catalina, who was in a convent in Madrigal, and the firstborn daughter of Isabel I, the Infanta Isabel spent long periods in a beaterio in Madrigal.

But Isabel was not only a woman concerned with the spiritual life, she was also, according to the sources and historiography, a woman who liked parties and shows. If as we have mentioned the birthday of her little brother Alfonso offered her, the then princess, the chance to organise a theatre party- representation, this was not the only occasion on which we see her, be it as a princess or later as queen giving or participating in festivities. As queen she took care of, when the occasion required, brilliant stage shows that underlined the importance of her role as sovereign, and the importance of the monarchy. Isabel seemed to know how to use very well and knew the effects of propaganda. The event that I pick up on now shows this. The 3rd April, 1475, she organised in Valladolid a great tournament in which she managed to bring together the most important part of the Castilian nobility, who would compete in front of a great number of people of the Castilian town. The turn out, and the tournament itself, were brilliant and standing out in the combat were the Duque de Alba and the King Fernando.

The queen appeared surrounded by an entourage of fourteen ladies and arrived on the stage mounted on a white mare, which wore an adornment made completely out of silver and with golden flowers, with a brocade dress and a crown. Isabel was then twenty four years old, and the chroniclers describe her as a beautiful woman, especially Hernando el Pulgar, and in some of the paintings that show her, we see that she was a woman with beautiful very blonde hair and blue eyes. We can imagine that the seduction exercised by the queen at this event and in other moments must have really been important; what is more, she knew very well how queens, princesses, princes and the symbols of position and power were valued; she rapidly understood the power and authority implicit in a show of splendour.

She understood the weight of colour, of the visual in the society and culture of her time. She shows it on many occasions, for example, in Alcalá, when the spring was almost over and the summer of 1472 was coming, during one of the visits of some ambassadors from Burgundy. Isabel received the ambassadors dressed up in velvets, satins and jewels. And in the audience after that she appeared dressed, still, with greater elegance and exquisiteness, showing off her big ruby necklace, surrounded by ladies and courtesans. She had the representatives from Burgundy splendidly entertained, there were dances and, as was custom – when Fernando was absent -, the queen only danced with her ladies. The visit of the ambassadors was prolonged and that allowed the visitors to appreciate the magnificent dresses and capes of the queen. In a bull fight offered to the visitors, the queen presented herself in a crimson suit, the skirt of which was adorned with gold bands, and a cape of pleated satin, and with a gold necklace and a large crown circled by another incrusted with jewels. The harness of her horse was of gilded silver; the Burgundy people were strongly impressed, Isabel, queen of Castile, was a great lady.

To finish we could say that one of the reasons that guided the heart and mind of Isabel I in the last years of her reign, already quite ill, and in the last days of her life, as her will shows, is the love and concern for her daughter, Queen Juana I. Isabel worries, suffers and takes care of, in the days close to her death, and wants to trace some lines of action, with the disposition of her will, that can establish clearly the rights of Juana and her husband, Felipe el Hermoso. Isabel continued to try to understand the reasons or non-reasons that moved the behaviour of her daughter, and wanted to help her and mediate between her and the environment, on occasion frankly hostile, that surrounded the princess. An environment almost without women and men of her trust who might help her and advise her in the difficult decisions that she had to take on a daily basis as the inheritor of the throne of Castile and as princess consort of the sovereign of the Low Countries, Felipe el Hermoso. Juana, as Bethany Aram points out, did not have in the full sense of the word a House of her own, or rather, she was not allowed nor would be allowed to have a body of ladies and maids and servants and also of women and men advisors, counsellors and state servants who could help her in her House, appointed by her and of her exclusive trust. It is probable that Juana ended up developing some kind of almost pathological behaviour brought on in part by the permanent intrigue of those that surrounded her. Her father, Fernando, acted, on many occasions, out of what were for him unquestionable state reasons and out of his personal interests, and her husband, Felipe, too. Juana could only count on, while she was alive, her mother, who acted as a stay and support, either directly or through her women and men advisors.

The will of Isabel I explains between the lines, through a permanent reiteration of the care and attention that the queen puts on the parts that affect her daughter. Isabel had mediated between the king, Fernando, and Juana, and she continued to do so in her will. She asks and commands her daughter to lean on the political experience of her father and to accept the decisions that he might take, insisting greatly on the respect and love that she had for him throughout her life, so that it might serve the princess Juana.

Gómez Manrique además de poeta, es un hombre de confianza de los Reyes, y es también un buen testigo de la Castilla de su tiempo, y desempeñó el cargo de corregidor de Toledo. Su libro Regimiento de príncipes, publicado en 1482, se lo dedica a Isabel y Fernando. Hace en su tratado numerosas recomendaciones para el buen gobierno, entre otras la de que es necesario castigar menos… y … reducir los brotes de crueldad o de avaricia en la práctica de gobierno. Muy interesantes son algunas de las recomendaciones que le hace a la reina, Isabel, el poeta señala que ésta debe anteponer las tareas de gobierno a las prácticas piadosas, a las oraciones y los sacrificios y mortificaciones en su cuerpo. La dedicación de Isabel al gobierno de su Casa y de Castilla, y a la organización de los nuevos territorios conquistados es incuestionable, pero además, Gómez Manrique la dibuja como una soberana con una honda preocupación por su vida espiritual y religiosa, preocupación que sabemos que transmite a sus hijas. Preocupación que se percibe, claramente, en su testamento, el momento en el que ha de preparar su alma para que sea recibida en el Paraíso. La preocupación por la vida espiritual posiblemente era transmitida por algunas generaciones de mujeres de la familia real. Muchas infantas castellanas ingresaron en conventos o pasaron largas temporadas en ellos, un claro ejemplo es la hermana de Isabel, Catalina que estuvo en un convento en Madrigal, y la hija primogénita de Isabel I, la infanta Isabel pasó largas temporadas en un beaterio en Madrigal.

It would be interesting for the students to evaluate and compare the will of Isabel I of Castile with that of her husband Fernando II of Aragon. They will be able to appreciate how behind a diplomatic form and a stereotyped language sexual difference in history can be perceived, as there can also be found the substantial differences between being a woman and being a man at the close of the Middle ages. They will see how the will of Isabel is woven to a great extent around the mother-daughter relationship. The will allows us to assess that what is most important is her relationship as a mother, as queen and as mother, with her daughter Juana. As a mother because on no few occasions do they enter into conflict with their ways of doing things, and as queen because she knows that the actions of Juan are not understood – on occasion by she herself – but above all by the king Fernando, and by other women and men who carry great weight in the decisions that fall to the government of the women and men, not only the Castilian ones but also those of the new discovered lands, and that puts Juana I in danger as a queen and the rule and future of the monarchy in Castile. They will see how Isabel puts herself on the line as a woman and enters into relationship with an appreciable number of women and men in the exercise of the power of government and in the exercise of authority, and all of this she does in the maternal tongue.