The Legacy

In human terms, it's beyond me to sort out the legacy of Columbus and the meeting of two diverse cultures. The net good was, of course, an expanded mission territory, with the host of negative points teeming and jostling for attention. My only caveat is always to remember that we cannot measure the past using a contemporary yardstick.

Stepping back to ponder the sponsors of Columbus' voyages (four of them, I believe) we have King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain. Again, a mixed bag of all sorts of actions and motives that need to be read contextually. I simply want to focus on Isabella as mother, and how she ended her days after the death of her husband. [According to Warren Carroll]:

In her last years Isabel had heavy crosses to bear. Her only son, Crown Prince John, died tragically on his honeymoon. Her oldest daughter died in childbirth, and her baby son then born, died just two years later. Isabel's second daughter lost her mind. Her youngest daughter, Catherine, married Crown Prince Arthur of England, who also died a few months after their marriage, leaving Catherine later to marry his brother, Henry VIII - who, long afterward, was to break from the Catholic Church in order to put her away. Isabel bore everything in union with the suffering Christ. During her last illness she begged for her sorrowing people not to pray for a restoration of health to her body, but for the salvation of her soul. She asked to be buried beside her husband when he died, so "that the union we have enjoyed in this world, and through the mercy of God may hope again for our souls in heaven, may be represented by our bodies in the earth."

I doubt if she can be canonised because of the stark differences in the way she ruled compared to the way the modern world sees such things, but she was a woman who knew suffering. Imagine! Her family, her life's blood and hope for future generations crushed -- who could bear it? We can be assured that she died purged of much, since her faith was steadfast unto death. Crown or no crown, empire or no empire, she witnessed the demise of her children, which is universally crushing, regardless of one's status or worldly success. In that we can consider her a true sister in faith. Whether her cause for canonisation proceeds at all is irrelevant -- she hears now, and understands.

Comments

[elena maria vidal]

I would recommend to everyone William Thomas Walsh's biography of Queen Isabella. It leaves one without a doubt that she was a great saint as well as a great ruler and loving wife and mother.

[MelanieB]

Genevieve,

Thanks for sharing this. Canonized or not, I consider Queen Isabella one of my daughter's patrons. I'm thinking at some point I might like to put together a little book for her with inspiring stories of the heroic women who have born that name. This will make a lovely addition.

[Abigail]

When you speak of "the stark differences in the way she ruled compared to the way the modern world sees such things," you make it sound as if her actions were not a matter of objective right and wrong, but of mere cultural differences. But when she expelled the Jews from Spain, she condemned the innocent to death and slavery. She may be inculpable for her actions, but they were still objectively morally wrong: not just compared to the way we moderns see things, but compared to the way God sees things--in other words, compared to the way things really are.

As for Walsh's biography, it is blatantly antisemitic. For instance, I remember that the author describes the city of Seville as "Jew-ridden."

[elena maria vidal]

Walsh's biography is dated in many respects but I would not go so far as to call it antisemitic. I am descended from the Spanish Jewish family of the Vidals, who were conversos. I guess if someone wants to be offended, they could find plenty to be mad about in Walsh's book. However, as a biography it still contains a great deal of valuable information about Isabella and her family. It also explores why she made the regrettable decision to expel the Jews and speaks of the terrible sufferings incurred by the Spanish Jews who left.

[dymphna]

Queen Isabella is one of my favorite people. I wish she could be cannonized but it will never happen.