The Inquisition and the Habsburgs Define Spain's Golden Age
A global empire, an institution that policed belief, and a century in which Spanish became a great literary language
Quick facts
- Habsburg rule begins
- 1516, Charles V
- Inquisition established
- 1478
- Golden Age literary landmark
- Cervantes's Don Quixote (1605, 1615)
- Habsburg line ends
- 1700, death of Charles II
What happened
In 1516 the Spanish crown passed to the Habsburg dynasty, and Charles V inherited Spain along with a patchwork Habsburg empire spanning the Holy Roman Empire, the Netherlands, and territories across Europe, on top of the rapidly expanding Spanish possessions in the Americas that conquistadors were seizing from the Aztec and Inca empires. The Spanish Inquisition, established in 1478 to police religious orthodoxy, continued operating throughout this period alongside the Golden Age of Spanish literature and art, which produced Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quixote and painters including El Greco. Spain also expelled its Morisco population, Muslims who had converted to Christianity after 1492, in the early 17th century. Habsburg rule ended in 1700 when the last Habsburg king of Spain, Charles II, died without an heir, triggering the War of the Spanish Succession and a Bourbon takeover of the throne.
Why it matters
This period marks Spain's peak as a global power and its greatest cultural flowering, and simultaneously the era of its most severe internal religious persecution; the Inquisition's operation, the Morisco expulsion, and the conquest of the Americas are inseparable from the wealth and prestige Spain enjoyed at the time. The full, sourced story of the Habsburg era, the Inquisition, and Spain's American empire is told in the Spanish Empire timeline.
How we know
The Habsburg succession, the Inquisition's operations, the Morisco expulsion, and the end of the Habsburg line in 1700 are documented extensively in Spanish royal and church records of the period and in modern historical scholarship on early modern Spain.
Sources
- HISTORY (A&E Networks). Ferdinand of Aragon marries Isabella of Castile · Reputable sourcehistory.com · The domain "history.com" is on our Reputable source registry.
- World History Encyclopedia. Taifa · Reputable sourceworldhistory.org · The domain "worldhistory.org" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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Related timelines
- The Spanish Empire → · See the Spanish Empire timeline for the full, sourced account of Charles V's empire, the Inquisition, the conquest of the Aztec and Inca empires, and the end of Habsburg rule.