ABSTRACT
T HE political status of no European country changed during our period so much as that o f Spain. In 1878, apart from the little Pyrenean kingdom of Navarre, the Iberian peninsula was divided between the Christian states of Castile, Aragon, and Portugal, and the Moorish kingdom of Granada, just as it had been since the middle of the thirteenth century. And well-nigh another hundred years elapsed before there was any modification of that arrangement. Meanwhile, the four kingdoms had exerted even less influence on Europe at large than they had usually done in earlier medieval times. Castile had been generally sunk in disorder, Portugal had turned her mind to maritime exploration, and Aragon, though her doings abroad were destined to have momentous consequences, had hardly increased her international prestige or her intrinsic strength. As for Granada, it was still there, a little smaller, but only very little. And then, in the space of a few years, all was altered. Instead of four kingdoms there were now two, both Christian, and one of them a great European power. Each of them, furthermore, had an overseas Empire, not wholly new, but with prospects that had just become dazzling in their magnificence. The sordid history of the century which preceded the great change may not be ignored, but little profit is to be gained by lingering over it.
