The Reasons Of Medieval Spain To Be Unsuccessful Empire

Existence of the empire: 1469

1480: The start of the Inquisition

1492: Decree of the conversion of Jews

1502: Muslims ordered to convert to Catholicism

1580: Spain conquered kingdom of Portugal

Fall: By 1640 Spain was on the brink of collapse.

Medieval Spain is an empire that lacked tolerance, power, and understanding for their civilization. Their brutality and upbringing of the empire caused them to go nowhere as they ruled for a short period of time due to the lack of efficient qualities needed to sustain a powerful empire. Amy Chua may have included this empire to give an example of a civilization that did not show any qualities that deemed acceptable for an empire to succeed.

This empire represented intolerance and injustice as people were treated unfairly based on their religion and were not accepted. The empire was unsuccessful because of the conversions they forced on their people and the mass destruction that occurred. Muslims, Jews, converted Muslims, and Jesuits were shown injustice and intolerance. The only successful things they gained were expansion of territory, imperial rise, money, and manpower. Spain’s attacks and forced conversions caused them to depend on foreign bankers which soon became foreign debt. There was lack of technological advances, industrlization, and entrapaunship. The international trade and expansion in territory was the “glue” that mainly kept the empire for as long as it could.

The pivotal point of failure was the intolerance the Spanish had which included the Inquisition, the removal of people, the debt the empire faced, and the abuse towards religions other than Christianity caused a waste of resources. The people of this empire mainly included Jews, Muslims, and Christians. Many jobs were handled, such as: cobblers, grocers, butchers, blacksmiths, chemists, astronomers, philosophers, doctors, tax collectors and merchants. There were many more roles that were part of this civilization that maintained it for a short period of time. The different religions did leave a division as some Jewish and Muslim religions were looked down upon and forced to be converted. Except, the area covered in this empire were the Spaniards.

In my opinion I believe this empire could not exist today due to its intolerance and expulsions. Diversity is a major part on the 21st century and the restraint from believing in a religion is not accepted as people now have different views on the rights of their beliefs and this could lead to rebellion.