AHC: Protestant Spain

I think the forces unleashed by the Reconquista after it was completed are necessarily highly orthodox Roman Catholic. If you change the Reconquista you might change what forces are unleashed but if you delay the Reconquista then it's possible it never finishes because of the Ottomans helping Granada or no Isabella. If you make an earlier Reconquista completion you might change the forces unleashed but then it would be too early for a Reformation.

However the forces unleashed by the Conquista of the New World might take things in a different direction and I'm interested in hearing more of your thoughts on that.

Well, Conquista was largely perceived as a prosecution of the Reconquista. Many historians underline that Columbus sailed the same very year Granada was taken.
The Discovery caused a great theological debate in Spain. many clerics saw the New World as a literally New World, where a new and purer Christianity could be built upon the good and innocent, even if pagan, Natives.
Vasco de Quiroga was the most important among them, but many Franciscan missionaries took a similar path in Mexico and later on elsewhere.
All them had been strongly influences by Erasmus, More and Vives and sought for a reformed Church, but their idea of reformation was totally different from Luther's upon the two key ponts of free will and unity with Rome.
Quiroga used More's Utopia as a framework for the native communities he was sponsoring in Michoacán; his copy of More's work had been given to him by Zumárraga, the archbishop of Mexico.
Those clerics had support in the intellectual circles of the university of Salamanca, too (de Vitoria and the like).
 
The Spanish Inquisition.

IIRC, the Spanish Inquisition was self-financing: It seized and kept heretics' property, making for a self-sustaining business, hooked on growth...

If they were financed otherwise, so they were less blatantly avaricious, there might not be such rabid enthusiasm...
 
IIRC, the Spanish Inquisition was self-financing: It seized and kept heretics' property, making for a self-sustaining business, hooked on growth...

If they were financed otherwise, so they were less blatantly avaricious, there might not be such rabid enthusiasm...

Good point. It was also more a State thing than a Church's one. I mean, it was meant to ensure the ideological (and racial, to some extent) compactness of the "nation" (i think there were separate inquisitions for Castile and Aragon under Charles V though) rather than religious orthodoxy. But of course the two happened to be same.
Interestingly enough, the Spanish crown never managed to have Spanish Inquisition enter its Italian possessions. Naples was a Papal fief and the Pope was careful about his rights over there.
An earlier and more bitter jurisdictional conflict between Roman and Spanish Inquisitions might push the Spanish Crown to set up an autonomous Church, with a catholic theology. This, in turn, could cause opposition among the "progressive" religious orders, especially in America.
Add that many clerics in the orders had Morisco or Marrano ancestry.
It could turn out a really interesting mess. :)
 
I think that a at least tolerant to Protestaism Spain is quite doable. there is nothing in the genetic code of spaniards to make us catholics. On the other hand

Falecius has put it very well regarding the erasmist circles. I would add Francisco Suárez to the aforementioned names, since his work reflects perfectly the hispanic legal conception of sovereignity and power, and he is one of the last links with a certain tradition marginalized latter by the Habsburgs, alive in ulterior spanish internal conflicts and perfectly incarnated by, for example, the castilian Comuneros. this tradition can be tracked to Alfonso X's Partidas and the Catalan Constitucions as recorded texts, but probabbly earlier as consuetudinary rules. And, as a counterpart of some things said here, they are also a product of the "Reconquista".

That said, I believe that the way to make the OP¡s proposal possible has to be before Trent and the counter-Reformation. Besides the aforementioned erasmists circles, we have lutheran circels in some cities, with Valladolid being the mina center. Also, reading the repports made by the castilians in charles V court present in the Diet of Worms, they had generally a positive preception of Luther's proposals, so Lutheranism, at least in its early stages, didn't sound so allien for some castilian mentalities, I think we can assume that in the countryside it would have been different to the cities, since popular (rural) religiosity shows (even nowadays) a lot of pre-christian traits which has been incorporated by catholicism. but well, this problem wasn't at all unheard in other european countries, and perhaps the growth of the modern state has also a part of urban victory over the countryside.

In my humble opinion, perhaps the comunero revolt could be a good POD to make this possible. The urban and intelectual elites which supported initally the movement had among there lutheran and erasmist memebers. some authors some years latters even found similarities between the two movements. Don't get me wrong, the revolt was not protestant by any stretch, but the social actors involved probably would have shown a different religious attitude and doubtless had "heterodox" members amongst their ranks. Also, if we force the things, IMO the most likely POD to make a succesfyul comuero revolt is having the Queen Joanna openly supporting the revolt. This could mean that the Mendoza familly, related with María Pacheco, Juan Padilla wife, heroine of Toledo's resistance, could change of side. After all they were seen souspiciously in OTL by the imperials. one of the Mendoza's strongholds was Granada, so they would have raised a morisco army in Andalusía (they did it in OTL to supress the comunero uprising in Jaen). Thus, the religious scheme conceived by the Catholic Kings would be challenged by the new realities, in the case of comunero victory, considering the supports the queen Joanna would have in TTL, and that the castilian cities would gain in power, thus prefiguring a more protestant friendly scenray. And don't forget, Joanna had been taught by Luis Vives himself and probably he was intelectually close to Erasmism. Woman, intelligent, learned and politically dangerous...crazy for the time's standards and some historians.
 
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