The Iberian Peninsula And Italy During The Early Middle Ages

The Iberian Peninsula and Italy are culturally and ethnically today not very similar to what they were during the early Middle Ages. For centuries, Iberia was under the control of Moors, a group Muslim people from North Africa. They had a drastically different culture compared to Germanic tribes that had controlled the peninsula for the few centuries prior. Unsurprisingly, they practiced Islam and created architecture like the Alhambra that was linked to it. Jews were also able to practice their religion within Moor controlled Iberia and some had seats in government. The Moors even had their own Golden Age where intellect flourished. However, as stated previously Germanic tribes, primarily the Visigoths ruled Iberia before the Moors conquered
During the early Middle Ages and up to and after the Reconquista, Italy was a random assortment of city-states. In the northern part of the Italian Peninsula, it was mainly maritime city-states that ruled trade in the sea. Furthermore, the southern part of the peninsulas was a grouping of city states that were known as the papal states because they under more control of the Pope compared to the north. Ultimately, both areas during the fourteenth and fifteenth century were thriving and ethnically diverse with native Italian peoples, Spanish people, Muslim people and Jews. Ethnic diversity in sixteenth and seventeenth century Iberia and Italy did not improve because Muslims and Jews left the Iberian Peninsula due to the inquisition put in place in Spain and Portugal and over course of both centuries the Jews were expelled from the Italian
Spanish unification with an underlying history of racism and anti-Semitism caused the population shift, and this lead to the Spanish inquisition and the expulsion of the Moriscos, which created even more homogeneity in Spain. Prior to the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella, medieval Spain was divided into two large Kingdoms, the Kingdom of Castile and the Kingdom of Aragon, and the marriage of the two royals unified The Spanish people together. However, the land controlled by the Kingdom of Spain was not even a hundred years removed from Moorish control. Furthermore, the Spanish people shared a relatively common language with different regional dialects, but each region was autonomous for a centuries. Isabel and Ferdinand realized all Spanish people were Catholic (as all Christians were during this period), so the best way to unify their people was through religion. The Spanish royals made a decree for the Muslims and Jews of Spain to leave or convert to Catholicism. Thus, causing the less diversity within the country. Additionally, the decree made by Ferdinand and Isabella had a degree of underlying racism due to a long lasting history of racism towards Moors and anti-Semitism. Racism towards Moors began when they invaded the Visgothic Kingdoms because the Catholic Kingdoms linked the invasions to the end