Irmandiño revolts

In addition, Galicia was isolated from the rest of the kingdom due to its mountainous territory and geographical location, a situation which the Galician nobility reinforced politically.

These lords—the Osorios in Monforte de Lemos and Sarria, the Andrade in Pontedeume, and the Moscosos in Vimianzo, among others—held excessive power, with which they abused the general rural population.

Although ultimately unsuccessful, the rebels lay the groundwork for the incorporation of Galicia into the direct administrative control of the Spanish crown, which the Catholic Monarchs were beginning to establish.

The Great Irmandiño War (Galician: Gran Guerra Irmandiña) broke out in 1467, but Alonso de Lanzós had begun forming a "general brotherhood" (irmandade xeral) a few years earlier with the backing of Henry IV and various municipal councils of A Coruña, Betanzos, Ferrol, and Lugo.

Several social classes participated in the organization and direction of the rebellion: peasants, city dwellers, the lesser nobility, and even some members of the clergy (some in the church hierarchy financially supported the Irmandiños).

The presence of an "avenging and anti-lord mentality" in medieval Galicia, which portrayed the great lords as "evildoers," made the Irmandiño Wars possible.

They appointed a governor-captain general and created an audiencia for the Kingdom of Galicia that took over the dispensation of justice from local lords and placed it under the auspices of the Crown.