[Sidenote: April, 1521] A few cities held out longer, Toledo last of all; but one by one they yielded, partly to force, partly to the wise policy of concession and redress followed by the government.
In our own time Barcelona and the east coast of Spain has been the hotbed of revolutionary democracy and radical socialism.

Even so, the rising in Aragon known as the Hermandad (Brotherhood) [Sidenote: The Hermandad] contemporary with that in Castile, not only began earlier and lasted longer, but was of a far more radical stamp.

Here were no nobles airing their slights at the hands of a foreign king, but here the trade-gilds rose in the name of equality against monarch and nobles alike.

Two special causes fanned the fury of the populace to a white heat.

The first was the decline of the Mediterranean trade due to the rise of the Atlantic commerce; the other was the racial element.
Valencia was largely inhabited by Moors, the most industrious, sober and thrifty, and consequently the most profitable of Spanish laborers.
The race hatred so deeply rooted in human nature added to the ferocity of the class conflict.