FERDINANDO III, the Saint, king of CASTILE and LEÓN. — Born in 1199, son of Alfonso IX of León and Berenguela of Castile, king of Castile from 1217 and of León from 1330, he died at Seville on 30 May 1252. His military successes reduced Arab rule in Spain to the Kingdom of Granada. F. extended the borders of Castile southward from the Sierra Morena
to the sea, along the Murcia-Cartagena line in the east and Huelva-Cádiz in the west. The most important conquest was Seville (1248), its resistance having been overcome by the war fleet under the command of Bonifaz, the first admiral of Castile.
In international politics, F. was the first to perceive Spain’s geopolitical complement in Morocco, whose conquest he was preparing when he died; he wished to annex Navarre to Castile and claimed the duchy of Swabia for his first wife, Beatrice. Domestically, the most important acts of his policy were the definitive union of the Kingdoms of León and Castile, the centralization of the administration, the plan to create a code for the entire kingdom, carried out at his behest by his son Alfonso X the Wise, and the making of Castilian the official language. He proved tolerant toward the Jews and the subjected Arabs, granting them, as at Murcia in 1243, partial autonomy. He had the laws of his time applied to heretics. He favored the restoration of the dioceses of Baeza, later transferred to Jean, Córdoba, Cartagena, Murcia, and Seville; he endowed churches; he protected the religious Orders, especially the Dominicans and Franciscans. The Roman Curia supported F. in the struggle for possession of Castile and León and against the Arabs. With him began the “right of patronage.” F. favored the Universities of Palencia and Salamanca and the General Studium of Valladolid; he began the cathedrals of Burgos (1221–22) and Toledo (1227). He was deeply religious and had a special devotion to the Madonna. Canonized by Clement X on 4 February 1671.
The Friars Minor count him among the tertiaries.