State formation in Europe

The fragility of feudal structures and the emergence of new social acts are common elements between distinct processes of modern state formation in Europe. The unification of these states took place in two main ways: war and marriage.
In this abstract, we will study the chronology of the facts in the origin of Portugal, Spain, England, and France.

The formation of the Iberian nations is related to the expulsion of the Moors (Arabs from North Africa) from European territory. The war waged between Christians and Muslims to take over the Iberian Peninsula, where Portugal and Spain are today, was known as the Reconquista War.
As the Christians won the battles, they formed kingdoms, pressuring the Arabs out of the Peninsula or submitting them to Catholicism and even enslaving them.
Among the kingdoms formed, the most prominent are Aragon, Castile, and Navarre. The first of these to gain independence was the then Condado Portucalense, in 1139, under King Afonso Henriques.
In 1383, a crisis of succession to the throne caused political instability in the region. Two years later, the Revolution of Avis broke out, opposing nobles who wished to remain united with the kingdom of Castile and those who desired independence.
The victory of the segment that wanted the formation of an independent state ended in the coronation of King João I of D. João I in Portugal, which was definitively consolidated as a country, putting aside the intentions of annexation.
The other kingdoms of the Peninsula were gradually incorporated.
The Spanish state was established, in 1492, with the marriage between King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castile and the reconquest of the last Muslim stronghold in Granada.

The uniﬁcation and establishment of the French national state originated in the Late Middle Ages when kings desaﬁed the power of the Church and began a process of political centralization. This is also linked to the Hundred Years' War (1337-1453).
The Hundred Years' War broke out after a crisis of succession to the throne in France and the refusal to accept an English dynasty seizing the throne.

The process of political centralization in England also began in the Middle Ages. After being defeated by the French, the English went through another war between civil groups, called the War of the Two Roses.
The conflict ended when Henry Tudor, a descendant of Lancaster and linked to York by marriage, ascended the throne in 1485, reconciling the interests of the opposing groups.
Henry VIII (1509-1547) proclaimed the Act of Supremacy in 1534, establishing the English sovereigns as the leaders of the Church in England - creating the Anglican Church.
With this act, he subjected the clergy to the king's power, breaking with papal orders from Rome and Catholicism. His daughter, Elizabeth I, continued this centralizing policy, establishing strict laws of subjection to the monarchs. Her government is characterized by both the total centralization of monarchical power and development in England.
However, the English political tradition, with its roots in the Magna Carta, signed by John Without Land in 1215, would come to establish limitations on monarchical power for the benefit of the bourgeoisie. The royal power would continue to exist but could not be absolute. The parliamentary monarchy, achieved with the bourgeois revolutions of the 17th century, remains the regime in England.