While interfering very little with the forms of representative government in their respective kingdoms, Ferdinand and Isabella worked ever, in fact, toward uniformity and absolutism. They sought to ingratiate themselves with the middle class, to strip the nobility of its political influence, and to enlist the church in their service. The Cortes were more or less regularly convened, but their functions were almost imperceptibly transferred to royal commissions and officers of state. Privileges granted to towns in earlier times were now gradually revoked. The king, by becoming the head of the ancient military orders which had borne prominent part in the struggle against the Mohammedans, easily gained control of considerable treasure and of an effective fighting force. The sovereigns prevailed upon the pope to transfer control of the Inquisition, the medieval ecclesiastical tribunal for the trial of heretics, to the crown, so that the harsh penalties which were to be inflicted for many years upon dissenters from orthodox Christianity were due not only to religious bigotry but likewise to the desire for political uniformity. In population and in domestic resources Spain was not so important as France, but the exploits of Ferdinand and Isabella, the great wealth which temporarily flowed to her from the colonies, the prestige which long attended her diplomacy and her armies, were to exalt the Spanish monarchy throughout the sixteenth century to a position quite out of keeping with her true importance. 2. THE OLD HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE [Sidenote: The Idea of an "Empire" Different in 1500 from that of a "National Monarchy"]