The Catholic Monarchs reigned in Castile from 1474 to 1504 and in Aragon from 1479 to 1516. In a period when the economy was based on agriculture sheep farming and the export of raw materials the currency was stabilised by increasing gold reserves.

The myriad of mints existing in Castile whose mintages eluded any control led to an inferior quality coin which very often did not contain its purported weight in metal. Several reforms attempted to mitigate the subsequent mistrust of the markets towards the Castilian currency, including a reform declaring illegal all mints other than the six officially recognised ones namely: Burgos, Coruña, Seville, Toledo, Segovia and Cuenca, with the incorporation in 1497 of another one in Granada.

The "Medina del Campo Decree", issued on 13 June 1497, fixed the characteristics that gold and silver coins minted in the Peninsula must necessarily observe as well as their designs and exchange rates with other European currencies, particularly in the area covered by the ducat, which after its creation in Venice had become the most commonly accepted coin for trade throughout the Mediterranean.

But the above-mentioned decree did not cover values higher than one real, therefore the date when 8-real coins started to be minted is unknown.

A consciousness of the grandeur of the long reign of the Catholic Monarchs penetrated so deeply in Castile that the following kings decided to carry on minting in Castile under their name. Thus, coins valued at multiple reals continued to be minted under the name of the Catholic Monarchs until 1566. Those inscriptions in turn eluded the thorny issue of having to decide whether the pieces were to be coined under the name of Joanna of Castile, of her son Charles or of both.

Obverse: Crowned quartered shield. Quartering of Castile-Leon (1st and 4th) and division of Aragon-Sicily (2nd and 3rd) with a pomegranate—the symbol of Granada—ente en-pointe flanked to left and right by the mark of the mint (S) and the value (VIII), everything inside a circle of dots broken by the crown. Around it, we can read the legend:

FERNANDUS ET ELISABET. D

Reverse: Yoke and a bundle of six arrows with the assayer’s mark (d) within the field and everything encircled by dots. Dotted . Around it the legend:

REX ET. REGINA. CASTELE. LEGIONI.