The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Volume I Part 22

59.--Ferreras, Hist. d'Espagne, tom. viii. p. 477.--Lebrija, Rerum Gestarum Decad., fol. 41, 42.--Gonzalo de Oviedo lavishes many encomiums on Cabrera, for "his generous qualities, his singular prudence in government, and his solicitude for his va.s.sals, whom he inspired with the deepest attachment." (Quincuagenas, MS., bat. 1, quinc. 1, dial. 23.) The best panegyric on his character, is the unshaken confidence, which his royal mistress reposed in him, to the day of her death.

[6] Zuniga, Annales de Sevilla, p. 381.--Pulgar, Reyes Catolicos, part. 2, cap. 65, 70, 71.--Bernaldez, Reyes Catolicos, MS., cap. 29.--Carbajal, a.n.a.les, MS., ano 77.--L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, fol. 162; who says, no less than 8,000 guilty fled from Seville and Cordova.

[7] Bernaldez, Reyes Catolicos, MS., cap. 29.-Zurita, a.n.a.les, tom. iv.

fol. 283.-Zuniga, Annales de Sevilla, p. 382.-Lebrija, Rerum Gestarum Decades, lib. 7.--L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, ubi supra.-Garibay, Compendio, lib. 18, cap. 11.

[8] Bernaldez, Reyes Catolicos, MS., cap. 30.--Pulgar, Reyes Catolicos, part. 2, cap. 78.

[9] "Era muy inclinada," says Pulgar, "a facer justicia, tanto que le era imputado seguir mas la via de rigor que de la piedad; y esto facia por remediar a la gran corrupcion de crimines que fallo en el Reyno quando subcedio en el." Reyes Catolicos, p. 37.

[10] Pulgar, Reyes Catolicos, part. 2, cap. 97, 98.--L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, fol. 162.

[11] Ordenancas Reales de Castilla, (Burgos, 1528,) lib. 2, t.i.t. 3, ley 31.

This const.i.tutional, though, as it would seem, impotent right of the n.o.bility, is noticed by Sempere. (Hist. des Cortes, pp. 123, 129.) It should not have escaped Marina.

[12] Lib. 2, t.i.t. 3, of the Ordenancas Reales is devoted to the royal council. The number of the members was limited to one prelate, as president, three knights, and eight or nine jurists. (Prologo.) The sessions were to be held every day, in the palace. (Leyes 1, 2.) They were instructed to refer to the other tribunals all matters not strictly coming within their own jurisdiction. (Ley 4.) Their acts, in all cases except those specially reserved, were to have the force of law without the royal signature. (Leyes 23, 24.) See also Los Doctores a.s.so y Manuel, Inst.i.tuciones del Derecho Civil de Castilla, (Madrid, 1792,) Introd. p.

111; and Santiago Agustin Riol, Informe, apud Semanario Erudito, (Madrid, 1788,) tom. iii. p. 114, who is mistaken in stating the number of jurists in the council, at this time, at sixteen; a change, which did not take place till Philip II.'s reign. (Recop. de las Leyes, lib. 2, t.i.t. 4, ley 1.)

Marina denies that the council could const.i.tutionally exercise any judicial authority, at least, in suits between private parties, and quotes a pa.s.sage from Pulgar, showing that its usurpations in this way were restrained by Ferdinand and Isabella. (Teoria, part. 2, cap. 29.) Powers of this nature, however, to a considerable extent, appear to have been conceded to it by more than one statute under this reign. See Recop. de las Leyes, (lib. 2, t.i.t. 4, leyes 20, 22, and t.i.t. 5, ley 12,) and the unqualified testimony of Riol, Informe, apud Semanario Erudito, ubi supra.

[13] Ordenancas Reales, lib. 2, t.i.t. 4.--Marina, Teoria de las Cortes, part. 2, cap. 25.

By one of the statutes, (ley 4,) the commission of the judges, which, before extended to life, or a long period, was abridged to one year. This important innovation was made at the earnest and repeated remonstrance of cortes, who traced the remissness and corruption, too frequent of late in the court, to the circ.u.mstance that its decisions were not liable to be reviewed during life. (Teoria, ubi supra.) The legislature probably mistook the true cause of the evil. Few will doubt, at any rate, that the remedy proposed must have been fraught with far greater.

[14] Ordenancas Reales, lib. 2, t.i.t. 1, 3, 4, 15, 16, 17, 19; lib. 3, t.i.t.

2.--Recop. de las Leyes, lib. 2, t.i.t. 4, 5, 16.--Pulgar, Reyes Catolicos, part. 2, cap. 94.

[15] Oviedo, Quincuagenas, MS.--By one of the statutes of the cortes of Toledo, in 1480, the king was required to take his seat in the council every Friday. (Ordenancas Reales, lib. 2, t.i.t. 3, ley 32.) It was not so new for the Castilians to have good laws, as for their monarchs to observe them.

[16] Sempere, Hist. des Cortes, p. 263.

[17] Pulgar, Reyes Catolicos, p. 167.--See the strong language, also, of Peter Martyr, another contemporary witness of the beneficial changes in the government. Opus Epistolarum, (Amstelodami, 1670,) ep. 31.

[18] Prieto y Sotelo, Historia del Derecho Real de Espana, (Madrid, 1738,) lib. 3, cap. 16-21.--Marina has made an elaborate commentary on Alfonso's celebrated code, in his Ensayo Historico-Critico sobre la Antigua Legislacion de Castilla, (Madrid, 1808,) pp. 269 et seq. The English reader will find a more succinct a.n.a.lysis in Dr. Dunham's History of Spain and Portugal, (London, 1832,) in Lardner's Cyclopaedia, vol. iv. pp. 121- 150.--The latter has given a more exact, and, at the same time, extended view of the early Castilian legislation, probably, than is to be found, in the same compa.s.s, in any of the Peninsular writers.

[19] Marina (in his Ensayo Historico-Critico, p. 388) quotes a popular satire of the fifteenth century, directed, with considerable humor, against these abuses, which lead the writer in the last stanza to envy even the summary style of Mahometan justice.

"En tierra de Moros un solo alcalde Libra lo cevil e lo criminal, E todo el dia se esta de valde For la justicia andar muy igual: Alli non es Azo, nin es Decretal, Nin es Roberto, nin la Clementina, Salvo discrecion e buena doctrina, La qual muestra a todos vevir communal." p. 389.

[20] Mendez enumerates no less than five editions of this code, by 1500; a sufficient evidence of its authority, and general reception throughout Castile. Typographia Espanola, pp. 203, 261, 270.

[21] Ordenancas Reales, Prologo.--Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi.

Il.u.s.t. 9.--Marina, Ensayo Historico-Critico, pp. 390 et seq.--Mendez, Typographia Espanola, p. 261.--The authors of the three last-mentioned works abundantly disprove a.s.so y Manuel's insinuation, that Montalavo's code was the fruit of his private study, without any commission for it, and that it gradually usurped an authority which it had not in its origin.

(Discurso Preliminar al Ord. de Alcala.) The injustice of the last remark, indeed, is apparent from the positive declaration of Bernaldez. "Los Reyes mandaron tener en todas las ciudades, villas e lugares el libro de Montalvo, _e por el determinar todas las cosas de justicia para cortar los pleitos_." Reyes Catolicos, MS., cap. 42.

[22] Ordenancas Reales, lib. 7, t.i.t. 2, ley 13.

[23] Oviedo, Quincuagenas, MS., bat. 1, quinc. 1, dial. 44.--Sempere notices this feature of the royal policy. Hist. des Cortes, chap. 24.

[24] Carbajal, a.n.a.les, MS., ano 80.

[25] See the emphatic language, on this and other grievances, of the Castilian commons, in their memorial to the sovereigns, Apendice, No. 10, of Clemencin's valuable compilation. The commons had pressed the measure, as one of the last necessity to the crown, as early as the cortes of Madrigal, in 1476. The reader will find the whole pet.i.tion extracted by Marina, Teoria, tom. ii. cap. 5.

[26] Salazar de Mendoza, Cron. del Gran Cardenal, cap. 51.--Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. Il.u.s.t. 5.--Pulgar, Reyes Catolicos, part. 2, cap.

95.--Ordenancas Reales, lib. 6, t.i.t. 4, ley 26;--incorporated also into the Recopilacion of Philip II., lib. 5, t.i.t. 10, cap. 17. See also leyes 3 and 15.

[27] Admiral Enriquez, for instance, resigned 240,000 maravedies of his annual income;--the Duke of Alva, 575,000;--the Duke of Medina Sidonia, 180,000.--The loyal family of the Mendozas were also great losers, but none forfeited so much as the overgrown favorite of Henry IV., Beltran de la Cueva, duke of Albuquerque, who had uniformly supported the royal cause, and whose retrenchment amounted to 1,400,000 maravedies of yearly rent. See the scale of reduction given at length by Senor Clemencin, in Mem. de la Acad., tom. vi. loc. cit.

[28] "No monarch," said the high-minded queen, "should consent to alienate his demesnes; since the loss of revenue necessarily deprives him of the best means of rewarding the attachment of his friends, and of making himself feared by his enemies." Pulgar, Reyes Catolicos, part. 1, cap. 4.

[29] Pulgar, Reyes Catolicos, ubi supra.--Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom.

vi. loc. cit.

[30] Ordenancas Reales, lib. 2, t.i.t. 1, ley 2; lib. 4, t.i.t. 9, ley 11.-- Pulgar, Reyes Catolicos, part. 2, cap. 96, 101.--Recop. de las Leyes, lib.

8, t.i.t. 8, ley 10 et al.--These affairs were conducted in the true spirit of knight-errantry. Oviedo mentions one, in which two young men of the n.o.ble houses of Velasco and Ponce de Leon agreed to fight on horseback, with sharp spears (_puntas de diamantes_), in doublet and hose, without defensive armor of any kind. The place appointed for the combat was a narrow bridge across the Xarama, three leagues from Madrid. Quincuagenas, MS., bat. 1, quinc. 1, dial. 23.

[31] Ferreras, Hist. d'Espagne, tom. vii. pp. 487, 488.

[32] Carbajal, a.n.a.les, MS., ano 80.--Pulgar, Reyes Catolicos, part. 2, cap. 100.

[33] For example, at the great cortes of Toledo, in 1480, it does not appear that any of the n.o.bility were summoned, except those in immediate attendance on the court, until the measure for the resumption of the grants, which so nearly affected that body, was brought before the legislature.

[34] Conde gives the following account of these chivalric a.s.sociations among the Spanish Arabs, which, as far as I know, have hitherto escaped the notice of European historians. "The Moslem _fronteros_ professed great austerity in their lives, which they consecrated to perpetual war, and bound themselves by a solemn vow to defend the frontier against the incursions of the Christians. They were choice cavaliers, possessed of consummate patience, and enduring fatigue, and always prepared to die rather than desert their posts. It appears highly probable that the Moorish fraternities suggested the idea of those military orders so renowned for their valor in Spain and in Palestine, which rendered such essential services to Christendom; for both the inst.i.tutions were established on similar principles." Conde, Historia de la Dominacion de los Arabes en Espana, (Madrid, 1820,) tom. i. p. 619, not.

[35] See the details, given by Mariana, of the overgrown possessions of the Templars in Castile at the period of their extinction, in the beginning of the fourteenth century. (Hist. de Espana, lib. 15, cap. 10.) The knights of the Temple and the Hospitallers seem to have acquired still greater power in Aragon, where one of the monarchs was so infatuated as to bequeath them his whole dominions,--a bequest which, it may well be believed, was set aside by his high-spirited subjects. Zurita, a.n.a.les, lib. 1, cap. 52.

[36] The apparition of certain preternatural lights in a forest, discovered to a Galician peasant, in the beginning of the ninth century, the spot, in which was deposited a marble sepulchre containing the ashes of St. James. The miracle is reported with sufficient circ.u.mstantiality by Florez, (Historia Compostellana, lib. 1, cap. 2, apud Espana Sagrada, tom.

xx.) and Ambrosio de Morales, (Coronica General de Espana, (Obras, Madrid, 1791-3,) lib. 9, cap. 7,) who establishes, to his own satisfaction, the advent of St. James into Spain. Mariana, with more skepticism than his brethren, doubts the genuineness of the body, as well as the visit of the Apostle, but like a good Jesuit concludes, "It is not expedient to disturb with such disputes the devotion of the people, so firmly settled as it is." (Lib. 7, cap. 10.) The tutelar saint of Spain continued to support his people by taking part with them in battle against the infidel down to a very late period. Caro de Torres mentions two engagements in which he cheered on the squadrons of Cortes and Pizarro, "with his sword flas.h.i.+ng lightning in the eyes of the Indians." Ordenes Militares, fol. 5.

[37] Rades y Andrada, Las Tres Ordenes, fol. 3-15.--Caro de Torres, Ordenes Militares, fol. 2-8.--Garibay, Compendio, tom. ii. pp. 116-118.

[38] Rades y Andrada, Las Tres Ordenes, part. 2, fol. 3-9, 49.--Caro de Torres, Ordenes Militares, fol. 49, 50.--Garibay, Compendio, tom. ii. pp.

100-104.

[39] Rades y Andrada, Las Tres Ordenes, part. 3, fol. 1-6.--The knights of Alcantara wore a white mantle, embroidered with a green cross.

[40] Rades y Andrada, Las Tres Ordenes, part. 1, fol. 12-15, 43, 54, 61, 64, 66, 67; part. 2, fol. 11, 51; part. 3, fol. 42, 49, 50.--Caro de Torres, Ordenes Militares, pa.s.sim.--L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, fol.

33.--Garibay, Compendio, lib. 11, cap. 13.--Zurita, a.n.a.les, tom. v. lib.

1, cap. 19.--Oviedo, Quincuagenas, MS., bat. 1, quinc. 2, dial. 1.

[41] Caro de Torres, Ordenes Militares, fol. 46, 74, 83.--Pulgar, Reyes Catolicos, part. 2, cap. 64.--Rades y Andrada, Las Tres Ordenes, part. 1, fol. 69, 70; part. 2, fol. 82, 83; part. 3, fol. 54.--Oviedo, Quincuagenas, MS., bat. 1, quinc. 2, dial. 1.--The sovereigns gave great offence to the jealous grandees who were compet.i.tors for the masters.h.i.+p of St. James, by conferring that dignity on Alonso de Cardenas, with their usual policy of making merit rather than birth the standard of preferment.

[42] Caro de Torres, Ordenes Militares, fol. 84.--Riol has given a full account of the const.i.tution of this council, Informe, apud Semanario Erudito, tom. iii. pp. 164 et seq.

[43] The reader will find a view of the condition and general resources of the military orders as existing in the present century in Spain, in Laborde, Itineraire Descriptif de l'Espagne, (2d edition, Paris, 1827-30,) tom. v. pp. 102-117.

[44] Most readers are acquainted with the curious story, related by Robertson, of the ordeal to which the Romish and Muzarabic rituals were subjected, in the reign of Alfonso VI., and the ascendency which the combination of king-craft and priest-craft succeeded in securing to the former in opposition to the will of the nation. Cardinal Ximenes afterwards established a magnificent chapel in the cathedral church of Toledo for the performance of the Muzarabic services, which have continued to be retained there to the present time. Flechier, Histoire du Cardinal Ximines, (Paris, 1693,) p. 142.--Bourgoanne, Travels in Spain, Eng.

trans., vol. iii. chap. 1.