The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Volume I Part 6

fol. 316.

[8] The authenticity of the "Fuero de Soprarbe" has been keenly debated by the Aragonese and Navarrese writers. Moret, in refutation of Blancas, who espouses it, (see Commentarii, p. 289,) states, that after a diligent investigation of the archives of that region, he finds no mention of the laws, nor even of the name, of Soprarbe, until the eleventh century; a startling circ.u.mstance for the antiquary. (Investigaciones Historicas de las Antiguedades del Reyno de Navarra, (Pamplona, 1766,) tom. vi. lib. 2, cap. 11.) Indeed, the historians of Aragon admit, that the public doc.u.ments previous to the fourteenth century suffered so much from various causes as to leave comparatively few materials for authentic narrative.

(Blancas, Commentarii, Pref.--Risco, Espana Sagrada, tom. x.x.x. Prologo.) Blancas transcribed his extract of the laws of Soprarbe princ.i.p.ally from Prince Charles of Viana's History, written in the fifteenth century. See Commentarii, p. 25.

[9] a.s.so y Manuel, Inst.i.tuciones, pp. 39, 40.--Blancas, Commentarii, pp.

333, 334, 340.--Fueros y Observancias del Reyno de Aragon, (Zaragoza, 1667,) tom. i. fol. 130.--The _ricos hombres_, thus created by the monarch, were styled _de mesnada_, signifying "of the household." It was lawful for a _rico hombre_ to bequeath his honors to whichsoever of his legitimate children he might prefer, and, in default of issue, to his nearest of kin. He was bound to distribute the bulk of his estates in fiefs among his knights, so that a complete system of sub-infeudation was established. The knights, on restoring their fiefs, might change their suzerains at pleasure.

[10] a.s.so y Manuel, Inst.i.tuciones, p. 41.--Blancas, Commentarii, pp. 307, 322, 331.

[11] Fueros y Observancias, tom. i. fol. 130.--Martel, Forma de Celebrar Cortes en Aragon, (Zaragoza, 1641,) p. 98.--Blancas, Commentarii, pp. 306, 312-317, 323, 360.--a.s.so y Manual, Inst.i.tuciones, pp. 40-43.

[12] Zurita, a.n.a.les, tom. i. fol. 124.

[13] Blancas, Commentarii, p. 334.

[14] See the part.i.tion of Saragossa by Alonso the Warrior. Zurita, a.n.a.les, tom. i. fol. 43.

[15] Mariana, Hist. de Espana, tom. ii. p. 198.--Blancas, Commentarii, p.

218. [16] See a register of these at the beginning of the sixteenth century, apud L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, fol. 25.

[17] Zurita, a.n.a.les, tom. ii. fol. 127.--Blancas, Commentarii, p. 324.-- "Adhaec Ricis hominibus ipsis majorum more inst.i.tutisque concedebatur, ut sese possent, dum ipsi vellent, a nostrorum Regum jure et potestare, quasi nodum aliquem, expedire; neque expedire solum, _sed dimisso prius, quo potirentur, Honore_, bellum ipsis inferre; Reges vero Rici hominis sic expediti uxorem, filios, familiam, res, bona, et fortunas omnes in suam recipere fidem tenebantur. Neque ulla erat eorum utilitatis facienda jactura."

[18] Fueros y Observancias, tom. i. p. 84.--Zurita, a.n.a.les, tom. i. fol.

350.

[19] Blancas somewhere boasts, that no one of the kings of Aragon has been stigmatized by a cognomen of infamy, as in most of the other royal races of Europe. Peter IV., "the Ceremonious," richly deserved one.

[20] Zurita, a.n.a.les, tom. i. fol. 102.

[21] Zurita, a.n.a.les, tom. i. fol. 198.--He recommended this policy to his son-in-law, the king of Castile.

[22] Sempere, Histoire des Cortes, p. 164.

[23] Zurita, a.n.a.les, lib. 4, cap. 96.--Abarca dates this event in the year preceding. Reyes de Aragon, en a.n.a.les Historicos, (Madrid, 1682-1684,) tom. ii. fol. 8.

[24] Blancas, Commentarii, pp. 192, 193.--Zurita, a.n.a.les, tom. i. fol. 266 et alibi.

[25] Zurita, a.n.a.les, tom. ii. fol. 126-130.--Blancas, Commentarii, pp.

195-197.--Hence he was styled "Peter of the Dagger;" and a statue of him, bearing in one hand this weapon, and in the other the Privilege, stood in the Chamber of Deputation at Saragossa in Philip II.'s time. See Antonio Perez, Relaciones, fol. 95.

[26] See the statute, De Prohibita Unione, etc. Fueros y Observancias, tom. i. fol. 178.--A copy of the original Privileges was detected by Blancas among the ma.n.u.scripts of the archbishop of Saragossa; but he declined publis.h.i.+ng it from deference to the prohibition of his ancestors.

Commentarii, p. 179.

[27] "Haec itaque domestica Regis victoria, quae miserrimum universae Reipublicae interitum videbatur esse allatura, stabilem n.o.bis const.i.tuit pacem, tranquillitatem, et otium. Inde enim Magistratus Just.i.tiae Aragonum in eam, quam nunc colimus, amplitudinem dignitatis devenit." Ibid., p.

197.

[28] Martel, Forma de Celebrar Cortes, cap. 8.--"Bracos del reino, porque _abracan_, y tienen en si."--The cortes consisted only of three arms in Catalonia and Valencia; both the greater and lesser n.o.bility sitting in the same chamber. Perguera, Cortes en Cataluna, and Matheu y Sanz, Const.i.tucion de Valencia, apud Capmany, Practica y Estilo, pp. 65, 183, 184.

[29] Martel, Forma de Celebrar Cortes, cap. 10, 17, 21, 46.--Blancas, Modo de Proceder en Cortes de Aragon, (Zaragoza, 1641,) fol. 17, 18.

[30] Capmany, Practica y Estilo, p. 12.

[31] Blancas, Modo de Proceder, fol. 14,--and Commentarii, p. 374.-- Zurita, indeed, gives repeated instances of their convocation in the thirteenth and twelfth centuries, from a date almost coeval with that of the commons; yet Blancas, who made this subject his particular study, who wrote posterior to Zurita, and occasionally refers to him, postpones the era of their admission into the legislature to the beginning of the fourteenth century.

[32] One of the monarchs of Aragon, Alfonso the Warrior, according to Mariana, bequeathed all his dominions to the Templars and Hospitallers.

Another, Peter II., agreed to hold his kingdom as a fief of the see of Rome, and to pay it an annual tribute. (Hist. de Espana, tom. i. pp. 596, 664.) This so much disgusted the people, that they compelled his successors to make a public protest against the claims of the church, before their coronation.--See Blancas, Coronaciones de los Serenisimos Reyes de Aragon, (Zaragoza, 1641,) Cap. 2.

[33] Martel, Forma de Celebrar Cortes, cap. 22.--a.s.so y Manuel, Inst.i.tuciones, p. 44.

[34] Zurita, a.n.a.les, tom. i. fol. 163, A.D. 1250.

[35] Ibid., tom. i. fol. 51.--The earliest appearance of popular representation in Catalonia is fixed by Ripoll at 1283, (apud Capmany, Practica y Estilo, p. 135.) What can Capmany mean by postponing the introduction of the commons into the cortes of Aragon to 1300? (See p.

55.) Their presence and names are commemorated by the exact Zurita, several times before the close of the twelfth century.

[36] Practica y Estilo, pp. 14, 17, 18, 30.--Martel, Forma de Celebrar Cortes, cap. 10.--Those who followed a mechanical occupation, _including surgeons and apothecaries_, were excluded from a seat in cortes. (Cap.

17.) The faculty have rarely been treated with so little ceremony.

[37] Martel, Forma de Celebrar Cortes, cap. 7.--The cortes appear to have been more frequently convoked in the fourteenth century, than in any other. Blancas refers to no less than twenty-three within that period, averaging nearly one in four years. (Commentarii, Index, _voce_ Comitia.) In Catalonia and Valencia, the cortes was to be summoned every three years. Berart, Discurso Breve sobre la Celebracion de Cortes de Aragon, (1626,) fol. 12.

[38] Capmany, Practica y Estilo, p. 15.--Blancas has preserved a specimen of an address from the throne, in 1398, in which the king, after selecting some moral apothegm as a text, rambles for the s.p.a.ce of half an hour through Scripture history, etc., and concludes with announcing the object of his convening the cortes together, in three lines. Commentarii, pp.

376-380.

[39] See the ceremonial detailed with sufficient prolixity by Martel, (Forma de Celebrar Cortes, cap. 52, 53,) and a curious ill.u.s.tration of it in Zurita, a.n.a.les, tom. iv. fol. 313.

[40] Capmany, Practica y Estilo, pp. 44 et seq.--Martel, Forma de Celebrar Cortes, cap. 50, 60 et seq.--Fueros y Observancias, tom. i. fol. 229.-- Blancas, Modo de Proceder, fol. 2-4.--Zurita, a.n.a.les, tom. iii. fol. 321.

--Robertson, misinterpreting a pa.s.sage of Blancas, (Commentarii, p. 375,) states, that a "session of Cortes continued forty days." (History of Charles V., vol. i. p. 140.) It usually lasted months.

[41] Fueros y Observancias, fol. 6, t.i.t. Privileg. Gen.--Blancas, Commentarii, p. 371.--Capmany, Practica y Estilo, p. 51.--It was anciently the practice of the legislature to grant supplies of troops, but not of money. When Peter IV. requested a pecuniary subsidy, the cortes told him, that "such thing had not been usual; that his Christian subjects were wont to serve him with their persons, and it was only for Jews and Moors to serve him with money." Blancas, Modo de Proceder, cap. 18.

[42] See examples of them in Zurita, a.n.a.les, tom. i. fol. 51, 263; tom.

ii. fol. 391, 394, 424.--Blancas, Modo de Proceder, fol. 98, 106.

[43] "There was such a conformity of sentiment among all parties," says Zurita, "that the privileges of the n.o.bility were no better secured than those of the commons. For the Aragonese deemed that the existence of the commonwealth depended not so much on its strength, as on its liberties."

(a.n.a.les, lib. 4, cap. 38.) In the confirmation of the privilege by James the Second, in 1325, torture, then generally recognized by the munic.i.p.al law of Europe, was expressly prohibited in Aragon, "as unworthy of freemen." See Zurita, a.n.a.les, lib. 6, cap. 61,--and Fueros y Observancias, tom. i. fol. 9. Declaratio Priv. Generalis.

[44] The patriotism of Blancas warms as he dwells on the illusory picture of ancient virtue, and contrasts it with the degeneracy of his own day.

"Et vero prisca haec tanta severitas, desertaque illa et inculta vita, quando dies noctesque nostri armati concursabant, ac in bello et Maurorum sanguine a.s.sidui versabantur; vere quidem parsimoniae, fort.i.tudinis, temperantiae, caeterarumque virtutum omnium magistra fuit. In qua maleficia ac scelera, quae nunc in otiosa hac nostra umbratili et delicata gignuntur, gigni non solebant; quinimmo ita tunc aequaliter omnes omni genere virtutum floruere, ut egregia haec laus videatur non hominum solum, verum illorum etiam temporum fuisse." Commentarii, p. 340.

[45] It was more frequently referred, both for the sake of expedition, and of obtaining a more full investigation, to commissioners nominated conjointly by the cortes and the party demanding redress. The nature of the _greuges_, or grievances, which might be brought before the legislature, and the mode of proceeding in relation to them, are circ.u.mstantially detailed by the parliamentary historians of Aragon. See Berart, Discurso sobre la Celebracion de Cortes, cap. 7.--Capmany, Practica y Estilo, pp. 37-44.--Blancas, Modo de Proceder, cap. 14,--and Martel, Forma de Celebrar Cortes, cap. 54-59.

[46] Blancas, Modo de Proceder, cap. 14.--Yet Peter IV., in his dispute with the justice Fernandez de Castro, denied this. Zurita, a.n.a.les, tom.

ii. fol. 170.

[47] Blancas, Modo de Proceder, ubi supra.

[48] As for example the _ciudadanos honrados_ of Saragossa. (Capmany, Practica y Estilo, p. 14.) A _ciudadano honrado_ in Catalonia, and I presume the same in Aragon, was a landholder, who lived on his rents without being engaged in commerce or trade of any kind, answering to the French _proprietaire_. See Capmany, Mem. de Barcelona, tom. ii. Apend. no.

30.

[49] Blancas, Modo de Proceder, fol. 102.