The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Volume I Part 7

[50] Not, however, it must be allowed, without a manly struggle in its defence, and which, in the early part of Charles V.'s reign, in 1525, wrenched a promise from the crown, to answer all pet.i.tions definitively, before the rising of cortes. The law still remains on the statute-book, (Recop. de las Leyes, lib. 6, t.i.t. 7, ley 8,) a sad commentary on the faith of princes.

[51] Practica y Estilo, p. 14.

[52] "Y nos tenemos a ellos como buenos va.s.sallos y companeros."--Zurita, a.n.a.les, lib. 7, cap. 17.

[53] The noun "justicia" was made masculine for the accommodation of this magistrate, who was styled "_el_ justicia." Antonio Perez, Relaciones, fol. 91.

[54] Blancas, Commentarii, p. 26.--Zurita, a.n.a.les, tom. i. fol. 9.

[55] Molinus, apud Blancas, Commentarii, pp. 343, 344.--Fueros y Observancias, tom. i. fol. 21, 25.

[56] Blancas, Commentarii, p. 536.--The princ.i.p.al of these jurisdictions was the royal audience in which the king himself presided in person.

Ibid., p. 355.

[57] Fueros y Observancias, tom. i. fol. 23, 60 et seq., 155, lib. 3, t.i.t.

De Manifestationibus Personarum.--Also fol. 137 et seq., t.i.t. 7, De Firmis Juris.--Blancas, Commentarii, pp. 350, 351.--Zurita, a.n.a.les, lib. 10, cap.

37.--The first of these processes was styled _firma de derecho_, the last, _manifestation_. The Spanish writers are warm in their encomiums of these two provisions. "Quibus duobus praesidiis," says Blancas, "ita nostrae reipublicae status continetur, ut nulla pars communium fortunarum tutela vacua relinquatur." Both this author and Zurita have amplified the details respecting them, which the reader may find extracted, and in part translated, by Mr. Hallam, Middle Ages, vol. ii. pp. 75-77, notes.

When complex litigation became more frequent, the Justice was allowed one, afterwards two, and at a still later period, in 1528, five lieutenants, as they were called, who aided him in the discharge of his onerous duties.

Martel, Forma de Celebrar Cortes, Notas de Uztarroz, pp. 92-96.--Blancas, Commentarii, pp. 361-366.

[58] Ibid., pp. 343, 346, 347.--Idem, Coronaciones, pp. 200, 202.--Antonio Perez, Relaciones, fol. 92.

Sempere cites the opinion of an ancient canonist, Canellas, bishop of Huesca, as conclusive against the existence of the vast powers imputed by later commentators to the Justicia. (Histoire des Cortes, chap. 19.) The vague, rhapsodical tone of the extract shows it to be altogether undeserving of the emphasis laid on it; not to add, that it was written more than a century before the period, when the Justicia possessed the influence or the legal authority claimed for him by Aragonese writers,--by Blancas, in particular, from whom Sempere borrowed the pa.s.sage at second hand.

[59] The law alluded to runs thus: "Ne quid autem d.a.m.ni detrimentive leges aut libertates nostrae patiantur, judex quidam medius adesto, ad quem a Rege provocare, si aliquem laeserit, injuriasque arcere si quas forsan Reipub. intulerit, jus fasque esto." Blancas, Commentarii, p. 26.

[60] Such instances may he found in Zurita, a.n.a.les, tom. ii. fol. 385, 414.--Blancas, Commentarii, pp. 199, 202-206, 214, 225.--When Ximenes Cerdan, the independent Justice of John I., removed certain citizens from the prison, in which they had been unlawfully confined by the king, in defiance equally of that officer's importunities and menaces, the inhabitants of Saragossa, says Abarca, came out in a body to receive him on his return to the city, and greeted him as the defender of their ancient and natural liberties. (Reyes de Aragon, tom. i. fol. 155.) So openly did the Aragonese support their magistrate in the boldest exercise of his authority.

[61] This occurred once under Peter III., and twice under Alfonso V.

(Zurita, a.n.a.les, tom. iii. fol. 255.--Blancas, Commentarii, pp. 174, 489, 499.) The Justice was appointed by the king.

[62] Fueros y Observancias, tom. i. fol. 22.

[63] Ibid., tom. i. fol. 25.

[64] Ibid., tom. i. lib. 3, t.i.t. Forum Inquisitionis Officii Just. Arag., and tom. ii. fol. 37-41.--Blancas, Commentarii, pp. 391-399.

The examination was conducted in the first instance before a court of four inquisitors, as they were termed; who, after a patient hearing of both sides, reported the result of their examination to a council of seventeen, chosen like them from the cortes, from whose decision there was no appeal.

No lawyer was admitted into this council, lest the law might be distorted by verbal quibbles, says Blancas. The council, however, was allowed the advice of two of the profession. They voted by ballot, and the majority decided. Such, after various modifications, were the regulations ultimately adopted in 1461, or rather 1467. Robertson appears to have confounded the council of seventeen with the court of inquisition. See his History of Charles V., vol. i. note 31.

[65] Probably no nation of the period would have displayed a temperance similar to that exhibited by the Aragonese at the beginning of the fifteenth century, in 1412; when the people, having been split into factions by a contested succession, agreed to refer the dispute to a committee of judges, elected equally from the three great provinces of the kingdom; who, after an examination conducted with all the forms of law, and on the same equitable principles as would have guided the determination of a private suit, delivered an opinion, which was received as obligatory on the whole nation.

[66] See Zurita, a.n.a.les, lib. 8, cap. 29,--and the admirable sentiments cited by Blancas from the parliamentary acts, in 1451. Commentarii, p.

350.

From this independent position must be excepted, indeed, the lower cla.s.ses of the peasantry, who seem to have been in a more abject state in Aragon than in most other feudal countries. "Era tan absolute su dominio (of their lords) que podian mater con hambre, sed, y frio a sus vasallos de servidumbre." (a.s.so y Manuel, Inst.i.tuciones, p. 40,--also Blancas, Commentarii, p. 309.) These serfs extorted, in an insurrection, the recognition of certain rights from their masters, on condition of paying a specified tax; whence the name _villanos de parada_.

[67] Although the legislatures of the different states of the crown of Aragon were never united in one body when convened in the same town, yet they were so averse to all appearance of incorporation, that the monarch frequently appointed for the places of meeting three distinct towns, within their respective territories and contiguous, in order that he might pa.s.s the more expeditiously from one to the other. See Blancas, Modo de Proceder, cap. 4.

[68] It is indeed true, that Peter III., at the request of the Valencians, appointed an Aragonese knight Justice of that kingdom, in 1283. (Zurita, a.n.a.les, tom. i. fol. 281.) But we find no further mention of this officer, or of the office. Nor have I met with any notice of it in the details of the Valencian const.i.tution, compiled by Capmany from various writers.

(Practica y Estilo, pp. 161-208.) An anecdote of Ximenes Cerdan, recorded by Blancas, (Commentarii, p. 214,) may lead one to infer, that the places in Valencia, which received the laws of Aragon, acknowledged the jurisdiction of its Justicia.

[69] Capmany, Practica y Estilo, pp. 62-214.--Capmany has collected copious materials, from a variety of authors, for the parliamentary history of Catalonia and Valencia, forming a striking contrast to the scantiness of information he was able to glean respecting Castile. The indifference of the Spanish writers, till very recently, to the const.i.tutional antiquities of the latter kingdom, so much more important than the other states of the Peninsula, is altogether inexplicable.

[70] Corbera, Cataluna Ill.u.s.trada, (Napoles, 1678,) lib. 1, c. 17.--Petrus de Marca cites a charter of Raymond Berenger, count of Barcelona, to the city, as ancient as 1025, confirming its former privileges. See Marca Hispanica, sive Limes Hispanicus, (Parisiis, 1688,) Apend. no. 198.

[71] Navarrete, Discurso Historico, apud Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom.

v. pp. 81, 82, 112, 113.--Capmany, Mem. de Barcelona, tom. i. part. 1, cap. 1, pp. 4, 8, 10, 11.

[72] Mem. de Barcelona, part. 1, cap. 2, 3.--Capmany has given a register of the consuls and of the numerous stations, at which they were established throughout Africa and Europe, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, (tom. ii. Apend. no. 23.) These officers during the Middle Ages discharged much more important duties than at the present day, if we except those few residing with the Barbary powers. They settled the disputes arising between their countrymen, in the ports where they were established; they protected the trade of their own nation with these ports; and were employed in adjusting commercial relations, treaties, etc.

In short, they filled in some sort the post of a modern amba.s.sador, or resident minister, at a period when this functionary was only employed on extraordinary occasions.

[73] Macpherson, Annals of Commerce, (London, 1825,) vol. i. p. 655.--The woollen manufacture const.i.tuted the princ.i.p.al staple of Barcelona.

(Capmany, Mem. de Barcelona, tom. i. p. 241.) The English sovereigns encouraged the Catalan traders by considerable immunities to frequent their ports during the fourteenth century. Macpherson, ubi supra, pp. 502, 551, 588.

[74] Heeren, Essai sur l'Influence des Croisades, traduit par Villers, (Paris, 1808,) p. 376.--Capmany, Mem. de Barcelona, tom. i. p. 213, also pp. 170-180.--Capmany fixes the date of the publication of the _Consulado del Mar_ at the middle of the thirteenth century, under James I. He discusses and refutes the claims of the Pisans to precedence in this codification. See his Preliminary Discourse to the Costumbres Maritimas de Barcelona.

[75] Navagiero, Viaggio, fol. 3.--L. Marineo styles it "the most beautiful city he had ever seen, or, to speak more correctly, in the whole world."

(Cosas Memorables, fol. 18.) Alfonso V., in one of his ordinances, in 1438, calls it "urbs venerabilis in egregiis templis, tuta ut in optimis, pulchra in caeteris aedificiis," etc. Capmany, Mem. de Barcelona, tom. ii.

Apend. no. 13.

[76] Capmany, Mem. de Barcelona, Apend. no. 24.--The senate or great council, though styled the "one hundred," seems to have fluctuated at different times between that number and double its amount.

[77] Corbera, Cataluna Ill.u.s.trada, p. 84.--Capmany, Mem. de Barcelona, tom. ii. Apend. no. 29.

[78] Capmany, Mem. de Barcelona, tom. i. part. 3, p. 40, tom. iii. part.

2, pp. 317, 318.

[79] Capmany, Mem. de Barcelona, tom. i. part. 2, p. 187.--tom. ii. Apend.

30.--Capmany says _princ.i.p.al n.o.bleza_; yet it may be presumed that much the larger proportion of these n.o.ble candidates for office was drawn from the inferior cla.s.s of the privileged orders, the knights and hidalgos. The great barons of Catalonia, fortified with extensive immunities and wealth, lived on their estates in the country, probably little relis.h.i.+ng the levelling spirit of the burghers of Barcelona.

[80] Barcelona revolted and was twice besieged by the royal arms under John II., once under Philip IV., twice under Charles II., and twice under Philip V. This last siege, 1713-14, in which it held out against the combined forces of France and Spain under Marshal Berwick, is one of the most memorable events in the eighteenth century. An interesting account of the siege may be found in c.o.xe's Memoirs of the Kings of Spain of the House of Bourbon, (London, 1815,) vol. ii. chap. 21.--The late monarch, Ferdinand VII., also had occasion to feel, that the independent spirit of the Catalans did not become extinct with their ancient const.i.tution.

[81] Viaggio, fol. 3.

[82] Abarca, Reyes de Aragon, tom. ii. fol. 183.--Zurita, a.n.a.les, tom.

iii. lib. 12, cap. 59.--The king turned his back on the magistrates, who came to pay their respects to him, on learning his intention of quitting the city. He seems, however, to have had the magnanimity to forgive, perhaps to admire, the independent conduct of Fiveller; for at his death, which occurred very soon after, we find this citizen mentioned as one of his executors. See Capmany, Mem. de Barcelona, tom. ii. Apend. 29.

[83] The taxes were a.s.sessed in the ratio of one-sixth on Valencia, two- sixths on Aragon, and three-sixths on Catalonia. See Martel, Forma de Celebrar Cortes, cap. 71.

[84] See the items specified by Capmany, Mem. de Barcelona, tom. i. pp.

231, 232.

[85] Idem, tom. i. pp. 221, 234.--Capmany states, that the statute of Alfonso V. prohibited "all foreign s.h.i.+ps from taking cargoes in the ports of his dominions." (See also Colec. Dipl., tom. ii. no. 187.) The object of this law, like that of the British Navigation Act, was the encouragement of the national marine. It deviated far, however, from the sagacious policy of the latter, which imposed no restriction on the exportation of domestic produce to foreign countries, except, indeed, its own colonies.

[86] Andres, Dell' Origine, de' Progressi, e dello Stato Attuale d' Ogni Letteratura, (Venezia, 1783,) part. 1, cap. 11.--Lampillas, Saggio Storico-Apologetico della Letteratura Spagnuola, (Genova, 1778,) part. 1, dis. 6, sec. 7.--Andres conjectures, and Lampillas decides, in favor of Catalonia. _Arcades ambo_; and the latter critic, the worst possible authority on all questions of national preference.