Political life of the towns.

Municipal organization retained the essential features of the preceding era, such as the local assembly and the various officials, of whom the most important were the judges. The latter came to be called alcaldes (from an Arabic term meaning “the judges”),—an example of Moslem influence. In many cities, there were representatives of the king, called merinos and other names. Communication with the king was also maintained by the use of messengers, now of the king, now of the city. The actual monarchical authority was so slight that the towns often acted with complete independence. Like the nobles they made forays against the Moslems on their own account, or fought one another, or with very good reason attacked neighboring, lawless nobles. For these wars they often formed leagues, or brotherhoods (hermandades), of towns (or occasionally leagues which included some nobles), for which special ordinances were drawn up without previously consulting the king. Some of the towns of the north coast were so independent that they joined in the wars between France and England, against the latter. Often the towns changed their own charters without royal permission, although this was not done in open defiance of the king, but, rather, in secret and fraudulently. The privileges of the towns in respect to taxation (although, indeed, they paid the bulk of what the king received from his free, Christian subjects) have already been mentioned.[22] Taxes were also collected within the towns for local purposes. In addition to revenues from direct contributions the towns also imposed obligations of personal service on their citizens, and owned lands which formed perhaps their most important source of wealth. These lands were of two kinds, the propios (estates “belonging to” a municipality and utilized to assist in defraying public expenses), which were worked directly or rented by the town, and the comunales, or land common, for the use of all, subject to local regulations. In seigniorial towns, especially in those acknowledging an ecclesiastical lord, great progress was made toward an approximation of the rights enjoyed by the royal towns and cities. They had already gained economic independence, but now wished to attain to political freedom as well. They fought against the lord’s practice of arbitrarily choosing their principal magistrates; next, they endeavored to gain for their own assembly the exclusive right of choice; then they tried to increase the powers of the locally chosen officials as compared with those appointed by the lord; and, all along, they aimed to acquire more authority for their assemblies, or for the council which came to represent them,—for example, the right to fix wages. By the opening of the thirteenth century local autonomy had been gained at Santiago de Compostela, and many other seigniorial towns (both noble and ecclesiastical) had achieved equal, or nearly equal, good fortune.

The administration of justice.

Justice belonged fundamentally to the king, but the alcaldes of the towns usually exercised civil jurisdiction, and often criminal as well; in some towns royal merinos or adelantados had charge of criminal jurisdiction. The king might punish local judges, however, even removing them and appointing others, but this power did not in fact enable him to check abuses. Appeals went to the king, who also had the right to try in first instance the serious crimes of murder, assault on a woman, robbery, and others. In such cases the king was assisted in administering justice by a group of men of his own appointment, called the Cort (not to be confused with the Cortes), but this body merely advised him, for the decision was left to him. As might be expected in an age of disorder, punishments were atrocious,—such, for example, as mutilation, stoning to death, throwing over a cliff, burning, burial alive, starvation, cooking, stripping off the skin, drowning, and hanging; only the last-named has survived. On the other hand, composition for murder, or the payment of a sum of money, was allowable,—for men were valuable to the state,—although the murderer was not free from the private vengeance of the dead man’s family. The so-called “vulgar proofs,”—such as the tests of the hot iron and hot water, and the wager of battle,—besides torture, were employed (as elsewhere in western Europe) as a means for acquiring evidence, but these methods were already being looked upon with disfavor. Real justice was in fact rare; the wealthy, especially if they were nobles, were able to take matters into their own hands or to procure favorable decisions, if affairs should reach the point of litigation.

Methods of warfare.

Military service was obligatory upon all, but except for a small royal guard there was no permanent army. Organization continued to be simple; the seigniorial troops were commanded by the lord or his representative, and the militia of the towns by an alférez (standard-bearer).[23] Large numbers of foreigners joined in the wars against the Moslems, but perhaps the most important element was that of the military orders. These orders had a mixed religious and secular character, for, while some members took the usual monastic vows, others were not required to do so. Aside from the orders of general European prominence, like that of the Templars, there were three which were confined to the peninsula, those of Calatrava, Santiago, and Alcántara, all formed in the middle of the twelfth century. Their membership became so numerous and their wealth so great that they constituted one more important force with which the kings had to reckon in the struggle for the establishment of royal authority, although the peril proved greater in its possibilities than in the fact. War was absolutely merciless, falling quite as heavily on the non-combatant as upon the opponent with arms in his hands. The enemy population might be subjected to the loss of their lands and to enslavement, unless this seemed inadvisable, and pillage was legally recognized, with a share of the booty going to the king. Such weapons as the sword, lance, and pike were still the principal types. The use of flags was introduced as a means of inciting the troops to deeds of valor, while priests were employed to provide a like stimulus. The first navy in this part of Spain was the private fleet of Bishop Gelmírez of Santiago de Compostela. Private navies were the rule. The first royal navy was formed by Ferdinand III, as a result of the important part played by the private naval levies which had assisted in the taking of Seville.

The monks of Cluny and church reform.

Notwithstanding the increase in privileges accorded the church, the king had always intervened in its affairs,—as by the appointment or deposition of bishops, and even by taking under his own jurisdiction certain cases on appeal from the ecclesiastical courts. The monks of Cluny, influential in so many respects, set about to uproot the dependence of the church upon the king and to bring about a closer relation of the clergy with the papacy. Aided by the piety of the kings themselves they were able to achieve their ends, although the monarchs maintained that the pope’s measures should not be valid in the royal dominions without governmental consent. Thenceforth, the pope and his legates began to take the place of the king in church affairs. The same centralizing policy of the monks of Cluny and the great popes of the era was employed to bring the Castilian church into uniformity with that of Rome in matters of doctrine and rite. Some difficulty was experienced in the latter respect, for the Spanish people were attached to their form of worship, which was called the Visigothic, or Mozarabic, rite. Earlier popes had recognized this as orthodox, but Gregory VII asked Alfonso VI to abolish it. The king was willing, but the people and the clergy were not. The matter was once left to the decision of the wager of battle, and again to that of fire, but in each case the local rite came out victorious. Finally, the king rode roughshod over judicial proofs, and abolished the local rite.[24] It was in this period, therefore, that the hierarchy of the church, depending on the pope, was established in Spain. At this time, too, the monasteries (and the military orders as well) became independent of the bishops, and ascended to the pope, or his legate, through the medium of their abbots (or grand masters). The increasing wealth and privileges of the church have already been sufficiently alluded to; many of the orders degenerated greatly, even that of the monks of Cluny, as a result of the luxury which their means permitted. At the moment when clerical ostentation had become greatest there came the founding of the mendicant orders, early in the thirteenth century. In the peninsula, as elsewhere, these orders (whose principal vow was poverty) achieved a great work for the church; the Franciscans went chiefly among the poor, and the Dominicans dealt more with the upper classes, but both preached the necessity for repentance and for conversion to the faith.[25] They also contributed greatly to doing away with the loose practices which had become current among the clergy in all parts of Christendom. One such practice persisted, despite their efforts, the earlier efforts of the monks of Cluny, and the continuous opposition of the kings (translated into severe laws),—that of priests entering into the form of union called barraganía.

Aragon proper

Social institutions in Aragon.