A History of Spain / founded on the Historia de España y de la civilización española of Rafael Altamira

by Charles E. Chapman; Rafael Altamira

The free Mudéjares continued to receive lenient treatment, and their numbers increased greatly; many of the Moslem faith preferred to leave Granada and live in Christian Castile. The legislation of Alfonso X put them under the royal protection and allowed them to have their own courts and their own law. They were permitted to retain the mosques they already had, but were forbidden to build new ones; they could not worship in public in places settled chiefly by Christians, but otherwise no objection was made; the obligations of former times as regards taxation, mode of dress, and dealings with Christians were also retained; and the gathering of Mudéjares into the cities, despite the greater number of restrictions imposed upon them, went on, caused by the abuses of an unofficial character to which they were subjected at the hands of the Christian population in the country. In later reigns the restrictions were increased, but many of them were not enforced. In fact, the Mudéjares enjoyed greater prosperity in the last reign of the era than at any other time of the period, being a wealthy and important social element, represented at court even, and enjoying a number of advantages which for a long time had been denied them.

Harsh measures against the Jews.

The Marranos.

For a while the legal situation of the Jews was comparable to that of the Mudéjares, but the Christian clergy was particularly vindictive against the former, and popular sentiment was bitterly hostile to them, due not only to the influence of the church, but also in part to hatred of the Jewish tax collectors, and partly to the avarice awakened by the wealth of the Jews (fabulously exaggerated as a rule). This enmity was evidenced in more and more restrictive laws and in the open insults and violence of the Christian populace. Popular feeling began to make itself more rigorously felt from about the year 1391. In 1391 a great massacre of the Jews took place in Seville, and this was a signal for similar massacres in other parts of Spain. Shortly afterward the Jews lost their separate law courts; they were forbidden among other things to engage in commerce with Christians, to rent the taxes[38] or hold public positions, to be artisans, to carry arms, or to have intimate relations with Christians; and they were even compelled to listen to sermons preached with a view to their conversion. These laws were not always enforced, but the position of the Jews was far from equalling that of the Mudéjares. Great numbers of them were converted, but it was believed, probably with truth, that they continued to practise the Jewish faith in secret. The converts were insulted by their Christian brethren, even in the name “Marranos” (pigs) applied to them as a class. They were also envied because of their industry and wealth, and were accused of diabolical practices of which they were almost certainly not guilty. In the last years of the reign of Henry IV the massacres of Jews began to be extended to them as well as to the unconverted element.

Changes in the laws of marriage, the family, and property.

Two forces combined to change the former type of family life: the Roman civil law (of tremendous importance); and the doctrines of the church, which indeed in their judicial expression were influenced profoundly by the Roman law. They were able to strike a death-blow at the marriage á yuras; henceforth the law required the sanction of the church. Barraganía still maintained a legal though restricted standing. Cases of marriage and divorce were taken away from civil jurisdiction and turned over to the ecclesiastical courts. As an illustration of the individualistic tendencies springing from the influence of Roman jurisprudence it may be noted that up to twenty-five years of age a daughter had to have her father’s consent in order to contract marriage, but could dispense with his permission after that time. The most important reform in family life was the establishment of the rule of primogeniture, a practice which rapidly became customary. The Roman law was equally influential in its effects upon property. Whereas formerly the wealth of Castile had been based on agriculture and stock-raising, with the land concentrated in few hands and cultivated by serfs, now urban lands and personalty, based on industry and commerce and adapted to Roman principles, became the more important; and despite the latifundia of the era a large part of the former seigniorial lands was now given over in small lots to free proprietors protected by the law. The Roman formalism appeared to some extent also in the law of property, contract, and wills, especially in the legislation of Alfonso X.

Survivals of medieval collectivity.

The collectivity of medieval times had a survival in the lands common of the towns, and appeared also in the industrial guilds and the semi-religious cofradías, or fraternities. The latter included various classes of people organized into a group for the accomplishment of some social object, such as to perform acts of charity or hold funerary dinners, as well as to provide mutual aid; the law forbade associations for political, immoral, or illegal purposes. The guilds were far more important, and were greatly favored by the laws. At first they were closely dependent on the municipalities, which intervened to regulate the trades, even in technical respects, but at length the guilds began to receive charters directly from the king. The new charters, too, in keeping with the practices of the era, were minute in their directions with regard to the conduct of the various industries. By the fifteenth century the guilds were paying little attention to the social matters which formerly were their most important function,—these had passed over to the cofradías,—and had become almost wholly economic and professional, although their members marched together in processions, and the guilds as a body rendered public service of one kind or another,—as, for example, maintaining some public charity. They were also a factor in the political life of the towns.

General social customs.

Dress.