The king of Aragon had already incorporated into a personal union three separate countries—the kingdom of Aragon, the kingdom of Valencia, and the ancient principality of Catalonia, each with its own body of representatives, its own law, its peculiar customs, and its separate administrative systems. Castile was in name a political unity, having one monarch and one body of estates. Nevertheless its provinces represented well-marked ancient divisions. Leon had once been a separate kingdom, and was still coupled with Castile itself in the full title of that monarchy; while Galicia, Asturias, and the three Basque provinces were inhabited by peoples of different political history, of different stock, and living under different customs. Navarre, Granada, and Portugal, although within the Iberian peninsula, were, at the accession of Ferdinand and Isabella, still independent; though the first was destined to be united to Aragon, the second to Castile, and even the third was to be amalgamated for eighty critical years with the greater monarchy. Thus Spain was a congeries of states, joined by the marriage bond of the two rulers of its principal divisions, but by no means yet a single monarchy or a united nation. It was the work of the Catholic sovereigns to carry this unification far towards completion by following common aims, by achieving success in many fields of common national interest, and by imposing the common royal power upon all divergent and warring classes and interests in the various Spanish states.
The personality of Ferdinand and Isabella was the first great factor in the strengthening of the monarchy; for they were both individuals of authority, energy, and ability. [Footnote: Burgenroth, Col. Letters and State Papers, Spain, I., 34, etc.] Their union was the next element; for the royal power of the united monarchies could be used to break down opposition in either. Great achievements in Spain and in Europe increased their authority and power by the prestige of success. Finally, the discoveries, conquests, and colonization of America gave a unique position to the rulers of these distant possessions. Not only did the products of the American mines American commercial taxation furnish a material basis of strength and influence; not only did a great commercial marine and a great navy grow up around the needs of intercourse with the colonies; but the romantic interest of the discoveries, the wild adventures, and the wonderful success of the conquistadores, and the extent of the colonies, filled the imagination and gave an ideal greatness to the monarchs in whose name these conquests were made, and by whom the New World was ruled.
There was need for all the authority of the new sovereigns at the time of their accession in 1474. Under the weak rule of Isabella's brother, Castile had become a prey to disorder amounting almost to anarchy; in Galicia brigandage was so common as to be unresisted, except by townsmen staying within walls; in Andalusia private warfare among the great noble houses had let loose all the forces of disorder and violence; Isabella's claim to the crown was disputed and her rival upheld by foreign support. [Footnote: Maurenbrecher, Studien und Studien, 45, 46.] The united sovereigns met these difficulties with vigor, and the first two years of Isabella's rule in Castile gave repeated instances of victorious warfare, of successful assertion of authority, and of harsh justice. The turbulent districts were reduced to order and the foreign invader expelled.
The disorder in Andalusia seemed to demand personal action. In 1477, therefore, the two sovereigns made a formal entry into Seville, and the queen asserted her royal power in a way that could not be misunderstood. In true patriarchal fashion she established her tribunal in the Alcazar, sitting in a chair on an elevated platform surrounded by her council and officers, in all solemnity and according to traditional forms, listening to the complaints of high and low, rich and poor, and granting summary justice to all who claimed it, irrespective of rank or means. Her decrees were carried out, ill-doers forced to make amends, and turbulent nobles reduced to promising to keep the peace. The visit of Isabella to Seville may well be taken as the beginning of the work of the new monarchy in Spain. [Footnote: Perez, Los Reyes Catolicos in Sevilla, 1477-1478, p. 13.]
The next step towards an enforcement of royal authority taken by the new monarchs involved the acknowledgment of an institution seemingly independent of the monarchy. Spanish cities and communes had at various times formed hermandads, leagues or brotherhoods, to enforce order, to support themselves against great nobles, or to strengthen themselves for the carrying out of some object of common policy. Instances could be found in which their combined strength had been used against the king himself or his officials. On the other hand, their united power had been used efficaciously to form a sort of rural police, each city undertaking the protection of certain roads and stretches of country. [Footnote: Antequera, Hist. de la Legislacion Espanola, 194-197.]
Two influential ministers, with the approval of Ferdinand and Isabella, in 1476, obtained the agreement of the Cortes of Castile and of a junta of the towns for the formation of a santa hermandad, or "holy brotherhood," for three years, for which rules were drawn up, submitted to the monarchs, and filially promulgated. The nobles gave a reluctant assent to the requirements of these rules, so far as they affected their estates and vassals. Altogether two thousand horsemen were to be equipped, each horseman supported by a body of one hundred households. These were grouped into companies under eight captains and placed in detachments at certain distances along all the roads. Besides the armed soldiers of the brotherhood, a whole system of alcaldes was organized with exclusive jurisdiction over certain kinds of offences. A common treasury existed for the support of expenses.
When any theft, assault, arson, or rape was discovered or complained of, immediately the bells Were rung, and the nearest detachment of soldiers of the brotherhood started on a pursuit which was carried to the boundaries of the next district, where its detachment took up the pursuit, and so on until the culprit was seized or the boundaries of the kingdom reached. No town, house, or castle could refuse the right of search. When arrested, a decision of the nearest alcalde was given within five days. If convicted, the culprit had hand or foot cut off or was put to death. The favorite mode of execution in earlier times had been to bind the offender to a stake, and shoot him with arrows "till he died naturally"; but Isabella required that he should be hanged first, and that only then might his body be used as a target and a warning for others. The rapidity of pursuit and the certainty of capture of offenders, the promptitude of justice, and the barbarism of the punishments made a strong impression; and the combination of popular vengeance with official sanction made the hermandad an effective form of national police. It was introduced into Aragon in 1488.
Although this system seemed to emanate from the people, the general control over it was preserved by Ferdinand and Isabella by placing in influential positions in its administration trusted ministers of their own, and by joining themselves in its organization. When its work of insuring order was measurably accomplished and the people began to complain of its expense, the sovereigns were able to transfer the military force into a contingent for the Moorish war, and the treasury into an addition to the commissariat for the same purpose. In 1498 it was reduced to the proportions of a petty and inexpensive local police. It had proved itself, as utilized by these strong monarchs, a means of obtaining order and recruiting an army without cost to the royal treasury.
The vigor of the royal administration, however, expressed itself rather in the development of purely royal organs than in those which were so largely popular as the hermandad. A group of royal councils became, under Ferdinand and Isabella, the most powerful instruments of the royal will, the most effective means for obtaining additional power and beating down all opposition. Early in the reign, the old royal council, which traditionally consisted of twelve members, including representatives of each of the three orders of the state, was reconstituted so as to consist of one ecclesiastic, three nobles, and eight or nine letrados, or lawyers. [Footnote: Cortes de los Antiguos Reinos, 112, etc.] The last class, who made up its majority, were men learned in the Roman law, and therefore devoted to the idea of absolute monarchy; without connection with the church or the nobility, and therefore interested in the strengthening of the kingship against both; shrewd, trained, capable, and hard working.
From this time forward the council, in constant attendance on the king, well organized, provided with a corps of clerks and officers, and holding daily sessions, became the serviceable and effective auxiliary of royal power. It had duties of consultation, advice, and in some cases decision, on matters of internal and external policy, of legislation and administration; and, in fact, of action in the whole sphere of the affairs of state. In time the council was gradually subdivided into three bodies: the Council of Justice, the Council of State, and the Council of the Finances, whose functions were indicated by their titles. The first of these was, in a certain sense, the direct representative of the old single royal council, and was frequently known as the Council of Castile. Its president was always considered the highest personage in the kingdom, next the king; its members were of that class of letrados whom the king could most securely rely on, and to it fell the duty of enforcing the royal supremacy as against all ancient claims, privileges, and liberties.