It is more easy to explain, with likelihood, the existence of these practices among the Spanish Goths of the twelfth century, than to justify, without proofs, or rather in opposition to all evidence, the arbitrary supposition of their prevalence among the Visigoths of the seventh. Such institutions have in themselves something of spontaneity; they correspond to a certain degree of civilization, to a certain state of social institutions; we meet with them under forms more or less similar, but fundamentally analogous, not only among all the Germanic peoples, but also among nearly all those barbaric peoples which, scarcely issued from a nomadic life, begin to establish themselves on a new territory, after they have conquered it. Now, the destruction of the monarchy of the Visigoths by the Arabs suspended the course of the institutions which it had received two centuries before, broke off the councils of Toledo, crushed or greatly diminished the predominance of the clergy, and, in fine, put a stop to the civilization which had commenced, and gave to affairs an entirely new direction.
Birth Of Free Institutions.
Scattered among the mountains, frequently wandering, separated into various bands, those of the Goths who did not submit to the conquerors, returned, so to speak, towards the life which their ancestors led in the forests of Germany. Roman institutions, Roman maxims, all that collection of laws and ideas which they had received from the clergy, and which had prevailed over their own habits, disappeared almost necessarily in this shock, or at least were retained only by those Goths who remained under the dominion of the Mussulmans. The companions of Pelagius, up to a certain point, became Germans once more, from sheer necessity. It was after this involuntary return to their primitive condition, and, by consequence, to their ancient institutions, that they resumed the offensive against the Arabs, and reconquered Spain by degrees, bringing back with them those political and judicial customs, usages, and practices, which they had partially regained. Free institutions, moreover, could not fail to regain vitality at this period; for they alone can supply strength in times of danger or misfortune. It was not in the power of the customs of the officium palatinum, and of the maxims of the councils of Toledo, to restore the Goths to their subjugated country, and reinstate the descendants of Chindasuinth upon the throne of their fathers. The participation of the people in public affairs, the sternness of Barbarian manners, and the energy of irregular liberty, could alone produce such effects. There is every reason to believe that the institutions of Spain, after the re-establishment of the kingdoms of Castile, Leon, Arragon, &c, were new institutions, and the result of the new position of the Goths, much more than the legacy of the ancient Visigoths. We find proofs of this in the general Cortes of the kingdom, in the constitutions and liberties of the towns, in the whole political order of the State, which has no connection whatever with the old monarchy, and follows much more naturally as a result of the condition and necessities of new monarchies. The political system established by the councils of Toledo and the Forum judicum could not have taken deep root; it fell before necessities which it was unable to meet.
Conclusion.
The Forum judicum itself would perhaps have completely succumbed, had it not continued to be the law of those Goths who had submitted to the yoke of the Moors; it moreover regulated civil order, which is always more firmly fixed, and less influenced by revolutions. It therefore continued, in this respect, to be the general law of Spain; whilst political order assumed a new form and was regulated by other institutions.
The Forum judicum and contemporary authorities are the only true source at which we can study the political institutions of the ancient Visigoths; a source which is doubtless incomplete, and which does not inform us of all that existed; a source which, probably even, especially neglected to gather up what still remained of Germanic manners and habits, but which it is impossible to repudiate in order to admit facts and general institutions which are directly contrary to it. The consequences which I have deduced from these original and contemporary authorities, therefore, still subsist, and determine the true political system of the monarchy of the Visigoths. The imperial government, and ecclesiastical theories, were its constituent elements. These elements prevailed over Germanic customs. They were doubtless modified in order that they might be adapted to a Barbarian people; but, by modification, they gained dominion, and became the general form, the fundamental law, of the State. If the Spanish Goths afterwards entered upon a course more analogous to that pursued by other modern nations of the same origin, it is in the invasion of the Arabs, in the second conquest of Spain by the re-Germanized Goths, and in the effects of this great revolution, but not in the institutions of the monarchy of the Visigoths, that we may discern the causes of this procedure.