Outlines of Universal History, Designed as a Text-book and for Private Reading

by George Park Fisher

CASTILE.—Ferdinand III. (St. Ferdinand) (1214-1252), in warfare with the Moors extended the kingdom of Castile and Leon over Cordova, Seville, and Cadiz. His son Alfonso X., or Alfonso the Wise (1252-1284), cultivated astronomy and astrology, was fond of music and poetry, enlarged the University of Salamanca, gave a code of laws to his kingdom, and caused historical books to be written; but he wasted his treasures in pomp and luxury, and in ambitious designs upon the German imperial crown. He allowed the Merinides, new swarms of African Saracens, to spread in the South of Spain. Alfonso XI. (1312-1350), after a stormy contest with the nobles during his minority, distinguished himself by the victory of Tarifa over the Moors (1340), and the taking of the city of Algeciras (1344). His enemies respected him; and when he died of the plague, in his camp before Gibraltar, the king of Granada went into mourning (1350). The reign of Peter the Cruel (1350-1369) was filled up with perfidies and crimes. The league of the nobles against him only incited him to fresh barbarities. He committed the most atrocious murders, sometimes with his own hand. Protected by the Black Prince, he was at first victorious against Henry of Transtamare his rival; and Du Guesclin was defeated in the battle of Najara in 1367. Afterwards Peter was obliged to surrender, and was killed by the dagger of Henry in a personal encounter. The power of the nobility in Castile had so increased during the civil troubles that Henry III. (1390-1406) had to sell his cloak to procure for himself a dinner. Roused by this humiliation to assert his authority, he succeeded with the help of the Cortes in humbling the nobility; but John II. (1406-1454) was compelled by the most powerful lords, after a protracted contest, to strike off the head of an unworthy favorite, Alvaro de Luna, under whose despotic control he had placed the government (1454). There was a worse state of anarchy under Henry IV., John's successor (1454-1474).

CONSTITUTIONS OF ARAGON AND CASTILE.—The political institutions of Aragon and Castile are specially worthy of note. The kings of Aragon were very much restricted in their authority by the Cortes, or general assembly, composed of the higher and lower classes of nobles, the clergy, and the cities, which by their trade and manufactures had risen to wealth and power. With the Cortes was lodged the right to make laws and to lay taxes. At Saragassa in 1287, it was likewise ordained that they should enjoy certain important privileges. The concurrence of the estates was to be required in the choice of the king's counselors; and in case the king without the warrant of a judgment of the highest judicial officer, the justiciary, and of the estates, should adjudge to punishment any member of the body, they should have the right to elect another king. These "privileges" were lost under Peter IV. (1336-1387), but the old rights were confirmed. To the justiciary was given the power to determine all conflicts of the estates with the king or with one another. His influence increased as time went on. He was the first magistrate in the kingdom.

In Castile, as early as 1169 the deputies of the cities were admitted into the Cortes. We find the cities, at the end of the thirteenth century, forming a confederation, called a "fraternity," against the nobles. Their deputies at that time had more power in the assemblies than the nobles and clergy. But the power of the nobles increased, especially from the accession of Henry of Transtamare. In the overthrow of Alvaro de Luna, their triumph was complete: they proved themselves to be stronger than the king.

THE CASTILIANS.—The Spanish Mohammedans were superior in refinement to their Christian adversaries. The latter learned much from their enemies, without losing the patriotic and religious ardor which was fostered by the popular minstrelsy, and by the romantic exploits and encounters with the "infidels." The result was the peculiar spirit of Castilian chivalry. The early development of popular government in Castile increased the feeling of personal independence. Outside of Italy, no cities of Europe in the Middle Ages were so rich and flourishing as the cities of Castile, Materials of commerce were afforded by the famous breed of sheep, and by the products of the soil and of manufactures. The nobles gained great wealth, and had vast estates in the country. They held court as petty sovereigns: Alvaro de Luna had twenty thousand vassals. They were inured to war, they were haughty and overbearing, and complaints of their oppressions were frequent on the part of the lower orders. The Castilian ecclesiastics were often lax in their morals. The higher prelates were possessed of great riches and authority. In the beginning of the fifteenth century the people in Castile had more power, compared with the power of the sovereign, than in any other European country. But the representation of the commons was exclusively from the cities, and not, as in England, largely from the landed proprietors.

THE ARAGONESE.—The extraordinary authority exercised by the justiciary, or justice, of Aragon was perhaps the most remarkable feature of its constitution. Dwelling on the ocean, the Aragonese built up a naval power. Barcelona, after its union with Aragon, was the seat of a flourishing commerce, and framed the first written code of maritime law now extant. Its municipal officers were merchants and mechanics. Membership in the guilds was sought by nobles, as rendering them eligible to the magistracy. The burghers became proud and independent. The Catalans did not hesitate to assert their rights against encroachments of the kings. In 1430 the University of Barcelona was founded. "After the genuine race of troubadours had passed away," says Mr. Prescott, "the Provencal or Limousin verse was carried to its highest excellence by the poets of Valencia" (Prescott's History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, Introduction).

PORTUGAL: COMMERCE AND NAVIGATION.—About 1095 Alfonso VI., king of Castile and Leon, gave the territory between the Minho and the Douro to his son-in-law, Henry of Burgundy, who assumed the title of Count of Portugal. His son and successor, Alfonso I., who defeated the Moors at Ourique in 1139, was hailed as king by his army, and later was confirmed in the title by the Pope (1185). He was acknowledged as independent by the king of Castile. In a diet at Laimego, he gave an excellent constitution and body of laws to his people (1143). Soon after, he conquered Lisbon, and made it his capital. His son, Sancho I. (1185-1211), was distinguished both for his victories over the Moors and for his encouragement of tillage and of farm-laborers. Until we reach the fifteenth century, Portuguese history is occupied with wars with the Moors and the Castilians, contests of the kings with the nobles, and struggles between rival aspirants for the throne, and between the sovereigns on the one hand and the clergy and the popes on the other. Under Dionysius III. (1279-1325) there began a new era, in which the Portuguese became eminent for industry and learning, and in commerce and navigation. He founded the University of Lisbon. Alfonso IV. (1325-1357) continued on the same path. But he caused Ines de Castro, who had been secretly married to his son, to be murdered (1354); a crime which the son, Peter I. (1357-1367), after his accession, avenged by causing the hearts of the murderers to be torn out. John I. (1385-1433) repelled a great invasion of the Castilians, in a battle near Lisbon, and became at first regent and then king. He was the founder of a new family. By him Ceuta in Africa was captured from the Moors. Madeira was discovered (1419), and by the burning of the forests was prepared for the cultivation of sugar-cane and the vine. In 1432 the Portuguese occupied the Azores. A most active interest in voyages of discovery was taken by Prince Henry the Navigator (1394-1460), fourth son of King John I. and of Philippa, daughter of John of Gaunt.

IV. THE SCANDINAVIAN COUNTRIES.

THE BALTIC LANDS.—There are three divisions of Europe which neither Charlemagne's Empire nor the Eastern Empire included. The first is Spain, which had been comprised in the old Roman Empire. The second is Great Britain and the adjacent islands. Only a portion of Britain was held as a province by old Rome. The third is the two Scandinavian peninsulas,—Denmark, and Norway and Sweden, with the Slavonic lands to the east and south, which may be said to have had a common relation to the Baltic. The Scandinavians had their period of foreign conquest and settlement, but their settlements abroad remained in no connection with the countries whence they came. Sweden was cut off from the ocean. "The history of Sweden"—as Mr. Freeman, to whom we owe a lucid exposition of this subject, has pointed out—"mainly consists in the growth and the loss of her dominion in the Baltic lands out of her own peninsula. It is only in quite modern times that the union of the crowns, though not of the kingdoms, of Sweden and Norway, has created a power wholly peninsular and equally Baltic and oceanic." The Germans and Scandinavians spread their dominion over the Aryan and non-Aryan tribes on the south and east of the Baltic. Finland, inhabited by a Turanian or Scythic people whose language is akin to that of the Hungarians, was long under Swedish dominion. Now Finland and the east of the Baltic are in Russia, while the southern and south-eastern shore of the Baltic is German. Russia, in modern days, having no oceanic character like Great Britain and Spain, has expanded her dominion westward to the Baltic, but mainly to the east over Central Asia. She has built up a continental, instead of a maritime and colonial, empire.

CONVERSION OF SCANDINAVIA.—In the earlier part of the Middle Ages, the two Scandinavian peninsulas are known only through the piratical expeditions which they send forth upon the two adjacent seas. By the way of the North Sea, the Northmen reached France, England, Greenland, and America; by the way of the Baltic, Russia. The conversion of Denmark to Christianity was completed in the eleventh century, under Canute; that of Norway in the tenth, and of Sweden in the eleventh. After the foreign settlements were made, and with the introduction of the gospel, piracy ceased, and civilization began (p. 239).

DENMARK.—After Canute VI. (1182), Waldemar II., the Victorious, was the prominent personage in Danish history. He conquered Holstein and Pomerania,—in fact, every thing north of the Elbe and the Elde. In 1219 he overran Esthonia, in a crusade for the forcible conversion of the pagans, when the Danish standard, the Dannebrog,—a white cross on a blood-red field,—began to be used. On his return, he was treacherously captured, and with his son was kept in prison in Mecklenburg for three years, by Henry, Count of Schwerin. Waldemar was defeated in 1227, in the war undertaken to recover the conquests which he had given up as the price of his release. He was the author of a code of laws.