The story of the Knight of the Swan, full of enchantments, duels, and much of what marks the books of chivalry, begins abruptly at Lib. 1. cap. 47, fol. xvii., with these words: “And now the history leaves off speaking for a time of all these things, in order to relate what concerns the Knight of the Swan,” etc.; and it ends with Cap. 185, f. lxxx., the next chapter opening thus: “Now this history leaves off speaking of this, and turns to relate how three knights went to Jerusalem,” etc. This story of the Knight of the Swan, which fills 63 leaves, or about a quarter part of the whole work, appeared originally in Normandy or Belgium, begun by Jehan Renault and finished by Gandor or Graindor of Douay, in 30,000 verses, about the year 1300. (De la Rue, Essai sur les Bardes, etc., Caen, 1834, 8vo, Tom. III. p. 213. Warton’s English Poetry, London, 1824, 8vo, Vol. II. p. 149. Collection of Prose Romances, by Thoms, London, 1838, 12mo, Vol. III., Preface.) It was, I suppose, inserted in the Ultramar, when the Ultramar was prepared for publication, because it was supposed to illustrate and dignify the history of Godfrey of Bouillon, its hero; but this is not the only part of the work made up later than its date. The last chapter, for instance, giving an account of the death of Conradin of the Hohenstauffen, and the assassination in the church of Viterbo, at the moment of the elevation of the host, of Henry, the grandson of Henry III. of England, by Guy of Monfort,—both noticed by Dante,—has nothing to do with the main work, and seems taken from some later chronicle.
[62] There is a curious collection of documents, published by royal authority, (Madrid, 1829-33, 6 tom. 8vo,) called “Coleccion de Cédulas, Cartas, Patentes,” etc., relating to Biscay and the Northern provinces, where the Castilian first appeared. They contain nothing in that language so old as the letter of confirmation to the Fueros of Avilés by Alfonso the Seventh already noted; but they contain materials of some value for tracing the decay of the Latin, by documents dated from the year 804 downwards. (Tom. VI. p. 1.) There is, however, a difficulty relating both to the documents in Latin and to those in the early modern dialect; e. g. in relation to the one in Tom. V. p. 120, dated 1197. It is, that we are not certain that we possess them in precisely their original form and integrity. Indeed, in not a few instances we are sure of the opposite. For these Fueros, Privilegios, or whatever they are called, being but arbitrary grants of an absolute monarch, the persons to whom they were made were careful to procure confirmations of them from succeeding sovereigns, as often as they could; and when these confirmations were made, the original document, if in Latin, was sometimes translated, as was that of Peter the Cruel, given by Marina (Teoría de las Cortes, Madrid, 1813, 4to, Tom. III. p. 11); or, if in the modern dialect, it was sometimes copied and accommodated to the changed language and spelling of the age. Such confirmations were in some cases numerous, as in the grant first cited, which was confirmed thirteen times between 1231 and 1621. Now it does not appear from the published documents in this Coleccion what is, in each instance, the true date of the particular version used. The Avilés document, however, is not liable to this objection. It is extant on the original parchment, upon which the confirmation was made in 1155, with the original signatures of the persons who made it, as testified by the most competent witnesses. See post, Vol. III., Appendix (A), near the end.
[63] Fuero Juzgo is a barbarous phrase, which signifies the same as Forum Judicum, and is perhaps a corruption of it. (Covarrubias, Tesoro, Madrid, 1674, fol., ad verb.) The first printed edition of the Fuero Juzgo is of 1600; the best is that by the Academy, in Latin and Spanish, Madrid, 1815, folio.
[64] See the Discurso prefixed to the Academy’s edition, by Don Manuel de Lardizabal y Uribe; and Marina’s Ensayo, p. 29, in Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., Tom. IV., 1805. Perhaps the most curious passage in the Fuero Juzgo is the law (Lib. XII. Tít. iii. Ley 15) containing the tremendous oath of abjuration prescribed to those Jews who were about to enter the Christian Church. But I prefer to give as a specimen of its language one of a more liberal spirit, viz., the eighth Law of the Primero Titolo, or Introduction, “concerning those who may become kings,” which in the Latin original dates from A. D. 643: “Quando el rey morre, nengun non deve tomar el regno, nen facerse rey, nen ningun religioso, nen otro omne, nen servo, nen otro omne estrano, se non omne de linage de los godos, et fillo dalgo, et noble et digno de costumpnes, et con el otorgamiento de los obispos, et de los godos mayores, et de todo el poblo. Asi que mientre que fórmos todos de un corazon, et de una veluntat, et de una fé, que sea entre nos paz et justicia enno regno, et que podamos ganar la companna de los angeles en el otro sieglo; et aquel que quebrantar esta nuestra lee sea escomungado por sempre.”
[65] For the Setenario, see Castro, Biblioteca, Tom. II. pp. 680-684; and Marina, Historia de la Legislacion, Madrid, 1808, fol., §§ 290, 291. As far as it goes, which is not through the first of the seven divisions proposed, it consists, 1. of an introduction by Alfonso; and 2. of a series of discussions on the Catholic religion, on Heathenism, etc., which were afterwards substantially incorporated into the first of the Partidas of Alfonso himself.
[66] Opúsculos Legales del Rey Alfonso el Sabio, publicados, etc., por la Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid, 1836, 2 tom. fol. Marina, Legislacion, § 301.
[67] “El Setenario” was the name given to the work begun in the reign of St. Ferdinand, “because,” says Alfonso, in the preface to it, “all it contains is arranged by sevens.” In the same way his own code is divided into seven parts; but it does not seem to have been cited by the name of “The Seven Parts” till above a century after it was composed. Marina, Legislacion, §§ 292-303. Preface to the edition of the Partidas by the Academy, Madrid, 1807, 4to, Tom. I. pp. xv.-xviii.
[68] Much trouble arose from the attempt of Alfonso X. to introduce his code. Marina, Legislacion, §§ 417-419.
[69] Marina, Legis., § 449. Fuero Juzgo, ed. Acad., Pref., p. xliii.
[70] See a curious and learned book entitled “The Laws of the Siete Partidas, which are still in Force in the State of Louisiana,” translated by L. Moreau Lislet and H. Carleton, New Orleans, 1820, 2 vols. 8vo; and a discussion on the same subject in Wheaton’s “Reports of Cases in the Supreme Court of the United States,” Vol. V. 1820, Appendix; together with various cases in the other volumes of the Reports of the Supreme Court of the United States, e. g. Wheaton, Vol. III. 1818, p. 202, note (a). “We may observe,” says Dunham, (Hist. of Spain and Portugal, Vol. IV. p. 121,) “that, if all the other codes were banished, Spain would still have a respectable body of jurisprudence; for we have the experience of an eminent advocate in the Royal Tribunal of Appeals for asserting, that, during an extensive practice of twenty-nine years, scarcely a case occurred which could not be virtually or expressly decided by the code in question.”