Such was the revised machinery of government, revealing already that decisively bureaucratic stamp that was to be so marked a feature of its later development. Obvious also was its fatal dependence on the Crown, the motive power alone capable of supplying the councils with initiative, nor could any counterpoise to sovereignty be hoped for in the type of official now prominent. The exaltation of the Crown was the first article of belief for lawyers steeped in Justinian’s code with its theories of imperial absolutism. Yet it must be remembered that, although this system contained within itself the germs of tyranny, in the early days of Ferdinand and Isabel’s rule centralized power stood for the triumph of right over wrong, of order over anarchy. By no other means could these ends have been so effectively and speedily won. “Justice, which seems to have abandoned other lands,” wrote Peter Martyr in 1492, “pervades these kingdoms.”
It had been bought by the sovereigns at the price of unflagging industry and watchfulness, now employed in a struggle against foreign enemies or subject rebels, now against the prejudices of class or community, now against the corruption of trusted officials.
Sometimes the chief enemy to be faced was bewilderment,—the difficulty of administering a law that was not one but many. The judge must have a clear head who could steer his way through the mazes of the old “Fuero Juzgo” of the Gothic kings, or the later compilations of Castilian sovereigns, such as the “Fuero Real,” the “Siete Partidas,” or the “Ordenamiento de Alcalá.” Even these did not cover the field of legislation, further complicated by local charters and royal edicts, involving a thousand variations and discrepancies.
After the matter had been discussed in the Cortes of Toledo, a noted jurist, Alfonso Diaz de Montalvo, undertook by the Queen’s command the task of clearing away the rubbish and compiling what remained into a comprehensive code. Within four years the work stood completed in eight bulky volumes, and the “Ordenanzas Reales” took their place on the legal bookshelves; but though undoubtedly of great authority the new compilation failed to fulfil the general expectations. A study of its pages revealed not only mistakes and repetitions, but also many serious omissions; while a further publication by the same author a few years later scarcely proved more satisfactory. So conscious was Isabel of these defects that in her will she entreated her daughter, Joanna, “to select a learned and conscientious bishop and other persons wise and experienced in the law,” that they might undertake this formidable task anew.
Legal, judicial, and administrative abuses had thus received their share of amendment; but it is scarcely too much to say that all the reforms in these directions would have proved useless, but for the steps taken to check financial disaster. That commerce and industry should have sunk to a low ebb was the inevitable corollary of a foreign and civil war, but still more evil in its influence had been the steady depreciation of the coinage. Not only had the five royal mints turned out bad metal to supply Henry IV. with the money which he squandered so lavishly, but his very monopoly of coining rights had been squandered too, or disputed by rebellious subjects. By the end of his reign the five mints had grown into one hundred and fifty, and the reals and blancas produced by private furnaces had descended to a mere fraction of their former value.
The decay of industry and the worthless coinage combined to inflate prices extravagantly, with the result that men of moderate means were ruined, and the distrust increased till no one would accept the current issues either in payment of debts or in return for goods.
Such was the state of perdition into which the kingdom had fallen [says a contemporary writer], that those who travelled by the highways could not satisfy their hunger either for good money or for bad; nor was there any price at which those who laboured in the fields were willing to sell.
A primitive system of barter had sprung up when, in the first year of their reign, Ferdinand and Isabel once more established the monopoly of the royal mints, and fixed a legal standard to which the coinage must approximate. These reforms were absolutely necessary to restore public confidence, but they involved a drain on the treasury which it was impossible to satisfy by ordinary means. We have seen already that in 1475 the sovereigns had recourse to a loan raised on the ecclesiastical plate, but it was an expedient that would not bear repetition, even if the Queen had not regarded the repayment of the original sum as her most sacred duty. Some other way must be found that would not threaten the property of the Church, if it was to find approval in her eyes.
The deputies assembled at Toledo shook their heads gloomily over the suggestion of increased taxation. They represented the pecheros, or taxed classes, and knew that the little that could be raised by this method would slip in and out of the treasury as through a sieve. Taxation might prove a momentary makeshift, but in the exhausted state of the country it could offer no permanent solution of the problem.
On examination, the chief cause of the poverty was shown to be the wholesale alienation of royal estates in the previous reign. Henry IV. had silenced the remonstrances of his treasurer by announcing that prodigality was a king’s duty. “Give to some,” he commanded, “that they may serve me; to others lest they should rob me; for by the grace of God I am King and have treasures and rents enough to supply all men.”