The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic — Volume 1

by William Hickling Prescott

By the modifications then introduced, the basis was laid of the judiciary system, such as it has been perpetuated to the present age. The law acquired an authority, which, in the language of a Spanish writer, "caused a decree, signed by two or three judges, to be more respected since that time, than an army before." [16] But perhaps the results of this improved administration cannot be better conveyed than in the words of an eye- witness. "Whereas," says Pulgar, "the kingdom was previously filled with banditti and malefactors of every description, who committed the most diabolical excesses, in open contempt of law, there was now such terror impressed on the hearts of all, that no one dared to lift his arm against another, or even to assail him with contumelious or discourteous language. The knight and the squire, who had before oppressed the laborer, were intimidated by the fear of that justice, which was sure to be executed on them; the roads were swept of the banditti; the fortresses, the strong- holds of violence, were thrown open, and the whole nation, restored to tranquillity and order, sought no other redress, than that afforded by the operation of the law." [17]

II. Codification of the laws. Whatever reforms might have been introduced into the Castilian judicatures, they would have been of little avail, without a corresponding improvement in the system of jurisprudence by which their decisions were to be regulated. This was made up of the Visigothic code, as the basis, the fueros of the Castilian princes, as far back as the eleventh century, and the "Siete Partidas," the famous compilation of Alfonso the Tenth, digested chiefly from maxims of the civil law. [18] The deficiencies of these ancient codes had been gradually supplied by such an accumulation of statutes and ordinances, as rendered the legislation of Castile in the highest degree complex, and often contradictory. The embarrassment resulting from this, occasioned, as may be imagined, much tardiness, as well as uncertainty, in the decisions of the courts, who, despairing of reconciling the discrepancies in their own law, governed themselves almost exclusively by the Roman, so much less accommodated, as it was, than their own, to the genius of the national institutions, as well as to the principles of freedom. [19]

The nation had long felt the pressure of these evils, and made attempts to redress them in repeated cortes. But every effort proved unavailing, during the stormy or imbecile reigns of the princes of Trastamara. At length, the subject having been resumed in the cortes of Toledo, in 1480, Dr. Alfonso Diaz de Montalvo, whose professional science had been matured under the reigns of three successive sovereigns, was charged with the commission of revising the laws of Castile, and of compiling a code, which should be of general application throughout the kingdom.

This laborious undertaking was accomplished in little more than four years; and his work, which subsequently bore the title of Ordenanças Reales, was published, or, as the privilege expresses it, "written with types," excrito de letra de molde, at Huete, in the beginning of 1485. It was one of the first works, therefore, which received the honors of the press in Spain; and surely none could have been found, at that period, more deserving of them. It went through repeated editions in the course of that, and the commencement of the following century. [20] It was admitted as paramount authority throughout Castile; and, although the many innovations, which were introduced in that age of reform, required the addition of two subsidiary codes in the latter years of Isabella, the "Ordenanças" of Montalvo continued to be the guide of the tribunals down to the time of Philip the Second; and may be said to have suggested the idea, as indeed it was the basis of the comprehensive compilation, "Nueva Recopilacion," which has since formed the law of the Spanish monarchy. [21]

III. Depression of the nobles. In the course of the preceding chapters, we have seen the extent of the privileges constitutionally enjoyed by the aristocracy, as well as the enormous height to which they had swollen under the profuse reigns of John the Second, and Henry the Fourth. This was such, at the accession of Ferdinand and Isabella, as to disturb the balance of the constitution, and to give serious cause of apprehension both to the monarch and the people. They had introduced themselves into every great post of profit or authority. They had ravished from the crown the estates, on which it depended for its maintenance, as well as dignity. They coined money in their own mints, like sovereign princes; and they covered the country with their fortified castles, whence they defied the law, and desolated the unhappy land with interminable feuds. It was obviously necessary for the new sovereigns to proceed with the greatest caution against this powerful and jealous body, and, above all, to attempt no measure of importance, in which they would not be supported by the hearty co-operation of the nation.

The first measure, which may be said to have clearly developed their policy, was the organization of the hermandad, which, although ostensibly directed against offenders of a more humble description, was made to bear indirectly upon the nobility, whom it kept in awe by the number and discipline of its forces, and the promptness with which it could assemble them on the most remote points of the kingdom; while its rights of jurisdiction tended materially to abridge those of the seignorial tribunals. It was accordingly resisted with the greatest pertinacity by the aristocracy; although, as we have seen, the resolution of the queen, supported by the constancy of the commons, enabled her to triumph over all opposition, until the great objects of the institution were accomplished.

Another measure, which insensibly operated to the depression of the nobility, was making official preferment depend less exclusively on rank, and much more on personal merit, than before. "Since the hope of guerdon," says one of the statutes enacted at Toledo, "is the spur to just and honorable actions, when men perceive that offices of trust are not to descend by inheritance, but to be conferred on merit, they will strive to excel in virtue, that they may attain its reward." [22] The sovereigns, instead of confining themselves to the grandees, frequently advanced persons of humble origin, and especially those learned in the law, to the most responsible stations, consulting them, and paying great deference to their opinions, on all matters of importance. The nobles, finding that rank was no longer the sole, or indeed the necessary avenue to promotion, sought to secure it by attention to more liberal studies, in which they were greatly encouraged by Isabella, who admitted their children into her palace, where they were reared under her own eye. [23]

But the boldest assaults on the power of the aristocracy were made in the famous cortes of Toledo, in 1480, which Carbajal enthusiastically styles "cosa divina para reformacion y remedio de las desórdenes pasadas." [24] The first object of its attention was the condition of the exchequer, which Henry the Fourth had so exhausted by his reckless prodigality, that the clear annual revenue amounted to no more than thirty thousand ducats, a sum much inferior to that enjoyed by many private individuals; so that, stripped of his patrimony, it at last came to be said, he was "king only of the highways." Such had been the royal necessities, that blank certificates of annuities assigned on the public rents were hawked about the market, and sold at such a depreciated rate, that the price of an annuity did not exceed the amount of one year's income. The commons saw with alarm the weight of the burdens which must devolve on them for the maintenance of the crown thus impoverished in its resources; and they resolved to meet the difficulty by advising at once a resumption of the grants unconstitutionally made during the latter half of Henry the Fourth's reign, and the commencement of the present. [25] This measure, however violent, and repugnant to good faith, it may appear at the present time, seems then to have admitted of justification, as far as the nation was concerned; since such alienation of the public revenue was in itself illegal, and contrary to the coronation oath of the sovereign; and those who accepted his obligations, held them subject to the liability of their revocation, which had frequently occurred under the preceding reigns.

As the intended measure involved the interests of most of the considerable proprietors in the kingdom, who had thriven on the necessities of the crown, it was deemed proper to require the attendance of the nobility and great ecclesiastics in cortes by a special summons, which it seems had been previously omitted. Thus convened, the legislature appears, with great unanimity, and much to the credit of those most deeply affected by it, to have acquiesced in the proposed resumption of the grants, as a measure of absolute necessity. The only difficulty was to settle the principles on which the retrenchment might be most equitably made, with reference to creditors, whose claims rested on a great variety of grounds. The plan suggested by Cardinal Mendoza seems to have been partially adopted. It was decided, that all, whose pensions had been conferred without any corresponding services on their part, should forfeit them entirely; that those, who had purchased annuities, should return their certificates on a reimbursement of the price paid for them; and that the remaining creditors, who composed the largest class, should retain such a proportion only of their pensions, as might be judged commensurate with their services to the state. [26]

By this important reduction, the final adjustment and execution of which were intrusted to Fernando de Talavera, the queen's confessor, a man of austere probity, the gross amount of thirty millions of maravedies, a sum equal to three-fourths of the whole revenue on Isabella's accession, was annually saved to the crown. The retrenchment was conducted with such strict impartiality, that the most confidential servants of the queen, and the relatives of her husband, were among those who suffered the most severely. [27] It is worthy of remark that no diminution whatever was made of the stipends settled on literary and charitable establishments. It may be also added, that Isabella appropriated the first fruits of this measure, by distributing the sum of twenty millions of maravedies among the widows and orphans of those loyalists who had fallen in the War of the Succession. [28] This resumption of the grants may be considered as the basis of those economical reforms, which, without oppression to the subject, augmented the public revenue more than twelve fold during this auspicious reign. [29]