William Hickling Prescott - The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic (Vol. 1-3)

Among these maritime republics, those of Catalonia were eminently conspicuous. By the incorporation of this country with the kingdom of Aragon, therefore, the strength of the latter was greatly augmented. The Aragonese princes, well aware of this, liberally fostered institutions to which the country owed its prosperity, and skilfully availed themselves of its resources for the aggrandizement of their own dominions. They paid particular attention to the navy, for the more perfect discipline of which a body of laws was prepared by Peter the Fourth, in 1354, that was designed to render it invincible. No allusion whatever is made in this stern code to the mode of surrendering to, or retreating from the enemy. The commander, who declined attacking any force not exceeding his own by more than one vessel, was punished with death. [2] The Catalan navy successfully disputed the empire of the Mediterranean with the fleets of Pisa, and still more of Genoa. With its aid, the Aragonese monarchs achieved the conquest successively of Sicily, Sardinia, and the Balearic Isles, and annexed them to the empire. [3] It penetrated into the farthest regions of the Levant; and the expedition of the Catalans into Asia, which terminated with the more splendid than useful acquisition of Athens, forms one of the most romantic passages in this stirring and adventurous era. [4]

But, while the princes of Aragon were thus enlarging the bounds of their dominion abroad, there was probably not a sovereign in Europe possessed of such limited authority at home. The three great states with their dependencies, which constituted the Aragonese monarchy, had been declared by a statute of James the Second, in 1319, inalienable and indivisible. [5] Each of them, however, maintained a separate constitution of government, and was administered by distinct laws. As it would be fruitless to investigate the peculiarities of their respective institutions, which bear a very close affinity to one another, we may confine ourselves to those of Aragon, which exhibit a more perfect model than those either of Catalonia or Valencia, and have been far more copiously illustrated by her writers.

The national historians refer the origin of their government to a written constitution of about the middle of the ninth century, fragments of which are still preserved in certain ancient documents and chronicles. On occurrence of a vacancy in the throne, at this epoch, a monarch was elected by the twelve principal nobles, who prescribed a code of laws, to the observance of which he was obliged to swear before assuming the sceptre. The import of these laws was to circumscribe within very narrow limits the authority of the sovereign, distributing the principal functions to a Justicia , or Justice, and these same peers, who, in case of a violation of the compact by the monarch, were authorized to withdraw their allegiance, and, in the bold language of the ordinance, "to substitute any other ruler in his stead, even a pagan, if they listed." [6] The whole of this wears much of a fabulous aspect, and may remind the reader of the government which Ulysses met with in Phaeacia; where King Alcinous is surrounded by his "twelve illustrious peers or archons," subordinate to himself, "who," says he, "rule over the people, I myself being the thirteenth." [7] But, whether true or not, this venerable tradition must be admitted to have been well calculated to repress the arrogance of the Aragonese monarchs, and to exalt the minds of their subjects by the image of ancient liberty which it presented. [8]

The great barons of Aragon were few in number. They affected to derive their descent from the twelve peers above mentioned, and were styled ricos hombres de natura , implying by this epithet, that they were not indebted for their creation to the will of the sovereign. No estate could be legally conferred by the crown, as an honor (the denomination of fiefs in Aragon), on any but one of these high nobles. This, however, was in time evaded by the monarchs, who advanced certain of their own retainers to a level with the ancient peers of the land; a measure which proved a fruitful source of disquietude. [9] No baron could be divested of his fief, unless by public sentence of the Justice and the cortes. The proprietor, however, was required, as usual, to attend the king in council, and to perform military service, when summoned, during two months in the year, at his own charge. [10]

The privileges, both honorary and substantial, enjoyed by the ricos hombres , were very considerable. They filled the highest posts in the state. They originally appointed judges in their domains for the cognizance of certain civil causes, and over a class of their vassals exercised an unlimited criminal jurisdiction. They were excused from taxation except in specified cases; were exempted from all corporal and capital punishment; nor could they be imprisoned, although their estates might be sequestrated for debt. A lower class of nobility styled infanzones , equivalent to the Castilian hidalgos , together with the caballeros , or knights, were also possessed of important though inferior immunities. [11] The king distributed among the great barons the territory reconquered from the Moors, in proportions determined by the amount of their respective services. We find a stipulation to this effect from James the First to his nobles, previous to his invasion of Majorca. [12] On a similar principle they claimed nearly the whole of Valencia. [13] On occupying a city, it was usual to divide it into barrios , or districts, each of which was granted by way of fief to some one of the ricos hombres, from which he was to derive his revenue. What proportion of the conquered territory was reserved for the royal demesne does not appear. [14] We find one of these nobles, Bernard de Cabrera, in the latter part of the fourteenth century, manning a fleet of king's ships on his own credit; another, of the ancient family of Luna, in the fifteenth century, so wealthy that he could travel through an almost unbroken line of his estates all the way from Castile to France. [15] With all this, their incomes in general, in this comparatively poor country, were very inferior to those of the great Castilian lords. [16]

The laws conceded certain powers to the aristocracy of a most dangerous character. They were entitled, like the nobles of the sister kingdom, to defy, and publicly renounce their allegiance to their sovereign, with the whimsical privilege, in addition, of commending their families and estates to his protection, which he was obliged to accord, until they were again reconciled. [17] The mischievous right of private war was repeatedly recognized by statute. It was claimed and exercised in its full extent, and occasionally with circumstances of peculiar atrocity. An instance is recorded by Zurita of a bloody feud between two of these nobles, prosecuted with such inveteracy that the parties bound themselves by solemn oath never to desist from it during their lives, and to resist every effort, even on the part of the crown itself, to effect a pacification between them. [18] This remnant of barbarism lingered longer in Aragon than in any other country in Christendom.

The Aragonese sovereigns, who were many of them possessed of singular capacity and vigor, [19] made repeated efforts to reduce the authority of their nobles within more temperate limits. Peter the Second, by a bold stretch of prerogative, stripped them of their most important rights of jurisdiction. [20] James the Conqueror artfully endeavored to counterbalance their weight by that of the commons and the ecclesiastics. [21] But they were too formidable when united, and too easily united, to be successfully assailed. The Moorish wars terminated, in Aragon, with the conquest of Valencia, or rather the invasion of Murcia, by the middle of the thirteenth century. The tumultuous spirits of the aristocracy, therefore, instead of finding a vent, as in Castile, in these foreign expeditions, were turned within, and convulsed their own country with perpetual revolution. Haughty from the consciousness of their exclusive privileges and of the limited number who monopolized them, the Aragonese barons regarded themselves rather as the rivals of their sovereign, than as his inferiors. Intrenched within the mountain fastnesses, which the rugged nature of the country everywhere afforded, they easily bade defiance to his authority. Their small number gave a compactness and concert to their operations, which could not have been obtained in a multitudinous body. Ferdinand the Catholic well discriminated the relative position of the Aragonese and Castilian nobility, by saying, "it was as difficult to divide the one, as to unite the other." [22]