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

[45] It was more frequently referred, both for the sake of expedition, and of obtaining a more full investigation, to commissioners nominated conjointly by the cortes and the party demanding redress. The nature of the greuges , or grievances, which might be brought before the legislature, and the mode of proceeding in relation to them, are circumstantially detailed by the parliamentary historians of Aragon. See Berart, Discurso sobre la Celebracion de Cortes, cap. 7.—Capmany, Práctica y Estilo, pp. 37–44.—Blancas, Modo de Proceder, cap. 14—and Martel, Forma de Celebrar Cortes, cap. 54–59.

[46] Blancas, Modo de Proceder, cap. 14.—Yet Peter IV., in his dispute with the justice Fernandez de Castro, denied this. Zurita, Anales, tom. ii. fol. 170.

[47] Blancas, Modo de Proceder, ubi supra.

[48] As for example the ciudadanos honrados of Saragossa. (Capmany, Práctica y Estilo, p. 14.) A ciudadano honrado in Catalonia, and I presume the same in Aragon, was a landholder, who lived on his rents without being engaged in commerce or trade of any kind, answering to the French propriétaire . See Capmany, Mem. de Barcelona, tom. ii. Apend. no. 30.

[49] Blancas, Modo de Proceder, fol. 102.

[50] Not, however, it must be allowed, without a manly struggle in its defence, and which, in the early part of Charles V.'s reign, in 1525, wrenched a promise from the crown, to answer all petitions definitively, before the rising of cortes. The law still remains on the statute-book, (Recop. de las Leyes, lib. 6, tit. 7, ley 8,) a sad commentary on the faith of princes.

[51] Práctica y Estilo, p. 14.

[52] "Y nos tenemos á ellos como buenos vassallos y compañeros."—Zurita, Anales, lib. 7, cap. 17.

[53] The noun "justicia" was made masculine for the accommodation of this magistrate, who was styled " el justicia." Antonio Perez, Relaciones, fol. 91.

[54] Blancas, Commentarii, p. 26.—Zurita, Anales, tom. i. fol. 9.

[55] Molinus, apud Blancas, Commentarii, pp. 343, 344.—Fueros y Observancias, tom. i. fol. 21, 25.

[56] Blancas, Commentarii, p. 536.—The principal of these jurisdictions was the royal audience in which the king himself presided in person. Ibid., p. 355.

[57] Fueros y Observancias, tom. i. fol. 23, 60 et seq., 155, lib. 3, tit. De Manifestationibus Personarum.—Also fol. 137 et seq., tit. 7, De Firmis Juris.—Blancas, Commentarii, pp. 350, 351.—Zurita, Anales, lib. 10, cap. 37.—The first of these processes was styled firma de derecho , the last, manifestation . The Spanish writers are warm in their encomiums of these two provisions. "Quibus duobus praesidiis," says Blancas, "ita nostrae reipublicae status continetur, ut nulla pars communium fortunarum tutelâ vacua relinquatur." Both this author and Zurita have amplified the details respecting them, which the reader may find extracted, and in part translated, by Mr. Hallam, Middle Ages, vol. ii. pp. 75–77, notes.

When complex litigation became more frequent, the Justice was allowed one, afterwards two, and at a still later period, in 1528, five lieutenants, as they were called, who aided him in the discharge of his onerous duties. Martel, Forma de Celebrar Cortes, Notas de Uztarroz, pp. 92–96.—Blancas, Commentarii, pp. 361–366.

[58] Ibid., pp. 343, 346, 347.—Idem, Coronaciones, pp. 200, 202.—Antonio Perez, Relaciones, fol. 92.

Sempere cites the opinion of an ancient canonist, Canellas, bishop of Huesca, as conclusive against the existence of the vast powers imputed by later commentators to the Justicia. (Histoire des Cortès, chap. 19.) The vague, rhapsodical tone of the extract shows it to be altogether undeserving of the emphasis laid on it; not to add, that it was written more than a century before the period, when the Justicia possessed the influence or the legal authority claimed for him by Aragonese writers—by Blancas, in particular, from whom Sempere borrowed the passage at second hand.

[59] The law alluded to runs thus: "Ne quid autem damni detrimentive leges aut libertates nostrae patiantur, judex quidam medius adesto, ad quem a Rege provocare, si aliquem laeserit, injuriasque arcere si quas forsan Reipub. intulerit, jus fasque esto." Blancas, Commentarii, p. 26.

[60] Such instances may he found in Zurita, Anales, tom. ii. fol. 385, 414.—Blancas, Commentarii, pp. 199, 202–206, 214, 225.—When Ximenes Cerdan, the independent Justice of John I., removed certain citizens from the prison, in which they had been unlawfully confined by the king, in defiance equally of that officer's importunities and menaces, the inhabitants of Saragossa, says Abarca, came out in a body to receive him on his return to the city, and greeted him as the defender of their ancient and natural liberties. (Reyes de Aragon, tom. i. fol. 155.) So openly did the Aragonese support their magistrate in the boldest exercise of his authority.

[61] This occurred once under Peter III., and twice under Alfonso V. (Zurita, Anales, tom. iii. fol. 255.—Blancas, Commentarii, pp. 174, 489, 499.) The Justice was appointed by the king.

[62] Fueros y Observancias, tom. i. fol. 22.

[63] Ibid., tom. i. fol. 25.

[64] Ibid., tom. i. lib. 3, tit. Forum Inquisitionis Officii Just. Arag., and tom. ii. fol. 37–41.—Blancas, Commentarii, pp. 391–399.

The examination was conducted in the first instance before a court of four inquisitors, as they were termed; who, after a patient hearing of both sides, reported the result of their examination to a council of seventeen, chosen like them from the cortes, from whose decision there was no appeal. No lawyer was admitted into this council, lest the law might be distorted by verbal quibbles, says Blancas. The council, however, was allowed the advice of two of the profession. They voted by ballot, and the majority decided. Such, after various modifications, were the regulations ultimately adopted in 1461, or rather 1467. Robertson appears to have confounded the council of seventeen with the court of inquisition. See his History of Charles V., vol. i. note 31.

[65] Probably no nation of the period would have displayed a temperance similar to that exhibited by the Aragonese at the beginning of the fifteenth century, in 1412; when the people, having been split into factions by a contested succession, agreed to refer the dispute to a committee of judges, elected equally from the three great provinces of the kingdom; who, after an examination conducted with all the forms of law, and on the same equitable principles as would have guided the determination of a private suit, delivered an opinion, which was received as obligatory on the whole nation.

[66] See Zurita, Anales, lib. 8, cap. 29—and the admirable sentiments cited by Blancas from the parliamentary acts, in 1451. Commentarii, p. 350.

From this independent position must be excepted, indeed, the lower classes of the peasantry, who seem to have been in a more abject state in Aragon than in most other feudal countries. "Era tan absolute su dominio (of their lords) que podian mater con hambre, sed, y frio á sus vasallos de servidumbre." (Asso y Manuel, Instituciones, p. 40—also Blancas, Commentarii, p. 309.) These serfs extorted, in an insurrection, the recognition of certain rights from their masters, on condition of paying a specified tax; whence the name villanos de parada .

[67] Although the legislatures of the different states of the crown of Aragon were never united in one body when convened in the same town, yet they were so averse to all appearance of incorporation, that the monarch frequently appointed for the places of meeting three distinct towns, within their respective territories and contiguous, in order that he might pass the more expeditiously from one to the other. See Blancas, Modo de Proceder, cap. 4.