Volume I Part 22 (1/2)

59.--Ferreras, Hist. d'Espagne, tom. viii. p. 477.--Lebrija, Rerum Gestarum Decad., fol. 41, 42.--Gonzalo de Oviedo lavishes many encomiums on Cabrera, for ”his generous qualities, his singular prudence in government, and his solicitude for his va.s.sals, whom he inspired with the deepest attachment.” (Quincuagenas, MS., bat. 1, quinc. 1, dial. 23.) The best panegyric on his character, is the unshaken confidence, which his royal mistress reposed in him, to the day of her death.

[6] Zuniga, Annales de Sevilla, p. 381.--Pulgar, Reyes Catolicos, part. 2, cap. 65, 70, 71.--Bernaldez, Reyes Catolicos, MS., cap. 29.--Carbajal, a.n.a.les, MS., ano 77.--L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, fol. 162; who says, no less than 8,000 guilty fled from Seville and Cordova.

[7] Bernaldez, Reyes Catolicos, MS., cap. 29.-Zurita, a.n.a.les, tom. iv.

fol. 283.-Zuniga, Annales de Sevilla, p. 382.-Lebrija, Rerum Gestarum Decades, lib. 7.--L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, ubi supra.-Garibay, Compendio, lib. 18, cap. 11.

[8] Bernaldez, Reyes Catolicos, MS., cap. 30.--Pulgar, Reyes Catolicos, part. 2, cap. 78.

[9] ”Era muy inclinada,” says Pulgar, ”a facer justicia, tanto que le era imputado seguir mas la via de rigor que de la piedad; y esto facia por remediar a la gran corrupcion de crimines que fallo en el Reyno quando subcedio en el.” Reyes Catolicos, p. 37.

[10] Pulgar, Reyes Catolicos, part. 2, cap. 97, 98.--L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, fol. 162.

[11] Ordenancas Reales de Castilla, (Burgos, 1528,) lib. 2, t.i.t. 3, ley 31.

This const.i.tutional, though, as it would seem, impotent right of the n.o.bility, is noticed by Sempere. (Hist. des Cortes, pp. 123, 129.) It should not have escaped Marina.

[12] Lib. 2, t.i.t. 3, of the Ordenancas Reales is devoted to the royal council. The number of the members was limited to one prelate, as president, three knights, and eight or nine jurists. (Prologo.) The sessions were to be held every day, in the palace. (Leyes 1, 2.) They were instructed to refer to the other tribunals all matters not strictly coming within their own jurisdiction. (Ley 4.) Their acts, in all cases except those specially reserved, were to have the force of law without the royal signature. (Leyes 23, 24.) See also Los Doctores a.s.so y Manuel, Inst.i.tuciones del Derecho Civil de Castilla, (Madrid, 1792,) Introd. p.

111; and Santiago Agustin Riol, Informe, apud Semanario Erudito, (Madrid, 1788,) tom. iii. p. 114, who is mistaken in stating the number of jurists in the council, at this time, at sixteen; a change, which did not take place till Philip II.'s reign. (Recop. de las Leyes, lib. 2, t.i.t. 4, ley 1.)

Marina denies that the council could const.i.tutionally exercise any judicial authority, at least, in suits between private parties, and quotes a pa.s.sage from Pulgar, showing that its usurpations in this way were restrained by Ferdinand and Isabella. (Teoria, part. 2, cap. 29.) Powers of this nature, however, to a considerable extent, appear to have been conceded to it by more than one statute under this reign. See Recop. de las Leyes, (lib. 2, t.i.t. 4, leyes 20, 22, and t.i.t. 5, ley 12,) and the unqualified testimony of Riol, Informe, apud Semanario Erudito, ubi supra.

[13] Ordenancas Reales, lib. 2, t.i.t. 4.--Marina, Teoria de las Cortes, part. 2, cap. 25.

By one of the statutes, (ley 4,) the commission of the judges, which, before extended to life, or a long period, was abridged to one year. This important innovation was made at the earnest and repeated remonstrance of cortes, who traced the remissness and corruption, too frequent of late in the court, to the circ.u.mstance that its decisions were not liable to be reviewed during life. (Teoria, ubi supra.) The legislature probably mistook the true cause of the evil. Few will doubt, at any rate, that the remedy proposed must have been fraught with far greater.

[14] Ordenancas Reales, lib. 2, t.i.t. 1, 3, 4, 15, 16, 17, 19; lib. 3, t.i.t.

2.--Recop. de las Leyes, lib. 2, t.i.t. 4, 5, 16.--Pulgar, Reyes Catolicos, part. 2, cap. 94.

[15] Oviedo, Quincuagenas, MS.--By one of the statutes of the cortes of Toledo, in 1480, the king was required to take his seat in the council every Friday. (Ordenancas Reales, lib. 2, t.i.t. 3, ley 32.) It was not so new for the Castilians to have good laws, as for their monarchs to observe them.

[16] Sempere, Hist. des Cortes, p. 263.

[17] Pulgar, Reyes Catolicos, p. 167.--See the strong language, also, of Peter Martyr, another contemporary witness of the beneficial changes in the government. Opus Epistolarum, (Amstelodami, 1670,) ep. 31.

[18] Prieto y Sotelo, Historia del Derecho Real de Espana, (Madrid, 1738,) lib. 3, cap. 16-21.--Marina has made an elaborate commentary on Alfonso's celebrated code, in his Ensayo Historico-Critico sobre la Antigua Legislacion de Castilla, (Madrid, 1808,) pp. 269 et seq. The English reader will find a more succinct a.n.a.lysis in Dr. Dunham's History of Spain and Portugal, (London, 1832,) in Lardner's Cyclopaedia, vol. iv. pp. 121- 150.--The latter has given a more exact, and, at the same time, extended view of the early Castilian legislation, probably, than is to be found, in the same compa.s.s, in any of the Peninsular writers.

[19] Marina (in his Ensayo Historico-Critico, p. 388) quotes a popular satire of the fifteenth century, directed, with considerable humor, against these abuses, which lead the writer in the last stanza to envy even the summary style of Mahometan justice.

”En tierra de Moros un solo alcalde Libra lo cevil e lo criminal, E todo el dia se esta de valde For la justicia andar muy igual: Alli non es Azo, nin es Decretal, Nin es Roberto, nin la Clementina, Salvo discrecion e buena doctrina, La qual muestra a todos vevir communal.” p. 389.

[20] Mendez enumerates no less than five editions of this code, by 1500; a sufficient evidence of its authority, and general reception throughout Castile. Typographia Espanola, pp. 203, 261, 270.

[21] Ordenancas Reales, Prologo.--Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi.

Il.u.s.t. 9.--Marina, Ensayo Historico-Critico, pp. 390 et seq.--Mendez, Typographia Espanola, p. 261.--The authors of the three last-mentioned works abundantly disprove a.s.so y Manuel's insinuation, that Montalavo's code was the fruit of his private study, without any commission for it, and that it gradually usurped an authority which it had not in its origin.

(Discurso Preliminar al Ord. de Alcala.) The injustice of the last remark, indeed, is apparent from the positive declaration of Bernaldez. ”Los Reyes mandaron tener en todas las ciudades, villas e lugares el libro de Montalvo, _e por el determinar todas las cosas de justicia para cortar los pleitos_.” Reyes Catolicos, MS., cap. 42.

[22] Ordenancas Reales, lib. 7, t.i.t. 2, ley 13.

[23] Oviedo, Quincuagenas, MS., bat. 1, quinc. 1, dial. 44.--Sempere notices this feature of the royal policy. Hist. des Cortes, chap. 24.

[24] Carbajal, a.n.a.les, MS., ano 80.