Volume I Part 7 (1/2)

[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 pet.i.tions definitively, before the rising of cortes. The law still remains on the statute-book, (Recop. de las Leyes, lib. 6, t.i.t. 7, ley 8,) a sad commentary on the faith of princes.

[51] Practica y Estilo, p. 14.

[52] ”Y nos tenemos a ellos como buenos va.s.sallos y companeros.”--Zurita, a.n.a.les, 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, a.n.a.les, 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 princ.i.p.al 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, t.i.t.

De Manifestationibus Personarum.--Also fol. 137 et seq., t.i.t. 7, De Firmis Juris.--Blancas, Commentarii, pp. 350, 351.--Zurita, a.n.a.les, 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 tutela 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 Cortes, 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 pa.s.sage at second hand.

[59] The law alluded to runs thus: ”Ne quid autem d.a.m.ni 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, a.n.a.les, 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, a.n.a.les, 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, t.i.t. 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, a.n.a.les, 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 cla.s.ses 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 a sus vasallos de servidumbre.” (a.s.so y Manuel, Inst.i.tuciones, 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 pa.s.s the more expeditiously from one to the other. See Blancas, Modo de Proceder, cap. 4.

[68] It is indeed true, that Peter III., at the request of the Valencians, appointed an Aragonese knight Justice of that kingdom, in 1283. (Zurita, a.n.a.les, tom. i. fol. 281.) But we find no further mention of this officer, or of the office. Nor have I met with any notice of it in the details of the Valencian const.i.tution, compiled by Capmany from various writers.