ORGANIZATION AND REFORM
Isabel and Ferdinand had emerged victorious from the Portuguese war; but
the wounds their power had received were to be long in healing; and one
at least, the poverty of their exchequer, remained a constant sore and
vexation.
A certain Canon of Toledo, in an oration made to the Catholic sovereigns
at the height of their power, recalls the opening of their reign:
You received your sceptre [he said] from the hands of the Most High
God ... at a time when the flames of civil war burned fiercely and the
rights of the community were well-nigh lost. Then were our swords
employed, not to defend the boundaries of Christendom, but to rip up
the entrails of our country. Enemies at home drank greedily the blood
of our citizens; he was the most esteemed among us who was the
strongest in violence; justice and peace were far removed.
Murder, rape, and robbery! These, according to the Sicilian historian
Lucio Marineo, were hourly crimes, perpetrated without fear of
punishment by the marauding bands, who haunted the highways, and even
commandeered royal fortresses and strongholds as bases of operations for
their raids.
“Many a man was taken prisoner,” says Marineo, “whose relations ransomed
him no less dearly than if he had been a captive of the Moors or of some
other enemy of the Holy Catholic Faith.”
In a letter, written in the autumn of 1473, Hernando de Pulgar portrays
no less clearly the absolute negation of government in Southern Spain.
Andalusia is the prey of rival families; for the moment they have
consented to a truce, but none knows whether the exhausted land will
bear, nor who will reap the harvest. As to the neighbouring province of
Murcia, “I dare swear, Señor,” adds Pulgar, “that we look on it as a
country more alien than Navarre, seeing that it is now over five years
since letter, messenger, procurador, or magistrate, either went or came
from thence.”
Amid such scenes of anarchy, the mass of the people made what shift they
could to protect their lives and goods. In their despair, “God,” in the
words of the chronicler, “inspired them,” so that they endeavoured to
take the justice that had been denied them into their own hands. Here
and there throughout the country troops of armed men were raised who,
under the title of “La Santa Hermandad,” or “Holy Brotherhood,” bound
themselves to maintain the peace of their district and to punish
evildoers.
The idea was not original. Introduced towards the end of the thirteenth
century as a political expedient, the organization of local levies had
developed as the years passed into a recognized means of providing armed
police in times of danger or distress. Yet, in spite of charters and
laws determining its functions and resources, the Holy Brotherhood had
never hardened in practice into a permanent institution. It depended too
largely for its upkeep on a class of men, whose sole interest was the
preservation of the commerce and industry by which they earned their
livelihood. Only the anxiety of the moment could persuade such
peace-loving citizens either to take arms themselves, or to buy immunity
by opening their shallow purses. Thus, when the crisis of any
disturbance was over, enthusiasm for the scheme of protection would
almost certainly wane; and the police-machinery either collapse or waste
its energies in contentions with local magistrates.
Henry IV. had joyfully welcomed the reappearance of the “Santa
Hermandad.” Here was an ally to whom he could leave the summary
administration of justice that he found so irksome, and for whose
maintenance he need not beggar his exchequer. When told of a brotherhood
formed at Tordesillas, he exclaimed with his usual glib quotation of
scripture: “This is God’s doing and it is marvellous in our eyes.”
Acknowledging his own helplessness, he addressed the chief officials in
terms of encouragement that for all their extravagance cost him little:
Go forth with your pennons! Display your banners! That ten may conquer
a hundred, and that a hundred may be as a thousand, and that a
thousand may quell all who come against you. For should you not go,
Castile will cease to be. Should you not rouse yourselves her ruin is
certain.
Whether the Hermandad, thus exhorted, found the praise satisfying
chroniclers do not say. In the face of the almost universal anarchy,
purely local efforts, whether inspired by panic or genuine patriotism,
were doomed to failure: and when the horrors of a foreign invasion were
added to domestic discord, the last feeble attempts at self-defence
flickered out into helplessness.
In this extremity the new sovereigns, recognizing that the restoration
of order must originate with them, consented in the Cortes of Madrigal
of 1476 to a proposal that there should be a general Hermandad for the
kingdoms of Castile, Leon, and Asturias. Two months later the deputies,
assembled in Dueñas, discussed its organization and character, the
authors of the suggested reform meeting at first with stormy opposition.
Some present denounced the methods under question as entirely wrong,
while others complained that the good to be reaped would not balance the
necessary expenditure; but in the end all such arguments were
overridden, and the Santa Hermandad was established for three years on
its new basis.
The executive was to consist of some two thousand horsemen and a number
of foot-soldiers to be held in perpetual readiness to pursue and punish
evildoers. At the head of this force was placed Ferdinand’s illegitimate
brother, Alfonso, Duke of Villahermosa; and below him captains for each
locality, whose business it was to raise the hue and cry, as soon as a
well-authenticated tale of crime came to their ears.
Wherever there was a case of burglary or rape; wherever, in the open
country some assault or act of violence was perpetrated; or if the
offender, having committed his crime within the precincts of a town,
fled for safety to the woods and fields beyond the walls; or if, being
charged with some offence, he resisted the summons, the matter fell
within the jurisdiction of the local Hermandad.
Raising his force, the captain of the district must pursue his man
relentlessly, summoning to him as he went all the privates and officers
of the Brotherhood within sound of his alarm, till at some five leagues
distant from his home, a colleague would take up the chase; and so from
boundary to boundary the suspected criminal would be hunted down. Led
back in triumph to the scene of the crime, he would be hailed at once
before the local “Alcaldes,” or Judges of the Hermandad, and there, if
convicted, receive summary justice, of which this one thing was certain,
that it would not err on the side of mercy.
The least punishment administered was mutilation, the loss of a foot for
some small robbery that the thief, whatever his inclinations, should
have power to steal no more. In the majority of cases there was but one
sentence—“death.” A priest was fetched, and the convicted man, having
confessed his sins and received the Sacraments as a “Catholic
Christian,” was at once bound to a tree, and there met his doom from the
arrows of the troopers who had so lately captured him. Of the lasting
power of the repentance expressed by such ruffians contemporaries had
their doubts, for an ordinance of the Hermandad commanded that the
guilty man “should die as speedily as possible that his soul might pass
from him with the greater safety.”
The whole of the proceedings, from the hasty trial to the merciless
sentence and its immediate enactment, bears the taint of barbarism. It
can only be estimated rightly in connection with the burning homesteads
and their murdered and tortured inhabitants that such stern justice came
to check. One safeguard against local tyranny the regulations of the
Hermandad provided,—an appeal in doubtful cases from the Alcaldes to a
central Junta, or Supreme Court, and if necessary beyond that to the
sovereigns themselves. Save for royal supervision the decisions of this
court, which was composed of a deputy from each province with the Bishop
of Cartagena as its president, were absolute; and thus it was given full
scope for its work of controlling the different branches and for
securing cohesion between their officials.
The expenses of the new machinery were met by a tax of 1800 maravedis on
every one hundred householders, to provide for the maintenance and
equipment of a single horseman. In a country, poverty-stricken through
long years of internal unrest and consequent commercial insecurity, such
a burden could only be justified by extreme need; but time was to prove
the compensation more than adequate.
“None of the reforms of Ferdinand and Isabella were so efficient in
restoring order,” says a modern historian, speaking of the Santa
Hermandad, and, he also adds, “none did more to centralize power.” This
latter fact was realized by many of the nobles. Here was the nucleus of
a standing army, controlled by a central council under royal
supervision. Its officers, when in pursuit of their prey, claimed the
right of entry, not only within the gates of walled cities under
municipal jurisdiction, but into fortified castles hitherto inviolable.
Thus the Santa Hermandad, in attacking anarchy, threatened territorial
independence; and an aristocracy, that had zealously fomented trouble
for its private ends, received the due reward of its efforts.
In vain a gathering of prelates and nobles complained at Corbeñas of the
arbitrary and illegal character of the new police force. They had lived
as a class apart and could expect no sympathy from the mass of the
nation. Neither with peasant nor burgher were the expenses of the Holy
Brotherhood popular, but both were willing to pay a high price for the
security of their lives and goods.
The citizens and artisans and all the poor people desirous of peace
[says Pulgar] were very joyful; and they gave thanks to God, because
they saw a time in which it pleased Him to have pity on these
kingdoms, through the justice that the King and Queen began to
execute, and because each man thought to possess his own without fear
that another would take it from him by force.
At the end of three years the Hermandad, to the general satisfaction,
was granted a new lease of life. Its path was also smoothed by the
conduct of the Constable of Castile, Pedro Fernandez de Velasco, Count
of Haro,—the same who had once argued with the recalcitrant Archbishop
of Toledo on the subject of loyalty. Eager to prove his own, he
willingly gave the officers of the Hermandad access to his demesnes,
even joining with the members of his household to assist them in their
work. As he was accredited with more vassals than any other of his
peers, his example was followed by those of the leading nobles who
wished to win royal favour. Lesser territorial magnates yielded perforce
to the trend of popular opinion; and the sphere of action enjoyed by the
Hermandad widened, not only to include the entire dominions of Castile
but also the kingdom of Aragon.
Its work was the more effective from the attitude adopted towards it by
Ferdinand and Isabel. Had they sought only the aggrandizement of their
own power, using the judges and officials merely as royal agents to
gratify their personal dislikes, or to bring money into their coffers,
they would have speedily disillusioned the nation. Tyranny that apes
justice can never conceal for long its guiding principle of
self-interest; but in the case of the Queen it soon became obvious that
she entered into the spirit of righteous dealing as eagerly as the
poorest and least protected of her subjects.
It must not be inferred from this that the Castilian Princess had been
endowed with a love of truth under any circumstances. Her life had been
spent for the most part in an atmosphere of treachery, where he who was
the least reliable or conscientious scored highest in the game of
politics; and, when necessity forced her to play a hand as in the case
of her marriage, she had proved herself capable of “bluffing” with the
best. The threading of such intricate mazes was an ordinary statesman’s
career, and Isabel had been born with an aptitude for statecraft. What
was worth a great deal more to Spain was her aptitude for kingship.
Throughout the troublous years, spent first at the Court of one brother
and then wandering in rebellion with another, she had seen the Crown
dragged through the mire. Instinct had taught her that its degradation
was largely deserved. The sovereign who fails to keep the respect of his
subjects has forfeited the claim even to respect himself; he has truly
abdicated his rights.
Isabel’s conscience might suffer no pangs for those she had deceived in
the war of politics, but her whole soul revolted from a lowering of her
ideal of sovereignty. “The king was the father of his people, the
fountain of law and justice.” The pride that insisted on the recognition
of this dignity insisted also on a king’s fulfilment of its conditions.
Isabel had been the first to repudiate the notion that the Santa
Hermandad should be suppressed directly the crisis of public unrest was
ended, but she had no mind that it should earn an evil reputation for
the Crown by unbridled tyranny. In 1483 she and Ferdinand held an
enquiry into its past administration, and punished not only those who
had defied its justice, but also judges convicted of favouritism and
officials who had been guilty of excessive demands, or who had
appropriated more than their share of the funds.
Such equitable dealing was in marked contrast with the methods of Henry
IV., whose practice it had been to farm out the posts of “corregidor”
amongst his dissolute favourites and to allow them to recoup themselves
for the purchase by what means they liked. In vain the citizens had
complained that under this system any robber or murderer could buy his
freedom. The “corregidores,” as they released those who bribed them,
were ready with the cynical justification that human blood would neither
pay the King nor reward them for their labours.
The appointments made by Henry’s successor were based on a totally
different standard, that of capability for the office in question. Great
was the surprise of men who had supported Isabel in the civil war, when
their petitions for royal agencies met with the response that their
services would be recompensed in some other way. This promise, we are
told, was faithfully kept; but the offices they had coveted passed into
different hands. The Queen’s experience had taught her that the loyal
soldier is not always gifted with the best business head, nor with the
most persuasive tongue.
An instance of the difficulties encountered by the new régime may be
seen in the settlement of Galicia at the end of the Portuguese war. That
turbulent province had been the prey of tyrant nobles since the days of
John II., Isabel’s father. Mushroom fortresses had sprung up to defend
the bands of robbers who infested its highways and oppressed the smaller
towns and villages. Rents and tithes were collected by those whose only
right was the sword with which they emphasized their demand; while even
the lands belonging to the monasteries and churches had been sequestered
for secular purposes.
In 1481, two officials appeared at Santiago, charged by Ferdinand and
Isabel with the Herculean task of restoring peace and justice. In
response to their summons the Procuradores of the various towns and
country districts came to assist them; but, though all bore witness to
the prevailing anarchy, none showed enthusiasm for its cure. Their sole
response to the suggestions offered was that “disorder was sanctioned by
custom and must therefore be the natural state of affairs.” It is a type
of argument that centuries of use have not worn threadbare.
By dint of persuasion and encouragement the royal officials at length
discovered the true objection to their mission. The Procuradores could
remember the visits of previous officials who had undertaken a like
work. Either they had proved worse rogues than those they came to
punish, or else they had found their means of justice totally
insufficient and had fled, leaving the men who had supported them to
face the rebels’ vengeance. Not till the newcomers had taken a solemn
oath that they would never desert the province until they had
established peace and order there, would those who listened agree to
give them aid.
With this mutual understanding a strange day dawned for Galicia. Here
were a governor and corregidor established in Santiago, just and
incorruptible, who enforced their sentences with a swift certainty that
struck terror into the most hardened bravado. Fired by this example the
Procuradores, when they went to their own homes, adopted like measures,
and within three months over 1500 robbers had been driven from the
province to seek fresh fields of plunder. Many of the leaders were dead.
They had been unable to believe that money would not save their lives
when captured, and eagerly but in vain had made offers of their
ill-gotten riches.
Royal agents, both in Galicia and other parts of Castile, might have
proved more susceptible to bribery but for the example set by the Queen
herself, whose path of justice was not without its temptations. On one
occasion, when in Medina del Campo, a poor woman threw herself at her
feet and begged for assistance and protection. Her husband, who was a
notary, had disappeared and she felt certain he was the victim of some
cruel plot. Isabel commanded her officials to make instant enquiry, and
the body of the notary was discovered, buried in the courtyard of a
certain wealthy noble of the neighbourhood, called Alvar Yañez. At the
trial it was proved that Yañez had first induced his victim to sign a
forged document, by which he himself hoped to gain possession of a
neighbour’s property, and that he had then murdered his witness, never
expecting that anyone would dare to lay the accusation at his door, far
less that he would be punished if discovered.
On account of his wealth he still hoped to save his life, and cunningly
offered, in return for a pardon, the enormous sum of 40,000 ducats to go
towards the expenses of a war against the Infidel. This was a project
that Isabel was known to have much at heart; and, since its main
hindrance had been the poverty of the royal exchequer not a few of her
counsellors urged her to let such a pious gift atone for the crime.
“The Queen,” we are told, “preferred justice to money”; and Alvar Yañez
was beheaded. Even then she might, on some specious pretext, have seized
the guilty man’s possessions; but instead she commanded that the
inheritance should go to his sons, so that all might recognize her
object in maintaining the sentence had not been to enrich herself but to
punish evil.
Other instances of her rigorous justice there are many, but none more
characteristic than her famous “Audiences” in Seville. Thither she had
gone in the spring of 1477 to supervise the pacification of Southern
Spain; while Ferdinand in the north kept watch over the Portuguese army
and the chronic disturbances on the Pyrenean border.
The Duke of Medina-Sidonia, riding out from the city to meet her with
the four-and-twenty gaily clad nobles of his suite and a throng of royal
officials and clergy, tended her with complacent homage the keys of the
different gates. Was he not lord of the city? “Duke of Seville” he was
popularly called, since he had succeeded in driving his rival, the
Marquis of Cadiz, beyond the walls. The Marquis, it is true, had
retaliated by seizing the strong fortress of Xerez; but the Duke now
meant to recover this through the Queen’s influence and favour. By good
fortune his rival had married a sister of that arch-rebel the Marquis of
Villena, and chastisement of the brother-in-law could therefore, he
hoped, be looked on as a piece of disinterested patriotism.
It was in this spirit the Duke had chosen to regard the faction fights
that had decimated the population of Seville and forced many of its
leading citizens into exile. Not so those, whose fathers, husbands,
sons, and brothers had died fighting in sheer self-defence, their backs
against the very houses now hung with tapestries and brocades! Not so
those, whose wives and daughters had been the prey of dissolute
mercenaries! Not so those, who had been dispossessed of their lands, or
whose shops had been raided and sacked!
It was the cry of such as these that made Isabel hold public audience
every Friday, that the injured might bring her their complaints. Raised
high on a dais in the large hall of the Alcazar, with the prelates and
knights below her on the one side, and the Doctors of her Council on the
other, she listened, weighed evidence, and gave judgment, referring the
more doubtful cases for enquiry by special “Alcaldes,” with the
injunction that there should be no delay. As a result hundreds of
criminals were executed, and lands and goods were restored to their
rightful owners; while in some instances so strong was the fear aroused
that voluntary restitution was made, in the hope of avoiding a trial.
It is characteristic of Isabel that the ever-increasing revelation of
crime failed to shake her purpose. It was her will, as “the fountain of
justice,” to see justice prevail; and through all the long hours of
accusation and defence, through case after case, she and her
fellow-judges listened with a grave impartiality that won for her
tribunal a respect bordering on the horror accorded to the superhuman.
If there was to be nothing but strict justice, who in Seville should be
saved?
At length the Bishop of the city and its leading citizens ventured to
remonstrate. The number of murders and robberies committed had been so
great, they declared, that scarcely a family could call itself
guiltless; and they petitioned that an amnesty might be granted, lest
the people in despair were driven to fresh crime.
A ruler of more obstinate fibre would have contended with pitiless logic
that justice being equivalent to right could never prove excessive.
Isabel had too much inherent common-sense to make this mistake; and,
realizing that the advice was good, she consented to the publication of
a general pardon for the city and its environs, that should cover all
crimes and offences with one exception, the unpardonable sin of heresy.
Seville at large heaved a sigh of relief; but the Duke of
Medina-Sidonia, at this stage of the proceedings, was not so pleased. He
had been steadily poisoning Isabel’s mind against his rival since her
advent to the city, accusing him of giving secret support to some
fortresses in the neighbourhood that still upheld the claims of “La
Beltraneja.” Nothing but force, he protested, would succeed against such
a traitor; but in the midst of his denunciations the Marquis of Cadiz
appeared in Seville, accompanied only by a few attendants. Riding to the
Alcazar, he petitioned for a private audience with the Queen, and there
pleaded his cause with a brevity and directness that appealed to his
listener more than the most subtle arguments. Plain speaking was almost
a virtue to Isabel’s mind.
Declaring that individuals were responsible for their own conduct alone,
he repudiated any connection with Villena save the tie of marriage with
his sister. His sword had been drawn in self-defence when the Duke
attacked him in his house and drove him from the city; but he had
neither the time nor inclination to help the Portuguese. In token of his
loyalty he offered to hand over Xerez and the other fortresses in his
power to whatever officials Isabel chose to send in her name.
Such a complete surrender bears witness to the impression already
created in Castile by the new sovereigns. It was the certainty that he
would obtain justice that had brought the Marquis of Cadiz so trustingly
to Seville. It was fear of what disobedience might cost him that made
the Duke of Medina-Sidonia submit to his enemy’s return to favour. The
Queen on her part accepted their compliance as if she thought it the
only possible course they could have adopted; but she knew their rivalry
still smouldered, and, having gained control of their fortresses, took
steps to prevent further trouble. Neither Duke nor Marquis, she
declared, should put foot in Seville henceforth without her leave;
though she and Ferdinand gave their promise that they would enquire into
the quarrel when leisure permitted, and would see what could be done to
effect a settlement, that both might return to the city in safety.
Circumstances, however, were to make this interposition unnecessary, as
will be seen in a later chapter.
The justice shown in Galicia and Seville was typical of the measures
adopted elsewhere; measures so widespread that the old machinery of
government proved totally inadequate for their execution. Reconstruction
went perforce hand in hand with reform; and, just as in the Cortes of
Madrigal and Dueñas the Santa Hermandad had been placed on a new and
more practical basis, so in the Cortes of Toledo of 1480 the whole
executive and judicial system was subjected to a close revision.
Amongst the changes effected, none was to prove of more lasting
influence than the decided bias there given towards the employment of
the lawyer class in all important matters of state. Sprung mainly from
the _bourgeoisie_, or from the ranks of the lesser nobility, the lawyers
had for a long time rendered to Castilian sovereigns their services of
penmanship and technical knowledge; but the preponderating power in the
royal counsels had remained the higher aristocracy with its claims of
blood and wealth.
Ferdinand and Isabel did not set themselves openly to humble the latter
class, as Henry IV. had attempted in his new creations; but the fact
that the government was daily growing more specialized made it necessary
that trained and expert officials should take the place of amateurs,
however high their personal qualifications. Thus, in the Cortes of
Toledo, the composition of the Royal Council, before mainly
aristocratic, was officially settled as one bishop, three “caballeros,”
or knights, and eight or nine lawyers. This does not mean that the
greater nobles suddenly received an intimation that their presence was
no longer required. They were welcomed as before with profound respect,
but the feeling that it rested with themselves whether they attended or
no would soon encourage the less strenuous to withdraw. A further
impetus to their exclusion would be given by the division of the
government into the specialized departments described by Hernando de
Pulgar in his account of the Cortes of Toledo.
Hitherto the Royal Council, “Nuestro Consejo” as the sovereigns were
fond of alluding to it, had been the chief medium of their will. At
times a consultative committee, its functions were also administrative
and judicial; and, in the latter aspect, it had tended to absorb much of
the work belonging to the other Courts of Law, such as the “Royal
Audiences” or “Chancery” for civil cases, and the supreme criminal court
of the “Alcaldes de Corte.”
In response to the deputies’ petitions, the encroachments of the Royal
Council in this respect were forbidden; while a scheme was discussed by
which the Court of Chancery, which had followed the sovereigns from
place to place to the great inconvenience of litigants, was in 1485
permanently established in Valladolid for the benefit of Northern
Castile. Another similar court was also placed in Ciudad Real to supply
the needs of the country south of the Tagus, being removed however at
the end of the Moorish war to the more important town of Granada.
At first sight it would seem from these measures as if the judicial
functions of the Royal Council had been destroyed, whereas on the
contrary they were to develop an authority, that not only threatened but
dominated the “Audiences” of Valladolid and the South. Of the five
departments of government defined by the Cortes of Toledo, it was in the
Council of Justice that the true nucleus of the Royal Council, their
common ancestor, remained. Here sat the King and Queen in person, the
recognized source of all Castilian law; here, in their absence, ruled a
President, whose authority was reckoned in the kingdom as second only to
that of Sovereignty itself; here was a body of highly trained lawyers,
whose official acts demanded the unqualified obedience of every subject,
and whose decisions on legal matters were final. It is little wonder if
the Council of Justice became the dominating element of the Castilian
Government.
The Council of State, the second of the new departments for public
affairs, was also presided over by the King and Queen, but it dealt
mainly with foreign negotiations, hearing embassies and transacting
business with the Court of Rome. In addition there was the Supreme Court
of the Santa Hermandad, a Council of Finance, and a Council for settling
purely Aragonese matters.
A link between these central councils and the local government of the
country was found in “pesquisidores,” or inspectors, sent out from
headquarters to enquire how the law was being administered and obeyed.
Were the repressive measures against the Jews sternly enforced? Were the
“corregidores,” now in 1480 imposed by royal authority on all cities and
towns, doing their duty both by the Crown and also by the municipalities
in which they were placed? Had any governor of a fortress or other
official oppressed the people in his neighbourhood, or for his own ends
shown favouritism to certain families? These were some of the questions
to which the inspector must require an answer, and where those answers
were unsatisfactory it rested with him to see justice performed.
Such was the revised machinery of government, revealing already that
decisively bureaucratic stamp that was to be so marked a feature of its
later development. Obvious also was its fatal dependence on the Crown,
the motive power alone capable of supplying the councils with
initiative, nor could any counterpoise to sovereignty be hoped for in
the type of official now prominent. The exaltation of the Crown was the
first article of belief for lawyers steeped in Justinian’s code with its
theories of imperial absolutism. Yet it must be remembered that,
although this system contained within itself the germs of tyranny, in
the early days of Ferdinand and Isabel’s rule centralized power stood
for the triumph of right over wrong, of order over anarchy. By no other
means could these ends have been so effectively and speedily won.
“Justice, which seems to have abandoned other lands,” wrote Peter Martyr
in 1492, “pervades these kingdoms.”
It had been bought by the sovereigns at the price of unflagging industry
and watchfulness, now employed in a struggle against foreign enemies or
subject rebels, now against the prejudices of class or community, now
against the corruption of trusted officials.
Sometimes the chief enemy to be faced was bewilderment,—the difficulty
of administering a law that was not one but many. The judge must have a
clear head who could steer his way through the mazes of the old “Fuero
Juzgo” of the Gothic kings, or the later compilations of Castilian
sovereigns, such as the “Fuero Real,” the “Siete Partidas,” or the
“Ordenamiento de Alcalá.” Even these did not cover the field of
legislation, further complicated by local charters and royal edicts,
involving a thousand variations and discrepancies.
After the matter had been discussed in the Cortes of Toledo, a noted
jurist, Alfonso Diaz de Montalvo, undertook by the Queen’s command the
task of clearing away the rubbish and compiling what remained into a
comprehensive code. Within four years the work stood completed in eight
bulky volumes, and the “Ordenanzas Reales” took their place on the legal
bookshelves; but though undoubtedly of great authority the new
compilation failed to fulfil the general expectations. A study of its
pages revealed not only mistakes and repetitions, but also many serious
omissions; while a further publication by the same author a few years
later scarcely proved more satisfactory. So conscious was Isabel of
these defects that in her will she entreated her daughter, Joanna, “to
select a learned and conscientious bishop and other persons wise and
experienced in the law,” that they might undertake this formidable task
anew.
Legal, judicial, and administrative abuses had thus received their share
of amendment; but it is scarcely too much to say that all the reforms in
these directions would have proved useless, but for the steps taken to
check financial disaster. That commerce and industry should have sunk to
a low ebb was the inevitable corollary of a foreign and civil war, but
still more evil in its influence had been the steady depreciation of the
coinage. Not only had the five royal mints turned out bad metal to
supply Henry IV. with the money which he squandered so lavishly, but his
very monopoly of coining rights had been squandered too, or disputed by
rebellious subjects. By the end of his reign the five mints had grown
into one hundred and fifty, and the _reals_ and _blancas_ produced by
private furnaces had descended to a mere fraction of their former value.
The decay of industry and the worthless coinage combined to inflate
prices extravagantly, with the result that men of moderate means were
ruined, and the distrust increased till no one would accept the current
issues either in payment of debts or in return for goods.
Such was the state of perdition into which the kingdom had fallen
[says a contemporary writer], that those who travelled by the highways
could not satisfy their hunger either for good money or for bad; nor
was there any price at which those who laboured in the fields were
willing to sell.
A primitive system of barter had sprung up when, in the first year of
their reign, Ferdinand and Isabel once more established the monopoly of
the royal mints, and fixed a legal standard to which the coinage must
approximate. These reforms were absolutely necessary to restore public
confidence, but they involved a drain on the treasury which it was
impossible to satisfy by ordinary means. We have seen already that in
1475 the sovereigns had recourse to a loan raised on the ecclesiastical
plate, but it was an expedient that would not bear repetition, even if
the Queen had not regarded the repayment of the original sum as her most
sacred duty. Some other way must be found that would not threaten the
property of the Church, if it was to find approval in her eyes.
The deputies assembled at Toledo shook their heads gloomily over the
suggestion of increased taxation. They represented the _pecheros_, or
taxed classes, and knew that the little that could be raised by this
method would slip in and out of the treasury as through a sieve.
Taxation might prove a momentary makeshift, but in the exhausted state
of the country it could offer no permanent solution of the problem.
On examination, the chief cause of the poverty was shown to be the
wholesale alienation of royal estates in the previous reign. Henry IV.
had silenced the remonstrances of his treasurer by announcing that
prodigality was a king’s duty. “Give to some,” he commanded, “that they
may serve me; to others lest they should rob me; for by the grace of God
I am King and have treasures and rents enough to supply all men.”
It was a boast that did not hold good, for towards the end of his reign
the wretched monarch had been driven to meet expenses by selling
annuities levied on his estates; and the Court, taking advantage of his
necessities as it had of his generosity, beat down the price till the
sums they paid often represented no more than a single year’s income.
Such transactions were not far removed from robbery; and the Cortes of
Toledo soon came to the conclusion that the only hope of lasting
financial reform lay in a resumption of the alienated lands and rents.
This decision was warmly approved by the Cardinal of Spain, the leading
nobles of the Court, and Doctors of the Royal Council; but Ferdinand and
Isabel were reluctant to take so large a step without further
consultation.
And because this business was difficult and of great importance [says
Hernando de Pulgar] the King and Queen wrote letters to all the dukes,
prelates, and barons of their kingdom, who were absent from their
Court, telling them of their great necessities and asking their
opinion, pressing them either to come themselves or to send word what
they thought should be done; and all were of opinion that the
alienated estates should be restored.
It was a resolution that reflected credit on a class of men who had too
often shown themselves selfish and disloyal. Many, however, like the
Count of Haro who threw open his lands to the Santa Hermandad, were
weary of anarchy and knew they must pay for its suppression. Others were
fired by the energy and courage of their rulers, or else hoped to
propitiate royal favour. Loyalty, so long dormant, was in the air.
By general consent it was agreed that the Cardinal of Spain should hold
an enquiry into the tenure of estates and rents acquired during the last
reign. Those that had not been granted as a reward for signal services
were to be restored without compensation; while those that had been sold
at a price far below their real value were to be bought back at the same
sum. The delicate work of apportioning these deductions was entrusted to
Isabel’s confessor, Fra Fernando de Talavera, a man respected throughout
Spain for his integrity and saintly life.
His settlement cost some of the nobles the half or even the whole of
their acquisitions, others some smaller fraction; but by Isabel’s
command there was no revocation of gifts made to churches, hospitals, or
the poor. The treasury became the richer by the substantial addition of
thirty millions of maravedis, of which Henry IV.’s old favourite,
Beltran de La Cueva, Duke of Alburquerque, contributed over a million.
The rest of the leading nobles suffered heavily though in a less degree,
nor was the Cardinal’s own family, the Mendozas, spared. “Some were
ill-content,” says the chronicler, “but all submitted, remembering how
these gifts had been obtained at the expense of the royal patrimony.”
In spite of their losses the nobles still remained the predominant class
in wealth, as the tales of their private resources during the Moorish
war bear witness. Ferdinand and Isabel themselves did not hesitate to
bestow large gifts on loyal servants such as the Marquis of Moya, nor to
confirm the aristocratic privilege of freedom from taxation; but the
fact that they were able to curb unlawful gains shows the new spirit
that had entered into Castilian life. Significant also is the social
legislation of the day that forbade even dukes to quarter the royal
crown on their scutcheons, or to make use of expressions such as _es mi
merced_! “It is my will!”
The sovereign had ceased to be _primus inter pares_ and had become a
being set apart by right of peculiar dignity and power.
Such a change would have been impossible, had the Military Orders
retained their old independence. They have been described as “states
within a state”; for the Masters with their rich “commanderies” that
they could bestow at pleasure, their fortresses and revenues, and their
private armies of knights had influence and wealth nothing less than
royal. The elective character of their office led almost invariably to
civil war; and we have seen that, in the case of the Mastership of
Santiago, when the old Marquis of Villena died, no less than seven
candidates appeared in the field, ready to contest the honour.
One of these, the aged Count of Paredes, had obtained confirmation of
his title many years before from Pope Eugenius IV., but had always been
cheated out of its enjoyment by the greed of royal favourites. In 1476
he died, and the Chief Commander of Leon, Don Alonso de Cardenas, having
mustered as large an armed force as possible hastened at once to the
Convent of Uccles, where the election was to be held, to press his
claims on the chapter. He had been one of Isabel’s most loyal adherents
and took her sanction for granted; but unfortunately for his hopes she
proved to have very different views.
Directly she heard of his designs, she wrote to the Pope begging that
the administration of the Order might be given into her husband’s hands.
Then, having dispatched the messenger, she mounted her horse and set off
at once from Valladolid, where she was staying. It was a three days’
journey to Ocaña, and when she reached that town it was already
nightfall, and the rain was descending in torrents, but she refused to
wait. Continuing her road to Uccles, she appeared before the astonished
commanders and told them of the request she had sent to the Pope,
begging them to suspend the election until she had received an answer.
Don Alonso de Cardenas was not unnaturally sulky at this frustration of
his ambitions; but on Isabel’s promise that she would faithfully
consider his claims, he at length agreed to withdraw them temporarily,
and the King in due course received the administration of the Order.
Alonso de Cardenas now redoubled his efforts to prove his loyalty; and
Ferdinand and Isabel at last consented to give him his long-coveted
honour; but they took care to make a favour of what he had sought as a
right. Each year he paid three millions of maravedis into the royal
treasury to be used for the defence of the frontier against the Moors,
and on his death his office lapsed finally to the Crown.
During the course of the reign, Ferdinand also assumed the
administration of the other two Orders of Calatrava and Alcantara, and
thus found himself possessed not only of vastly increased revenues, but
of a widely extended patronage.
The absorption of the Military Orders marked the decisive victory in the
sovereigns’ war against aristocratic pretensions; but the campaign had
other battles no less serious, though they did not involve such
important financial considerations. If it had been a difficult matter to
impress the idea of justice on the country at large, it was equally
arduous to persuade the leading families of Castile that they also stood
below the law and were expected to obey it.
They might surrender estates wrongly acquired, and even sink their
ambitions before the claims of royalty, but to admit of arbitration in
their private feuds, instead of dealing with them by the old-fashioned
method of duel or assassination, was a tax on their self-control too
great for Castilian pride.
On one occasion, when Queen Isabel was in Valladolid, high words broke
out between Don Fadrique Enriquez, son of Ferdinand’s uncle the Admiral
of Castile and a certain Ramir Nuñez de Guzman, Lord of Toral. In spite
of the fact that his enemy had received a safe-conduct from the Queen,
Don Fadrique attacked him in a public square, striking him several
times. Isabel’s indignation was unbounded, and she at once rode to
Simancas, whose fortress belonged to the Admiral, demanding either its
instant surrender or that of his son. The Admiral, faced by this plain
issue, dared not disobey; and, since he was ignorant of his son’s
hiding-place he gave up the keys of his stronghold. Isabel then returned
to Valladolid, but her anger was unappeased; and when questioned as to
its cause she replied: “I am suffering from the blows that Don Fadrique
hath struck at my safe-conduct.”
Not till the offender appeared himself at Court to sue for pardon would
she relax her coldness to his family; and even then she refused to see
him, but ordered that he should be led a prisoner through the streets
and thence to a fortress at Arévalo. Here he remained in close
confinement, until at his relations’ intercession he was instead exiled
to Sicily, there to remain at the Queen’s pleasure.
His enemy, Ramir Nuñez de Guzman, refusing to take warning from his
rival’s fate, attempted to assassinate the Admiral in revenge for the
attack made on himself, as soon as he had recovered from his wounds;
with the result that he was brought before the royal judges and deprived
of all his goods and revenues.
Such stern but impartial justice was of the type to inspire awe, but
severity alone might have defeated its own ends. The chivalry of Castile
had been fostered from its cradle in scenes of war and carnage. It could
not cool its hot blood suddenly to accept the discipline of what it
regarded as inglorious peace. Some outlet must be found for the wild
strain that looked to the rapier and the dagger rather than to books or
arguments. That outlet the sovereigns provided, when they took up the
challenge of the Moorish Sultan, and began again the old crusade, that
was the heritage of eight hundred years.
“Master, God give you good fortune against the Moors, the enemies of Our
Holy Catholic Faith.” With these words Ferdinand and Isabel had handed
to the new Master of Santiago his standards, when they gave him the
insignia of his Order at the Cortes of Toledo in 1480. Little over
twelve months was to find those standards in the battlefield, and the
nobility of Spain risking its life, not in private brawl nor a vain
struggle with the law, but against the enemies of its Queen and Faith.