The fatal failings of Hungarian policy may be traced in Poland also. In the first quarter of the fifteenth century the great Prince of Lithuania, Vitovt, had had indeed far-reaching ideas about the foundation of a vast Cech-Polish empire, which was to dominate the whole east of Europe. However he failed, chiefly because he was antagonistic to the Catholic or national Church of Poland. Kasimir IV (1445-92), father of Wladislav II of Hungary and Bohemia, successfully combated the Teutonic Order and other neighbouring Powers. Doubtless, like his contemporary Matthias Corvinus, he had clear views about the necessity of reorganising his country on the basis adopted by the monarchs of the West. However, both he and his sons and successors after him, John Albert (1492-1501) and Alexander I (1501-6), tried in vain to break the power of the magnates by countenancing the minor gentry (szlachta). In 1496 the peasants were completely disfranchised; against the urban population, mostly Germans, and termed hospltes, several very damaging laws were passed; and the royal power was seriously reduced by the magnates. After suffering more particularly from the Statute of Nieszava, 1454,—the Golden Bull rather than the Magna Charta of the Polish oligarchs,—and from the Constitution “Nlhil novi” of 1505, the monarchy became practically helpless in the hands of Sigis-mund I (1506-48), brother to his predecessors. It was during this period that both the General Diet (izba poselslea, Chamber of Deputies) of all the various absolutely autonomous provinces of Poland, and the several Provincial Diets, acquired the fulness of actual authority in the legislative and administrative branches of government. The King might appoint, but might not remove officials. The nuntii terrae or representatives at the national Diets were inviolable and omnipotent. Thus in Poland too, Parliamentarism in a rather extreme form arose at the very conjuncture when it had proved inefficient in all the occidental countries. As in Hungary and Bohemia, so in Poland, its undue development crippled any consistent and sound foreign policy; and we accordingly find that although during the whole of the sixteenth century Poland still appears imposing and still achieves many a remarkable success, yet she can neither stop the growth of hostile Russia in the east, nor the insidious rise of Prussia in the west; she can neither amalgamate her population into one nation, nor endow it with a less anarchical constitution.
With a country three times as large as modern France, and territorially unbroken, besides possessing a fair outlet to the sea, the Poles were in possession of many of the factors that contribute to establish a State, and to give an assured balance to its position. That pressure from the outside, however, which has probably done more for the good of nations than most of their virtuous and patriotic qualities, was wanting. In proverbial prodigality and pleasure-seeking, the nobility of Poland spent the intervals of war on their neglected estates, leaving the great sea commerce to the German patricians of Danzig, the internal trade to the Jews, what little industry there was to the German burgesses, and the schools to the priests. Although most Polish noblemen of the wealthier classes had received a careful education at the universities of Italy, and many of them were imbued with the spirit of the classics, and fired by the ideals of true patriotism, yet all these and many other fine qualities of this most distinguished of Slavonic nations, were rendered useless and barren by the apathy and indolence of the great body of the nobles. Surely in a nation which could produce a Copernicus and so many great poets, there must have been much natural endowment even for the highest spheres of thought. In the midst of general indifference, however, the richest soil must lie fallow. The Poles, like the Hungarians, were utterly without any power of self-orientation in matters to the west of their vast country; they neglected European interests-both the Renaissance, the new international movement in the realm of intellect, and the new international policy of contemporary monarchs. In return, Europe, indifferent to Poland, as she was to the Magyars, suffered her to sink slowly but surely into inevitable dissolution.
CHAPTER XI. THE CATHOLIC KINGS, by Henry Clarke
CUT off from the world by the Pyrenees and the still unnavigated ocean, broken up into small kingdoms, largely absorbed in their quarrels and in the reconquest of the land from the Saracens, Spain for many centuries played a comparatively small part in the affairs of Europe. Down to 1479 the peninsula contained five independent kingdoms: Castile, with Leon, occupying 62 per cent, of the entire surface; Aragon, with the kingdom of Valencia and the principality of Catalonia, occupying 15 per cent.; Portugal 20; Navarre 1; and Granada, the last stronghold of the Saracens, occupying 2. The marriage (1469) of Isabel, daughter of John II of Castile, with Ferdinand, son of John II of Aragon, united the two branches of the House of Trastamara, and merged the claims of husband and wife to the Crown of Castile. Isabel succeeded her brother, Henry IV, in 1474. Ferdinand, who had already received from his father the Crowns of Sicily and Sardinia, inherited in 1479 the remaining dominions of Aragon. Aragon and Castile remained distinct, each keeping its separate laws, parliaments, and fiscal frontier. Isabel, as queen in her own right, retained the Crown patronage and revenues within Castile, but general affairs were transacted under a common seal. In Aragon Ferdinand’s authority was not shared by his queen. The Spanish possessions in Italy belonged to Aragon exclusively, as America afterwards belonged to Castile. A common policy, and the vastly increased resources of a kingdom uniting under its sway 77 per cent, of the peninsula, at once gave preponderating weight at home. During the greater part of the sixteenth century Spain was the chief Power in the world. The half century from 1474 to 1530, which witnessed the rise of this Power, may be subdivided into periods distinguishable as that of organisation and reconstruction, 1474-1504; that of lawlessness and revolution, 1504-23; that of absolute monarchy, 1523-30.
The reforms of Ferdinand and Isabel, “the Catholic Kings,” put an end to anarchy, and formed the bridge between the division of power of the Middle Ages and the absolute monarchy of the sixteenth century. To understand them, we must briefly recall some peculiarities of the institutions of the larger States of the united kingdom. The organisation of the kingdom of Castile was the direct result of its gradual reconquest from the Saracens. Including in its population Asturians, Galicians, and Basques, as well as Castilians and the mixed peoples of Andalucia, the land is divided ethnologically and geographically into well-marked districts, never thoroughly welded together. Castile was governed by traditional municipal usages and local charters, rather than by national laws. Conquered lands were retained by the Crown, or granted to lords temporal or spiritual, or to corporations. The Crown in some cases retained feudal rights, but in others alienated the whole authority. The owners in the latter case became almost independent princes. Lands conquered without his help owed nothing to the King. Their conquerors divided them, and elected a chief to rule and defend them. Thus were formed behetrias (benefactor ia), independent communities boasting that they could change their lord seven times a day, and distinguished according as the lord might be chosen among all subjects of the Crown or only among certain families. At the end of the fifteenth century the behetrias were disappearing. Their factions made them an easy prey to their neighbours, the great nobles or the Crown. Unclaimed lands became the property of those who settled on them. The great estates of the Crown and titled nobles were subdivided among the free men (hidalgos) of their following. Those who settled on owned lands became the vassals of the owner. The power of a lord over his vassal was unlimited, unless defined by charter: down to the thirteenth century the law ran “he may kill him by hunger, thirst, or cold.” Under these conditions it was impossible ta attract settlers to newly conquered and dangerous lands near the frontier. King and noble vied with one another in the attempt to attract population by grant of charter (fuero). To grant &juero is to define the obligation of vassals to their lord. Under the local fueros sprung up the municipalities, electing their magistrate to administer public lands and to carry out the laws of the Juero. As the power of the municipalities increased, that of the nobles or the Crown shrank within the district. The municipalities were the basis of political organisation of the commons. By siding with the Kings in their long struggle with the nobles they increased their liberties as against the nobles, but fell more under the authority of the Crown. The royal judge and tax-gatherer replaced the officers of the overlord or municipality. The King interfered in local matters, nominating the magistrates and appointing a president over them, the corregidor, whose vast and undefined powers gradually superseded municipal authority.
The