The privileges of the first two Orders were enormous. They were exempt from direct taxation: their lands were inalienable: they were liable neither to arrest for debt nor to torture. The nobles were bound to the King only by the lands they held from him. The law recognised their right of formally renouncing their allegiance and making war upon the King. Their rights, like those of the municipalities, had been granted to settlers on the frontier. When the frontier moved forward, the right remained undiminished; and the result was anarchy. Under weak Kings the nobles extended their authority over the municipalities, and extorted large grants of lands and incomes guaranteed on the royal patrimony. Strong Kings exacted restitution.
The commons, while still paying as vassals certain dues to the Crown or to nobles, had, by the middle of the fifteenth century, won the right of changing lords, and the ownership of the land on which they lived, with right of transferring it by sale or bequest. Their condition was notably better under the Crown than under the nobles. In order to check desertion, the nobles were forced to follow the more liberal policy of the Kings. Slaves were rare, consisting in the main of foreigners, captives in the Saracen Wars, or negroes imported through Portugal. Jews and Moslems enjoyed the special protection of the Crown.
The Castilian Cortes originated in a Council of prelates and nobles advising the King on all matters civil and religious. In the thirteenth century the commons of the municipalities won the right of assisting, by deputies, at the Council. At first, neither the number of municipalities represented, nor the number of their deputies was limited; for they had no vote. They assembled merely to receive communication of royal decrees, to swear allegiance to the successor to the throne, and to receive confirmation of their charters at the beginning of a new reign. Later, the representatives of the municipalities won the control of direct taxation, to which their Order alone was subject. But by this time many of them, by delegating their powers to their neighbours, or through neglecting the royal summons, had lost the right of representation. Thus by the middle of the fifteenth century the right of sending two deputies to parliament belonged only to the cities of Burgos, Toledo, Leon, Seville, Cdrdova, Murcia, Jaen, Segovia, Zamora, Avila, Salamanca and Cuenca, and the towns of Toro, Valladolid, Soria, Madrid and Guadalajara. Granada was added after the Conquest. The privileged municipalities successfully resisted any addition to their numbers. Large districts remained practically unrepresented; the little town of Zamora spoke in the name of the whole of Galicia. The Proctors were chosen among the municipal magistrates, by vote or lot according to local custom. In some towns the choice was restricted to certain families. At first the Proctors were merely mandataries commissioned to give certain answers to questions set forth in the royal summons. If further matters were proposed, they were obliged to refer to their electors. No law prescribed the interval at which Cortes should be called; but extraordinary supply was generally voted for three years, and at the end of that time parliament was summoned to vote a fresh supply. When the King was in no need of money and the succession was secured, the intervals were longer; no parliament met between 1482 and 1498. The time, place, number of sessions, and subjects for discussion were fixed by the King. .
Cortes were general or particular, according as the three Estates, or the commons alone, were summoned. The three Orders deliberated separately. General Cortes met to take the oath of allegiance, and to receive confirmation of privileges. When supply was the only business, the commons alone attended. As exempt from taxation, the nobles and clergy finally ceased to attend after 1538. The King swore to maintain the liberties of his subjects only after receiving their oath of allegiance; nor was it till after voting supply that the commons presented their petition demanding redress of grievances, extension of privileges, and fulfilment of promises. The articles of these petitions ranged from the widest reforms to trivial local matters; they were severally granted, refused, or evaded by the King according to his own judgment or the advice of his Council. The only remedy of the Cortes was to refuse or reduce supply on the next occasion. In order to secure their subservience, the Kings sought to usurp the right of nominating Proctors; to dictate an unlimited commission in a prescribed form; to win over the Proctors themselves by bribes; and to impose an oath of secrecy with regard to their deliberations.
The Cortes had no legislative power. Their suggestions, if accepted by the King, at once became law. But the King was the sole lawgiver, and consent of parliament was not necessary to the validity of his decrees.
Besides being lawgiver, the King was the sole fountain of civil and criminal justice. His powers were delegated (1) to his Council, as supreme Court of Appeal; (2) to the alcaldes de corte, a judicial body, part of which held irregular assizes, while part accompanied the royal Court, superseding local tribunals; (3) to the Chancery, or Court of Appeal, of Valladolid (a second for Spain south of the Tagus was founded in 1494 and established at Granada, 1505; in the sixteenth century these audiencias or High Courts superseded the adelantados and merinos); (4) to the corregidores; (5) to municipal judges locally elected under \hejuero. Besides these there existed ecclesiastical Courts partially independent of the Crown.
Since its feudal oligarchy had been broken down (1348) Aragon had enjoyed a constitution capable, under an energetic King, of securing good government. It differed from that of Castile in its more aristocratic theory and more democratic, or rather oligarchic, practice. The free population was divided into four Estates,—the clergy, the greater nobility, the petty nobility, and the citizens or commons. Each of these Orders was represented in parliament. The numbers of their deputies varied; in 1518 we find the clergy with fifteen; the greater nobles (ricos homes) with twenty-seven; the petty nobility (infanzones) with thirty-six; and the commons with thirty-six. The parliament thus formed had far greater power than that of Castile. Custom demanded that it should meet every two years, and that the King should attend all its sessions. Absolute unanimity was required to give validity to its decisions. It exacted confirmation of liberties before swearing allegiance, and redress of grievances before voting supply. So exorbitant did its claim seem to the Castilian Isabel, as to cause her to declare that she would rather conquer the country than suffer the affronts of its parliament. When parliament was not sitting, its place was taken by a permanent commission of two members of each Estate, which jealously watched over the public liberties and the administration of the public moneys. Below the four Estates stood the serfs of the Crown and of the nobles, who formed the majority of the population. They were little more than chattels, without legal or political privileges.
The Justicia was originally an arbiter between King and the nobles. He afterwards came to be regarded as the personification and guardian of the liberties of the Aragonese. He was appointed by the Crown, but after the middle of the fifteenth century held office for life. His powers consisted of the right of manifestation, or removal of an accused person to his own custody until the decision of his case by the proper Court; and of that of granting Jirmas, or protection of the property of litigants until sentence was given. The office ofjusticia, the importance of which has been greatly exaggerated, was similar to that of “inspector of wrongs” among the Arabs. The municipal liberties were of high significance. Some communities had the right of owning vassals and administering public revenues, as well as that of jurisdiction. The municipalities elected their magistrates, generally by lot; but privileges differed locally, and in some districts the powers of the nobles were almost unlimited.
The constitution of Catalonia bore traces of the ancient and close connexion of this principality with France, and formed the most complete type of feudalism south of the Pyrenees. As such it resembled that of Aragon more closely than that of Castile. The preponderance of the nobles was very great, though the three Estates were represented in parliament. The vassals remained in a condition of the harshest serfdom, until it was ameliorated by John II in his struggle with the nobles (1460-72). The “evil customs” under which they groaned were finally swept away by King Ferdinand (1481). Valencia at the time of its conquest in the thirteenth century received a constitution modelled on that of Catalonia. The land was shared among the great nobles: its Saracen cultivators became their vassals, and the main source of their wealth and power. In the towns a mixed and busy Christian population sprang up, drawn from Italy and France as well