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they had usurped both from the municipality and the crown. [8]

      One example among others may be mentioned, of the rectitude and severe impartiality, with which Isabella administered justice, that occurred in the case of a wealthy Galician knight, named Alvaro Yañez de Lugo. This person, being convicted of a capital offence, attended with the most aggravating circumstances, sought to obtain a commutation of his punishment, by the payment of forty thousand doblas of gold to the queen, a sum exceeding at that time the annual rents of the crown. Some of Isabella's counsellors would have persuaded her to accept the donative, and appropriate it to the pious purposes of the Moorish war. But, far from being blinded by their sophistry, she suffered the law to take its course, and, in order to place her conduct above every suspicion of a mercenary motive, allowed his estates, which might legally have been confiscated to the crown, to descend to his natural heirs. Nothing contributed more to re-establish the supremacy of law in this reign, than the certainty of its execution, without respect to wealth or rank; for the insubordination, prevalent throughout Castile, was chiefly imputable to persons of this description, who, if they failed to defeat justice by force, were sure of doing so by the corruption of its ministers. [9]

      Ferdinand and Isabella employed the same vigorous measures in the other parts of their dominions, which had proved so successful in Andalusia, for the extirpation of the hordes of banditti, and of the robber-knights, who differed in no respect from the former, but in their superior power. In Galicia alone, fifty fortresses, the strongholds of tyranny, were razed to the ground, and fifteen hundred malefactors, it was computed, were compelled to fly the kingdom. "The wretched inhabitants of the mountains," says a writer of that age, "who had long since despaired of justice, blessed God for their deliverance, as it were, from a deplorable captivity." [10]

      While the sovereigns were thus personally occupied with the suppression of domestic discord, and the establishment of an efficient police, they were not inattentive to the higher tribunals, to whose keeping, chiefly, were intrusted the personal rights and property of the subject. They reorganized the royal or privy council, whose powers, although, as has been noticed in the Introduction, principally of an administrative nature, had been gradually encroaching on those of the superior courts of law. During the last century, this body had consisted of prelates, knights, and lawyers, whose numbers and relative proportions had varied in different times. The right of the great ecclesiastics and nobles to a seat in it was, indeed, recognized, but the transaction of business was reserved for the counsellors specially appointed. [11] Much the larger proportion of these, by the new arrangement, was made up of jurists, whose professional education and experience eminently qualified them for the station. The specific duties and interior management of the council were prescribed with sufficient accuracy. Its authority as a court of justice was carefully limited; but, as it was charged with the principal executive duties of government, it was consulted in all important transactions by the sovereigns, who paid great deference to its opinions, and very frequently assisted at its deliberations. [12]

      No change was made in the high criminal court of alcaldes de corte, except in its forms of proceeding. But the royal audience, or chancery, the supreme and final court of appeal in civil causes, was entirely remodelled. The place of its sittings, before indeterminate, and consequently occasioning much trouble and cost to the litigants, was fixed at Valladolid. Laws were passed to protect the tribunal from the interference of the crown, and the queen was careful to fill the bench with magistrates whose wisdom and integrity would afford the best guaranty for a faithful interpretation of the law. [13]

      In the cortes of Madrigal (1476), and still more in the celebrated one of Toledo (1480), many excellent provisions were made for the equitable administration of justice, as well as for regulating the tribunals. The judges were to ascertain every week, either by personal inspection, or report, the condition of the prisons, the number of the prisoners, and the nature of the offences for which they were confined. They were required to bring them to a speedy trial, and afford every facility for their defence. An attorney was provided at the public expense, under the title of "advocate for the poor," whose duty it was to defend the suits of such as were unable to maintain them at their own cost. Severe penalties were enacted against venality in the judges, a gross evil under the preceding reigns, as well as against such counsel as took exorbitant fees, or even maintained actions that were manifestly unjust. Finally, commissioners were appointed to inspect and make report of the proceedings of municipal and other inferior courts throughout the kingdom. [14]

      The sovereigns testified their respect for the law by reviving the ancient, but obsolete practice of presiding personally in the tribunals, at least once a week. "I well remember," says one of their court, "to have seen the queen, together with the Catholic king, her husband, sitting in judgment in the alcazar of Madrid, every Friday, dispensing justice to all such, great and small, as came to demand it. This was indeed the golden age of justice," continues the enthusiastic writer, "and since our sainted mistress has been taken from us, it has been more difficult, and far more costly, to transact business with a stripling of a secretary, than it was with the queen and all her ministers." [15]

      By the modifications then introduced, the basis was laid of the judiciary system, such as it has been perpetuated to the present age. The law acquired an authority, which, in the language of a Spanish writer, "caused a decree, signed by two or three judges, to be more respected since that time, than an army before." [16] But perhaps the results of this improved administration cannot be better conveyed than in the words of an eye- witness. "Whereas," says Pulgar, "the kingdom was previously filled with banditti and malefactors of every description, who committed the most diabolical excesses, in open contempt of law, there was now such terror impressed on the hearts of all, that no one dared to lift his arm against another, or even to assail him with contumelious or discourteous language. The knight and the squire, who had before oppressed the laborer, were intimidated by the fear of that justice, which was sure to be executed on them; the roads were swept of the banditti; the fortresses, the strong- holds of violence, were thrown open, and the whole nation, restored to tranquillity and order, sought no other redress, than that afforded by the operation of the law." [17]

      II. Codification of the laws. Whatever reforms might have been introduced into the Castilian judicatures, they would have been of little avail, without a corresponding improvement in the system of jurisprudence by which their decisions were to be regulated. This was made up of the Visigothic code, as the basis, the fueros of the Castilian princes, as far back as the eleventh century, and the "Siete Partidas," the famous compilation of Alfonso the Tenth, digested chiefly from maxims of the civil law. [18] The deficiencies of these ancient codes had been gradually supplied by such an accumulation of statutes and ordinances, as rendered the legislation of Castile in the highest degree complex, and often contradictory. The embarrassment resulting from this, occasioned, as may be imagined, much tardiness, as well as uncertainty, in the decisions of the courts, who, despairing of reconciling the discrepancies in their own law, governed themselves almost exclusively by the Roman, so much less accommodated, as it was, than their own, to the genius of the national institutions, as well as to the principles of freedom. [19]

      The nation had long felt the pressure of these evils, and made attempts to redress them in repeated cortes. But every effort proved unavailing, during the stormy or imbecile reigns of the princes of Trastamara. At length, the subject having been resumed in the cortes of Toledo, in 1480, Dr. Alfonso Diaz de Montalvo, whose professional science had been matured under the reigns of three successive sovereigns, was charged with the commission of revising the laws of Castile, and of compiling a code, which should be of general application throughout the kingdom.

      This laborious undertaking was accomplished in little more than four years; and his work, which subsequently bore the title of Ordenanças Reales, was published, or, as the privilege expresses it, "written with types," excrito de letra de molde, at Huete, in the beginning of 1485. It was one of the first works, therefore, which received the honors of the press in Spain; and surely none could have been found, at that period, more deserving of them. It went through repeated editions in the course of that, and the commencement of the following century. [20] It was admitted as paramount authority throughout Castile; and, although the many innovations, which were introduced in that age of reform, required the addition of two subsidiary codes in the latter years of Isabella, the "Ordenanças" of Montalvo

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