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One notable case is recorded which impressed the whole nobility with salutary terror. In 1480 the widow of a scrivener appealed to her against Alvar Yáñez, a rich caballero of Lugo in Galicia, who, to obtain possession of a coveted property, caused the scrivener to forge a deed and then murdered him to insure secrecy. It was probably this which led Ferdinand and Isabella to send to Galicia Fernando de Acuña as governor with an armed force, and Garcí López de Chinchilla as corregidor. Yáñez was arrested and finally confessed and offered to purchase pardon with 40,000 ducats to be applied to the Moorish wars. Isabella’s counsellors advised acceptance of the tempting sum for so holy a cause, but her inflexible sense of justice rejected it; she had the offender put to death, but to prove her disinterestedness she waived her claim to his forfeited estates and gave them to his children. Alvar Yáñez was but a type of the lawless nobles of Galicia who, for a century, had been accustomed to slay and spoil without accountability to any one. So desperate appeared the condition of the land that when, in 1480, the deputies of the towns assembled to receive Acuña and Chinchilla they told them that they would have to have powers from the King of Heaven as well as from the earthly king to punish the evil doers of the land.
[67] The example made of Yáñez brought encouragement, but the work of restoring order was slow. Even in 1482 the representatives of the towns of Galicia appealed to the sovereigns, stating that there had long been neither law nor justice there and begging that a
justizia mayor be appointed, armed with full powers to reduce the land to order. They especially asked for the destruction of the numerous castles of those who, having little land and few vassals to support them, lived by robbery and pillage, and with them they classed the fortified churches held by prelates. At the same time they represented that homicide had been so universal that, if all murderers were punished, the greater part of the land would be ruined, and they suggested that culprits be merely made to serve at their own expense in the war with Granada.
[68] With the support of the well-disposed, however, the royal power gradually made itself felt; they lent efficient support to the royal representatives; forty-six robber castles were razed and fifteen hundred robbers and murderers fled from the province, which became comparatively peaceful and orderly—a change confirmed when, in 1486, Ferdinand and Isabella went thither personally to complete the work. Yet it was not simply by spasmodic effort that the protection of the laws was secured for the population. Constant vigilance was exercised to see that the judges were strict and impartial. In 1485, 1488 and 1490 we hear of searching investigations made into the action of all the corregidores of the kingdom to see that they administered justice without fear or favor.
Juezes de Residencia, as they were called, armed with almost full royal authority, were dispatched to all parts of the kingdom, as a regular system, to investigate and report on the conduct of all royal officials, from governors down, with power to punish for injustice, oppression, or corruption, subject always to appeal in larger cases to the royal council, and the detailed instructions given to them show the minute care exercised over all details of administration. Bribery, also, which was almost universal in the courts, was summarily suppressed and all judges were forbidden to receive presents from suitors.
[69] To maintain constant watchfulness over them a secret service was organized of trustworthy inspectors who circulated throughout the land in disguise and furnished reports as to their proceedings and reputation.
[70] Attention, moreover, was paid to the confused jurisprudence of the period. Since the confirmation of the
Siete Partidas of Alfonso X, in 1348, and the issue at the same time of the
Ordenamiento de Alcalá, there had been countless laws and edicts published, some of them conflicting and many that had grown obsolete though still legally in force. The greatest jurist of the day, Alfonso Diaz de Montalvo, was employed to gather from these into a code all that were applicable to existing conditions and further to supplement their deficiencies, and this code, known as the
Ordenanzas Reales, was accepted and confirmed by the Córtes of Toledo in 1480.
[71] This reconstruction of Castilian jurisprudence was completed for the time when, in 1491, Montalvo brought out an edition of the
Siete Partidas, noting what provisions had become obsolete and adding what was necessary of the more modern laws. The result of all these strenuous labors is seen in the admiring exclamation of Peter Martyr, in 1492, “Thus we have peace and concord, hitherto unknown in Spain. Justice, which seems to have abandoned other lands, pervades these kingdoms.”
[72] The inestimable benefits resulting from this are probably due more especially to Isabella.
Yet I have been led to the conviction that her share in the administration of her kingdom has been exaggerated. The chroniclers of the period were for the most part Castilians who would naturally seek to subordinate the action of the Aragonese intruder, and subsequent writers, in their eagerness to magnify the reputation of Isabella, have followed the example. In the copious royal correspondence with the officials of the Inquisition the name of Isabella rarely appears. To those in Castile as in Aragon Ferdinand mostly writes in the first person singular, without even using the pluralis majestatis; the receiver of confiscations is mi receptor, the royal treasury is mi camera e fisco; the Council of the Inquisition is mi consejo. In spite of the agreement of 1474, the signature Yo la Reina rarely appears alongside of Yo el Rey, and still rarer are Ferdinand’s allusions to la Serenissima Reina, mi muy cara e muy amada muger, while in the occasional letters issued by Isabella during her husband’s absence, she is careful to adduce his authority as that of el Rey mi señor.[73] It is scarce likely that this preponderance of Ferdinand was confined to directing the affairs of the Holy Office.
There has been a tendency of late to regard the Inquisition as a political engine for the conversion of Spain from a medieval feudal monarchy to one of the modern absolute type, but this is an error. The change effected by Ferdinand and Isabella and confirmed by their grandson Charles V was almost wholly wrought, as it had been two centuries earlier in France, by the extension and enforcement of the royal jurisdiction, superseding that of the feudatories.[74] In Castile the latter had virtually ceased to be an instrument of good during the long period of turbulence which preceded the accession of Isabella; something evidently was needed to fill the gap; the zealous and efficient administration of justice, which I have described, not only restored order to the community but went far to exalt the royal power, and, while it abased the nobles, it reconciled the people to possible usurpations which were so beneficent. In the consolidation and maintenance of this no agency was so effective as the institution known as the Santa Hermandad.
LA SANTA HERMANDAD
Hermandades—brotherhoods or associations for the maintenance of public peace and private rights—were no new thing. In the troubles of 1282, caused by the rebellion of Sancho IV against his father, the first idea of his supporters seems to have been the formation of such organizations.[75] In these associations, however, the police functions were subordinated to the political object of supporting the pretensions of Sancho IV and, recognizing their danger, he dissolved them as soon as he felt the throne assured to him. After his death, his widow the regent Doña María de Molina, organized them anew for the protection of her child, Fernando IV, and again in 1315, when she was a second time regent in the minority of her grandson, Alfonso XI.[76]
The idea was a fruitful one and speedily came to be recognized as a potent instrumentality in the struggle with local disorder and violence. Perhaps the earliest Hermandad of a purely police character, similar to the later ones, was that entered into in 1302 between Toledo, Talavera and Villareal to repress the robberies and murders committed by the Golfines in the district of Xara. Fernando IV not only confirmed the association but ordered the inhabitants to render it due assistance, and subsequent royal letters of the same purport were issued in 1303, 1309,
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