The Best of the Bureau/The_Best_of_the_Bureau_Bureau_Development_Inc._1992.iso/dp/0087/00878.txt

Text File | 1992-08-07 | 21KB | 366 lines

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$Title{History Of Europe During The Middle Ages
Part III}
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$Author{Hallam, Henry}
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$Subject{cortes
footnote
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laws
council
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$Date{}
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Title:       History Of Europe During The Middle Ages
Book:        Book IV: The History Of Spain To The Conquest Of Granada
Author:      Hallam, Henry

Part III

     The contributions granted by cortes were assessed and collected by
respectable individuals (hombres buenos) of the several towns and villages. ^u
This repartition, as the French call it, of direct taxes is a matter of the
highest importance in those countries where they are imposed by means of a
gross assessment on a district.  The produce was paid to the royal council.
It could not be applied to any other purpose than that to which the tax had
been appropriated.  Thus the cortes of Segovia, in 1407, granted a subsidy for
the war against Granada, on condition "that if should not be laid out on any
other service except this war;" which they requested the queen and Ferdinand,
both regents in John II.'s minority, to confirm by oath.  Part, however, of
the money remaining unexpended, Ferdinand wished to apply it to his own object
of procuring the crown of Aragon; but the queen first obtained not only a
release from her oath by the pope, but the consent of the cortes.  They
continued to insist upon this appropriation, though ineffectually, under the
reign of Charles I. ^v

[Footnote u: Ibid., t. ii. p. 398.]

[Footnote v: Marina, p. 412.]

     The cortes did not consider it beyond the line of their duty,
notwithstanding the respectful manner in which they always addressed the
sovereign, to remonstrate against profuse expenditure even in his own
household.  They told Alfonso X. in 1258, in the homely style of that age,
that they thought it fitting that the king and his wife should eat at the rate
of a hundred and fifty maravedis ^* a day, and no more; and that the king
should order his attendants to eat more moderately than they did. ^w They
remonstrated more forcibly against the prodigality of John II.  Even in 1559
they spoke with an undaunted Castilian spirit to Philip II.:" - "Sir, the
expenses of your royal establishment and household are much increased; and we
conceive it would much redound to the good of these kingdoms that your majesty
should direct them to be lowered, both as a relief to your wants, and that all
great men and other subjects of your majesty may take example therefrom to
restrain the great disorder and excess they commit in that respect." ^x

[Footnote *: A maravedi weighed 60 grains of gold.]

[Footnote w: Ibid., p. 417.]

[Footnote x: Senhor, los gastos de vuestro real estado y mesa son muy
crescidos, y entendemos que convernia mucho al bien de estos reinos que v. m.
los mandasse moderar, asi para algun remedio de sus necessidades, como para
que de v. m. tomen egemplo totos los grandes y caballeros y otros sub litos de
v. m. en la gran desorden y excessos que hacen en las cosas sobredichas. p.
437.]

     The forms of a Castilian cortes were analogous to those of an English
parliament in the fourteenth century.  They were summoned by a writ almost
exactly coincident in expression with that in use among us. ^y The session was
opened by a speech from the chancellor or other chief officer of the court.
The deputies were invited to consider certain special business, and commonly
to grant money.  After the principal affairs were despatched they conferred
together, and, having examined the instructions of their respective
constituents, drew up a schedule of petitions. ^z These were duly answered one
by one; and from the petition and answer, if favorable, laws were afterwards
drawn up where the matter required a new law, or promises of redress were
given if the petition related to an abuse or grievance.  In the struggling
condition of Spanish liberty under Charles I., the crown began to neglect
answering the petitions of cortes, or to use unsatisfactory generalities of
expression.  This gave rise to many remonstrances.  The deputies insisted in
1523 on having answers before they granted money.  They repeated the same
contention in 1525, and obtained a general law inserted in the Recopilacion
enacting that the king should answer all their petitions before he dissolved
the assembly. ^a This, however, was disregarded as before; but the cortes,
whose intrepid honesty under Philip II. so often attracts our admiration,
continued as late as 1586 to appeal to the written statute and lament its
violation. ^b

[Footnote y: Marina, t. i. p. 175; t. iii. p. 103.]

[Footnote z: t. i. p. 278.]

[Footnote a: p. 301.]

[Footnote b: pp. 288-304.]

     According to the ancient fundamental constitution of Castile, the king
did not legislate for his subjects without their consent.  The code of the
Visigoths, called in Spain the Fuero Jusgo, was enacted in public councils, as
were also the laws of the early kings of Leon, which appears by the reciting
words of their preambles. ^c This consent was originally given only by the
higher estates, who might be considered, in a large sense, as representing the
nation, though not chosen by it; but from the end of the twelfth century by
the elected deputies of the commons in cortes.  The laws of Alfonso X. in
1258, those of the same prince in 1274, and many others in subsequent times,
are declared to be made with the consent (con acuerdo) of the several orders
of the kingdom.  More commonly, indeed, the preamble of the Castilian statutes
only recites their advice (consejo); but I do not know that any stress is to
be laid on this circumstance.  The laws of the Siete Partidas, compiled by
Alfonso X., did not obtain any direct sanction till the famous cortes of
Alcala, in 1348, when they were confirmed along with several others, forming
altogether the basis of the statute-law of Spain. ^d Whether they were in fact
received before that time has been a matter controverted among Spanish
antiquaries, and upon the question of their legal validity at the time of
their promulgation depends an important point in Castilian history, the
disputed right of succession between Sancho IV. and the infants of la Cerda;
the former claiming under the ancient customary law, the latter under the new
dispositions of the Siete Partidas. If the king could not legally change the
established laws without consent of his cortes, as seems most probable, the
right of representative succession did not exist in favor of his
grandchildren, and Sancho IV. cannot be considered as an usurper.

[Footnote c: t. ii. p. 202.  The acts of the cortes of Leon in 1020 run thus:
Omnes pontifices et abbates et optimates regni Hispaniae jussu ipsius regis
talia decreta decrevimus quae firmiter teneantur futuris temporibus. So those
of Salamanca, in 1178: Ego rex Fernandus inter caetera quae cum episcopis et
abbatibus regni nostri et quamplurimis aliis religiosis, cum comitibus
terrarum et principibus et rectoribus provinciarum, toto posse tenenda
statuimus apud Salamancam.]

[Footnote d: Ensayo Hist.-Crit. p. 353; Teoria de las Cortes, t. ii. p. 77.
Marina seems to have changed his opinion between the publication of these two
works, in the former of which he contends for the previous authority of the
Siete Partidas, and in favor of the infants of la Cerda.]

     It appears, upon the whole, to have been a constitutional principle, that
laws could neither be made nor annulled except in cortes.  In 1506 this is
claimed by the deputies as an established right. ^e John I. had long before
admitted that what was done by cortes and general assemblies could not be
undone by letters missive, but by such cortes and assemblies alone. ^f For the
kings of Castile had adopted the English practice of dispensing with statutes
by a non obstante clause in their grants.  But the cortes demonstrated more
steadily against this abuse than the English parliament, who suffered it to
remain in a certain degree till the Revolution.  It was several ti