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KNIGHTS OF SAINT JOHN OF JERUSALEM
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KNIGHTS OF See also:SAINT See also:
The Almo-See also:IlL, 1217- hides were in swifter decline than the See also:Almoravides
.
1252
.
One of them, al-See also:Mamun, even sought Fernando's help to regain his See also:throne in See also:Morocco, and ceded a suburb of the See also:city to his See also:Christian See also:allies
.
In 123o the See also:death of Alphonso of Leon opened the way to a final See also:union of the crowns
.
The " Baboso " had, indeed, See also:left his See also:kingdom by will to his daughters by Teresa of Portugal, but Fernando was saved from the See also:necessity of enforcing his rights by his mother
.
She persuaded Teresa and the infantas to resign their claims in Final Union return for See also:pensions and lordships
.
Castile and of casing Leon were See also:united, never to be divided again
.
The and Leon. See also:work of the reconquest was now completed with See also:swift steps
.
In 1236 See also:Cordova was conquered, and See also:Seville See also:fell in 1248 with the help of a See also:fleet from the Basque See also:coast and of the Moorish king of See also:Granada, who was Fernando's See also:vassal, paying See also:tribute and attending See also:Cortes when summoned
.
Fernando died in May 1252
.
It will avoid repetition to See also:note here that the Aragonese See also:share of the reconquest was completed by See also:
In 1265 he entered See also:Murcia, which, Reconquest however, he agreed to occupy in the name of Castile. of Spain, Mahommedan Spain was reduced to Granada and
except a See also:line of ports See also:round to See also:Cadiz
.
The Christian Granada. See also:population had disappeared in Granada and Moslem r;fugees had peopled it closely
.
Its king was a vassal, and of itself it was no longer a danger
.
The See also:close of the See also:period of the great reconquest, five centuries of struggle, left Spain divided between two states of different Spain after character
.
On the See also:west of the Iberian range and the Recon- south of the Guadarrama was the kingdom called, quest. for See also:short, Castile and Leon
.
Tn fact its See also:sovereign was also king of Gallicia, Asttirjas, See also:Estremadura, See also:Jaen, Cordova
See also:xxv
.
18and Seville
.
This multiplicity of titles was more than a See also:mere See also:formula of the royal See also:chancery
.
It was the See also:official recognition of a substantial See also:political fact—namely, that
the kingdom of Castile and Leon had been made up Castile and
Leon
.
by the See also:agglutination of See also:separate political entities
.
The real bond between them See also:lay in the See also:common crown, the common creed
.
They were one only as subjects of the same lords and members of the same See also: But their territorial patriotism was See also:local . The peoples were not Spaniards, See also:save as a See also:general See also:term, but Gallicians, Asturians, Castilians, Andalusians . The great See also:foreign question for them was the possibility, and from See also:time to time the imminence, of renewed invasion from See also:Africa . That peril did not cease till the defeat of the last formidable See also:African invader at the See also:battle of the Rio Salado in 1340 . It is characteristic of the loose construction of the kingdom that the Cortes of Leon and of Castile continued, after the final union, to meet apart on some occasions until 1301 . On the eastern slope of the Iberian hills and the great central table-See also:land was the kingdom called, again for short, Aragon . Its king was also a ruler of many titles—king in Aragon . Aragon, in Valencia, and the Balearic Isles (with one See also:interval of separation), See also:count of See also:Barcelona, and in See also:Provence . Marriage and See also:inheritance had given him territorial rights in the south-See also:east of See also:France . Thus he came in contact with the crusaders of See also:Simon de See also:Montfort and the expansion of the See also:French See also:monarchy . Another marriage, that of Peter, the son and successor of James the Conqueror, with Costanza, the daughter of See also:Manfred of Beneventum, gave him claims on the Neapolitan and Sicilian inheritance of the See also:Hohenstaufen . From the date of the Sicilian See also:Vespers (1283) Aragon is found mixed in the politics of See also:Italy . The commercial activity of Barcelona brought it into collision with See also:Genoa and See also:alliance with See also:Venice . The curious See also:double position of the king of Aragon is fully illustrated by the career of that king Peter who was the See also:father of James the Conqueror . He fought as a crusader at the Navas de Tolosa, he went to See also:Rome to be crowned, and did voluntary See also:homage to the pope . Yet his interests as a See also:prince of See also:southern France compelled him to draw the See also:sword in See also:defence of the Albigenses, and, orthodox as he was in creed, he fell fighting for them at Muret in 1213 . If the fortunes of Aragon were to be followed in an outline of See also:Spanish See also:history, it would be necessary to wander as far as See also:Athens and See also:Constantinople . The difference of the relations of these two states towards the See also:comity of nations had corresponding See also:internal distinctions . It has been already noted that eastern Spain was feudal . Therefore the distinction of classes was far sharper in Aragon than in non-feudal Castile and Leon . Predial See also:slavery, which had disappeared in Castile and Leon in the 13th See also:century, existed unmodified in Aragon, and in its worst See also:form, down to the See also:Bourbon See also:dynasty . When we are told of the freedom of Aragon, it is well to remember that it was enjoyed only by the small minority who were personally See also:free and also privileged: by the citizens of the towns which had charters—called in Aragon the Universidades—the nobles, the gentry and the Church . The Catalans attained emancipation from feudal subjection by a See also:succession of See also:savage See also:peasant revolts in the 15th and 16th centuries . In Valencia emancipation was finally brought by a measure which in itself was cruel—the See also:expulsion of the Moriscoes in the 17th century .
The landlords were compelled to replace them by free tenants
.
The prevalence of predial slavery in Aragon and Valencia can be largely explained by the number of Mudejares, that is Mahommedans living under Christian See also:rule, and of Moriscoesconverted Mohammedans
.
If now we look at the internal history of Spain from the conclusion of the period of the reconquest, which may be put in the See also:middle of the 13th century, down to the union of the crowns of Christtan-Castile and of Aragon by the marriage of Ferdinand
and See also:Isabel in 1469, it will be found to be occupied r 'in
of
with two great processes
.
These two processes are
firstly, the christianization of Spain, a very different thing from its reconquest from Moslem masters—and, secondly, not its unification, for that is hardly attained even now, but its progress towards unification
.
IJ
At a later period the two kingdoms defined their respective See also:spheres of See also:influence by a treaty
.
Aragon was left free to Recognition conquer the Balearic Islands and Valencia, while of the lade- Murcia and Ardalusia were to fall to Castile
.
The pendence of Almohades took the See also: The See also:Jews and the Mahommedans formed a The Jews very large See also:part of his subjects . We have no means of andMahom''estimating their See also:numbers, but there is much See also:probability medans. that together they formed not much less than a See also:half of the population . The Jews, who had suffered cruelly from the brutal fanaticism of the Almohades, had done a great See also:deal to forward the See also:conquest of Andalusia . They were repaid by the confidence of the king, and the period which includes the reign of Fernando and lasts till the end of the 14th century was the See also:golden age of their history in Spain . In 1391 the See also:preaching of a See also:priest of Seville, Fernando Martinez, led to the first general See also:massacre of the Jews, who were envied for their prosperity and hated because they were the king's tax collectors . But the history of the persecution and expulsion of the Jews is the same every-where except in date . The See also:story of the Mudejares and Moriscoes is peculiarly Spanish . In the Christian advance they were from the beginning first subjected and then incorporated . As far See also:north as See also:Astorga there is still a population known as the Maragatos, and See also:familiar to all Spain as carters and muleteers . This marked type of the Leonese of See also:modern times represents a See also:Berber See also:colony cut off among the Christians, and christianized at an See also:early date, who went on using Arab and Berber names long after their See also:conversion . They are only the most conspicuous example of a See also:process which was common to all the See also:Peninsula . As the Christians worked down to the south they found an existing Mahommedan population .
To reduce them to pure slavery would, in the See also:case of Castile at least, have been dangerous, and would also have been offensive to the Christians, who were themselves fighting for emancipation
.
To expel them would have been to have the See also:soil untilled
.
Therefore the king, the nobles, the Church and the military orders combined to give them See also:protection
.
For them, as for the Jews, the 13th and 14th centuries were a golden age
.
By the end of the 14th the persecutions began
.
Forced conversion prepared the way for expulsion, which came in the reign of See also: By Alphonso they were favoured . He stamped his name on his coins in Arabic letters . It is said with probability that one of the early kings of Aragon, Peter I., could write no other letters than the Arabic . The Mozarabes were treated under the kings of the reconquest as separate bodies with their own See also:judges and See also:law, which they had been allowed to keep by the Moslem rulers . That See also:code was the See also:forum judicial of the Visigoths, the See also:fuero juzgo, as it was called in the " See also:romance " of later times and in Castilian . The Mozarabes brought in the large Arabic element, which is one of the features of the Castilian See also:language . A part of the work of christianizing the Spain of the 13th century, and not the least part, was done by the monks of See also:Cluny introduced by the French wife of Alphonso VI . To them was due the impulse given to the reform of the church, and to See also:education . The See also:foundation of the studium generale of See also:Palencia in 1212 by Alphonso IX. was an outcome of the See also:movement . It fell in the troubles following his death, but Fernando III. revived it by the foundation of the university of See also:Salamanca, which See also:dates from 1245 . The church and the university were the great promoters of the effort to secure religious unity which began in the 14th and produced its full effects in the 17th century . How far the character, habits and morality of the Christian Spaniards were affected by See also:Oriental influences is not a question which it is easy to See also:answer .
To some extent they no doubt were coloured
.
Such a social institution as the form of marriage known by the name of barragania shows visible traces of Eastern influence
.
In so far as it was a mere agreement of a See also:man and woman to live together as husband and wife, it had precedents both See also:Roman and See also:Teutonic
.
There was also Roman and Teutonic example for recognizing the children of such a union as having rights of inheritance
.
On the other See also:hand the name is Arabic, and so is the term applied to the children, hijos de ganancia, sons of the See also:strange woman
.
Moreover the Oriental character of this union, be its origin what it may, is visible from the fact that it was polygamous
.
The only insuperable barrier to a barragania was the previous marriage " with the blessing," the full religious marriage, of the woman to another man
.
A married man might be united in barragania to a woman other than his lawful wife, and the children of that connexion, though not fully legitimate, were not bastards
.
The most See also:signal example among many which could be quoted is that of Peter the Cruel (1350-1367), who, though married to See also:Blanche of Bourbon, was abarraganado to Maria de See also:Padilla
.
He left his[HISTORY
kingdom to the daughters she See also:bore him, and their quasi See also:legitimacy was recognized not only by the Cortes during King Peter's See also:life, but abroad
.
See also: The sumptuary See also:laws, which required the barraganas of priests to See also:wear a red border to their dresses, recognized them as a known and tolerated class . The work of political unification was essentially more difficult than the Christianization of Spain . The great common institution of the church, common enthusiasms, prejudices and Ihroblem of envies, were available for the second . The first had the fJnm of to contend with deeply rooted See also:differences of See also:national ,See also:ion of See also:ica- character and of class . The Galician who spoke, and spaia. still speaks, a language of his own, was profoundly separated from the Andalusian . The Basque, who till much later times practically included the Navarrese, was a man of another See also:nationality and another speech from the Castilian . And what is true of Castile and Leon applies equally to Aragon . Aragonese, Catalans and Valencians were National as different as Galicians, See also:Basques, Castilians and Differences . Andalusians . Aragon spoke a dialect of Castilian . Catalpnia and Valencia, together with the Balearic Islands, spoke, and speak, dialects of the southern French, the so-called Limose, though it was not the language of the See also:Limousin . And the causes of See also:division did not end here . The word " See also:commonwealth " had no meaning either east or west of the Iberian range . Every one of the kingdoms grouped round the two sovereigns who shared modern Spain was itself a loose conglomeration of classes . Mention has already been made of the See also:Jew and the Mudejar . These were more or less forcibly absorbed or brutally expelled . But the distinctions between noble and not noble, between See also:town and See also:country, were in the very fibre of all the Spanish peoples . Expulsion was impossible and See also:combination only attainable by mutual agreement, and that was never secured . High See also:mountain barriers and deep See also:river courses had separated the Spaniards locally . They were more subtly and incurably separated by traditional and legal status . Speaking generally, and with the proviso that though names might differ from region to region, the facts did not; it may be said that Spain could be classified as follows: Under the crown of Castile all the territory was either abadengo, realingo, salariego, behetria, or it belonged to some town, big or little, which had its Carta See also:pueblo or town See also:charter, its own fuero systems of (forum) or law . Abadengo was land of the church, Land realingo domain of the crown, salariego land of the See also:Tenure. nobles . Behetria is less easy to translate . The word is the romance form of benefactoria . Behetrias, called " plebeian lordships," were districts and townships of peasants who were See also:bound to have a See also:lord, and to make him payments in See also:money or in See also:kind, but who had a varying freedom of choice in electing their lord . Some were described as " from See also:sea to sea, and seven times a See also:day," that is to say they could take him anywhere in the king's dominions from the By of See also:Biscay to the Straits of See also:Gibraltar, and See also:change him as often as they pleased . Others were de linage, that is to say, bound to take their lord from certain lineages . Their origin must probably be sought in the See also:action of communities of Mozarabes, Christians living under Moslem rule as rayahs, who put themselves under The Towns . Christian chiefs of the early days of the reconquest for the See also:benefice of their protection . They were mainly in old Castile . By the end of the middle ages they had disappeared . The chartered towns, in Spain east and west, were practically republics living under their own Carta pueblo with their own fuero or law . All charters were not granted by the king . Many of them were given by nobles or ecclesiastics, but required the See also:confirmation of the king . And in this country, where all was local law usage and See also:privilege, where uniformity was unknown, all charters were not held by towns . In many cases the See also:serfs in the course of their struggle for freedom extorted charters and fueros . The greater chartered towns had their surrounding comarcas, answering to the " See also:county " of an See also:Italian city, over which they exercised See also:jurisdiction . In time the villages dependent on a chartered city, as they See also:grew to be towns themselves, fought for, and in many cases won, emancipation, which they then sought to have confirmed by the king and proceeded to symbolize by setting up their own gallows in the See also:market-See also:place . The church had won exemption from the See also:payment of taxes by no general law, but by The clergy particular privilege to this or that See also:chapter, bishopric and the or monastery . The nobles claimed, and were allowed, Nobles . . exemption from See also:taxation . Church and nobles alike were for ever extending their See also:borders by See also:purchase, or trying to do so by force . They conferred their exemptions on the land they acquired, thus throwing the See also:burden of taxation on the towns and the non-nobles with increasing See also:weight . But in this land, where nothing was consistent, there was in reality no See also:sharp division except in the smaller and feudal portion—called Aragon for convenience—and save as between Christian and non-Christian, noble and non-noble . The necessities of the reconquest made it obligatory that all the dwellers Class Distinctions . on the frontier should be See also:garrison . Hence they were not only encouraged but required to possess arms . Those of them who The See also:Cabal/e-could provide themselves with a charger, a See also:mail See also:ros de Fuero. See also:shirt, a See also:spear and sword were ranked as milites- and the See also:miles was a See also:caballero . Alphonso VII. especially authorized all men who could See also:arm themselves, See also:mount themselves, and serve " cavalierly " to live as and count themselves " cavaliers." Hence the formation of the class of caballeros de fuero, non-nobles living " nobly " with a right to wear the sword . The privilege survived the epoch of the reconquest, and was often extended to See also:gilds which the king wished to encourage . Hence came the practice which caused so much surprise and amusement to French and See also:German travellers of the 16th and 17th centuries—the wearing of the gentlemanly sword by the artisans of towns . No general law controlled these local usages and fueros . The fuero juzgo (forum judicum) was accepted by the Moz'arabes, and Local Laws. had authority everywhere in cases not provided for by the charters, or where no privilege had been granted by the king . But it was subject to innumerable exceptions, and particular jurisdictions . There was no common tribunal . Nor was any material change introduced after the epoch of the reconquest . Alphonso X., El Sabio or Learned, made a fuero real, which was formed Ly combining the best parts of existing charters . It was accepted by towns and districts not already The Siete chartered, but by them only . The famous siete partidas Partidas (the seven divisions), See also:drawn up about 1260, 1s often spoken of as a code of laws . It was never so treated till it was promulgated at the Cortes of See also:Alcala in 1338, in the reign of his great See also:grandson, Alphonso XI . Even then it was subject to the restriction that it was not to prevail against any fuero, or the fuero real . The Cortes might have been expected to forward the work of unification . But without going into details on a subject which requires particular treatment, it may be noted that the The Cones . Cortes was no more coherent, or fixed in constitution or working, and was no more national, than any other of the institutions of the country . The crown of Castile and Leon had indeed a common Cortes after 1301 . Aragon never advanced so far . It, See also:Catalonia and Valencia had each their Cortes, which never united . When King Philip IV . (1621-1665) wished to secure grants of money from these parts of his dominions he had to summon three separate Cortes, which sat in different frontier towns, and he had to negotiate simultaneously with all three . Then the Spaniards, in their carelessness of form and regularity, never fixed any rule as to the constitution of a Cortes . The third See also:estate secured See also:representation in the Cortes of Leon (1188), and then in Castile and the Common Cortes . In the kingdom of Aragon the right was secured about the same time . It was decided that no new tax could be imposed save with the consent of the See also:commons, and that therefore they must be represented . But no rule was ever made as to whom the king was bound to summon, nor even that the presence of the clergy and the nobles was necessary to constitute a true Cortes . It was never claimed by the Cortes that its consent was necessary to the making of laws . The Roman See also:maxim that what the " prince " See also:wills has the force of law was not disputed—nor did the Spaniard doubt that the king acting by himself was " the prince." The check which the justiza, or See also:chief See also:justice, of Aragon imposed on the king was supported by the force of nobles and cities, but it was an exception in Spain . The representatives of the commons were the personeros and procuradores, i.e. attorneys of the cities . There was no See also:knight of the See also:shire in any Spanish Cortes . The great cities in Castile and Leon succeeded finally in reducing the right of representation to a privilege of eighteen among them, with the See also:good will of the king, who found it easier to coerce or bribe the procurators of eighteen towns than the representatives of a See also:hundred and fifty . The legislative work of such bodies was necessarily small . Their See also:practical See also:power might be great when the king was weak and necessitous, but only then . It ought to have been easy for kings whose authority was confessedly so great to have made themselves effectively despotic amid all this division and weakness . Nor would they have failed so to do if the sovereigns of Castile had not been either incapable or short-lived, and if there had not been an extraordinary succession of long minorities; while the kings of Aragon were tempted to neglect their Spanish possessions because they were in pursuit of their claims and ambitions in Italy . Alphonso X. of Castile (1252–1284) was an admirable writer, and a man of AiphonsoX., keen intelligent See also:interest in See also:science and law . As 1252-1284 . a ruler he was at once weak, unstable and obstinate . He wasted much time and great sums of money in endeavouring to secure his See also:election as See also:emperor—not in Spain, but in the See also:Holy Roman See also:Empire . He did indeed add the town of Cadiz to his possessions with the help of his vassal, the Moorish king of Granada, but his reign is filled with quarrels between himself and his nobles . The nobles of Castile and Leon were not feudalvassals, but great landowners claiming and exercising rights co jurisdiction on their estates . Their name of ricos hombres, which first appears in written documents of the 12th The Nobles, century, has been credited with a Teutonic origin, Rrcos but it was in all probability nothing but a "romance" Hombres. or Castilian See also:translation of the seniores and senatores, potentiorer and possessores of the Visigoth See also:councils and code . They represented a See also:nobility of See also:wealth and not of See also:blood . In the earlier times their possessions were divided among their sons . It was only at the end of the 13th century and later that they began to form mayorazgos or entails, to preserve their name and See also:family . It was then that segundones, or younger sons, began to be known in the social life of Spain . But whatever their position may have been legally, they were as grasping as any feudal nobility in See also:< |