Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/108

xc XC INTRODUCTION. iNTBOD. tection, which he was obliged to accord, until they were again reconciled." The mischievous right of private war was repeatedly recognised by statute. It was claimed and exercised in its full extent, and occasionally with circumstances of peculiar atrocity. An instance is recorded by Zurita of a bloody feud between two of these nobles, prosecuted with such inveteracy that the parties bound themselves by solemn oath, never to desist from it during their lives, and to resist every effort, even on the part of the crown itself, to effect a pacification between them. ^^ This remnant of barbarism lingered longer in Aragon, than in any other country in Christen- dom. itenM '"'"'"' '^^^^ Aragonese sovereigns, who were many of them possessed of singular capacity and vigor, ^^ made repeated efforts to reduce the authority of their nobles within more temperate limits. Peter the Second, by a bold stretch of prerogative, strip- ped them of their most important rights of jurisdic- tion. ^° James the Conqueror artfully endeavoured to counterbalance their weight by that of the com- 17 Zurita, Anales, torn. ii. fol. ulla erat eorum utilitatis factenda 127. — Blancas, Comment a rii, p. jactura." 324. — " Adiiaec Ricis hominibus l^ Fueros y Observancias, tom. ipsis majorum more institutisque i. p. 84. — Zurita, Anales, tom. i. concedehatur, ut sese posseit, dum fol. 350. ipsi vcllent, a nostrorum Regum 19 Blancas somewhere boasts, jure et potestate, quasi nodum ali- that no one of the kincfs of Aragon quem, expedire ; neque expedire lias been stigmatized by a cogno- solum, scd (limisso frius, quo poti- men of infamy, as in most of the ren<wr,/i6i7Uire, bellnm ipsis inferre; other royal races of Europe. Pe- Reges vero Rici hominis sic expe- tor IV., " the Ceremonious," rich- diti uxorem, fiiios, famiiiam, res, ly deserved one. bona, et fortunus omnes in suam -0 Zurita, Anales, tom. i. fol. recipere fidem tcnebantur. Nequo 102.