Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/115

xcvii ARAGON. xcvii one vote, whatever might be the number of its section II. deputies. Any place, which had been once repre sented in cortes, might always claim to be so.^® By a statute of 1307, the convocation of the itsfonnsor •' ' proceeding. States, which had been annual, was declared bien- nial. The kings, however, paid little regard to this provision, rarely summoning them except for some specific necessity. ^'^ The great officers of the crown, whatever might be their personal rank, were jealously excluded from their deliberations. The session was opened by an address from the king in person, a point, of which they were very tenacious ; after which the different arms withdrew to their separate apartments. ^^ The greatest scru- pulousness was manifested in maintaining the rights and dignity of the body ; and their intercourse with one another, and with the king, was regulated by the most precise forms of parliamentary etiquette.^^ The subjects of deliberation were referred to a committee from each order, who, after conferring 36 Practica y Estilo, pp. 14, 17, Discurso Breve sobre la Celebracion 18, 30. — Martel, Forma de Cel- de Cortes deAragon, (1626,) fol. 12. ebrar Cortes, cap. 10. — Those 38 Capmany, Practica y Estilo, who followed a mechanical oc- p. 15. — Blancas has preserved a cupation, including surgeons and specimen of an address from the apothecaries, were excluded from a throne, in 1398, in which the king, • seat in cortes. (Cap. 17.) The after selecting some moral apo- faculty have rarely been treated thegm as a text, rambles for the with so little ceremony. space of half an hour through ^"^ Martel, Forma de Celebrar Scripture history, &c., and con- Cortes, cap. 7. — The cortes ap- eludes with announcing the object pear to have been more frequently of his convening the cortes togeth- convoked in the fourteenth century, er, in three lines. Commentarii, than in any other. Blancas refers pp. 376-380. to no less than twenty-three within 39 gee the ceremonial detailed that period, averaging nearly one with sufficient prolixity by Martel, infour years. (Commentariijndex, (Forma de Celebrar Cortes, cap. voce Comitia.) In Catalonia and 52, 53,) and a curious illustration Valencia, the cortes was to be sum- of it in Zurita, Anales, torn. iv. fol. moned every three years. Berart, 313. VOL. I. m