Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/341

197 ADMINISTRATION OF CASTILE, 197 ces, as far back as the eleventh century, and the chapter " Siete Partidas," the famous compilation of Alfon- ' so the Tenth, digested chiefly from maxims of the civil law. ^^ The deficiencies of these ancient codes had been gradually supplied by such an accu- mulation of statutes and ordinances, as rendered the legislation of Castile in the highest degree complex, and often contradictory. The embarrass- ment, resulting from this, occasioned, as may be imagined, much tardiness, as well as uncertainty, in the decisions of the courts, who, despairing of reconciling the discrepances in their own law, gov- erned themselves almost exclusively by the Roman, so much less accommodated, as it was, than their own, to the genius of the national institutions, as well as to the principles of freedom^. ^^ The nation had long felt the pressure of these evils, and made attempts to redress them in repeat- ed cortes. But every effort proved unavailing, dur- ing the stormy or imbecile reigns of the princes of Trastamara. At length, the subject having been 18 Prieto y Sotelo, Historia del is to be found, in the same com- Derecho Real de Espaiia, (Madrid, pass, in any of the Peninsular 1738,) lib. 3, cap. 16-21. — Ma- writers. rina has made an elaborate com- '9 Marina (in his Ensayo Hist6- mentary on Alfonso's celebrated rico-Critico, p. 388,) quotes a pop- code, in his Ensayo Historico- ular satire of the fifteenth century, Critico sobre la Antigua Legisla- directed, with considerable humor, cion de Castilla, (Madrid, 1808,) against these abuses, which lead pp.269ctseq. The English reader the writer in the last stanza to will find a more succinct analysis envy even the summary style of in Dr. Dunham's History of Spain Mahometan justice, and Portugal, (London, 1832,) in "En tierrade Morosun solo alcade T 1, ri 1 J- 1 • Libra lo cevil e lo creminal, Lardner s Cyclopaedia, vol. iv. pp. g ^^^g g, ,,;„ ^e esta de valde 121-150. The latter has given For lajuslicia andar muy igual: a more exact, and, at the same Alli nones Azo, nin es Decretal, J J • n J 1 Nin es Roberto, nm la Clementina, time, extended view of the early gaivo dlscrecion e buena doctrina, Castilian legislation, probably, than La qual muestra a todos vevlr communal."