Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/342

198 198 ADMINISTRATION OF CASTILE. lART resumed in the cortes of Toledo, in 1480, Dr. Al- Reiilcs. ' fonso Diaz de Montalvo, whose professional science had been matured under the reigns of three suc- cessive sovereigns, was charged with the commis- sion of revising the laws of Castile, and of compil- ing a code, which should be of general application throughout the kingdom. cndcofoi- This laborious undertaking was accomplished in little more than four years ; and his work, which subsequently bore the title of Ordenangas Reales, was published, or, as the privilege expresses it, " written with types," excrito de letra de molde, at Huete, in the beginning of 1485. It Avas one of the first works, therefore, which received the honors of the press in Spain ; and surely none could have been found, at that period, more deserving of them. It went through repeated editions in the course of that, and the commencement of the following cen- tury. ^^ It was admitted as paramount authority throughout Castile ; and, although the many inno- vations, which were introduced in that age of re- form, required the addition of two subsidiary codes in the latter years of Isabella, the " Ordenangas " of Montalvo continued to be the guide of the tri- bunals down to the time of Philip the Second ; and may be said to have suggested the idea, as indeed it was the basis of the comprehensive compilation, " Nueva Recopilacion," which has since formed the law of the Spanish monarchy. ^' 20 Mciulez enumerates no less throufrliout Castile. Typoprapliia than five editions of this code, hy Espanola, pp. 203, 261, 270. 1500 ; a sufficient evidence of its 21 Ordenangas Reales, Pioloffo. authority, and general reception — Mem. de la Acad, de Hist., tom.