Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/363

219 ADMINISTRATION OF CASTILE. 219 promulgated in the thirteenth century, the maxims chapter of the canon law came to be permanently estab- '- lished. The ecclesiastical encroached on the lay tribunals. Appeals were perpetually carried up to the Roman court ; and the popes, pretending to regulate the minutest details of church economy, not only disposed of inferior benefices, but gradually converted the right of confirming elections to the episcopal and higher ecclesiastical dignities, into that of appointment. ^^ These usurpations of the church had been re- Resisteaoy cortes. peatedly the subject of grave remonstrance in cortes. Several remedial enactments had passed that body, during the present reign, especially in relation to the papal provision of foreigners to benefices ; an evil of much greater magnitude in Spain than in other countries of Europe, since the episcopal demesnes, frequently covering the Moor- ish frontier, became an important line of national defence, obviously improper to be intrusted to the keeping of foreigners and absentees. Notwith- standing the efforts of cortes, no effectual remedy was devised for this latter grievance, until it be- came the subject of actual collision between the the Romish and Muzarabic rituals vices, which have continued to be were subjected, in the reign of retained there to the present time. Alfonso VI., and the ascendency, Flechier, Histoire du Cardinal Xi- which the combination of king- min^s, (Paris, 1693,) p. 142. — craft and priest-craft succeeded in Bourgoanne, Travels in Spain, securing to the former in opposi- Eng. trans., vol. iii. chap. 1. tion to the will of the nation. Car- 45 Marina, Ensayo Historico- dinal Ximenes afterwards estab- Critico, nos. 322, 334, 341. — Riol, lished a magnificent chapel in the Informe, apud Semanario Erudito, cathedral church of Toledo for the pp. 92 et seq. performance of the Muzarabic ser-