Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/365

341 GONSALVO SUCCOURS THE POPE. 341 was taken of all persons capable of bearing arms ; and bj an ordinance, dated at Valladolid, February 22d, in the same year, it was provided that one out of every twelve inhabitants, between twenty and forty-five years of age, should be enlisted in the service of the state, whether for foreign war, or the suppression of disorders at home. The remain- ing eleven were liable to be called on in case of urgent necessity. These recruits were to be paid during actual service, and excused from taxes ; the only legal exempts were the clergy, hidalgos, and paupers. A general review and inspection of CHAPTER IIL dated Taragona, Sept. I8th, 1495, is extremely precise in specifying the appointments required for each in- dividual. Among other improvements, in- troduced somewhat earlier, may be mentioned that of organizing and thoroughly training a small corps of heavy-armed cavalry, amounting to tvFenty-five hundred. The num- ber of men-at-arms had been great- ly reduced in the kingdom of late years, in consequence of the exclu- sive demand for the ginetes in the Moorish war. Oviedo, Quincuage- nas, MS. Ordinances were also passed for encouraging the breed of horses, which had suffered greatly from the preference very generally given by the Spaniards to mules. This had been carried to such a length, that, while it was nearly impossible, according to Bernaldez, to mount ten or twelve thousand cavalry on horses, ten times that number could be provided with mules. (Reyes Catolicos, MS., cap. 184.) " Epor- que si a esto se diesse lugar," says one of the pragmdticas, adverting to this evil, " muy prestamente se perderia en nuestros reynos la no- bleza de la cauelleria que en ellos suele auer, e se oluidaria el exerci- cio militar de que en los tiempos passados nuestra nacion de Espaiia ha alcangado gran fama e loor ; " it was ordered that no person in the kingdom should be allowed to keep a mule, unless he owned a horse also ; and that none but ec- clesiastics and women should be allowed the use of mules in the saddle. These edicts were enfor- ced with the utmost rigor, the king himself setting the example of con- formity to them. By these sea- sonable precautions, the breed of Spanish horses, so long noted throughout Europe, was restored to its ancient credit, and the mule consigned to the humble and appro- priate offices of drudgery, or raised only for exportation. For these and similar provisions, see Pragmd- ticas del Reyno, fol. 137-132. Mateo Aleman's whimsical pica- resco novel, Guzman d' Alfarache, contains a comic adventure, show- ing the excessive rigor with which the edict against mules was enfor- ced, as late as the close of Philip II. 's reign. The passage is ex- tracted in Roscoe's elegant version of the Spanish Novelists, Vol. I. p. 132.