Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. III.djvu/463

435 of the churcli. REVIEW OF THEIR ADxMINISTRATION. 435 their retainers in their strong castles, and wait chapter there, in grim repose, the hour when they might '— sally forth and reassert by arms their despoiled au- thority. Such a season occurred on Isabella's death. The warlike nobles eagerly seized it ; but the wily and resolute Ferdinand, and afterwards the iron hand of Ximenes, kept them in check, and prepared the way for the despotism of Charles the Fifth, round whom the haughty aristocracy of Cas- tile, shorn of substantial power, were content to revolve as the satellites of a court, reflecting only the borrowed splendors of royalty. The Queen's government was equally vigilant in Trentment resisting ecclesiastical encroachment. It may ap- pear otherwise to one who casts a superficial glance at her reign, and beholds her surrounded always by a troop of ghostly advisers, and avowing religion as the great end of her principal operations at home and abroad.'^ It is certain, however, that, while in all her acts she confessed the influence of religion, she took more effectual means than any of her pre- decessors, to circumscribe the temporal powers of the clergy.'^ The volume of her pragmdticas is 13 " Como quier que oia el pare- There were twenty-nine bishoprics, cer de personas religiosas e de los whose aggregate revenues, very otros letradosque cerca della eran, unequally apportioned, amounted pero la mayor parte seguia las cosas to 251,000 ducats. The church por ?u arbitrio." Pulgar, Reyes livings in Aragon were much fewer Catolicos, part. 1, cap. 4. and leaner than in Castile. (Cosas 14 Lucio Marineo has collected Memorables, fol. 23.) The Vene- many particulars respecting the tian Navagiero, speaks of the me- great wealth of the Spanish clergy tropolitan church of Toledo, as in his time. There were four me- "the wealthiest in Christendom " ; tropolitan sees in Castile. its canons lived in stately palaces, Toledo, income 80,000 ducats. and its revenues, with those of the St. James, " 24,000 " archbishopric, equalled those of the Seville, " 20,000 « whole city of Toledo. (Viaggio, Granada " 10,000 " •' v ob j