Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 18.djvu/469

* SPANISH LAW. 405 SPANISH LITEBATUBE. separate kingdoms retained a considerable degree of autonomy. Kach of them kept its separate parliament (Cortes) and in each of them the law was developed by provincial legislation. In each of them compilations of the laws were made from time to time. In Castile the most important legislative products were the Ordinanzas Reales (1485), the Leyes de Toro (1505), the Nueva Recopilacion (15G7), and the Novf- sima Recopilacion ( 1805-7 ). After the par- liaments had ceased to play an important part some of the new laws promulgated by the kings were made applicable to all Spain, but no serious efforts to establish a common national law of marriage, it does not derogate from the penal code was adopted in 1822; another in 1848; another, which is still in force, in 1870. The ex- isting code of criminal procedure dates from 1882. A code of civil procedure was promulgated in 1855 and revised in 1881. In 1885 a com- mercial code was adopted. The attempts to unify the civil law encountered obstinate resistance, be- cause of the attachment of the provinces to their ancient fueros. The law of real property was transformed, early in the century, by the abolition of feudal tenures and of entails, and an impor- tant law requiring the registration of convey- ances, mortgages, etc., was adopted in 1861 (re- vised in 1871). Civil marriage was introduced in 1870. In 1888 a general civil code was adopted (revised in 1889). but this code has not given Spain a common law, for, except as regards the law of marriage, it does not derogate from the laws previously in force in Navarre, Aragon, Catalonia and the Balearic Isles ; i.e. it has, in these provinces, only subsidiary force. In Cata- lonia the Roman law, civil and canon, is still subsidiary law. In the rest of the peninsula, however, the code of 1888-89 has replaced the older laws. Spanish Colonies. From the early part of the sixteenth century many laws were issued concern- ing the colonies. The earliest compilation of these laws was made in Mexico, in 15(53. by Vasco de Puga. In 1570 was published, in Spain, a col- lection of Orders in Council affecting the colonies, and a fuller collection was made early in the seventeenth century. In 1680 a code of colonial laws was published — Recopilacion de las leyes de las Indias. (This was repeatedly revised, the last edition dating from 1841.) This code dealt chiefly with administrative matters, to some ex- tent with crimes and penalties, hardly at all with private law. In matters not covered by special colonial legislation the laws of Castile had been applied from the beginning, and this practice was expressly sanctioned in the Laws of the Indes, II,, i., 2 and II., xv.. 06.. In the early part of the nineteenth century (1810-26) all the Spanish colonies of Central and South America achieved their independence. These re- publics have adopted codes of their own. The earliest Spanish American civil code was that of Bolivia (1831). The most important is that of Chile, which has served as a model for several other Central and South American codes. AH these codes, like the Spanish code of 1888-89, show the influence of the Code Napoleon. (See Code.) In Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines the Spanish codes of the nineteenth century are still in force. BIBLI0GR.4PHY. SPANISH: Bistories of Spanish Law, by Sempere (1847), JIarichalar v JIanrique (1863), Falcon (1880),Moret ( 1893) ," Antequera (1895). That by Hinojosa (1887) deals with the earlier periods only, till a.d, 711. Systematic works on the older Spanish law by Sala ( 1803, and manv subsequent editions) and De la Serua y Montaiban (1841, 13th ed. 1881). Commettr taries on the civil code of 1888-89 by Manresa y Navarro, Falcon, Sanchez Ronuln, and Scaevola. The last is the most voluminous. Dictionaries (i.e. encyclopa>dic works in alphabetical order) by Escriche (1870). Sanchez de las Matas (1883), and Alcubilla ( 1895). The last is in 9 vols, with annual appendices. In English there are no works of value except translations of texts, as selections from Las siete partirlas (New Orleans, 1820). The Spanish codes and the more impor- tant Spanish laws in force in our insular depen- dencies are published by the United States War Department. In German: a history of Spanish law by Brauchitsch (1852). In French: transla- tions of the codes; also Lehr. Elements de droit civil espagnol (Paris, 1880. 1890). SPANISH LITEBATUBE (called also Cas- tiliaii literature, since the dialect of Castile is the dominant and literary speech of Spain). Litera- ture in the Spanish tongue began only when the process of reconquest restored to the Christian Spaniards a considerable portion of their ances- tral domain. This first literature was epic song reflecting the warlike spirit of an heroic age. Very little of the Old Spanish epic poetry has been preserved to us in anything like its original form. The only considerable remains are some poems on the Cid, of which one, the Poema del Cid, is the oldest extant monument of Spanish literature, some fragments of a poem or of jioems on the Infantes of Lara, and a learned poem on FernSn Gonzalez. But allusions and records in the Chronicles and elsewhere lead us to believe that there once existed epics now lost. It was the juf/lares or minstrels who popularized and de- veloped Spanish epic tradition, according to the theory of Gaston Paris, at first singing only the heroes celebrated by the French jongleurs. It was quite natural that the French tales dealing with Charlemagne's wars against the Spanish Arabs should most impress the Spaniards; and it was eqvially natural that the Spanish juglares should seek to make native heroism play some part in the conflicts with the Jloors. This they did by inventing the figure of Bernardo del Car- pio to supplant the French hero Roland. The traditions concerning Bernardo are i)reserved for us only in the prose accounts of the Chronicles, especially the Cronica general of Alfonso the Wise; but the Chronicles drew upon the poems of the juglares for the matter that they contain. We come to a thoroughly domestic tradition in the story of Fernfln Gonzalez, Count of Castile (932-970), with whom began the actual though not the nominal independence of that region. An extended poetic account of his active life we owe to a monk of the monastery of San Pedro de Ar- lanza. This work was written in the second half of the thirteenth century, but we now possess it only in a late manuscript of the fifteenth century, which is incomplete. The Crdnica general, how- ever, affords us the substance of what must have been the second part of the poem. A purely Spanish tradition is found again in the tragic story of the seven Infantes of Lara (or