Imperial Spain 1469-1716

by John H. Elliott

In reviving Catalonia's archaic constitutional system Ferdinand had implicitly rejected the possibilities of furthering the unity of Spain by the introduction of administrative and legal uniformity. No effort was made to bring Castile and the Crown of Aragon into closer harmony. Instead, the dualism of the two Crowns was intensified and perpetuated. Where the kings of sixteenth-century Spain would be able to behave in many respects like absolute monarchs in Castile, they would continue to be constitutional monarchs in the states of the Crown of Aragon. They would have to summon Cortes and attend them in person whenever they required a subsidy; they would be unable to alter laws or introduce administrative changes without the Cortes's consent; they would find it almost impossible to raise troops in the Crown of Aragon without coming into conflict with regional laws and privileges; and their officials would all the time be jealously watched by the guardians of the constitutions.

  If, then, the introduction of administrative uniformity and the centralizing of power in the monarch's hands were essential features of the Renaissance State, the Spain of Ferdinand and Isabella would scarcely seem to qualify. Under the government of Ferdinand no institutional change occurred in the Crown of Aragon which would formally extend the constricted area in which the Crown was compelled to operate. Monarchy remained in the Crown of Aragon what it had always been: strictly limited monarchy. Similarly, there was not the slightest attempt at administrative fusion of the two Crowns, even at the very highest level, although inevitably certain administrative adjustments were made to meet the new conditions. Since Castilian problems absorbed so much of Ferdinand's attention, royal absenteeism from the Crown of Aragon was likely to become permanent. Indeed, of the thirty-seven years of his reign, Ferdinand spent under four in the Principality of Catalonia. In order to minimize the consequences of this absenteeism, the traditional institution of viceroyalties, by means of which the Catalans and Aragonese had governed their medieval empire, now became a permanent feature of the government of the Crown of Aragon itself. Henceforth, Catalonia, Aragon and Valencia were each ruled by viceroys. At the same time, the King contrived to keep in personal touch with the affairs of his Aragonese realms by refurbishing another institution of the medieval Crown of Aragon – the Curia Regis. This council of the medieval kings of Aragon was transformed in 1494 into the Council of Aragon, presided over by a Vice-Canciller. It consisted of a Tesorero-General, who need not be a native of the Crown by origin, and five Regents representing the different states of the Crown of Aragon. It took its place at once beside the Consejo Real, the equivalent council for the government of Castile, as a council attendant on the person of the king, and so from the beginning spent most of its time on Castilian soil. Both its character and its composition made it the natural link between the King and the Crown of Aragon, advising the King on the policies to be pursued, and transmitting his orders to the viceroys.

  This solution to the problem of Aragonese government – a solution specifically designed to preserve intact the political and administrative identity of the Crown of Aragon – played a large part in determining the future structure of an expanding Spanish Monarchy. By nature it was capable of indefinite extension, for the joint establishment of a viceroyalty and of a special council attendant on the King would make it possible for the kings of Spain to acquire new dominions without depriving them of their separate identities. But while this administrative solution allowed the kings of Spain to acquire new dominions at a minimum cost to national traditions and susceptibilities, it naturally reduced the chances of the Spanish Monarchy evolving into a unitary state. Instead, it was more likely to evolve along the same lines as the medieval Aragonese empire – as a plurality of states loosely united beneath a common sovereign. In this crucial respect at least, Ferdinand's Aragon scored a significant victory over Isabella's Castile.

  The new Spain was therefore a plural, not a unitary, state, and consisted of a series of separate patrimonies governed in accordance with their own distinctive laws. The Spain of the Catholic Kings continued to be Castile and Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia. Moreover, the existing legal and political structure of these various states remained largely unaltered. Like that of other contemporary west European states, their political organization consisted of an interlocking structure composed of different tiers. At the top was royal power, the extent of which varied from one state to another according to the respective laws of each. At the bottom was seigneurial power – the rights of jurisdiction exercised by lords over their vassals, who comprised the mass of the rural population. In between these two lay a tier of autonomous rights which came within the preserve of the Prince but were exercised by privileged bodies, such as town councils, whose authority derived from charters and privileges conceded by the Crown. Nowhere did Ferdinand and Isabella introduce any fundamental change in this three-tiered structure. They were content to respect the existing ordering of the State, insisting on the full exercise of the royal authority, but always recognizing that there were limits beyond which it could not go. They would seem, indeed, to have subscribed fully to the opinion of the contemporary jurist Palacios Rubios, that ‘to the King is confided solely the administration of the kingdom, and not dominion over things, for the property and rights of the State are public, and cannot be the private patrimony of anyone’.2

  Yet the practice of Ferdinand and Isabella was to show that, even within the legal limitations on royal rights, there remained considerable scope for manoeuvre. If, for instance, Ferdinand could not be given regal powers over Castile in perpetuity, he could still be allowed to exercise them by the personal concession of his wife during her own lifetime. Ferdinand was not the man to remain in a subordinate position, and Isabella, for her part, came to feel an affection and respect for her husband which made it natural for her to entrust him with far wider powers in Castile than had originally been envisaged. The device of the sovereigns, tanto monta, monta tanto, which was generally thought to express their absolute equality, is now known to have been a humanistic device made for Ferdinand and intended to represent that it was a matter of indifference – tanto monta – as to how he should deal with the Gordian knot; but the traditional interpretation admirably conveys the spirit of their relationship. They evolved between them a working partnership unique in the annals of monarchy. Both monarchs signed royal decrees; both could administer justice in Castile, jointly when together, separately when apart; and the effigies of both appeared on Castilian coins. In some respects, it was true, Ferdinand exercised more power than Isabella, for he was an active ruler in Castile, whereas she remained simply a queen consort in Aragon; and questions of foreign policy became his special preserve. But attempts to differentiate between their powers and to elevate one at the expense of the other tend to be an unprofitable exercise. They worked in double harness, each complementing the other; united in their determination to bring greatness to their kingdoms by a full deployment of their royal power.

  Inevitably their exalted sense of their own office – of their obligation as rulers to restore order and impose justice – tended to cut through many of the legal limitations by which they were surrounded. The unity of their persons transcended the disunity of their dominions, and gave reality to a Spain that was something more than merely Castile and Aragon. Their sense of regality not only strengthened the upper tier of their own royal power, but also tightened the whole governmental structure, subtly transforming it in the process, so that, in Castile at least, they left behind them a state far more subordinate at every level to royal authority than the one they had found. Like their contemporary, Henry VII of England, they laid the foundations of a new state, not by introducing new institutions but by revivifying old ones, and by bending them to serve their own ends and to assert their own authority over the entire body politic. The ‘new monarchy’ in Spain, as elsewhere in Europe, was in the first instance the old monarchy restored – but restored with a sense of royal authority and national purpose capable of launching it on a radically different course.


  2. THE ASSERTION OF ROYAL AUTHORITY IN CASTILE

  In spite of the importance of restoring peace to Catalonia, it was inevitable that the Catholic Kings should concentrate the weight of their attention on their greatest and most populous realm – Castile. Once the War of Succession had been won with the defeat of the invading Portuguese army at the battle of Toro in March 1476, the most pressing problem was clearly to curb the power of the Castilian aristocracy and bring to an end the dreary round of anarchy. This, as Ferdinand and Isabella were fully aware, was the overwhelming desire of the mass of the nation. Diego de Valera, a contemporary chronicler, asserted that Ferdinand and Isabella had come to ‘restore these kingdoms and rescue them from the tyrannical government to which they have for so long been subjected’.3 They could count on the support of all those elements which were weary of the continuing disorder and resented the long-standing abuse of power by the aristocracy. The Cortes of Castile provided a natural forum for obtaining this support, and it was in the Cortes held at Madrigal in April 1476 that the foundations were laid for that alliance between the Crown and the municipalities which gave such a powerful impulse to the reassertion of royal authority.

  The most effective measure taken at the Cortes of Madrigal for the restoration of order in Castile was the creation of the Santa Hermandad, a perfect example of a medieval institution revived to meet new needs. The towns of medieval Castile had possessed popular bands, known as hermandades, or brotherhoods, to watch over their interests and help preserve the peace. At the Cortes of Madrigal, these were reorganized and placed under a unified central control in the form of a council or Junta of the Hermandad, presided over by the Bishop of Cartagena, acting as the direct representative of the Crown. Where the medieval hermandades had tended to fall under the influence of local magnates, and frequently added to the very disorders they were supposed to hold in check, the reorganized hermandades were dependent on the Crown for their instructions. They were specifically municipal institutions placed at the disposal of the Crown, and magnates were carefully excluded from all judicial posts.

  The Hermandad combined in itself the functions of a police force and of a judicial tribunal. As a police force, its task was to suppress brigandage and to patrol the roads and countryside. Every town and village was expected to provide its quota of troops, at the rate of one horseman to every hundred householders. There was a standing body of two thousand soldiers under the command of Ferdinand's brother, Alonso de Aragón, and each town had its company of archers who would turn out as soon as the hue and cry was raised, and pursue the malefactors to the limits of the town's jurisdiction, where the pursuit was taken up by a fresh company from the next town or village. The cost of maintaining a police force on this scale was very heavy, and it was met by fines and by a system of taxation which the Crown attempted, although without success, to extend even to the aristocracy.

  If the malefactor was caught by the Hermandad he was also likely to be tried by it, for the tribunals of the Hermandad enjoyed complete jurisdiction over certain carefully specified classes of crimes – robbery, murder and arson committed in the open countryside, or in towns and villages when the criminal took to the country; together with rape, housebreaking, and acts of rebellion against the central government. These tribunals consisted of locally chosen and unpaid alcaldes of the Hermandad, of whom there was one in every village of under thirty families, and two (one a caballero and one of inferior rank) in all the larger centres of population. Either acting alone, or assisted by alcaldes from the principal judicial seat in the district, the alcaldes reviewed the case, pronounced judgement, and meted out the most savage penalties, which generally consisted of mutilation or a most barbarous death.

  The savage punishments had the desired effect. By degrees, order was restored throughout Castile, and the country was cleared of bandits. After two or three years the very success of the Hermandad, combined with the cost of maintaining it, prompted the towns to ask for its dissolution; but the continuing existence of the Hermandad offered the Crown obvious military advantages at the time of the Granada campaign, and Ferdinand and Isabella refused to disband a body which could provide them with companies of archers to fight against the Moors. It was only in 1498 that they finally agreed to suppress the Council of the Hermandad and to abolish its salaried officers. While the local hermandades continued to survive after 1498, they inevitably lost much of their original character and effectiveness once the Supreme Council was gone. The severity of the punishments was modified; appeals were allowed to the ordinary courts; and the Hermandad became a modest rural police force, without either power or prestige.

  The organization of the Hermandad was therefore essentially a temporary expedient devised to deal with an acute national emergency. The year of its creation, 1476, saw another move by the Crown to reassert its authority over the magnates – and one which this time involved a permanent change in the social and political organization of Castile. This move was directed towards securing for the Crown the mastership of the powerful Order of Santiago. The Order of Santiago was the greatest of the three military-religious Orders – Santiago, Calatrava, and Alcántara – of medieval Castile. Between them, the Orders possessed vast estates and revenues, and are thought to have exercised jurisdiction over at least a million vassals. As long as their wealth and resources remained the preserve of a handful of magnates, they inevitably constituted a State within the State. This made it essential for the Crown to secure control over them, and an opportunity arose with the death of the Grand Master of Santiago in 1476. As soon as the news reached her at Valladolid, Isabella, with characteristic intrepidity, took horse and set off for the convent of Uclés, where the dignitaries of the Order were preparing to elect a successor. Three days of hard riding brought her to the convent just in time to insist that the proceedings should be suspended and the office be conferred upon her husband. In the event, Ferdinand graciously waived his claim for the time being, but the correct precedent had been satisfactorily established. When the Grand Masterships of Calatrava and Alcántara fell vacant in 1487 and 1494 respectively, they duly went to Ferdinand; and a papal bull of 1523 definitively incorporated all three Orders into the Crown.

  There is still no study of the resources of the Military Orders and of their role in the history of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spain, but it would be hard to overestimate the importance of their contribution to the reassertion of royal power. Their financial value to the Crown is obvious enough. The contemporary humanist, Marineo Sículo, placed the annual rental of the lands of the Order of Santiago at 60,000 ducats, of Alcátara at 45,000 and of Calatrava at 40,000,4 and these figures rose sharply as the century advanced. Their acquisition did something to compensate for the loss of Crown lands alienated by the kings of medieval Castile, and they were to provide a useful security for royal loans from bankers. But they constituted also an invaluable source of patronage, for the Orders possessed a number of encomiendas (commanderies), some of them enjoying considerable incomes: 5

  Santiago 94 encomiendas

  Calatrava 51

  Alcántara 38

  183

  In addition to the 183 comendadores there were also the so-called caballeros de la Orden, who possessed no encomienda, but were entitled to wear the hábitos – the ceremonial robes – belonging to one of the three Orders. This meant that, between comendadores and caballeros, nearly 1,500 dignities were now placed at the disposal of the Crown. With these it could silence the importunate and reward the deserving, and so strengthen its control over the upper ranks of Castilian society.

  The steps taken by the Crown in 1476 to establish royal control over the Order of Santiago were followed by further measures designed to reduce the political power of the magnates. In particular there was the famous Act of Resumption of the Cortes of Toledo of 1480, by which the nobles were deprived of half the revenues they had alienated or usurped since 1464. These Cortes, however, also saw the launching of important administrative
reforms – reforms which give the Cortes of Toledo a place in Castilian history comparable to that enjoyed by the Barcelona Cortes of 1480 in the history of Catalonia.

  Of all the reforms begun in the Cortes of Toledo of 1480, the most important was the refashioning of the old royal council of the kings of Castile. The Consejo Real – or Council of Castile, as it was often called in later years – was intended by Ferdinand and Isabella to be the central governing body of Castile, and the linch-pin of their governmental system. It advised them on appointments and the conferring of favours; it acted as the supreme court of justice in Castile; and it supervised the working of Castilian local government. It was essential that a Council with such wide powers should be composed of officials on whom the sovereigns could place total reliance, and that it should not be allowed to fall, like the old royal Council, into the hands of the magnates. To prevent this, it was arranged that the Council should consist of a prelate, three caballeros and eight or nine jurists (letrados); and although the traditional dignitaries of the realm might attend meetings if they wished, they were allowed no vote, and so enjoyed no influence. This exclusion of the great magnates from voting on matters of state meant that the traditional offices of some of the proudest families of Castile were transformed into empty dignities. The Velascos continued to be Constables of Castile, the Enríquez Admirals of Castile, but their high-sounding titles ceased to give them a prescriptive right to the exercise of political power. Instead, military commands and diplomatic and administrative offices were conferred upon ‘new men’: members of the lesser nobility and gentry, townsmen, and conversos (converted Jews).

  It was symptomatic of the needs of the new age that legal training was increasingly required for governmental office. Paper work was increasing, a routine was being established, and the letrados, who had studied law at one of the Castilian universities, proved to be the kind of men best equipped to master bureaucratic procedures. For Castile, unlike Aragon, these procedures were relatively new. Administration in the Crown of Aragon had been vested since the fourteenth century in a highly bureaucratized chancery, which was effectively presided over by the vice-chancellor, and consisted of a protonotario (entrusted with the general charge of the office), three secretaries, and a series of scribes and clerks. Although the subject remains to be studied, it would be surprising if Aragonese experience were not called upon in the reconstruction of administration in Castile. But the Castilian bureaucracy, even when reformed, was much more loosely organized than the Aragonese bureaucracy and differed from it in its close dependence on the royal Council. Three members of the Council of Castile were required to sign all official documents, and the Council as a whole intervened in the most detailed decisions of day-to-day government. But alongside the members of the Council were certain other figures who were to play an increasingly important part in the administration. These were the royal secretaries, who were supposed to act as the link between the Council of Castile and the sovereign; but since they were in daily contact with him, and also prepared the agenda for the Council, they naturally acquired great influence in the making of political and administrative decisions, and on occasion entirely by-passed the Council of Castile. A man like Hernando de Zafra, secretary to the Queen and the head of the Castilian secretariat, thus became a political figure in his own right.