privilege, it is generally implied that the thing so named is nothing new. The earliest extant written fuero is probably that which was granted to the province and town of Leon by Alphonso V. in 1020. It emanated from the king in a general council of the kingdom of Leon and Castile, and consisted of two separate parts; in the first 19 chapters were contained a series of statutes which were to be valid for the kingdom at large, while the rest of the document was simply a municipal charter.[1] But in neither portion does it in any sense mark a new legislative departure, unless in so far as it marks the beginning of the era of written charters for towns. The “fuero general” does not profess to supersede the consuetudines antiquorum jurium or Chindaswint’s codification of these in the Lex Visigothorum; the “fuero municipal” is really for the most part but a resuscitation of usages formerly established, a recognition and definition of liberties and privileges that had long before been conceded or taken for granted. The right of the burgesses to self-government and self-taxation is acknowledged and confirmed, they, on the other hand, being held bound to a constitutional obedience and subjection to the sovereign, particularly to the payment of definite imperial taxes, and the rendering of a certain amount of military service (as the ancient municipia had been). Almost contemporaneous with this fuero of Leon was that granted to Najera (Naxera) by Sancho el Mayor of Navarre (ob. 1035), and confirmed, in 1076, by Alphonso VI.[2] Traces of others of perhaps even an earlier date are occasionally to be met with. In the fuero of Cardeña, for example, granted by Ferdinand I. in 1039, reference is made to a previous forum Burgense (Burgos), which, however, has not been preserved, if, indeed, it ever had been reduced to writing at all. The phraseology of that of Sepulveda (1076) in like manner points back to an indefinitely remote antiquity.[3] Among the later fueros of the 11th century, the most important are those of Jaca (1064) and of Logroño (1095). The former of these, which was distinguished by the unusual largeness of its concessions, and by the careful minuteness of its details, rapidly extended to many places in the neighbourhood, while the latter charter was given also to Miranda by Alphonso VI., and was further extended in 1181 by Sancho el Sabio of Navarre to Vitoria, thus constituting one of the earliest written fora of the “Provincias Vascongadas.” In the course of the 12th and 13th centuries the number of such documents increased very rapidly; that of Toledo especially, granted to the Mozarabic population in 1101, but greatly enlarged and extended by Alphonso VII. (1118) and succeeding sovereigns, was used as a basis for many other Castilian fueros. Latterly the word fuero came to be used in Castile in a wider sense than before, as meaning a general code of laws; thus about the time of Saint Ferdinand the old Lex Visigothorum, then translated for the first time into the vernacular, was called the Fuero Juzgo, a name which was soon retranslated into the barbarous Latin of the period as Forum Judicum;[4] and among the compilations of Alphonso the Learned in like manner were an Espejo de Fueros and also the Fuero de las leyes, better known perhaps as the Fuero Real. The famous code known as the Ordenamiento Real de Alcalá, or Fuero Viejo de Castilla, dates from a still later period. As the power of the Spanish crown was gradually concentrated and consolidated, royal pragmaticas began to take the place of constitutional laws; the local fueros of the various districts slowly yielded before the superior force of imperialism; and only those of Navarre and the Basque provinces (see Basques) have had sufficient vitality to enable them to survive to comparatively modern times. While actually owning the lordship of the Castilian crown since about the middle of the 14th century, these provinces rigidly insisted upon compliance with their consuetudinary law, and especially with that which provided that the señor, before assuming the government, should personally appear before the assembly and swear to maintain the ancient constitutions. Each of the provinces mentioned had distinct sets of fueros, codified at different periods, and varying considerably as to details; the main features, however, were the same in all. Their rights, after having been recognized by successive Spanish sovereigns from Ferdinand the Catholic to Ferdinand VII., were, at the death of the latter in 1833, set aside by the government of Castaños. The result was a civil war, which terminated in a renewed acknowledgment of the fueros by Isabel II. (1839). The provisional government of 1868 also promised to respect them, and similar pledges were given by the governments which succeeded. In consequence, however, of the Carlist rising of 1873–1876, the Basque fueros were finally extinguished in 1876. The history of the Foraes of the Portuguese towns, and of the Fors du Béarn, is precisely analogous to that of the fueros of Castile.
Among the numerous works that more or less expressly deal with this subject, that of Marina (Ensayo historico-critico sobre la antigua legislacion y principales cuerpos legales de los reynos de Leon y Castilla) still continues to hold a high place. Reference may also be made to Colmeiro’s Curso de derecho político según la historia de Leon y de Castilla (Madrid, 1873); to Schäfer’s Geschichte von Spanien, ii. 418-428, iii. 293 seq.; and to Hallam’s Middle Ages, c. iv.
FUERTEVENTURA, an island in the Atlantic Ocean, forming
part of the Spanish archipelago of the Canary Islands (q.v.).
Pop. (1900) 11,669; area 665 sq. m. Fuerteventura lies between
Lanzarote and Grand Canary. It has a length of 52 m., and an
average width of 12 m. Though less mountainous than the other
islands, its aspect is barren. There are only two springs of fresh
water, and these are confined to one valley. Lava streams and
other signs of volcanic action abound, but there has been no
igneous activity since the Spaniards took possession. At each
extremity of the island are high mountains, which send off
branches along the coast so as to enclose a large arid plain.
The highest peak reaches 2500 ft. In external appearance,
climate and productions, Fuerteventura greatly resembles
Lanzarote. An interval of three years without rain has been
known. Oliva (pop. 1900, 2464) is the largest town. A smaller
place in the centre of the island named Betancuria (586) is the
administrative capital. Cabras (1000) on the eastern coast is
the chief port. Dromedaries are bred here.
FUGGER, the name of a famous German family of merchants and bankers. The founder of the family was Johann Fugger, a weaver at Graben, near Augsburg, whose son, Johann, settled in Augsburg probably in 1367. The younger Johann added the business of a merchant to that of a weaver, and through his marriage with Clara Widolph became a citizen of Augsburg. After a successful career he died in 1408, leaving two sons, Andreas and Jakob, who greatly extended the business which they inherited from their father. Andreas, called the “rich Fugger,” had several sons, among them being Lukas, who was very prominent in the municipal politics of Augsburg and who was very wealthy until he was ruined by the repudiation by the town of Louvain of a great debt owing to him, and Jakob, who was granted the right to bear arms in 1452, and who founded the family of Fugger vom Reh—so called from the first arms of the Fuggers, a roe (Reh) or on a field azure—which became extinct on the death of his great-grandson, Ulrich, in 1583. Johann Fugger’s son, Jakob, died in 1469, and three of his seven sons, Ulrich (1441–1510), Georg (1453–1506) and Jakob (1459–1525), men of great resource and industry, inherited the family business and added enormously to the family wealth. In 1473 Ulrich obtained from the emperor Frederick III. the right to bear arms for himself and his brothers, and about the same time he began
- ↑ Cap. xx. begins: “Constituimus etiam ut Legionensis civitas, quae depopulata fuit a Sarracenis in diebus patris mei Veremundi regis, repopulatur per hos foros subscriptos.”
- ↑ “Mando et concedo et confirmo ut ista civitas cum sua plebe et cum omnibus suis pertinentiis sub tali lege et sub tali foro maneat per saecula cuncta. Amen. Isti sunt fueros quae habuerunt in Naxera in diebus Sanctii regis et Gartiani regis.”
- ↑ “Ego Aldefonsus rex et uxor mea Agnes confirmamus ad Septempublica suo foro quod habuit in tempore antiquo de avolo meo et in tempore comitum Ferrando Gonzalez et comite Garcia Ferdinandez et comite Domno Santio.”
- ↑ This Latin is later even than that of Ferdinand, whose words are: “Statuo et mando quod Liber Judicum, quo ego misi Cordubam, translatetur in vulgarem et vocetur forum de Corduba . . . et quod per saecula cuncta sit pro foro et nullus sit ausus istud forum aliter appellare nisi forum de Corduba, et jubeo et mando quod omnis morator et populator . . . veniet ad judicium et ad forum de Corduba.”
