INTROD.
her language the language of the court and of literature.
Early history and constitution of Castile. It will facilitate our inquiry into the circumstances which immediately led to these results, if we briefly glance at the prominent features in the early history and constitution of the two principal Christian states, Castile and Aragon, previous to the fifteenth century.[1]
The Visigoths. The Visigoths who overran the Peninsula, in the fifth century, brought with them the same liberal principles of government which distinguished their Teutonic brethren. Their crown was declared elective by a formal legislative act.[2] Laws were enacted in the great national councils, composed of prelates and nobility, and not unfrequently ratified in an assembly of the people. Their code of jurisprudence, although abounding in frivolous detail, contained many admirable provisions for the security of justice; and, in the degree of civil liberty which it accorded to the Roman inhabitants of the country, far transcended those of most of the other barbarians of the north.[3] In short, their simple
- ↑ Navarre was too inconsiderable, and bore too near a resemblance in its government to the other Peninsular kingdoms, to require a separate notice; for which, indeed, the national writers afford but very scanty materials. The Moorish empire of Granada, so interesting in itself, and so dissimilar, in all respects, to Christian Spain, merits particular attention. I have deferred the consideration of it, however, to that period of the history, which is occupied with its subversion. See Part I., Chapter 8.
- ↑ See the Canons of the fifth Council of Toledo. Florez, España Sagrada, (Madrid, 1747–1776,) tom. vi. p. 168.
- ↑ Recesvinto, in order more effectually to bring about the consolidation of his Gothic and Roman subjects into one nation, abrogated the law prohibiting their intermarriage. The terms in which his enactment is conceived, disclose a far more enlightened policy than that pursued either by the Franks or Lombards. (See the Fuero Juzgo, (ed. de la Acad., Madrid,
