faculties. The citizens of these towns elected judicial officials whom they designated as jueces or alcaldes. The municipalities were not always favorable to the royal power and they were kept in direct relationship with the court by the visit of a royal official whose duty it was to correct abuses and hear cases of appeal in the name of the king. When the Spaniards conquered Cuba, Mexico, Peru, and the Philippines, municipalities were established there with all the offices and characteristics of Spanish municipalities of the pre-colonial period. Likewise, as we shall see, the inspectors who visited the municipalities in the royal name coincided in all ways with the visitors or royal inspectors in the colonies.
It was during the great Christian conquests of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, that a definite judiciary culminating in a royal audiencia was perfected. This was a period of royal consolidation and centralization. The nobles conceded the majority of their governmental prerogatives to the increasing royal authority, and the ecclesiastical jurisdiction was confined, in theory at least, to spiritual matters. The municipalities developed a system by which they regularly elected their regidores (councillors) and their alcaldes, with judicial, legislative, and executive attributes, submitting at the same time to the inspection of the king's visitor.[1] It is clear, therefore, that the royal jurisdiction was recognized during this period, with the king at the head of the judicial and administrative system.
The statement was made above that some time after the Council of Leon, the frontier counts were replaced by royal governors who were known as adelantados. The earliest regulations which apply to these officials were the "Laws of the Adelantados Mayores"
- ↑ The Council of Leon gave the king the right to name royal judges in the municipalities, but at the same time the municipalities were conceded the right to exercise judicial and legislative functions and the right to elect their own magistrates. The royal municipal judges were doubtless the forerunners of the Alcaldes Mayores (see Desdevises du Dezert, L'Espagne de l'ancien régime—les institutions, pp. 151-154). It was always with great reluctance that these fueros were conceded (Antequera, pp. 128-129; Danvila y Collado, El poder civil en España, I. 169-176, 263-265.
