Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/104

Ixxxvi INTRODUCTION. Cod.' of &oprarbe. iNTRoD. close affinity to one another, we may confine our- selves to those of Aragon, which exhibit a more perfect model than those either of Catalonia or Valencia, and have been far more copiously illus- trated by her writers. The national historians refer the origin of their government to a written constitution of about the middle of the ninth century, fragments of which are still preserved in certain ancient documents and chronicles. On occurrence of a vacancy in the throne, at this epoch, a monarch was elected by the twelve principal nobles, who prescribed a code of laws, to the observance of which he was obliged to swear before assuming the sceptre. The import of these laws was to circumscribe within very nar- row limits the authority of the sovereign, distribut- ing the principal functions to a Justicia, or Justice, and these same peers, who, in case of a violation of the compact by the monarch, were authorized to withdraw their allegiance, and, in the bold language of the ordinance, " to substitute any other ruler in his stead, even a pagan, if they listed."^ The whole of this wears much of a fabulous aspect, and may remind the reader of the government which Ulysses met with in Phaeacia ; where King Alcinous 6 See the fragments of the Fuero de Soprarlie, cited by Bkin- cas, Aragoncnsium Rerum Com- mentarii, (Ceesaraugusiaj, 1588.) pp. 25 - 29. — The well-known oath of the Aragonese to their sovereign on his accession, " Nos que valemos taiilo coino vos," &c. frequently quoted by historians, rests on the authority of Antonio Perez, the unfortunate minister of Philip II., who, however good a voucher for the usages of his own time, has made a blunder in the very sentence preceding this, by confounding the Privilege of Union with one of the Laws of Soprarbe, which shows him to be insufficient, especially as he is the only, au- thority for this ancient ceremony. See Antonio Perez, Relaciones, (Paris, 1598,) fol. 92.