Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/133

ARAGON. cxv arts, as thej were called, organized into guilds or section companies, constituted so many independent asso- ciations, whose members were eligible to the high- est municipal offices. And such was the importance attached to these offices, that the nobility in many instances, resigning the privileges of their rank, a necessary preliminary, were desirous of being enroll- ed among the candidates for them. '^ One cannot but observe in the peculiar organization of this little commonwealth, and in the equality assumed by every class of its citizens, a close analogy to the constitutions of the Italian republics ; which the Catalans, having become familiar with in their inti- mate commercial intercourse with Italy, may have adopted as the model of their own. Under the influence of these democratic insti- naughty spirit of the tutions, the burghers of Barcelona, and indeed of ^a'"'^'** Catalonia in general, which enjoyed more or less of a similar freedom, assumed a haughty indepen- dence of character beyond what existed among the same class in other parts of Spain ; and this, com- bined with the martial daring fostered by a life of maritime adventure and warfare, made them impa- tient, not merely of oppression, but of contradiction, on the pavt of their sovereigns, who have experi- enced more frequent and more sturdy resistance 79 Capmany, Mem. de Barce- orders, the knights and hidalgos, lona, torn. i. part. 2, p. 187. The great barons of Catalonia, for- — torn. ii. Apend. 30. — Capmany tified with extensive immunities says principal nohleza; yet it may and wealth, lived on their estates be presumed that much the larger in the country, probably little rel- proportion of these noble candi- ishing the levelling spirit of the dates for office was drawn from burghers of Barcelona, the inferior class of the privileged