INTROD.
sacrificed to the violence of faction or the lust of power, those of the Castilian cities not only remained unimpaired, but seemed to acquire additional stability with age. This circumstance is chiefly imputable to the constancy of the national legislature, which, until the voice of liberty was stifled by a military despotism, was ever ready to interpose its protecting arm in defence of constitu- tional rights.
Castilian Cortes. The earliest instance on record of popular representation in Castile occurred at Burgos, in 1169;[1] nearly a century antecedent to the celebrated Leicester parliament. Each city had but one vote, whatever might be the number of its representatives. A much greater irregularity, in regard to the number of cities required to send deputies to cortes on different occasions, prevailed in Castile, than ever existed in England;[2] though, previously
- ↑ Or in 1160, according to the Corónica General, (part. 4, fol. 344, 345,) where the fact is mentioned. Mariana refers this celebration of cortes to 1170, (Hist. de España, lib. 11, cap. 2;) but Ferreras, who often rectifies the chronological inaccuracies of his predecessor, fixes it in 1169. (Hist. d'Espagne, tom. iii. p. 484.) Neither of these authors notices the presence of the commons in this assembly; although the phrase used by the Chronicle, los cibdadanos, is perfectly unequivocal.
- ↑ Capmany, Práctica y Estilo de Celebrar Cortes en Aragon, Cataluña, y Valencia, (Madrid, 1821,) pp. 230, 231.—Whether the convocation of the third estate to the national councils proceeded from politic calculation in the sovereign, or was in a manner forced on him by the growing power and importance of the cities, it is now too late to inquire. It is nearly as diflicult to settle on what principles the selection of cities to be represented depended. Marina asserts, that every great town and community was entitled to a seat in the legislature, from the time of receiving its municipal charter from the sovereign, (Teoría, tom. i. p. 138;) and Sempere agrees, that this right became general, from the first, to all who chose to avail themselves of it. (Histoire des Cortès, p. 56.) The right, probably, was not much insisted on by
cording to the admission of their enthusiastic historian, about the middle of the thirteenth century. Sismondi, Histoire des Républiques Italiennes du Moyen-Âge, (Paris, 1818,) ch. 20.
