Exemption from Custom-house Dues. Attempts of Valencia Tribunal to import Wheat from Aragon Privilege of Valencia Tribunal in the Public Granary Speculative Exploitation of Privileges by Saragossa Tribunal Coercive Methods of obtaining Supplies Valencia asserts Privilege of obtaining Salt Exemption from Billets of Troops Exemption from Military Service Córtes of 1646-Aragon assimilated to Castile PAGE Rebellion of 1640-Expulsion of Inquisitors-A National Inquisition restored in 1652-Renewal of Discord Cases in Majorca-Intervention of the Holy See 472 THE INQUISITION OF SPAIN. BOOK I. ORIGIN AND ESTABLISHMENT. CHAPTER I. THE CASTILIAN MONARCHY. Ir were difficult to exaggerate the disorder pervading the Castilian kingdoms, when the Spanish monarchy found its origin in the union of Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon. Many causes had contributed to prolong and intensify the evils of the feudal system and to neutralize such advantages as it possessed. The struggles of the reconquest from the Saracen, continued at intervals through seven hundred years and varied by constant civil broils, had bred a race of fierce and turbulent nobles as eager to attack a neighbor or their sovereign as the Moor. The contemptuous manner in which the Cid is represented, in the earliest ballads, as treating his king, shows what was, in the twelfth century, the feeling of the chivalry of Castile toward its overlord, and a chronicler of the period seems rather to glory in the fact that it was always in rebellion against the royal power. So fragile was the feudal bond that a ricohome or noble could at any moment renounce allegiance by a simple message sent to the king through a hidalgo. The necessity of attract ' Romancero del Cid, pp. 12, 74, 77, 79, 87, 88, etc. (Frankofurto, 1828).— Crónica de Alfonso VII, 138-141 (Florez, España Sagrada, XXI, 403)— "Castellæ vires per sæcula fuere rebelles: Inclyta Castella ciens sævissima bella Vix cuiquam regum voluit submittere collum: 'Fuero Viejo de Castiella, Lib. 1, Tit. iii, 3. Cf. Partidas, P. IV, Tit. XXV, ley 7. |