-i; 



CORTES. 



CORTES. 



212 



every beauty presented to their eye, have invariably given ample 

 dimensions to the lower part of the chest. The more therefore any 

 female, not of unnatural proportions, compresses her waist, the more 

 does she depart from resemblance to " the statue which enchants the 

 world." 



The accompanying" figures, the first, A, representing the Venus de' 

 Medici, and the skeleton in its natural form ; the second, B, the form 

 as altered by the use of tight stays, taken from Professor Soemmering 

 ' On the Effects of Stays,' will illustrate this. 



CORTES, the name of the assembly of representatives of the Spanish 

 nation. These assemblies have been variously constituted in different 

 ages, and in the different kingdoms into which Spain was divided till 

 the time of Ferdinand and Isabella. The cortes of Castile and Leon 

 and those of Aragon were the principal. Considerable obscurity pre- 

 vails as to the origin and the formation of both. The earliest national 

 assemblies under the Visigothic kings met generally at Toledo : they 

 consisted chiefly of the dignitaries of the church, and were called 

 councils. After deciding all questions of church discipline, they con- 

 cerned themselves with temporal affairs, and in this stage of the 

 discussion the lay lords or barons took an active part, and the king 

 presented his requests. In the acts of the council of Leon, A.D. 1020, 

 ch. vi., the transition from ecclesiastical to temporal affairs is clearly 

 pointed out : " Judicato ergo eccLsia: judicio, adeptaque justitia, agatur 

 causa regi.1, deinde populorum." In the acts of the council of Jaca, 

 1063, we find that several points of discipline were reformed " with the 

 consent of the noblea and prelates ; " and the signatures are those of 

 the king, the infantes, nine bishops, three abbots, and three magnates ; 

 but it is added in a note that " all the other magnates had subscribed 

 to the same acts." It is now generally acknowledged, that in that age, 

 and down to the end of the 12th century, there was no popular repre- 

 sentation from the towns or commons of Castile and Leon in those 

 Memblies. (Marina, ' Teoria de las Cortes ; ' Sempere, ' Histoire des 

 Cortes ; ' Prescott's ' History of Ferdinand and Isabella,' and ' Hist, of 

 Philip II.') The people arc said to have occasionally attended these 

 national eovncils on some solemn occasions, as in the council held 

 at Toledo in 1135, but only as spectators and witnesses, "to see, to 

 hear, and to praise God." By degrees, as the towns rose into import- 

 ance, and obtained local fueros, or charters, from the kings for their 



ABTS ASD SCI. CIV. VOL. III. 



own security, or formed themselves into fraternities for their mutual 

 protection against the Moors or against the violence of their own nobles, 

 some of them obtained at last the privilege of sending deputies to the 

 national councils, which were now styled cortes, because, according to 

 some etymologists, they were held at the place where the king had his 

 court. The cortes held at Salamanca by Ferdinand II., in 1178, con- 

 sisted only of the nobility and clergy ; but at the cortes of Leon, in 

 1188, we first hear that there were present deputies " of towns chosen 

 by lot;" and in the same year the Cortes of Castile assembled at 

 Burgos, where deputies from about fifty towns or villages, the names 

 of which are mentioned, were present. How these places came to 

 obtain this privilege is not known, although it is probable that it was 

 by the king's writ or by charter. The cortes were henceforth com- 

 posed of three estamentos or states, clergy, lords, and procuradores, or 

 deputies from the enfranchised towns, forming together one chamber, 

 but voting as separate states. It was a standing rule that general laws 

 must have in their favour the majority of each estamento. This was 

 the principle of the cortes of the united kingdom of Castile and Leon. 

 The same principle existed in the kingdom of Aragon, only there the 

 cortes were composed of four brazos or states, namely, the prelates, 

 including the commanders of the military orders ; the ricos hombres, 

 or barons ; the infanzonea, or caballeros, who held their estates of the 

 great barons ; and lastly, the universidades, or deputies of the royal 

 towns. These last are first mentioned in the cortes of Monzon, in 

 1131. The towns and boroughs in Aragon which returned deputies 

 were thirty-one ; but the number of deputies returned by each is not 

 defined by the historians, any more than those for the cortes of Castile. 

 We find the same town returning sometimes a greater, sometimes a 

 smaller number, and at other times none at all, and a small town or 

 village sending more deputies than a large one ; while many consider- 

 able towns never returned any, independently of the seiguorial towns, 

 which of course had no representative privilege. How all this was 

 made to agree with the manner of voting, in order to ascertain the 

 opinion of the majority, is not clearly stated. 



In Castile, from the end of the 13th century, the popular estamento 

 made rapid strides towards increasing its influence, being favoured in 

 this by some kings or pretenders to the crown, such as Sancho IV. and 

 Enrique II., or taking advantage of disputed successions and stormy 

 minorities to obtain from one of the contending parties an extension 

 of their privileges. In 1295 the deputies of thirty-two towns and 

 boroughs of Castile and Leon assembled at Valladolid, and entered into 

 a confederacy to defend their mutual rights against both the crown and 

 the nobles. Among many other resolutions, one was, that each of the 

 thirty-two constituencies should send two deputies every two years to 

 meet about Pentecost at Leon or some other place, in order to enforco 

 the observance of their stipulations. In 1314, during the frightful 

 confusion which attended the minority of Alonso XI., we find another 

 confederacy between the nobles and the procuradores of 100 commu- 

 nities, with a similar clause as to deputies meeting once or twice every 

 year. These meetings of deputies for special purposes ought not to be 

 confounded with the general cortes of the kingdom, which were always 

 convoked by the king, though at no fixed times. Enrique II. having 

 revolted against his brother, Pedro the Cruel, courted the support of 

 the municipal towns, which at the cortes of 1367 demanded the 

 admission de jure of twelve deputies into the royal council, which had 

 till then consisted of hereditary nobles and prelates, with occasionally 

 some civilians called in by the king. Enrique promised to comply 

 with their request, but his brother's death having ensured his seat on 

 the throne, he evaded the fulfilment of his promise by creating an 

 Audieucia real, or high court of appeal, consisting of prelates and 

 civilians, and a criminal court of eight alcaldes, chosen from different 

 provinces of the kingdom. Juan I., who succeeded him after the loss 

 of the battle of Aljubarrota, created a new council in 1385, consisting 

 of four bishops, four nobles, and four citizens, with extensive executive 

 powers. The towns next solicited the dismissal of the bishops and 

 nobles from the council, in order that it should consist entirely of 

 citizens; but Juan rejected the demand. "The 14th century seems 

 to have been the brightest period of popular, or more properly muni- 

 cipal, representation in Spain. The cortes were frequent, and the. 

 subject of their deliberations of the most important nature. But 

 Spain had never a definite representation ; to no meeting of this period 

 did all or half the great towns send deputies, and those which did 

 return them appear to have observed little proportion in the numbers." 

 (Dunham's ' Hist, of Spain and Portugal.') 



The remonstrances or petitions of the general cortes to the king 

 generally began as follows : " The prelates, lords, and caballeros of the 

 kingdoms of Castile and Leon, in the name of the three estates of the 

 kingdom," &c. Remonstrances from the deputies of the towns began : 

 " Most high and powerfxil prince ! your very humble vassals, subjects, 

 And servants, the deputies of the towns and boroughs of your kingdoms, 

 who are assembled in your presence by your order," &c. (Cortes of 

 Valladolid, June, 1420.) 



In the cortes of 1402, Enrique III. demanded for his wars with the 

 Moors a supply of 60,000,000 of maravedis, but the deputies granted 

 only 45,000,000. By his testament, Enrique excluded the citizens from 

 the council of regency during the minority of his son, Juan II., and 

 after this they were no longer admitted into the royal council. Thus 

 the municipal towns lost a great advantage they had gained thirty 



