The Cambridge Modern History. R. Nisbet Bain
not be moved far from home, and wars were local in character. The burden as well as the reward of the Conquest of Granada fell chiefly to the Andalucians. At its close, a guard of 2500 horse was retained in the royal service, and the powerful force of artillery that had been brought together was carefully kept up. When the troops of the Holy Brotherhood were disbanded, this force was found insufficient, and the local militias were revived upon a better plan. The old law binding all citizens to provide themselves with arms according to their condition having fallen into disuse, a decree was promulgated (at Valladolid in 1496) declaring one-twelfth of the males between the ages of twenty and forty-eight liable to military service at home or abroad. Captains were appointed, and the militias were mustered and drilled on holidays. But victories abroad made soldiering popular, and volunteers in abundance were found to submit to the discipline and learn the new tactics of the Great Captain. The militia was neglected; taxation had taken the place of personal service, and the municipalities refused to bear a double burden.
The Castilian navy dates its origin from the Moorish Wars, when the Cantabrian sailors sailed round the coast and cooperated with the land forces. Together with the Catalans they were afterwards employed in stopping communications between the Moriscos and their African brethren. The connexion with Italy, Flanders and Africa, increased the importance of the service, and the convoys required by the trade of the Indies rapidly developed a formidable fleet.
The vast powers centred in the Crown were exercised through the royal Council. Originally a deliberative assembly of members of the royal family, prelates, and nobles, it was entirely reformed by Ferdinand and Isabel (1480). Its former members were not excluded, but their votes were taken from them, and their places supplied by lawyers nominated by the Crown. The president, generally a bishop, was the second person in the kingdom. The new Council was organised into departments, the chief of which were the Council of State, controlling the public forces and foreign affairs, and the Council of .Castile, the supreme Court of justice, and the centre of the executive. The royal authority was no longer shared by grandees and prelates of noble rank; a professional class, midway between nobles and people, and entirely dependent on the Crown, had sprung up. The lawyers of the Council formed the real legislature; their education had steeped them in Roman law, and their efforts were directed to the unification and centralisation of authority. As the powers of the Council rose, those of the Cortes dwindled.
Over the clergy too the royal authority was extended, and the civil and the ecclesiastical power were united to such a degree, that the separation of Church and State even now remains inconceivable to Spaniards. The morals and discipline of the clergy had become much relaxed. Preferment in Spain was obtained by intrigues at Home; and those who obtained it often neglected to visit their sees or benefices. Public opinion supported the Crown in its desire for reform. In 1476 the Cortes protested against the abuses of the ecclesiastical Courts, which usurped jurisdiction in civil matters and enforced their sentences by religious penalties. The enormous and ever-increasing estates held by the Church in mortmain had now come to be looked upon with jealousy and anxiety. The revenues of the great sees were immense; the Archbishops of Toledo and Santiago nominated the governors of their provinces. Little by little they were shorn of part of their wealth, and of the whole of their civil jurisdiction and military power. The annexation of the Grand Masterships of the Military Orders by the Crown weakened the Church as well as the nobles. At the same time the sees were filled by men of learning and piety, and ceased to be an appanage of the nobility. At Toledo the turbulent Archbishop Carillo was succeeded by the soldier and statesman Mendoza, known from his influence as “the Third King” (1483). The next Archbishop, the Franciscan Ximenes de Cisneros, though still a statesman and a warrior, was a crusader instead of a leader of faction, a prelate of saintly life, and a lover of learning, as is proved by his foundation (in 1508) of the University of Alcald ( Complutum). By a diligent reform of the mendicant orders, he purified and strengthened the Church. In 1482 Ferdinand and Isabel wrested from the Pope the right of supplication in favour of their nominees to bishoprics. This right at a later date, Adrian VI, urged by Charles V, converted into one of presentation. In the kingdom of Granada and in the Indies, ecclesiastical patronage, together with part of the tithes, was reserved by the Crown. In 1493 a decree forbade the publication of bulls without the royal exequatur. In general, it may be noted that after the death of Isabel, the attitude of the Spanish Kings towards the papacy became more and more independent. Ferdinand and Charles, when opposed, openly threatened to break with Rome; and the latter obtained large assignments of ecclesiastical revenues. The Inquisition was an ecclesiastical instrument in the hands of the civil power; and when, in 1497, the Pope abandoned the right of hearing appeals, this power became supreme. Thus religious was added to civil despotism; indeed, the majority of Spanish clergy were always found to side with the King against the Pope.
The natural products of Spain are as varied as her climates, but her chief riches have always been cattle, corn, wine, and minerals. Cattle breeding was specially favoured by legislators, because of the ease with which its stock could be put beyond reach of invaders. Climate made a change of pasturage necessary in spring and autumn. So long as the land was thinly populated this was an easy matter. When agriculture became general, the rich owners of the migratory flocks formed a guild for the protection of their traditional rights, and obtained many privileges injurious to cultivators. The enclosure of waste lands was forbidden, and broad tracks were reserved, even through the richest valleys, to provide pasturage for the travelling flocks. In spring and after harvest they ranged at will through corn-lands and vineyards. Nevertheless, at the end of the fifteenth century Castile still exported com, while Aragon, and even Valencia, in spite of the fabulous richness of its irrigated fields, were forced to import from the Balearic Islands and Sicily. In 1480 the export duty on food passing from Castile to Aragon was abolished. The result was a revival of agriculture, particularly in Murcia; but the flocks diminished, and the policy of protecting them was resumed. For many years the Spaniards in America, intent upon nothing but the finding of gold, imported the necessaries of life from the mother-country. Until 1529 the trade with the Indies was reserved exclusively to Seville, and the result was a great development of corn and wine growing in parts of Andalucia. But agriculture was ruined by the alcabcda, a tax of one-tenth on all sales. Bread paid three times over, as corn, as meal, and as manufactured. To remedy this the alcabala was assessed at a fixed sum levied by districts (1494); but now a larger horizon was beginning to dawn, brilliant actions took place in the New World and in Italy, and agriculture still remained neglected. Gold began to be imported in large quantities, and prices trebled. The evil was further increased by disturbances among the industrious Moriscos, by bad seasons, and by the ruinous policy of fixing a maximum price, which still further depressed the greatest national industry and drove the country population to the towns, which overflowed with beggars.
Spain’s position made her a natural half-way-house for sea-borne trade between the Mediterranean and Atlantic. Her exports were chiefly raw products-silk, fruit, and oil from the south; iron, wool, wine, and leather from the north. By prohibiting the export of gold and silver, and by the imposition of heavy export and import dues, it was sought to encourage manufactures and to prevent the necessity of buying back home products manufactured abroad. In spite of repeated protests of the Cortes, the settlement of foreign artisans was encouraged by the Kings. Manufactures, chiefly wool and silk, increased tenfold in the course of a century; the great fairs drew buyers from foreign lands; it seemed as though the inborn Spanish dislike of commerce and industry had been overcome. But the progress which thus manifested itself was not destined • to endure. The Revolt of the Comuneros, to be noticed below, ultimately resulted in the partial ruin of a rising middle class; the most enterprising of the population emigrated as soldiers or settlers; and the great discoveries of precious metals in America raised prices to such a pitch that Spanish goods could no longer compete in foreign markets. A mistaken economic policy led to a neglect of the objects in favour of the means of exchange, and encouraged the accumulation of unproductive wealth. Nevertheless, a fictitious prosperity was for a time maintained. The period of Spain’s greatest commercial energy falls within the reign of Charles I.
It has been supposed that Spanish population sank rapidly during the first half of the sixteenth century. The data on which this calculation was made have, however, been proved to be misleading. It is probable that population remained nearly stationary at about eight millions, or somewhat less than half its present amount.
Trade