Charles Henry Cunningham

“ The creation and growth of judicial and administrative institutions in Catalonia were parallel with those of Castile. The eleventh century saw audiencias, municipalities, and above all, a powerful nobility, but this province was independent of Castile during a period of four centuries. ”

“ The audiencias of Catalonia were composed of ecclesiastical and secular judges appointed by the counts of Barcelona, and authorized by them to render sentence. Without going into further detail with regard to matters of provincial administration, in Spain, it is sufficient to say that certain institutions of justice and administration developed in common throughout the Peninsula, and that by the end of the thirteenth century political and judicial administration had come to be controlled by a central authority whether in Castile or in Catalonia. ”

“ Spain's rule, however inefficient, continued three centuries, and the political and social structure of present-day Spanish America is largely the outcome of this long period of Spanish administration. The social, cultural and political contributions which Spain made to Hispanic America, her one-time colonies, have not been taken into account sufficiently by those who have attempted to solve the problem of our political and commercial relationship with the nations to the south of us. ”

“ The commercial machinery which Spain inaugurated in her colonies was never so successful as her political institutions. While preparing herself for colonial empire, in the period from 800 to 1500, she did not make corresponding progress economically. During the centuries of warfare against the Moors, Spain grew to honor the knight and the missionary and to scorn the merchant and the worker. ”

“ In 1442, the audiencia of Castile was ordered to hold its sessions in the city of Valladolid, which was thereafter the capital city of Spain, the jurisdiction of the court ultimately being limited to Castile.
Other tribunals were created for the administration of justice in the remaining provinces as need arose. The sixteenth century saw tribunals functioning in Valladolid and Granada. These had the rank of chanceries (chancillerías) [10] . There were audiencias in Galicia (Coruna, 1563) , Seville, the Canaries and Mallorca [11] . ”

“ The citizens of these towns elected judicial officials whom they designated as jueces or alcaldes. The municipalities were not always favorable to the royal power and they were kept in direct relationship with the court by the visit of a royal official whose duty it was to correct abuses and hear cases of appeal in the name of the king. When the Spaniards conquered Cuba, Mexico, Peru, and the Philippines, municipalities were established there with all the offices and characteristics of Spanish municipalities of the pre-colonial period. ”

“ As a basis for a proper understanding of the fundamental present-day problems arising in Spanish America, it behooves us to examine more closely the basic principles and institutions existing there. Such a study will always lead us back to Spain and the contributions which were made by that nation to her former colonies. ”

“ It resulted, therefore, that their inaptitude in commercial matters had to be bolstered up and protected by a system of government monopoly, which could only thrive on a non-competitive basis, and which left the individual merchant as helpless in the eighteenth century as he had been in the sixteenth. ”

“ This magistrate, in contradistinction to the provincial adelantado, was a lawyer, and his activities were confined exclusively to the exercise of judicial functions. He was not accompanied, therefore, by an asesor. He was a peregrinating magistrate, holding court in different parts of the kingdom. Finally, he was frequently designated for special service as adelantado mayor from a higher tribunal of which he was a magistrate, and this tribunal was called the curia, or cort del rey, which was the forerunner of the royal audiencia. ”

“ The fourth power, against which the royal authority was obliged to make headway, and that which contributed most to the development of local governmental and judicial institutions was the villa. The villas were towns organized as checks to the rival power of the nobles, founded by persons who wished to escape the exactions of the latter. They were given charters by the king, and these charters varied according to local needs and conditions. These were the early Spanish municipalities. ”

“ In fact, they showed themselves to be more faithful to the aristocratic element than to the royal interests, and for this reason the counts were replaced by royal officials called adelantados, who were more completely dependent on the royal power than their predecessors had been. ”

“ Antequera fails to give the date for the inauguration of this reform, but since the Council of Leon of 1020 defined the jurisdiction of the frontier counts, we know that the adelantados were substituted for these officials at some subsequent date. [2]
The nobles of Asturias, Leon, and Castile sought as best they could to maintain their independence of the king in the early centuries of Spanish history. The relations of these nobles to the monarch were semi-feudal. ”