SPAIN

In the seventh century the Moors conquered the entire Iberian peninsula and were only stopped, finally, in 732 by the Franks under Charles Martel, at Poitiers, less than two-hundred miles southwest of Paris.

In the next few centuries a gradual Frankish Christian reconquest of the northern Spanish territories took place, resulting in the establishment of the independent kingdoms of Catalonia, Navarre, Aragon, Leon (Galicia), Castile, and eventually Portugal. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries these territories experienced the same revolutionary movement that swept over the rest of Christendom. In the field of law, the church came to be governed by the same basic principles and procedures of canon law in the Spanish territories as elsewhere. Also, feudal law, manorial law, and mercantile law became more systematized. New autonomous cities and towns were created, each with its own militia, its own government, its own law. The great seaport town of Barcelona, within the county of Barcelona but under the ultimate jurisdiction of the king of Aragon, was one of the leading cities of Europe. Where royal power asserted itself, especially in Castile, Catalonia, and Aragon, there arose systems of royal (or princely) law more or less comparable to those in Sicily, England, Normandy, France, and the German principalities.

Although there was no such thing as " Spain" at that time, certain historical events occurred in all the northern Iberian kingdoms. The first was the Moorish conquest and the Frankish reconquest. The second was the bare survival of the pre-Moorish Visigothic law, with some Roman elements, especially as reflected in a code issued by the Visigothic King Reckesvinth in the late seventh century, the Fuero Juzgo, or Book of Judgments, also known as the Lex barbara Visigothorum. ⁵⁴ These common local historical factors were overshadowed, however, by the new legal science of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, connected with the revival of the study of Roman law and the development of a new modern system of canon law.

Catalonia and Aragon. Catalonia, ruled by the counts of Barcelona, came under the influence of the Peace of God movement in the early

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eleventh century (Synod of Elna, 1027). 55 An important part in this movement was played by Count Ramon Berenguer I ( 1053_1071), who also promulgated the Usages of Barcelona, a compilation of laws and customs from a wide variety of sources, Visigothic and Roman, secular and ecclesiastical, judicial and legislative. The Peace of God movement was followed in Catalonia in the twelfth century by an era of secular peace statutes, which appeared also in Aragon; these developed in a manner similar to that of the German peace statutes, the earlier ones being patterned after the Peace of God proclamations, the later ones taking a more legislative than contractual form and dealing with new areas of procedure, marriage, debt, and public crimes, and also, as in Germany, enlarging the role of royal officials. A statute on arson issued by Alfonso II in 1192___________________________________ by then the counts of Barcelona

were also kings of Aragon__ parallels Emperor Frederick Barbarossa's statute on arson of 1186.

In 1173 Roman law was formally recognized as subsidiary law in Catalonia. This was, of course, the learned Roman law of the universities, to which resort could be had in order to fill in the gaps in the prevailing Catalonian law.

In 1247 King Jaime I, who ruled Aragon for sixty-three years from 1213 to 1276, promulgated a code of laws for Aragon, the Libro de Huesca, which introduced a number of elements of canon and Roman law, especially with regard to succession, contracts, and evidence. ⁵⁶ Drafted by the Bishop of Huesca, it was a systematic presentation of the law, divided into eight books, devoted chiefly to civil law, criminal law, and procedure. It was intended to be applied by the courts, including the king's court. It was subsequently augmented by Jaime's successors, just as the Usages of Barcelona were augmented by the successors of Count Ramon Berenguer I.

Castile and Leon. These two kingdoms were united during the first half of the twelfth and most of the thirteenth centuries. Their legal development came somewhat later than that of Catalonia and Aragon. It, too, grew originally out of the Peace of God movement, and it was greatly stimulated by the development of canon law and by the revived study of Roman law. The University of Salamanca, founded in the early 1200s, soon became an important center for the study of Roman and canon law. ⁵⁷ In addition, the growth of royal law was greatly influenced by a succession of great kings: Ferdinand III ( 1217-1252), whose mother was a Swabian princess of outstanding intelligence and ability; his son Alfonso the Learned ( 1252-1284); and his great-grandson Alfonso XI ( 1311-1350). These kings promulgated important legislation and were responsible for issuing comprehensive legal texts, including the Fuero Real ( 1255) and the Siete Partidas (about 1265). ⁵⁸ The latter was a systematic treatise, divided into seven parts, organized topically, and

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containing over five_hundred articles. It was essentially a compendium of Roman and canon law adapted somewhat to Castilian conditions. However, it did not take deep root in actual life, and in general the efforts of the great kings of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries to unify the law of Castile succumbed to the pressure of the localities to keep their own customs.

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Source: Berman H.J.. Law and Revolution: The Formation of the Western Legal Tradition. Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press,1983. вЂ” 657 p.. 1983

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