THE kingdom of Aragon, which, by a fatality ever to be lamented by the friends of Spain, has always held a secondary rank in the Pyrenean Peninsula, was originally a fief of Navarre. A Count of Aragon was present at the election of Iñigo Arista, the first king of Navarre who falls within the dawn of real Spanish history, (A. D. 819 or 885). The first union of the two states was effected by the marriage of Garci Iñiguez*, Arista's son, with the daughter of Fortun Ximenez, Count of Aragon.

That Iñigo Arista, as well as most, if not all the founders of the states of Navarre, Aragon, and Sobrarbe, came from the northern side of the Pyrenees, is certain. Purer sources than the oppressive laws of the Spanish Visigoths were resorted to for materials in the political establishment of these sovereignties. In the preamble to the Fuero or Constitutional laws of Sobrarbe, it is said, that, Spain being in the possess

* We wish, thus early, to acquaint the reader with the original use and formation of Spanish surnames. The Spaniards, like the Greeks, showed their immediate descent by a patronymic, ending in ez. We do not recollect any exception to this but Garcia, which generally loses the last letter, as a Christian name, and suffers no alteration as a patronymic, e. g.: Garci Perez, Garcia, the son of Peter; Pedro (anciently Pero) Garcia, Peter, the son of Garcia. There is also Garces, which we take to be the regular derivation from Garcia, the z changed into s, to avoid the immediate repetition of the dental sound of the c, formerly written ç, which is the same as that of the z. In a similar manner, Sanchez signifies the Son of Sancho; Gonzalves, more commonly Gonzales, the son of Gonzalvo, generally written and pronounced Gonzalo. From Rodrigo was derived Rodrigues, and from Ruy, the abbreviation of that name, Ruyz. Men of distinction added, to these two names an agnomen, taken from their estates, or from the place where their ancestors lived when they rose into notice. This, the Spaniards call solar; the ground or plot of a family. Hence, the preposition de or del, which is always prefixed to this designation, may be generally taken to be a mark of good descent. The proudest names in Spanish history are formed in this manner:-Ruy Diest del Bicar; Garci Perez de Vargas; Gonzalo Fernandez de Cordoba, &c. &c.—The affectation of distinguished birth induced many to add the name of their birthplace to the patronymic, a fashion much in vogue among the learned of the sixteenth century; and, in progress of time, this addition was adopted as the surname of a whole family, either singly or with the patronymic; which, in modern times, is never altered. This is the cause of the multitude of Rodriguez, Sanchez, Fernandez, which, like the British Johnsons, Jacksons, Jamesons, &c. are found among the Spanish peasantry.

+ Or Diaz, as it may be derived from Diego or Diago, (James) from which comes Santiago, i. e. San Diago, the combination of di before the a being intended to express the sound of the j in Jacobo, afterwards converted into Jacomo, in other parts of Europe.

ion of the Moors, the Ricoshombres (chiefs or barons, literally, wealthy men,) had agreed to choose Iñigo Arista for their king; and that for the purpose of establishing the fundamental code of the new kingdom, they had enquired among the Lombards and Franks, from whose statutes and customs such laws had been selected as were most suited to their infant monarchy. The new Constitution was confirmed by the Pope, and became one of the chief sources of the enterprising character, which, actuated by the consciousness of rights and freedom, made the Aragonese and Catalans so conspicuous in the history of the middle ages. Had the kingdom of Navarre been inseparably united with Aragon, it is probable that the Aragonese would have eventually prevailed over both the Moors and the other Christian states of the Peninsula, spreading with their preponderance much sounder principles of government than the Castillian princes established among their subjects.

The original Aragonese government was a monarchy more limited by a feudal aristocracy than that of England under the immediate successors of the Conqueror. In England, the whole country was actually parcelled out to the barons who assisted William in seizing the crown. In Aragon, the king, who neither by birth nor wealth was much above the nobles, could only make grants of what the national enemy had still in their hands. These grants might be therefore called fees in military reversion, the chances of which depended on the united valour and success of the Christian chiefs. To their kings they were indebted for little more than the advantages of subordination, and such others as, in that warlike age, might arise from the personal talents and courage of the monarch. The form of words commonly reported as used by the Aragonese peers at the installation of their kings, though unattested by any historical document with which we are acquainted, is very much in the spirit of their original constitution.* By the Fuero de Sobrarbe, the king was made to swear that he would govern the country according to law, and maintain the noblemen in their rights, so as always to lean towards the encrease of their privileges. This they claimed as their due for putting into the king's hands the towns and districts which they had already taken, or were to take, from the Moors. It was also enacted, that when any new conquest was made, the king should give proportionable shares of its emoluments to the Ricoshombres (barons), the Cavalleros (knights), and the Infanzones (esquires or gentry). That neither Iñigo Arista, nor any of his successors, should hold a court of law, nor sit in judgment upon any case without a council. That the king should not make peace, declare war, grant a truce, or enter into a coalition with other princes, unless he had the advice of twelve ricoshombres, or an equal number of counsellors, chosen from among the elders, and the learned of the land. "These laws," says Zurita, "were religiously observed in this kingdom, the authority of the ricoshombres being so great that nothing was done without their opinion, advice, and sanction. The government, in fact, of

"We, who singly are thy equals, and jointly are above thee, deliver unto thee this kingdom, that thou mayest govern it according to law; if otherwise, we do not."-Si non, non.

† “Que los manternia en derecho, y siempre les mejoraria sus fueros.” Zurita, lib. i. c. v.

the state, the conduct of war, and the administration of justice belonged, from that time, to the nobles, and the principal barons who were present at the election, and by whom the land was defended. These and their descendants were called ricoshombres, a class so respected by the kings that they made them appear their equals. With them the monarch was obliged to share the revenues that accrued from the towns gained of the Moors, while, on the other hand, the ricoshombres were bound to do military service by themselves, their knights and vassals, according to their allotted portions in these revenues, which were called honours. It must be confessed (Zurita concludes) that the kings who first reigned in Spain after the invasion of the Moors, were very similar to those that were originally raised to that dignity, and who are described in history as permanent chieftains of armed bands."

The establishment of the Justicer* of Aragon is nearly as ancient as the constitutional monarchy of that kingdom. His authority was directed to the preservation of the Fueros, or Constitutional laws. Had the love of liberty, and the jealousy of supreme authority, stopped here, the constitution of Aragon might have rivalled that which has raised England to the proud rank which she holds in the history of free nations. But the Aragonese noblemen were too independent of the crown to endure that degree of subordination, without which a monarchical government, after being distracted with sedition and anarchy, generally ends in uncontrolled despotism.

By the original compact between the king and the ricoshombres, these might depose the reigning prince, and proceed so freely to the election of another, that even a Mahometan would have been eligible, had not the barons felt ashamed of that privilege. They claimed, however, and obtained another more adverse to the preservation of legal freedom. By the right called de la Union, the Aragonese barons were constitutionally entitled to rise in arms against the king, whenever they judged that the crown exceeded its prerogative. This monstrous privilege was granted by Alonso III. in the latter part of the thirteenth century; but the Cortes repealed it, under Peter IV. before the end of the fourteenth. The right of deciding, in case of a disputed succession, was used by the Aragonese peers till a comparatively late period. Ferdinand, Infante of Castille, the first king of that name, in Aragon, was chosen in 1412, among several claimants, by the award of the nine chief barons of the kingdom. The history of that transaction is extremely interesting, and gives a high idea of the wisdom and justice of the leading men of Aragon at that period. Ferdinand was well known for his honourable conduct towards his ward and nephew John II. of Castille, whose crown he might have usurped without the least opposition, or hazard. It was this act of virtuous forbearance that gained him the votes of the electors.

The privileged classes of Aragon and Catalonia having been united at an early period, (A. D. 1137,) it is as difficult as it would be tedious to mark minutely the peculiar differences which belonged to either country. As both, however, derived their modified feudal system from

We can see no reason why this classical English word should not be employed to translate the Spanish Justicia,

*

France, a great similarity appears in the distribution of power and its attendant honours. The Aragonese had their Ricoshombres de Natura, lineally descended from the first founders of their monarchy, who were, we believe, ten in number. Analogous to them were the Nine Barons of Catalonia; yet, to judge from the circumstances of the election of Ferdinand I. these obtained precedence of all the Aragonese peers, at the union of the two states, upon the marriage of Berenger, Count of Barcelona, with Petronila, the daughter of Ramiro, the monk, when the arms of Catalonia were preferred, by agreement, to those of Aragon. These nine barons, and such noble Catalans as had the title of Count, together with the Aragonese Ricoshombres, formed the original class of peers in the Cortes of Aragon. But their number was augmented, about the middle of the thirteenth century, by a patent of James I. called the Conqueror, who raised his own immediate retainers, the Cavalleros Meznaderos, to the rank and privileges of peers of the kingdom. Lands appear to have been of little value while exposed to the daily incursions of the Moors. We find, accordingly, that the military fees in all the Christian kingdoms of Spain took their denomination from the towns on which the lords levied taxes. We do not, consequently, observe that gradation of tenures which prevailed in other countries. After the conquest of a large town, the principal leaders who assisted at the siege, had districts called Barrios, appointed to each, from the inhabitants of which they received the contributions otherwise due to the crown. In proportion to the amount of these taxes was the number of knights which each nobleman of the first rank was bound to lead into the field. The grants of such revenues being, in Aragon, called Honores, the service of the attendant knights was named Cavallerias de Honor. The same grants were denominated Feudos in Catalonia, and Entierrast in Castille.

On the taking of Zaragoza by Alfonso, the champion (A. D. 1118), the Spanish inhabitants were exempted from taxes, and classed with the Infanzónes or gentry of the kingdom. It seems a natural inference from this fact that the Christian population of Zaragoza, under the Moorish dominion, was small and of little consequence, and that this measure was intended to draw such inhabitants to that important city as might be able and willing to preserve it from future invasion. The ancient name by which the members of the privileged gentry were known, is Hermunios; a corruption, as Zurita believes, of the Latin word Immunes. The denominations of Hidalgo, in Castille, and Hom de paratge, in Catalonia, are nearly equivalent to that of infanzon, in Aragon. Paratge is synonimous with Peerage, in the sense of equality to the privileged classes. Serfs, in the strict sense of the word, were unknown in Castille, and, we believe, nearly so in Aragon; but the evils of that sort of slavery were long prevalent in Catalonia. The feudal slaves were known by the appellation of homes de Remensa.

The early history of Aragon is, a good deal, mixed with romance and legendary fable. We will neither enter into critical discussions, nor undertake a connected narrative, but merely glance over the inte

* Meznada was a military division following the standard of one leader. Though this word might seem to bring the Castillian fiefs nearer to the character of those of England and France, every circumstance in the history of that country shows, that the lords depended not on rent, but taxation,

resting history of that kingdom, selecting whatever is characteristic of the people, or of the original historians themselves. Fables and legendary tales are highly valuable in this light.

The birth of Sancho Abarca, the second king of Aragon, after its first union with the crown of Navarre, which at that period (A. D. 912) was styled the kingdom of Pamplona and Sobrarbe, may be classed with those traditionary legends, which, from a similarity in their marvellous circumstances, might be supposed to have some common origin, if the kindred features were not more naturally accounted for from a general resemblance in the early stages of civilization, among the European nations, not excluding the Greeks and Romans themselves. Abarca is the Romulus of Aragon, not indeed in every incident of the story, which is less improbable than that of the son of Mars, the nursling of a she-wolf, but in the extraordinary manner of his birth and the rural education of his youth.

Garci Iñiguez, Abarca's father, succeeded Iñigo Arista, in the crown of Pamplona. His wife, a countess of Aragon in her own right, being far advanced in pregnancy, perished, with her husband, by the hands of the Moors, who fell suddenly upon a defenceless village where the royal couple had retired with a small retinue. The original historians, though not agreed as to the place of this melancholy scene, are unanimous in asserting, that an infant was artificially brought to light just at the death of the mother.* The child, in this interesting and precarious state, was taken in charge by an Aragonese knight, from whom, according to Prince Carlos †, the historian of Navarre, he afterwards derived the name of Abarca. Sancho was reared, probably unconscious of his rank, among the fastnesses of the Pyrenees, during that period when Mahomet, the son of Abdoulrahman, the second of that name of the caliphs of Cordoba, led an army against Navarre, which wasted the whole territory of Pamplona, and took three castles from the Navarrese.‡

Connected with the history of this invasion is the case of a Navarrese knight called Fortunyo, whose good fortune is remembered as one of the many instances of generous munificence, among the Spanish Moors, which the national jealousy of the Christian historians

* Abarca's birth is thus related by the Archbishop Don Rodrigo." Cumque quadam die minus caute in quodam viculo, qui Larumbe dicitur, resideret, supervenientes Arabes improvidum occiderunt, et Reginam Urracam, uxorem pregnantem, in utero lancea percusserunt. Sed continuò, adventu suorum, latrunculis Arabum effugatis, Regina morti proxima, tamen viva, per vulnus lanceæ, sicut Domino placuit, infantulum est enixa; et fotus ministerio muliebri, vitæ, miraculo omnium, est servatus, et Sancius Garsiæ fuit vocatus."-De Rebus Hispania, lib. v. c. xxii.

+ Carlos, Prince of Viana, and rightful sovereign of Navarre, was kept from that crown and persecuted by his father, John II. of Aragon, in a manner not unlike that of Philip II. towards his unfortunate son of the same name, (See New Monthly Magazine, vol. V. p. 231.) The Prince of Viana died in 1461. He was a man of considerable learning. He translated the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle, from the Latin of Leonardo Aretino, and wrote a Chronicle of the Kings of Navarre, which is still in manuscript.

Zurita, lib. i. c. vii.

We believe that ny is the only combination of letters which, in the English alphabet, can express the sound of the Spanish ñ. We have adopted it the more readily, as it represents the Latin ni followed by a vowel, which the Spaniards express by the n. Fortuño comes from Fortunius.