reign.1 But in the succeeding generation, thanks to the enlightened patronage of Isabella, the Universities grew and flourished; while under the magnificent rule of Ximenez, the ecclesiastical authority became gradually more and more powerful, until at length it became supreme over public and private instruction throughout the country.

Yet, as regards the privileges enjoyed by residents in the University towns, Ferdinand asserted the power of the Crown without hesitation or hindrance. By the year 1492 numerous abuses had crept into the Spanish Universities, and notably into the great establishment at Salamanca. The degrees of Doctor and Master were given to those who were unworthy of the distinction, and even to those who had never studied at all; while an immense number of the tradesmen and townspeople fraudulently matriculated as students in order that they might find themselves removed from the jurisdiction of the king's Court, and subject only to the milder rule of the University tribunals. Ferdinand the Catholic was not a man to endure such assaults upon the supreme power, and a royal ordinance with the euphemistic name of a Concordia was promulgated in 1492, confirmed by Bull of Alexander VI. in 1493, and followed up by still more trenchant rescripts of Ferdinand in 1494 (Medina del Campo) and 1497 (Alcala de Henares), by which the jurisdiction of the University Courts was grievously curtailed, and the matriculation of any but bona-fide students condemned and prohibited.3

1 Chacon, Hist, de la Universidad de Salamanca, MS. 189, Com. 25, Bib. Nat., Madrid.

2 As to the development of Spanish Universities generally, under the Catholic sovereigns, and more especially as to the establishment of Alcala by Ximenez (1498-1508), see post, volume ií.

3 The following notes as to Universities or Colleges established in Spain before the end of the fifteenth century, but which have now ceased to exist, may be possibly interesting :—

(1.) Alcala. -Founded by Ximenez, 1510. Reformed at Madrid, 1836.

(2.) Avila. -Founded by Ferdinand and Isabella, 1482; and endowed out of the proceeds of Jewish confiscations. Suppressed, 1807.

(3.) Gerona. -Founded in 1446 by Alfonso IV. of Aragon. modern foundation (1714) of Cervera, which was 1837.

Merged in the more itself suppressed in

(4.) Huesca.-Founded, 1461; suppressed, 1848. (5.) Lerida.—Founded, 1300; suppressed, 1714. (6.) Palma.-A College was founded here in 1280 by the celebrated Raymond Lull, more especially for the study of Oriental languages. In 1483 an academic status, equal to that possessed by Lerida, was granted to the institution, which thus and then first became a University. But the Papal sanction was not obtained until 1673, when Clement X. was with difficulty induced to issue a Bull approving the charter. In 1830, after having enjoyed a precarious existence from 1816, the University was merged in that of Cervera.

Of the truly magnificent foundation in the reign of the Catholic kings, which perpetuated the munificence, not of Ferdinand nor of Isabella, but of Ximenez de Cisneros, it will be more appropriate to speak when we are considering the life and the works of the great Cardinal of Spain.

(7.) Sahagun.-Established as an Estudio General by Alfonso VI., circ. 1121, in the Monastery of St. Benedict, at Sahagun, which had itself been founded by Alfonso III. in 905. The school was raised to the position of a University by Clement VII. in 1534, and suppressed in 1807. See Morales, Viaje, 34; Josefe Perez, Hist. de Sahagun, ed. Fr. Romualdo Escalona, Madrid, 1782.

(8.) Siguenza.--Founded in 1472; reduced in 1770; suppressed in 1807.

The Universities now existing in Spain are as follows:

(1.) Barcelona, said to have been founded in 1430 or 1459.

"The Universities of Spain are now ten-Madrid, with 6,672 students; Barcelona, with 2,459; Valencia, 2,118; Seville, 1,382; Granada, 1,225; Valladolid, 880; Santiago de Compostella, 779; Saragossa, 771; Salamanca, 372; and Oviedo, with 216; making a total of 16,874 University students. The number of regular professors is 415, with 240 supernumeraries and assistants, making a total of 655--that is, one professor to every 26 students."-Wentworth Webster, Spain, p. 182.

CHAPTER XXVII.

FOREIGN POLICY OF ARAGON.

(1276—1327.)

I.-Peter the Great.

PETER THE THIRD OF ARAGON, the eldest son of James the Conqueror, succeeded to the crown of his father in 1276. Yet he prudently refused to assume the style and title of King of Aragon until he was acknowledged by the States-General, and solemnly crowned at Saragossa; and when the ceremony was performed by the Archbishop of Tarragona he gave further proof of his prudence by a formal and public protest to the effect that he received the crown from the hands of the Archbishop in nowise as the gift of the Romish Church, and that he neither directly nor indirectly accepted the shameful submission that had been made by his namesake and ancestor, Peter II., to Pope Innocent at Rome. He would reign, he said, as the independent king of an independent people. Yet, in spite of all his prudence, the Catalans were found to complain that he did not, after his coronation as King of Aragon at Saragossa, immediately proceed to Barcelona to confirm the laws and customs of Catalonia, and they actually rose in rebellion against their acknowledged sovereign on account of this constitutional slight. But this local petulance was of no long duration, and the Catalans were soon numbered among the most loyal subjects, as they were ever the boldest soldiers, of the King of Aragon.

The difference between the political condition of Castile and Aragon at the close of the thirteenth century is very remarkable, and must never be lost sight of by the student of Spanish history; for in Aragon, from the death of King James the First, there were no more Moors to conquer, and the fighting men of Aragon were compelled to turn their eyes

1 The order for the coronation and consecration of a King of Aragon, as laid down and prescribed by Peter III., is exceedingly interesting. It is reprinted in the Documentos Ineditos, tom. xiv. pp. 555, et seq. The king was to put the crown upon his own head: Y que no le ayude niuguna persona, ni l'arcevispe, ni ninguna persona de cualquiere condicion que sea, ni adobar, ni tocar la pont, ibid, p. 563.

and their arms abroad, to Sicily, Naples, Rome, and even Constantinople, while the ecclesiastics sought to combat rather the heretic than the infidel, and the lawyers of every degree had leisure to criticise the constitutional shortcomings of their kings. Thus, throughout the whole of the fourteenth century, while Castile was the land of civil war and domestic intrigue, Aragon was the country of foreign adventure and constitutional purism. The Kings of Castile had the virtues and the vices of the warrior; the Kings of Aragon those of the politician. It was not until these complementary characteristics were fairly united by Ferdinand and Isabella that was seen the true greatness of Spain.

The troubles and the glories of the life of Peter III. came alike from across the sea.

One of the most romantic and complicated chapters in the history of medieval Italy-when Popes strove with Emperors, and Frenchmen with Italians, and Guelphs with Ghibelines; when crowns were flung about like tennis balls, and excommunications flew as thick as javelins-was the great struggle of the thirteenth century for the possession of the ancient and famous island of Sicily.1 Of the origin of the historic dispute; of the excommunication of the Emperor Frederick the Second, of his elder son, Conrad, Duke of Suabia, and of the younger, Manfred, King of Sicily; of the donation of Sicily by the French Pope Urban IV., to the French Prince Charles of Anjou; of the escape of John of Procida, and the sudden turn of the wheel of politics by the election of the Italian, Nicolas III., to the primacy of the Christian world; of the confederation of Rome and Constantinople against Anjou and France, it is impossible to speak here in any detail. It must suffice to recall that Peter of Aragon had married, in 1260, the Princess

1 Sicily was conquered by the Normans (1058), under Roger, son of Tancred, who took the title of Count of Sicily. His son, Roger, added Naples to the county of Sicily, and took the title of King of the United and Independent Monarchy of the Two Sicilies, 1129-31.

Roger, styled Roger II., was succeeded by

William I., the Bad

...

1154-1166

1166-1189

1189-1189

1189-1194

1194-1197

1197-1250

1250-1254

1254-1258

1258-1266

NOTE. For the continuation of the succession, from the division of Naples and Sicily in 1282, see post, vol. ii.

Constance, daughter of Manfred, King of Sicily, and granddaughter of the great Emperor Frederick the Second of Germany. If a German marriage had led Alfonso X. to seek an imperial crown at the hands of Popes and Electors far away beyond the frontiers of Castile, Peter III. found himself, on his accession to the throne of Aragon, a claimant to the crown of an island kingdom within easy reach of his

coasts.

Manfred, King of Sicily, had fallen in battle at Benevento, maintaining his rights against the Papal Pretender, Charles of Anjou, in 1266; and Charles of Anjou had taken possession of Sicily. Conradin, the last titular duke of Suabia, a grandson of the Emperor Frederick II., and nephew of the fallen Manfred-a youth of sixteen years of age—had himself perished by the hands of the executioner in 1268, a victim to the tyranny of the French usurper. As he stood on the scaffold, in the great Square at Naples, the young prince had taken off his right hand glove1 and flung it down among the crowd below, a royal gage or token, crying to the world for vengeance. The precious relic was picked up, and carefully preserved by an Aragonese knight, who found means to convey it across the sea to the court of his sovereign, where it was delivered to the Lady Constance, the wife of Peter of Aragon, the daughter of Manfred, the aunt of Conradin, and the rightful Queen of Sicily. But Charles of Anjou, supported by the Pope and Philip of France, remained in possession of that fair island, and vexed the inhabitants with unheard of extortions and cruelty for sixteen long and dreadful years (1266-1282).

Ever since the execution of Conradin, Peter had naturally turned his eyes towards Sicily, but neither he nor his father had made any attempt to interfere in the affairs of that kingdom. Yet on his accession to the crown of Aragon his first care had been the unobtrusive preparation of a fleet, which was constructed in the ports of Valencia and Barcelona, not only with astonishing despatch, but with no less admirable secrecy. The affairs of Sicily gradually engrossed the attention of Europe; and even the Emperor of the East, Michael Palæologus, ranged himself among the enemies of Anjou. After the death of Nicholas III. in 1280, a Frenchman once more ruled the Christian world as Martin IV.; and Peter of Aragon was excommunicated. But the signal for combat at closer quarters was not any change of policy by Popes or by Kings, but that uprising of the people of Sicily, exasperated beyond the limits of human endurance by their foreign oppressors that wild and sudden massacre of the hated French

1 Quintana says it was a ring.