Justice belonged fundamentally to the king, but the _alcaldes_ of the towns usually exercised civil jurisdiction, and often criminal as well; in some towns royal _merinos_ or _adelantados_ had charge of criminal jurisdiction. The king might punish local judges, however, even removing them and appointing others, but this power did not in fact enable him to check abuses. Appeals went to the king, who also had the right to try in first instance the serious crimes of murder, assault on a woman, robbery, and others. In such cases the king was assisted in administering justice by a group of men of his own appointment, called the _Cort_ (not to be confused with the _Cortes_), but this body merely advised him, for the decision was left to him. As might be expected in an age of disorder, punishments were atrocious,--such, for example, as mutilation, stoning to death, throwing over a cliff, burning, burial alive, starvation, cooking, stripping off the skin, drowning, and hanging; only the last-named has survived. On the other hand, composition for murder, or the payment of a sum of money, was allowable,--for men were valuable to the state,--although the murderer was not free from the private vengeance of the dead man’s family. The so-called “vulgar proofs,”--such as the tests of the hot iron and hot water, and the wager of battle,--besides torture, were employed (as elsewhere in western Europe) as a means for acquiring evidence, but these methods were already being looked upon with disfavor. Real justice was in fact rare; the wealthy, especially if they were nobles, were able to take matters into their own hands or to procure favorable decisions, if affairs should reach the point of litigation. [Sidenote: Methods of warfare.]