principles in courts of law. Taxes fell more heavily and more vexatiously on the common people than they did in Castile, but a greater proportion went to the lords and less to the king; Jaime I had to give his note for the royal dinners, at times, and he paid his tailor by an exemption from taxation. The king was not always able to persuade his nobles to join him in war, though in other respects the military customs resembled those of Castile. The principal difference in the religious history of the two regions was that the influence of the monks of Cluny in favor of ecclesiastical dependence on the pope was much earlier accepted in Aragon; the Visigothic, or Mozarabic, rite was abolished as early as 1071. Pedro II’s submission of the kingdom to the pope was not well received, however, by either the nobility or the people of both Aragon and Catalonia. _Catalonia_ [Sidenote: Social institutions in Catalonia.] Different as Catalonia was from Aragon, the two regions had many features in common because of the existence of feudalism. The feudal hierarchy was composed of counts, viscounts, _valvasores_ (barons), and free vassals, of whom the first three grades were noble. Underneath was the institution of serfdom, equally harsh as in Aragon, and almost equally late in advancing toward emancipation. Personal slavery (of Moslem prisoners of war, as a rule) also existed. There were not many Mozárabes or Mudéjares, but the Jews were fairly numerous. All enjoyed the same lenient treatment as that accorded in Castile and Aragon,--with a beginning of restrictive measures at the end of the period. The middle class of the cities was more important than in Aragon, especially in the coast cities or towns, where the citizens engaged in commerce. Although the communal family group was the general rule in Catalonia, this institution was considerably modified by the existence of the law of primogeniture, causing the entailment of landed properties to each successive eldest son,--a variation from the _Fuero Juzgo_. This aided in economic prosperity, because it kept estates intact, and influenced younger brothers to go forth in order to build up estates of their own. In other respects, social customs did not vary materially from those of Aragon and Castile.[26] [Sidenote: Political life and administration in Catalonia.] [Sidenote: Importance of Barcelona.]