their presence and their approbation deeds from which they should have recoiled with horror. The ecclesiastical order promoted by its advice and absolved by its spiritual power the perpetration of massacres, rapes, tortures, the starvation of prisoners, the repudiation of treaties. No preponderating influence attached to the occupancy of the throne. The prerogatives of the sovereign had not yet been accurately determined. His authority, based upon ill-defined precedent and tradition, was in general limited by his ability to enforce his commands. The great vassals of the crown frequently defied him, cast him into prison, drove him into exile. The offence of treason was subjected to wide latitude of interpretation and to even greater flexibility in the application of its punishment. Sometimes it meant one thing, at other times another. The most notorious rebels were often pardoned, and again received into favor. Insignificant culprits were frequently condemned to endure the most severe penalties. A leader who had distinguished himself in battle, who was indulgent to his followers and liberal to the populace, who considered clemency as an evidence of cowardice, and the extermination of an enemy as a military virtue, was sure to excite more admiration than the pampered heir of a score of kings. The division of the Castilian territory into so many parts, each claimed by numerous pretenders, was favorable to the independence of captains who could command the support of a strong body of followers. Under such circumstances, the royal power could not be centralized or exerted with effect. While feudalism, in the strictest acceptation of the term, never obtained in the Spanish monarchy,--and it was not until the middle of the thirteenth century that the power of the nobles began to antagonize that of the crown,--an analogous system of protection and service was generally recognized by the laws as controlling the relations of vassal and suzerain, a condition, indeed, almost inevitable in the early stages of civilized society. The leaders who had renounced these obligations, or were outlawed for crime, constituted a formidable element of discord in the Peninsula. They styled themselves “lords,” but they differed from highwaymen only in that they exercised on a larger scale and with greater impunity the popular occupation of robbery. They constructed their castles on isolated and inaccessible eminences, whence they could discover from afar the approach of danger or the welcome appearance of the rich and unprotected traveller. Needy adventurers and proscribed criminals of every nation and of every religion enlisted under their banners. Prototypes of the Italian condottieri, their swords and their services were for sale to the highest bidder. When unemployed and thrown upon their own resources, they plundered indiscriminately without regard to the nationality, religion, or calling of their victims. A successful