If the bishops fought among themselves, and if the low class people lived in a state of utter anarchy, the same spirit spread to--or emanated from--the nobility, of whom Salamanca had more than its share, especially as soon as the university was founded. The annals of no other city are so replete with family traditions and feuds, which were not only restricted to the original disputers, to their families and acquaintances, but became generalized among the inhabitants themselves, who took part in the feud. Thus it often happened that the city was divided into two camps, separated by an imaginary line, and woe betide the daring or careless individual who crossed it! One of the most dramatic of these feuds--a savage species of vendetta--was the following: Doña Maria Perez, a Plasencian dame of noble birth, had married one of the most powerful noblemen in Salamanca, Monroy by name, and upon the latter's death remained a widowed mother of two sons. One of them asked and obtained in marriage the hand of a noble lady who had refused a similar proposition made by one Enriquez, son of a Sevillan aristocrat. The youth's jealousy and anger was therefore bitterly aroused, and he and his brother waited for a suitable opportunity in which to avenge themselves. It soon came: they were playing Spanish ball, _pelota_, one day with the accepted suitor, when a dispute arose as to who was the better player; the two brothers fell upon their victim and foully murdered him. But afraid lest his brother should venge the latter's death, they lay in wait for him behind a street corner, and as he came along they rapidly killed him as they had his brother. Then they fled across the frontier to Portugal. The two corpses had in the meantime been carried on a bier by the crowds and laid down in front of Doña Maria's house; the latter stepped out on the balcony, with dishevelled hair; an angry murmur went from one end of the crowd to the other, and a universal clamour arose: vengeance was on every one's lips. But Doña Maria commanded silence. "Be calm," she said, "and take these bodies to the cathedral. Vengeance? Fear not, I shall venge myself." An hour later she left the town with an escort, apparently with a view to retire to her estates near Plasencia. Once well away from the city, she divulged her plan to the escort and asked if they were willing to follow her. Receiving an affirmative reply, she tore off her woman's clothes and appeared dressed in full armour; placing a helmet on her head, she took the lead of her troops again, and set out for the Portuguese frontier.