Charters of Aragon

Senior (finals of the thirteenth century). Romance version of the Aragon eras.

The Fueros de Aragón were the set of laws and regulations in force in the Kingdom of Aragon. The Fueros de Aragón, like those of the other territories of the Crown of Aragon, conferred great power on the nobility against the king and were the basis of the pact model of the Crown of Aragon.

They were drawn up in 1247, when King James I of Aragon convened the Kingdom's General Courts in Huesca with the intention of continuing the legislative work of the Crown and compiling in a single document the rules that were to govern private activity and Justice administration. The nobles and the representatives of the cities, towns and communities of the kingdom then approve the Fueros de Aragón.

This compilation was entrusted to the bishop of Huesca Vidal de Canellas, who would write a shorter version adjusted to traditional Aragonese law (Compilatio Minor) and a broader version that was closer to Roman law (Compilatio Maior). While the Compilatio Minor was originally written in Latin and later translated into the Romance language, the Compilatio Maior was written directly in Latin and a Romance version was later produced that It is known as Vidal Mayor.

In the General Privilege of 1283 there was an agreement through which King Pedro III of Aragon confirmed the privileges and their application was extended to the entire Kingdom.

History

The fueros (legal privileges for safeguarding) were originally agreed, that is, the result of a common contribution from the Councils to which the king gave his approval.^{[citation required]} At first they were compiled and came to have up to twelve books in the revisions of 1496, 1517 and 1542. In 1552 a great recasting was carried out, including the Observances. The last task of compilation took place in 1667. The codification work was surpassed on many occasions by the regulations issued by the Cortes of Aragón themselves and which were incorporated as part of the legal regulations of the Kingdom.

After the Alteraciones de Aragón and the execution by order of the king of Juan de Lanuza y Urrea, Justicia de Aragón, for having rebelled against him, in 1592 Felipe II summoned the Aragonese Cortes to meet in Tarazona. These courts modified the Fueros de Aragón to increase the power and control of the king and his officials. In addition, the Fueros de Teruel and Albarracín, still existing, disappeared to be integrated from 1598 into the Fueros de Aragón by the so-called "aggregation seat". To achieve this legislative change, Felipe II granted economic compensation and more power to the Council of Teruel.

Philip V was sworn in as King of Aragon in 1701, but during the War of Succession and after Archduke Carlos occupied most of Aragon in 1706, the Aragonese institutions proclaimed him king. Felipe V reacted in 1707 by promulgating the first Nueva Planta Decree, which repealed the Aragonese privileges and institutions and imposed the Castilian law and administrative structure. Later, in 1711, a new decree restored the validity of the Aragonese privileges for relations between individuals, their civil law, but confirmed the suppression of public law and private institutions of Aragon.

The prohibition of torture and "demonstration of people"

In the Kingdom of Aragon, the torture of registered persons was prohibited in 1325 by the Declaratio Privilegii generalis approved by King James II in the Courts of Aragon meeting in Zaragoza, with the sole exception of the crime of counterfeiting currency provided that it was committed by "foreigners of the kingdom of Aragon, or vagabonds of the kingdom, that some goods in the kingdom do not have, or in a man of vile condition of life or fame, and not in some others". As the jurist Miguel de Molino pointed out in 1513: "Et ista est una de magnibus libertatibus Aragoniae".

The prohibition was really effective thanks to the right possessed by the Aragonese taxpayers (rich men, servants, knights, infanzones, citizens and men from honest towns) called "Manifestation of people", prior to Habeas Corpus of English law to which it resembles, and which sought, according to the 18th-century jurist Juan Francisco La Ripa, "to free the person detained in their jails [in those of the royal judges] from the oppression they suffered with torture or [of ] some immoderate imprisonment». The law consisted in the fact that the Justice of Aragon could order a judge or any other authority to hand over —"manifest"— a detained law enforcement officer so that no violence was committed against him before the sentence was passed, and only After issuing this and having made sure that it was not flawed, the Justice returned the prisoner to serve his punishment. The judge or other authority that refused to prove the prisoner was in breach of jurisdiction. In this way, the prisoner was prevented from being tortured. This right did not apply to the serfs of the Aragonese lords, over whom their masters had absolute jurisdiction.