hill said to exist in Michoacan being reserved for the crown. The advisability of establishing a mint at Mexico must be considered.
Many of these and other matters connected with administration, notably the conversion and protection of the natives, were to be discussed and determined in a council assisted by religious and secular prelates, and prepared for its important task by a solemn invocation of dive guidance during the deliberations, As for the audiencia and its officers, special ordinances were issued for their government. This body was to sit daily, except on a dies non, beginning at an hour varying with the seasons, any oidor tardy or absent without good cause being fined. In all matters of more than trival import there must be at least three votes in accord. Only the members of the tribunal were to be present at the time of voting, and in all matters their votes, which were to be kept inviolably secret, were to be recorded by the secretary, in a book kept for the purpose, before the decision was made public.[1]
- ↑ In these ordinances there is some repetition of orders to be found in the several cédulas containing instructions given to the audiencia. In addition, the following rules were established for its guidance: A faithful record of all its proceedings was to be kept, as well as a calendar of causes, which should be considered in the order of their reception, and the mode of receiving and determining appeals was specified. The president and oidores were to occupy the same residence, if possible, but in no case were any of them to live with a lawyer or an official of their tribunal, nor could they receive gifts from any such persons or from suitors.
In all cases not provided for in the instructions given to Ponce or those now given to the audiencia, the laws of Spain were to be binding. The instructions may be found in the opening pages of Puga, Cedulario, and in Herrera, dec. iii. lib. x. cap. vii., and adjoining chapters. They are partly incorporated in the general laws of Recop. de Indias, Zamora, and Montemayor.
The broad and firm foundation of the laws of Spain is the Siete Partidas of Alfonso X., called 'The Wise,' who ascended the throne of Leon and Castile in 1252. The designation was well bestowed. Although the costly tables bearing his name are based upon the erroneous hypothesis of epicycles, his knowledge of astronomy, of which his observatory in the palace at Segovia is still a witness, was such as to gain for him among his subjects the reputation of a warlock (by some of them he was also deemed a heretic because of the remark not the least pregnant of his wise sayings, that had he been present at the creation he could have given some useful hints touching the better ordering of the universe); by his order the first chronicles of Spanish history were compiled; he increased the efficiency of the university of Salamanca by endowing it with new chairs, especially in the department of law; he aided in the development of the language by ordering that all legal documents should
