relantium  causa  suo  judicio  sopirentur. "-  The  Fueros,  or  written  laws  of  Jaca,
I  v  c  1  Several  other  passages  in  the  were  perhaps  more  ancient  than  any  local
iam'e  writer  prove  that  the  counts  of  customary  in  Europe  Alfonso  III. con-
Castile  were  nearly  independent  of  Leon,  firms  them  by  name  of  the  ancient  usae


,4S3         CAPTURE  OF  TOLEDO  AND  SARAGOSA. CHAP. TV

At  the  beginning  of  the  eleventh  century,  Sancho  the
Ki  ciomof  Great,  king  of  Navarre  and  Aragon,  was  enabled
to  render  his  second  son  Ferdinand  count,  or,  as
he  assumed  the  title,  king  of  Castile. This  effectually  dis-
membered that  province  from  the  kingdom  of  Leon ;  but
their  union  soon  became  more  complete  than  ever,  though
with  a  reversed  supremacy. Bermudo  III.,  king  of  Leon,
fell  in  an  engagement  with  the  new  king  of  Castile,  who  had
married  his  sister;  and  Ferdinand,  in  her  right,  or  in  that
of  conquest,  became  master  of  the  united  monarchy. This
cessation  of  hostilities  between  the  Christian  states  enabled
them  to  direct  a  more  unremitting  energy  against  their  ancient
enemies,  who  were  now  sensibly  weakened  by  the  various
causes  of  decline  to  which  I  have  already  alluded. During
the  eleventh  century  the  Spaniards  were  almost  always  supe-
rior in  the  field ;  the  towns  which  they  began  by  pillaging,
they  gradually  possessed ;  their  valor  was  heightened  by  the
customs  of  chivalry  and  inspired  by  the  example  of  the  Cid ;
and  before  the  end  of  this  age  Alfonso  VI. recovered  the
Capture  of  ancient  metropolis  of  the  monarchy,  the  city  of  To-
Toiedo,  ledo. This  was  the  severest  blow  which  the  Moors
had  endured,  and  an  unequivocal  symptom  of  that  change
in  their  relative  strength,  which,  from  being  so  gradual,  wa?
the  more  irretrievable. Calamities  scarcely  inferior  fell  upon
them  in  a  different  quarter. The  kings  of  Aragon  (a  title
belonging  originally  to  a  little  district  upon  the  river  of  that
name)  had  been  cooped  up  almost  in  the  mountains  by  the
small  Moorish  states  north  of  the  Ebro,  especially  that  of
Huesca. About  the  middle  of  the  eleventh  century  they
began  to  attack  their  neighbors  with  success ;  the  Moors  lost
one  town  after  another,  till,  in  1118,  exposed  and  weakened

of  Jaca. They  prescribe  the  descent  of  magis  remoti,  invenerint  in  Till!  magis

lands  and  movables,  as  well  as  the  elec-  proxima  appellito. 