Page 88 - Latent Defect or Excessive Price?Exploring Early Modern Legal Approach to Remedying Defects in Goods Exchanged for Money - Bruijn

CHAPTER THREE
The pleitos offer a detailed description of the legal proceedings starting with the proceedings in first instance to the final judgement pronounced by the Royal Chancery. Early modern Castile knew a tiered court system. In first instance, a plaintiff brought his case before the alcalde, alguacil or corregidor39, local officials charged with the administration of justice in a certain geographically defined area. Afterwards litigants could appeal to the Royal Chancery. The Chancery then re-examined the case in full.40 Though in many European countries it is very difficult to retrieve judgements by early modern lower courts, the fact that the Royal Chancery's industrious clerks (escribanos) heeded king John's decree that the Chancery's sentences should be preserved, makes the Chancery's archive a treasure trove for the scholar interested in the entire column of law administration in an early modern part of Europe. The Chancery's escribanos meticulously report the proceedings, from the first claim brought by the plaintiff in first instance to the definite judgement pronounced by the Chancery's judges (oydores).
In addition to the manuscript files of complete lawsuits, I also consulted around 23 manuscript writs of execution.41 These provide an overview of the anteceding lawsuit in an abridged version. Though less detailed, they enable the researcher to gain a quick view of the kind of claim the plaintiffs made and whether or not the Chancery followed or dismissed them. The writs of execution are between three and 15 folia long.
Research revealed that relatively few cases brought before the Royal Chancery deal with either a suit because of latent defects in an item sold or with a lesion beyond moiety. In quantitative terms, therefore, the number of cases, (8 pleitos, 23 ejecutorias), which bore on the issue I tackle in this book and which are discussed in this chapter might seem somewhat meagre.42 Yet, these few cases provide revealing information about the extent to which doctrinal concepts were applied to practice. Though direct references to legal doctrine are virtually non-existent43, the manuscripts abound with implicit links to contemporary theory. For instance, the remedy for lesion beyond moiety (engaño por más de la mitad) is well-established in the pleitos. Another finding in which the influence of contemporary doctrine can be felt is that all cases about latent defects or encumbrances are solved either by bringing a remedy for lesion beyond moiety,44 or a remedy based on
39 The alcalde was the mayor of a town who also administered justice in first instance. The corregidor was an official whose main duty was to safeguard the king's interest on provincial level. E.g. he had the power to overrule judgements of local judges (alcaldes), ensure the prices of goods as fixed in royal decrees etc. The alguacil was an official serving the corregidor. See De Villadiego Vascuñana y Montoya, Instrucción, 5.4, fo .77, no. 24 (alguacil); idem, 5.1, no. 7, fo. 109v (corregidor); Bermúdez Aznar, El corregidor, passim.
40 Mendizábal, Investigaciones, pp. 36-37.
41 See appendix A for a detailed overview of the writs which feature in this study.
42 See appendix B for a list of the pleitos and ejecutorias from which passages are quoted in this book. The
appendix also contains scans of the folia on which the mentioned passages can be found.
43 I found only one reference to what seems a learned treatise in Pl. civ. C. Escalera (f.), Caja 2690, 2
(1762).
44 Pl. civ. F. Alonso (f.), Caja 447, 1 (1577), sc. 39: ...suplico... | a que no usen de la | dicha obligacion e me
| mande absolver e | dar por cierte della de- | clarando aver sydo ce- | so y enganado en los | dichos machos'.
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