HERMANDAD, THE (Sp. "Brotherhood "), an association of the principal cities of Castile and Aragon, bound together by a solemn league and covenant for the defense of their liberties in seasons of trouble. These confederacies were sanctioned by the sovereigns, as agents for suppressing the increasing power of the nobles, and for main taining public security through the land with no cost to the government. In Aragon, the first hermandad was established in the middle of the 13th c., and in Castile about 30 years later; while in 1295. 35 cities of Castile and Leon formed a joint confederacy, and entered into a compact, by which they pledged themselves to take summary ven geance on every noble who had either robbed or injured a member of their association and refused to make just atonement for the wrong; or upon any one who should attempt, even by the order of the king, to levy an unjust tax. During the long period of anarchy in which the Christian rulers of Spain were impotent to maintain order in their own dominions, the Santa Hermandad, or holy brotherhood, had presented the only check against the unbounded license of the nobles; and Isabella of Castile, seeing the beneficial effects which an extension of the institution was capable of producirg, obtained the sanction of the tortes for its thorough reorganization and extension over the whole kingdom in 1496. The crimes reserved for its jurisdiction were all acts of violence and theft committed on the highroads or in the open country, rod the penal ties attached to each misdemeanor were specified with the greatest precision in the codes of laws which were enacted at different times in the yearly assemblies of the deputies of the confederate cities. An annual contribution was, moreover, assessed on
every hundred householders or 'arms for the equipment and maintenance of the horsemen and quadrilleros or officials of the brotherhood, whose ditty it was to arrest offenders and enforce the sentence of the law. Although the hermandad was regarded with much disfavor by the aristocracy, it continued for many years to exercise its func tions, until the country was cleared of banditti and the ministers of justice enabled to discharge their duties without hindrance from lawless disturbers of the peace. In 1498, the objects of the hermandad having been obtained and public order established on a firm basis, the brotherhood was disorganized, and reduced to an ordinary police, such as it has existed, with various modifications of form, to the present century. The laws enacted at different times in the juntas or assemblies of the hermandad were compiled, in 1485, into a code, known as the Quaderno de las Leycs vuevas de la liermandad, which was first printed at Burgos in Mariana, History of Spain,. Pulgar, Reyes Catolicos; Prescott, History of Ferdinand and Isabella,