n our day would be called a mounted police, but
in the days of Isabella every organization came under the sanction of
the Church. The duties of the Holy Brotherhood were to arrest offenders
throughout the kingdom and to enforce the law. Every one hundred
householders throughout the kingdom maintained one Hermandad. Upon the
flight of a criminal tocsins were sounded, and the officers of the
Brotherhood stationed within hearing took up a pursuit that left little
hope for escape. Thus a body of cavalry, two thousand in number, fully
equipped and supported, was at the disposal of the crown to enforce the
law and to suppress insurrections. In a few years the country was
cleared of banditti and the blessing of personal security under the
government was restored.

Isabella revived also another ancient custom of her forefathers, that of
presiding in person over courts of justice. From city to city she
travelled on horseback, making the circuit of her kingdom, regardless of
personal fatigue. Side by side with Ferdinand, when he had leisure from
foreign complications to accompany her, she sat (not unmindful of the
dignity belonging to the crown) with her courtiers around her, to listen
with interest, that she might redress wrongs, punish the wrongdoers, and
administer justice even to the lowliest of her subjects. Her personal
address, and the unbounded respect which her integrity inspired; her
proclamation throughout the kingdom that the interests of her people
were her interests, re-established such public confidence that, says a
writer of that age, "Those who had long despaired of public justice
blessed God for their deliverance, as it were, from deplorable
captivity." Nor did the sovereigns relax their personal efforts for the
restoration of law and order until the cortes had passed measures for
the permanent administration of justice. Thus in a few years, from a
state of anarchy and misrule, Castile entered upon her "Golden Age of
Justice."

The golden age of literature, developed in the next century, has been
justly ascribed to the impetus given by Isabella to liberal education,
classical and scientific. Under her patronage schools were established
in every city, presided over by learned men. The printing press, lately
invented, was introduced; foreign books were imported free of duty,
while such precedence was given to native literature as led on to the
brilliant achievements of the sixteenth century. In social reform
pre