[Sidenote: Subservience of the towns to the royal will.]
Just as in the case of the Castilian _Cortes_, so also in that of the towns, the absolutism of the kings made itself felt to a marked degree, for the way had been prepared in previous reigns, and in this instance the royal authority was equally as noteworthy in Aragon, Catalonia, Valencia, and Majorca as in Castile. This was brought about principally through the decline of the towns in political spirit, a movement which had been going on since the fourteenth century. As a result the _ayuntamientos_ had usurped the powers which formerly belonged to the general assembly of citizens, and now their functions became absorbed more and more by the kings through their officials in the towns, such as the _corregidores_ and others. So great was the authority of the kings that they were able to make a profit for the treasury by the sale in perpetuity of local offices, and when the evils which resulted became too pronounced they gave orders abolishing all such positions acquired before 1630. Furthermore, all local legislation of an important character had to receive the sanction of the _Consejo Real_. Much the same local officials as in the past administered the affairs of the municipalities, and the methods of their acquisition of office continued to be diverse, being in some towns by election, in others by lot, in still others by inheritance, and in yet others by royal appointment; but in all of the large royal towns (_realengos_) the king’s authority was paramount. In fine, local autonomy was virtually dead, although the forms of the period when the towns were a virile political factor still persisted. In two classes of municipalities the royal victory was not complete. One was that of the small villages, where the system of the medieval _villa_, or _concejo_, obtained, but since these units were of small consequence the retention of their earlier liberties had little or no effect on the general situation. The other was that of the seigniorial towns, most of them in Aragon, Catalonia, and Navarre, where the struggles of past eras, of the citizens against the lords, were repeated in this.
[Sidenote: Importance of the bureaucracy.]
