[Sidenote: The code of the _Siete Partidas_ and the revival of Roman principles.]
The _Partidas_ was the work of a number of jurisconsults under the inspection, and with more or less intervention, of Alfonso himself; these men began work in 1256 and finished it in 1265. Some of the laws and customs of Castile,--for example, the _Fuero Juzgo_ and the _Fuero Real_,--were used as sources, but the preponderant influences were those of the canon law and the codes of the Roman emperor Justinian,--so much so that the _Partidas_ amounted to an encyclopedia of these two sources of law, both of which were Roman in origin and very different from the customs, Visigothic and otherwise, at that time prevailing in Castile. Whether Alfonso intended that the _Partidas_ should become the general law, or merely that it should serve as an encyclopedia, it was not promulgated in his day, and there were many later laws directly contradicting it. Nevertheless, it constantly gained ground, favored especially by lawyers and university men (both of which elements were strong partisans of the Roman law), being used as a book of reference and as a text-book. Finally the current in its favor became so strong that so far as it was not inconsistent with certain specified compilations it was declared to be law in the reign of Alfonso XI by the important ordinance of the _Cortes_ of Alcalá (1348). This set forth that the decisions of that _Cortes_ should be the principal fountain of Castilian law, followed in order of precedence by the _Fuero Real_, the other municipal charters, and finally by way of supplement by the _Partidas_, which was not to be enforced in such parts as it contradicted the privileges of the nobility, for these also were confirmed. Despite this lowly position of the _Partidas_ and despite the vast quantity of later laws which took precedence of the above-mentioned hierarchy of sources, the ultimate victory of Alfonso’s code was assured from the time of its official promulgation. Without any statute to that effect it gradually became recognized, not as a mere supplementary source, but as the principal law of the land. Reformations of its text were undertaken to make it conform with the necessities of later times, but in substance the ideas of the original remained.