[Sidenote: Establishment of hereditary succession and development of court officialdom.]
Two fundamental results of the centralizing, absolutist policy of the kings were the final establishment of hereditary succession and the development of consultive and other bodies about the king, the forerunners of modern bureaucracy. The former has already been referred to. Alfonso himself was the first to break his own law in this respect, but after his reign the principle was definitely recognized. The pomp and ceremonial of royalty increased the number of officials whose principal functions were those of adding splendor to the court,--such, for example, as the king’s cup-bearer, butler, and chamberlain. Great nobles also sent their sons to court to be educated under the protection and with the favor of the king, and these young men formed a special royal guard. In addition there began to be an infinity of servants, notaries, doctors, and others occupying posts of a less ornamental character. The most important novelty of the period was the development of the _Consejo Real_.
The kings had long been surrounded by a body of nobles and prelates called the _Consejo Real_, or Royal Council, which advised them in matters of government, or sat as the _Cort_, or supreme court, in appeals from lower jurisdictions, but its membership and functions had not been very clearly established, for it dealt indiscriminately with any subject upon which the king might want advice. One important reform was the introduction of representatives of the popular element in this body. Different kings, from Sancho IV on, decreed that a certain number of the council should be “good men,”--or members of the untitled, secular class,--although the practice did not become fixed. A law of Juan I in 1385 provided that the council should be composed of twelve men, of whom four should be plebeians. Two years later it was required that the last-named should be _letrados_,--that is, men learned in the law,--and shortly afterward they began to be called _oidores_ (hearers of cases). Juan II divided the council into two bodies, one of government, the other of justice. It was not until the time of Ferdinand and Isabella, however, that the _Consejo Real_ acquired real stability.