iately inflicted. The governors
placed by the sovereign over the different cities and provinces,
commanded the military force belonging to each, collected the public
revenues, superintended the administration of the police, and adjudged
the offences committed within their respective governments. Public
officers well versed in the laws discharged the functions of notaries,
and gave a juridical form to records relating to the possession of
property. When any lawsuits arose, magistrates called _cadis_, whose
authority was respected both by the king and the people, could alone
decide them. These suits were speedily determined; lawyers and attorneys
were unknown, and there was no expense nor chicanery connected with them.
Each party pleaded his cause in person, and the decrees of the cadi were
immediately executed.

Criminal jurisprudence was scarcely more complicated. The Moors almost
invariably resorted to the _punishment of retaliation_ prescribed by the
founder of their religion. In truth, the wealthy were permitted to
exonerate themselves from the charge of bloodshed by the aid {77} of
money; but it was necessary that the relations of the deceased should
consent to this: the caliph himself would not have ventured to withhold
the head of one of his own sons who had been guilty of homicide, if its
delivery had been inexorably insisted upon.

This simple code would not have sufficed had not the unlimited authority
exercised by fathers over their children, and husbands over their wives,
supplied the deficiencies of the laws. With regard to this implicit
obedience on the part of a family to the will of its chief, the Moors
preserved the ancient patriarchal customs of their ancestors. Every
father possessed, under his own roof, rights nearly equal to those of the
caliph. He decided, without appeal, the quarrels of his wives and those
of his sons: he punished with severity the slightest faults, and even
possessed the power of punishing certain crimes with death. Age alone
conferred this supremacy. An old man was always an object of reverence.
His presence arrested disorders: the most haughty young man cast down his
eyes at meeting him, and listened patiently to his reproofs. In short,
the possessor of a white beard {78} was everywhere invested with the
authority of a magistrate.

This authority, which was more powerful among the Moors than that of
their laws, long subsisted unimpaired at Cordova. That the wise H