Note 201 — Chapter V · THE NINETEENTH CENTURY (continued 2)

The government, at least, cannot be charged with remissness in promoting this. We find two ordinances in the royal collection of pragmáticas,ff dated in September, 1501 (there must be some error in the date of one of them), inhibiting, under pain of confiscation of property, such as had been “reconciled,” and their children by the mother’s side, and grandchildren by the father’s, from holding any office in the privy council, courts of justice, or in the municipalities, or any other place of trust or honour. They were also excluded from the vocation of notaries, surgeons, and apothecaries. This was visiting the sins of the fathers, to an extent unparalleled in modern legislation. The sovereigns might find a precedent in a law of Sulla.