THE CHRISTIAN REALMS 245are not coherently collected together in the acts of the council but
make up the greatest part of the business of the meeting.
The privileges granted were not just confined to the inhabitants of
the city but were also extended to those living in certain specified
areas outside of the walls. Those thus encompassed were required to
come into the city to give and receive justice and could take refuge
there in time of war. They were exempted from any tolls on goods
that they sold there, but were required to assist in defence and in
restoring the city walls. The government of Leon was entrusted to a
council, the composition of which is not specified, but on the first
day of Quadragesima each year all citizens, from both within and
without the walls, were to gather in the square of Santa Maria de
Regula to elect officers to oversee weights and measures employed in
the city's markets. This assembly also fixed the wage to be paid for
labour for the year. Further regulations in the council laid down
penalties to be imposed on dealers in bread and meat who attempted
to cheat their customers with false measures, and free access of all
goods for sale in the city was also guaranteed.
The citizens were protected from harassment by royal officials: the
saio, ajudicial officer appointed by the king, and the majorinus (mayor)
were forbidden to enter a citizen's home or break down its doors.
Women might not be arrested or tried in the absence of their hus-
bands. Members of various lower social orders, who might have legal
ties elsewhere, could not be extradited from the city, and even slaves,
were similarly protected. However, in their case, if their servile status
were proved in a legal process by the affirmation of 'truthful men',
they might be returned to their lords, whether Christian or Muslim,
a remarkable indication that distinctions of status were held to tran-
scend religious divisions. All of these and other concessions were
later confirmed by Queen Urraca in 1109 on her accession.^34
A significant proportion of the inhabitants of the new towns of the
frontier were Mozarabs and their descendants. The Christian states
of northern Spain other than Catalonia had had little experience of
urban life and organisation before the tenth century. Oviedo and
Pamplona were their nearest approaches to such settlements and it is
unlikely that the former was much more than a fortified palace com-
plex. As a result the period of urban development that began under
the Leonese kings owed much to the town life of Islamic Spain in
terms of borrowings of institutions and of terminology. These were
most probably mediated through the Mozarabs.