CHAPTER 2 LATE POSTCLASSIC MESOAMERICA 97Figure 2.14 A pictorial portrayal of the political hierarchy, including judges, within the
Texcocan city-state as in the Mapa Quinatzin (based on a drawing by Susan Toby Evans 200l
Aztec Noble Courts. From Royal Courts of the Ancient Maya, Volume One,pp. 237–273,
Takeshi Inomata and Stephen Houston.
to have the legitimacy of being laid down by the heads of state. Accordingly, the laws
themselves were thought to be powerful and thus dangerous, and for that reason
had to be administered with wisdom and seriousness. Furthermore, the Aztec legal
system was quite secular and relatively free of input from the kinship groups; it even
employed the concept of “the reasonable man” as a way to decide cases in which the
evidence was insufficient. Besides the many specialized judges, numerous other of-
ficials participated in the system, including scribes, “lawyers”, and a special type of po-
liceman. Justice was swift, sure, and severe, and an elaborate suite of sanctions could
be applied to the guilty. (Box 2.3 describes the process by which adultery was adju-
dicated within the Texcocan legal system.)
Significant political changes were taking place in the Aztec empire during the
final years preceding the Spanish invasion. For example, the selection of the Tlatoani
in the powerful Mexica state had fallen into the hands of a small coterie of royal lin-
eage officials. During an earlier phase of Mexica history, this selection had required