V Centenario de las Cortes de Toro.-Juana I de Castilla

A stamp is issued on occasion of the V Anniversary of the Parliament of Toro, a crucial event in the History of Spain.

After the death of queen Isabel La Católica in 1505, the parliament of Castile met in the town of Toro for two things: one was to confirm the will of the dead queen by which her daughter, Doña Juana, was proclaimed queen of Castile and heiress to all her domains and the second was to pass the bills of Toro which had been drawn up just before queen Isabel’s death. The Bills of Toro where passed on the 7th of March 1505 and include a total of 83 rules that dealt with problems related to civil law. The first two rules make reference to the legal sources, that is, the order in which legal rules of Castile were to be applied in every day life. The 3rd to the 46th deals with Hereditary law; the 47th to the 62nd is referred to Procedural Law; the 68th to 75 is about marriage and its effects; the 64th, 66th, 67th and 76th are on Procedural Law, the 68th to the 75th are on Obligational Law and finally from the 77th to the 83rd are related to Penal Law. The Bills of Toro, have been in force until the enactment of the Civil Code in 1889 and their importance and interest have been studied by the most important jurists in Spain. Doña Juana (Toledo 1479 – Tordesillas 1555) was queen of Castile from 1505 till her death, however she never exercised as such because of her mental illness. First her husband, Felipe el Hermoso, who died all of a sudden in 1506 and afterwards her father, Fernando el Católico, took over the regency of the kingdom of Castile. The stamp depicts a portrait of Juana I of Castile painted with oil on canvas at around 1500. It is the work of an anonymous Flemish painter and has been specially loaned for this issue by the National Sculpture Museum of Valladolid.