Here's "the power to torture" treated as a mark of sovereignty. Note to self, get hold of a copy and read more.
Indeed, the concessions which the barons obtained, by persuasion or force, from the sovereigns brought about the gradual dissolution of the feudal system of property, through the transformation of the fief into the alod, a form of ownership which seemed to foster social and economic progress, and in the long run did so, but at the time caused a weakening of the whole political structure. The capitulary promulgated in 1283 in the Plain of San Martino, a short time after the Sicilian rebellion, freed baronial marriages, which Frederick II had made subject to royal approval, and allowed the gift in dowry of fiefs and feudal possessions after a consent which a court had to accord within the term of eight days. And the capitulary of 1285, proposed by Pope Honorius IV, did away with the necessity of this consent altogether and permitted collateral inheritance to the third generation. . . . Finally, Alphonso I of Aragon not only conferred merum mixtumque imperium but also granted the barons the so-called four letters of judgment, which King Robert had given only to officials of the crown, by whose virtue they could torture a prisoner for an unlimited time, proceed on their own initiative to punish certain serious crimes, and impose sentences more severe than those laid down by law.
--Benedetto Croce
History of the Kingdom of Naples (1970)
originally published as Storia del regno di Napoli (1925)
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