Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 401, March 1849

23

"It were a great error to attribute to Spain, in the 14th century, the religious passions and intolerant spirit that animated it in the 16th. In the wars between Moors and Christians, politics had long had a far larger share than fanaticism… Although the Inquisition had been established more than a century, its power was far from being what it afterwards became. As to Jews and Moors, they were subject to the jurisdiction of the Holy Office only when they sought, by word or writing, to turn Christians from the faith of their fathers; and even then, royal authorisation was necessary before they could be prosecuted. And the kings showed themselves, in general, little disposed to let the clergy increase their influence. In 1350, Peter IV. of Arragon rigorously forbade ecclesiastics to infringe on secular jurisdiction… There was much lukewarmness in matters of religion; and to this, perhaps, is to be attributed the very secondary part played by the clergy in all the political debates of the 14th century. The inferior clergy, living and recruiting its ranks amongst the people, shared the ignorance and rudeness of the latter. Such was the prevalent immorality, that a great number of priests maintained concubines, who were vain of the holy profession of their lovers, and claimed particular distinctions. The conduct of these ecclesiastics occasioned no scandal, but the luxury affected by their mistresses often excited the envy of rich citizens, and even of noble ladies. Repeatedly, and always in vain, the Cortes launched decrees intended to repress the insolence of the damoiselles de prétres, (barraganas de clérigos,) who formed a distinct class or caste, enjoying special privileges, and sufficiently numerous to require the invention of laws for them alone." – Mérimée, p. 34 to 38. These passages tend to explain what might otherwise seem incomprehensible – the passive submission of the Spanish priesthood to encroachments upon their temporal goods. Since then they have rarely shown themselves so enduring; and the mere hint of an attack upon their power or opulence has usually been the signal for mischievous intrigue, and often for bloody strife. It is a question, (setting aside the barraganas, although these, up to no remote date, may be said to have been rather veiled than suppressed,) whether the Spanish priests of the 14th century were not nearly as enlightened as their successors of the 19th. They certainly were far more tolerant. "Arab language and literature," M. Mérimée tells us, "were cultivated in schools founded under ecclesiastical patronage."

In the Cortes held at Valladolid, in 1351, we find Don Pedro rejecting the petitions of the clergy, who craved restitution of the revenues appropriated by the crown, to their prejudice, under his father's reign.

24

In various details of Don Pedro's life and character we trace resemblance to the eastern despot, although there seems no foundation for the charges of infidelity brought against him towards the close of his reign, and which may partly have originated, perhaps, in his close alliance with the Granadine Moors, a body of whose light cavalry for some time formed his escort. Contiguity of territory, commercial intercourse, and political necessities, had assimilated to a certain extent the manners and usages of Spaniards and Saracens, and given the former an oriental tinge, of which, even at the present day, faint vestiges are here and there perceptible. Don Pedro's orientalism was particularly perceptible in the mode of many of the executions that ensanguined his reign. He had constantly about him a band of cross-bowmen who waited on his nod, and recoiled from no cruelty. Occasionally we find him sending one of them to some distant place to communicate and execute the doom of an offending subject. This recalls the Turkish mute and bowstring. These death-dealing archers seem to have employed mace and dagger more frequently than axe or cord. They were assassins rather than executioners. They officiated in the case of Garci Laso. "Alburquerque, impatient of delay, warned the king that it was time to give final orders. Don Pedro, accustomed to repeat those of his minister, bade two of Alburquerque's gentlemen go tell the prisoner's guards to despatch him. The arbalisters, blind instruments of the king's will, mistrusted an order transmitted to them by Alburquerque's people, and desired to receive it from their master's mouth. One of them went to ask him what was to be done with Garci Laso. 'Let him be killed!' replied the king. This time duly authorised, the arbalister ran to the prisoner, and struck him down with a blow of a mace upon his head. His comrades finished him with their daggers. The body of Garci Laso was thrown upon the public square, where the king's entrance was celebrated, according to Castilian custom, by a bull-fight. The bulls trampled the corpse, and tossed it upon their horns. It was taken from them for exhibition upon a scaffold, where it remained a whole day. At last it was placed upon a bier, which was fixed upon the rampart of Camparanda. It was the treatment reserved for the bodies of great malefactors." – Mérimée, p. 73.

25

"In 1339, Don Gonzalo Martinez, Master of Alcantara, having rebelled against the king Don Alphonso, was besieged and taken in his castle of Valencia, and Coronel presided at his execution." —Chronica de Don Alphonso XI., p. 385.

26

The Castilian tongue is rich in words descriptive of grace in women. Spain is, certainly, the country where that quality is most common. I will cite only a few of those expressions, indicative of shades easier to appreciate than to translate. Garbo is grace combined with nobility; donayre, elegance of bearing, vivacity of wit; salero, voluptuous and provocative grace; zandunga, the kind of grace peculiar to the Andalusians – a happy mixture of readiness and nonchalance. People applaud the garbo or donayre of a duchess, the salero of an actress, the zandunga of a gipsy of Jerez. – Mérimée, p. 110.

27

The enchantment of Don Pedro by Maria Padilla is a popular tradition in Andalusia, where the memory of both is vividly preserved. It is further added, that Maria Padilla was a queen of the gipsies – their bari crallisa– consequently consummate mistress of the art of concocting philters. Unfortunately, the gipsies were scarcely seen in Europe till a century later. The author of the Première Vie du Pape Innocent VI. gravely relates that Blanche, having made her husband a present of a golden girdle, Maria Padilla, assisted by a Jew, a notorious sorcerer, changed it into a serpent, one day that the king had it on. The surprise of the king and his court may be imagined, when the girdle began to writhe and hiss; whereupon the Padilla easily succeeded in persuading her lover that Blanche was a magician bent upon destroying him by her arts. – Mérimée, p. 120.

28

Zuñiga, Anales de Sevilla. – "The people say, that Maria Coronel, pursued by Don Pedro, in the suburb of Triana, plunged her head into a pan in which a gipsy was cooking fritters. I was shown the house in front of which the incident occurred, and I was desired to remark, as an incontrovertible proof, that it is still inhabited by gipsies, whose kitchen is in the open street." – Mérimée, p. 247.

29

We have already adverted to the religious tolerance of the time, and to the intermixture of Mussulmans and Christians: M. Mérimée gives some curious details on this subject. The nobility of Castile made no difficulty to grant the Don to the Moorish cavaliers, and the rich Jew bankers obtained the same distinction, then very rare amongst the Christians themselves. Thus Ayala, the chronicler, speaks of Don Farax, Don Simuel, Don Reduan, &c.; although of Spaniards he gives the Don only to the princes of the blood, to a few very powerful ricos hombres, to certain great officers of the crown, and to the masters of the military orders of knights. The Andalusian Moors were frequently treated as equals by the chevaliers of Castile; but this is far less astonishing than that the Jews should have attained to high honours and office. Pedro, however, seems always to have had a leaning towards them, and the Israelites, on their part, invariably supported him. He was more than once, in the latter part of his reign, heard to say that the Moors and Hebrews were his only loyal subjects. At Miranda, on the Ebro, in 1360, the populace, stirred up by Henry of Trastamare, massacred the Jews, and pillaged their dwellings. The object of the Count was to compromise the townspeople, and thus to attach them indissolubly to his cause. When Pedro arrived, he had the ringleaders of the riot arrested; and, in his presence, the unhappy wretches were burned alive, or boiled in immense cauldrons. Obsolete laws were revived, to justify these terrible executions; but the crime of the offenders was forgotten in the horror excited by such barbarous punishments. It was just after these scenes of cruelty that a priest, coming from Santo-Domingo de la Calzada, craved private audience of the king, 'Sire,' said he, 'my Lord Saint Dominick has appeared to me in a dream, bidding me warn you that, if you do not amend your life, Don Henry, your brother, will slay you with his own hand.' This prophecy, on the eve of a battle between the brothers, was probably the result of fanatical hatred, on the part of the priests towards a king now generally accused of irreligion. Whatever dictated it, Pedro was at first startled by the prophet's confident and inspired air, but soon he thought it was a stratagem of his enemies to discourage him and his troops. The priest, who persisted that his mission was from St Dominick, was burned alive in front of the army. – Mérimée, pp. 35, 290, 299, &c.

30

"According to the interpolator of the chronicle of the Despensero Mayor, Simuel Levi, whose death he erroneously fixes in the year 1366, was denounced to the king by several Jews, envious of his immense riches. Simuel, on being put to the torture, died of indignation, 'de puro corage,' says the anonymous author, whom I copy, since I cannot understand him. There were found, in a vault beneath his house, three piles of gold and silver lingots, so lofty 'that a man standing behind them was not seen.' The king, on beholding this treasure, exclaimed – 'If Don Simuel had given me the third part of the smallest of these heaps, I would not have had him tortured. How could he consent to die rather than speak?' Sumario de los Reyes de España, p. 73. Credat Judæus Apella." – Mérimée, p. 317.

Don Pedro was often accused of avarice, although it appears probable that his fondness of money sprang from his experience of the power it gave, and of its absolute necessity in the wars in which he was continually engaged, rather than from any abstract love of gold. When, after his flight from Spain in 1366, his treasures were traitorously given up to his rival by Admiral Boccanegra, who had been charged to convey them to Portugal, they amounted to thirty-six quintals of gold, (something like fourteen hundred thousand pounds sterling – a monstrous sum in those days,) besides a quantity of jewels.

31

The custom of the time, according to Froissart and others. On the march, most of the soldiers, sometimes even the archers, were on horseback; but when the hour of battle arrived, spurs were removed, horses sent away, and lances shortened. When the time came for flight and pursuit, the combatants again sprang into their saddles.

32

We find that we have given the leaguers rather too much credit in the above paragraph. Some of them appear to think that, whether necessary or not, our forces should be dispensed with; at least so we gather from the following expressions contained in a dull ill-written tract, purporting to emanate from the "Edinburgh Financial Reform Association," which has just come into our hands. Let us hear the patriotic economists. "If there be any other cause for maintaining a huge and expensive force, it must be found in the desire to provide for the scions of the nobility and landed gentry, with a view to secure votes in both houses of parliament. As is well known, commissions in the army and navy are held almost entirely by these classes. No doubt, officers in active service may be said to give work for their pay, while their gallantry as soldiers is beyond dispute; but this, unfortunately, does not mend the matter. Their services we hold to be for the greater part unnecessary; at all events, they are services for which the nation cannot afford to pay any longer, and they THEREFORE ought to be relinquished." This is intelligible enough; but we hardly think there are many reasoners of this calibre.