variety in the class of ballads to which it belongs, nor of their
poetical beauty. To feel their true value and power, we must read large
numbers of them, and read them, too, in their native language; for
there is a winning freshness in the originals, as they lie imbedded
in the old Romanceros, that escapes in translations, however free or
however strict;--a remark that should be extended to the historical as
well as the miscellaneous portions of that great mass of popular poetry
which is found in the early ballad-books, and which, though it is all
nearly three centuries old, and some of it older, has been much less
carefully considered than it deserves to be.
Yet there are certainly few portions of the literature of any country
that will better reward a spirit of adventurous inquiry than these
ancient Spanish ballads, in all their forms. In many respects, they
are unlike the earliest narrative poetry of any other part of the
world; in some, they are better. The English and Scotch ballads, with
which they may most naturally be compared, belong to a ruder state of
society, where a personal coarseness and violence prevailed, which did
not, indeed, prevent the poetry it produced from being full of energy,
and sometimes of tenderness, but which necessarily had less dignity
and elevation than belong to the character, if not the condition, of a
people who, like the Spanish, were for centuries engaged in a contest
ennobled by a sense of religion and loyalty; a contest which could not
fail sometimes to raise the minds and thoughts of those engaged in
it far above such an atmosphere as settled round the bloody feuds of
rival barons or the gross maraudings of a border warfare. The truth
of this will at once be felt, if we compare the striking series of
ballads on Robin Hood with those on the Cid and Bernardo del Carpio;
or if we compare the deep tragedy of Edom o’ Gordon with that of the
Conde Alarcos; or what would be better than either, if we would sit
down to the “Romancero General,” with its poetical confusion of Moorish
splendors and Christian loyalty, just when we have come fresh from
Percy’s “Reliques,” or Scott’s “Minstrelsy.”[226]
[226] If we choose to strike more widely, and institute a
comparison with the garrulous old Fabliaux, or with the overdone
refinements of the Troubadours and Minnesingers, the result
would be yet more in favor of the early Spanish ballads, which
represent and embody the excited poetical feeling that filled
the whole nation during that period when the Moorish power was
gradually broken down by an enthusiasm that became at last
irresistible, because, from the beginning, it was founded on a
sense of loyalty and religious duty.
But, besides what the Spanish ballads possess different from the
popular poetry of the rest of Europe, they exhibit, as no others
exhibit it, that nationality which is the truest element of such poetry
everywhere. They seem, indeed, as we read them, to be often little
more than the great traits of the old Spanish character brought out
by the force of poetical enthusiasm; so that, if their nationality
were taken away from them, they would cease to exist. This, in its
turn, has preserved them down to the present day, and will continue to
preserve them hereafter. The great Castilian heroes, such as the Cid,
Bernardo del Carpio, and Pelayo, are even now an essential portion of
the faith and poetry of the common people of Spain; and are still,
in some degree, honored as they were honored in the age of the Great
Captain, or, farther back, in that of Saint Ferdinand. The stories of
Guarinos, too, and of the defeat of Roncesvalles are still sung by the
wayfaring muleteers, as they were when Don Quixote heard them in his
journeying to Toboso; and the showmen still rehearse the adventures of
Gayferos and Melisendra, in the streets of Seville, as they did at the
solitary inn of Montesinos, when he encountered them there. In short,
the ancient Spanish ballads are so truly national in their spirit,
that they became at once identified with the popular character that
had produced them, and with that same character will go onward, we
doubt not, till the Spanish people shall cease to have a separate and
independent existence.[227]
[227] See Appendix, B.
CHAPTER VIII.
SECOND CLASS.--CHRONICLES.--ORIGIN.--ROYAL CHRONICLES.--GENERAL
CHRONICLE BY ALFONSO THE TENTH.--ITS DIVISIONS AND SUBJECTS.--ITS MORE
POETICAL PORTIONS.--ITS CHARACTER.--CHRONICLE OF THE CID.--ITS ORIGIN,
SUBJECT, AND CHARACTER.
CHRONICLES.--Ballad poetry constituted, no doubt, originally, the
amusement and solace of the whole mass of the Spanish people; for,
during a long period of their early history, there was little division
of the nation into strongly marked classes, little distinction in
manners, little variety or progress in refinement. The wars going on
with unappeased violence from century to century, though by their
character not without an elevating and poetical influence upon all,
yet oppressed and crushed all by the sufferings that followed in their
train, and kept the tone and condition of the body of the Spanish
nation more nearly at the same level than the national character was
probably ever kept, for so long a period, in any other Christian
country. But as the great Moorish contest was transferred to the
South, Leon, Castile, and indeed the whole North, became comparatively
quiet and settled. Wealth began to be accumulated in the monasteries,
and leisure followed. The castles, instead of being constantly in a
state of anxious preparation against the common enemy, were converted
into abodes of a crude, but free, hospitality; and those distinctions
of society that come from different degrees of power, wealth, and
cultivation grew more and more apparent. From this time, then, the
ballads, though not really neglected, began to subside into the lower
portions of society, where for so long a period they remained; while
the more advanced and educated sought, or created for themselves,
forms of literature better suited, in some respects, to their altered
condition, and marking at once more leisure and knowledge, and a more
settled system of social life.
The oldest of these forms was that of the Spanish prose chronicles,
which, besides being called for by the changed condition of things,
were the proper successors of the monkish Latin chronicles and legends,
long before known in the country, and were of a nature to win favor
with men who themselves were every day engaged in achievements such
as these very stories celebrated, and who consequently looked on the
whole class of works to which they belonged as the pledge and promise
of their own future fame. The chronicles were, therefore, not only the
natural offspring of the times, but were fostered and favored by the
men who controlled the times.[228]
[228] In the code of the Partidas, (circa A. D. 1260,) good
knights are directed to listen at their meals to the reading
of “las hestorias de los grandes fechos de armas que los otros
fecieran,” etc. (Parte II. Título XXI. Ley 20.) Few knights
at that time could understand Latin, and the “_hestorias_”
in Spanish must probably have been the Chronicle now to be
mentioned, and the ballads or gestes on which it was, in part,
founded.
* * * * *
I. _General Chronicles and Royal Chronicles._--Under such
circumstances, we might well anticipate that the proper style of
the Spanish chronicle would first appear at the court, or in the
neighbourhood of the throne; because at court were to be found the
spirit and the materials most likely to give it birth. But it is still
to be considered remarkable, that the first of the chronicles in the
order of time, and the first in merit, comes directly from a royal
hand. It is called in the printed copies “The Chronicle of Spain,”
or “The General Chronicle of Spain,” and is, no doubt, the same work
earlier cited in manuscript as “The History of Spain.”[229] In its
characteristic Prologue, after solemnly giving the reasons why such a
work ought to be compiled, we are told: “And therefore we, Don Alfonso,
... son of the very noble King Don Fernando, and of the Queen Doña
Beatrice, have ordered to be collected as many books as we could have
of histories that relate any thing of the deeds done aforetime in
Spain, and have taken the chronicle of the Archbishop Don Rodrigo, ...
and of Master Lucas, Bishop of Tuy, ... and composed this book”; words
which give us the declaration of Alfonso the Wise, that he himself
composed this Chronicle,[230] and which thus carry it back certainly
to a period before the year 1284, in which he died. From internal
evidence, however, it is probable that it was written in the early
part of his reign, which began in 1252; and that he was assisted in
its composition by persons familiar with Arabic literature and with
whatever there was of other refinement in the age.[231]
[229] It is the opinion of Mondejar that the original title of
the “Crónica de España” was “Estoria de España.” Memorias de
Alfonso el Sabio, p. 464.
[230] The distinction Alfonso makes between _ordering_ the
_materials_ to be collected by others (“mandamos ayuntar”)
and _composing_ or _compiling_ the _Chronicle_ himself
(“composimos este libro”) seems to show that he was its author
or compiler,--certainly that he claimed to be such. But there
are different opinions on this point. Florian de Ocampo, the
historian, who, in 1541, published in folio, at Zamora, the
first edition of the Chronicle, says, in notes at the end of
the Third and Fourth Parts, that some persons believe only the
first three parts to have been written by Alfonso, and the
fourth to have been compiled later; an opinion to which it is
obvious that he himself inclines, though he says he will neither
affirm nor deny any thing about the matter. Others have gone
farther, and supposed the whole to have been compiled by several
different persons. But to all this it may be replied,--1. That
the Chronicle is more or less well ordered, and more or less well
written, according to the materials used in its composition; and
that the objections made to the looseness and want of finish in
the Fourth Part apply also, in a good degree, to the Third; thus
proving more than Florian de Ocampo intends, since he declares it
to be certain (“sabemos por cierto”) that the first three parts
were the work of Alfonso. 2. Alfonso declares, more than once, in
his Prólogo, whose genuineness has been made sure by Mondejar,
from the four best manuscripts, that his History comes down to
his own times, (“fasta el nuestro tiempo,”)--which we reach only
at the end of the Fourth Part,--treating the whole, throughout
the Prólogo, as his own work. 3. There is strong internal
evidence that he himself wrote the last part of the work,
relating to his father; as, for instance, the beautiful account
of the relations between St. Ferdinand and his mother, Berenguela
(ed. 1541, f. 404); the solemn account of St. Ferdinand’s death,
at the very end of the whole; and other passages between ff. 402
and 426. 4. His nephew Don John Manuel, who made an abridgment of
the Crónica de España, speaks of his uncle Alfonso the Wise as if
he were its acknowledged author.
It should be borne in mind, also, that Mondejar says the edition
of Florian de Ocampo is very corrupt and imperfect, omitting
whole reigns in one instance; and the passages he cites from the
old manuscripts of the entire work prove what he says. (Memorias,
Lib. VII. capp. 15, 16.) The only other edition of the Chronicle,
that of Valladolid, (fol., 1604,) is still worse. Indeed, it is,
from the number of its gross errors, one of the worst printed
books I have ever used.
[231] The statement referred to in the Chronicle, that it was
written four hundred years after the time of Charlemagne, is, of
course, a very loose one; for Alfonso was not born in 1210. But
I think he would hardly have said, “It is now full four hundred
years,” (ed. 1541, fol. 228,) if it had been full four hundred
and fifty. From this it may be inferred that the Chronicle was
composed before 1260. Other passages tend to the same conclusion.
Conde, in his Preface to his “Árabes en España,” notices the
Arabic air of the Chronicle, which, however, seems to me to have
been rather the air of its age throughout Europe.
It is divided, perhaps not by its author, into four parts: the first
opening with the creation of the world, and giving a large space to
Roman history, but hastening over every thing else till it comes to
the occupation of Spain by the Visigoths; the second comprehending the
Gothic empire of the country and its conquest by the Moors; the third
coming down to the reign of Ferdinand the Great, early in the eleventh
century; and the fourth closing in 1252, with the death of Saint
Ferdinand, the conqueror of Andalusia and father of Alfonso himself.
Its earliest portions are the least interesting. They contain such
notions and accounts of antiquity, and especially of the Roman empire,
as were current among the common writers of the Middle Ages, though
occasionally, as in the case of Dido,--whose memory has always been
defended by the more popular chroniclers and poets of Spain against the
imputations of Virgil,[232]--we have a glimpse of feelings and opinions
which may be considered more national. Such passages naturally become
more frequent in the Second Part, which relates to the empire of the
Visigoths in Spain; though here, as the ecclesiastical writers are
almost the only authority that could be resorted to, their peculiar
tone prevails too much. But the Third Part is quite free and genial in
its spirit, and truly Spanish; setting forth the rich old traditions of
the country about the first outbreak of Pelayo from the mountains;[233]
the stories of Bernardo del Carpio,[234] Fernan Gonzalez,[235]
and the Seven Children of Lara;[236] with spirited sketches of
Charlemagne,[237] and accounts of miracles like those of the cross made
by angels for Alfonso the Chaste,[238] and of Santiago fighting against
the infidels in the glorious battles of Clavijo and Hazinas.[239]
[232] The account of Dido is worth reading, especially by those
who have occasion to see her story referred to in the Spanish
poets, as it is by Ercilla and Lope de Vega, in a way quite
unintelligible to those who know only the Roman version of it as
given by Virgil. It is found in the Crónica de España, (Parte I.
c. 51-57,) and ends with a very heroical epistle of the queen
to Æneas;--the Spanish view taken of the whole matter being in
substance that which is taken by Justin, very briefly, in his
“Universal History,” Lib. XVIII. c. 4-6.
[233] Crónica de España, Parte III. c. 1, 2.
[234] Ibid., Capp. 10 and 13.
[235] Ibid., Capp. 18, etc.
[236] Ibid., Cap. 20.
[237] Ibid., Cap. 10.
[238] Ibid., Cap. 10, with the ballad made out of it, beginning
“Reynando el Rey Alfonso.”
[239] Ibid., Capp. 11 and 19. A drama by Rodrigo de Herrera,
entitled “Voto de Santiago y Batalla de Clavijo,” (Comedias
Escogidas, Tom. XXXIII., 1670, 4to,) is founded on the first of
these passages, but has not used its good material with much
skill.
The last part, though less carefully compiled and elaborated, is in
the same general tone. It opens with the well-known history of the
Cid,[240] to whom, as to the great hero of the popular admiration, a
disproportionate space is assigned. After this, being already within
a hundred and fifty years of the writer’s own time, we, of course,
approach the confines of more sober history, and finally, in the reign
of his father, Saint Ferdinand, fairly settle upon its sure and solid
foundations.
[240] The separate history of the Cid begins with the beginning
of Part Fourth, f. 279, and ends on f. 346, ed. 1541.
The striking characteristic of this remarkable Chronicle is, that,
especially in its Third Part, and in a portion of the Fourth, it is
a translation, if we may so speak, of the old poetical fables and
traditions of the country into a simple, but picturesque, prose,
intended to be sober history. What were the sources of those purely
national passages, which we should be most curious to trace back and
authenticate, we can never know. Sometimes, as in the case of Bernardo
del Carpio and Charlemagne, the ballads and gestes of the olden
time[241] are distinctly appealed to. Sometimes, as in the case of the
Children of Lara, an early Latin chronicle, or perhaps some poetical
legend, of which all trace is now lost, may have constituted the
foundations of the narrative.[242] And once at least, if not oftener,
an entire and separate history, that of the Cid, is inserted without
being well fitted into its place. Throughout all these portions,
the poetical character predominates much oftener than it does in
the rest; for while, in the earlier parts, what had been rescued of
ancient history is given with a grave sort of exactness, that renders
it dry and uninteresting, we have in the concluding portion a simple
narrative, where, as in the account of the death of Saint Ferdinand,
we feel persuaded that we read touching details sketched by a faithful
and affectionate eyewitness.
[241] These _Cantares_ and _Cantares de Gesta_ are referred to in
Parte III. c. 10 and 13.
[242] I cannot help feeling, as I read it, that the beautiful
story of the Infantes de Lara, as told in this Third Part of
the Crónica de España, beginning f. 261 of the edition of 1541,
is from a separate and older chronicle; probably from some old
monkish Latin legend. But it can be traced no farther back than
to this passage in the Crónica de España, on which rests every
thing relating to the Children of Lara in Spanish poetry and
romance.
Among the more poetical passages are two at the end of the Second Part,
which are introduced, as contrasts to each other, with a degree of art
and skill rare in these simple-hearted old chronicles. They relate to
what was long called “the Ruin of Spain,”[243] or its conquest by the
Moors, and consist of two picturesque presentments of its condition
before and after that event, which the Spaniards long seemed to regard
as dividing the history of the world into its two great constituent
portions. In the first of these passages, entitled “Of the Good Things
of Spain,”[244] after a few general remarks, the fervent old chronicler
goes on: “For this Spain, whereof we have spoken, is like the very
Paradise of God; for it is watered by five noble rivers, which are
the Duero, and the Ebro, and the Tagus, and the Guadalquivir, and the
Guadiana; and each of these hath, between itself and the others, lofty
mountains and sierras;[245] and their valleys and plains are great
and broad, and, through the richness of the soil and the watering
of the rivers, they bear many fruits and are full of abundance. And
Spain, above all other things, is skilled in war, feared and very bold
in battle; light of heart, loyal to her lord, diligent in learning,
courtly in speech, accomplished in all good things. Nor is there land
in the world that may be accounted like her in abundance, nor may any
equal her in strength, and few there be in the world so great. And
above all doth Spain abound in magnificence, and more than all is she
famous for her loyalty. O Spain! there is no man can tell of all thy
worthiness!”
[243] “La Pérdida de España” is the common name, in the older
writers, for the Moorish conquest.
[244] “Los Bienes que tiene España” (ed. 1541, f. 202);--and, on
the other side of the leaf, the passage that follows, called “El
Llanto de España.”
[245] The original, in _both_ the printed editions, is _tierras_,
though it should plainly be _sierras_ from the context; but this
is noticed as only one of the thousand gross typographical errors
with which these editions are deformed.
But now reverse the medal, and look on the other picture, entitled
“The Mourning of Spain,” when, as the Chronicle tells us, after the
victory of the Moors, “all the land remained empty of people, bathed
in tears, a byword, nourishing strangers, deceived of her own people,
widowed and deserted of her sons, confounded among barbarians, worn out
with weeping and wounds, decayed in strength, weakened, uncomforted,
abandoned of all her own.... Forgotten are her songs, and her very
language is become foreign and her words strange.”
The more attractive passages of the Chronicle, however, are its long
narratives. They are also the most poetical;--so poetical, indeed, that
large portions of them, with little change in their phraseology, have
since been converted into popular ballads;[246] while other portions,
hardly less considerable, are probably derived from similar, but
older, popular poetry, now either wholly lost, or so much changed by
successive oral traditions, that it has ceased to show its relationship
with the chronicling stories to which it originally gave birth.
Among these narrative passages, one of the most happy is the history
of Bernardo del Carpio, for parts of which the Chronicle appeals to
ballads more ancient than itself, while to the whole, as it stands
in the Chronicle, ballads more modern have, in their turn, been much
indebted. It is founded on the idea of a poetical contest between
Bernardo’s loyalty to his king, on the one side, and his attachment to
his imprisoned father, on the other. For he was, as we have already
learned from the old ballads and traditions, the son of a secret
marriage between the king’s sister and the Count de Sandias de Saldaña,
which had so offended the king, that he kept the Count in prison from
the time he discovered it, and concealed whatever related to Bernardo’s
birth; educating him meantime as his own son. When, however, Bernardo
grew up, he became the great hero of his age, rendering important
military services to his king and country. “But yet,” according to the
admirably strong expression of the old Chronicle,[247] “when he knew
all this, and that it was his own father that was in prison, it grieved
him to the heart, and his blood turned in his body, and he went to his
house, making the greatest moan that could be, and put on raiment of
mourning, and went to the King, Don Alfonso. And the king, when he saw
it, said to him, ‘Bernardo, do you desire my death?’ for Bernardo until
that time had held himself to be the son of the King, Don Alfonso. And
Bernardo said, ‘Sire, I do not wish for your death, but I have great
grief, because my father, the Count of Sandias, lieth in prison, and
I beseech you of your grace that you would command him to be given up
to me.’ And the King, Don Alfonso, when he heard this, said to him,
‘Bernardo, begone from before me, and never be so bold as to speak to
me again of this matter; for I swear to you, that, in all the days that
I shall live, you shall never see your father out of his prison.’ And
Bernardo said to him, ‘Sire, you are my king, and may do whatsoever you
shall hold for good, but I pray God that he will put it into your heart
to take him thence; nevertheless, I, Sire, shall in no wise cease to
serve you in all that I may.’”
[246] This remark will apply to many passages in the Third Part
of the Chronicle of Spain, but to none, perhaps, so strikingly
as to the stories of Bernardo del Carpio and the Infantes de
Lara, large portions of which may be found almost verbatim in
the ballads. I will now refer only to the following:--1. On
Bernardo del Carpio, the ballads beginning, “El Conde Don Sancho
Diaz,” “En corte del Casto Alfonso,” “Estando en paz y sosiego,”
“Andados treinta y seis años,” and “En gran pesar y tristeza.” 2.
On the Infantes de Lara, the ballads beginning, “A Calatrava la
Vieja,” which was evidently arranged for singing at a puppet-show
or some such exhibition, “Llegados son los Infantes,” “Quien es
aquel caballero,” and “Ruy Velasquez de Lara.” All these are
found in the older collections of ballads; those, I mean, printed
before 1560; and it is worthy of particular notice, that this
same General Chronicle makes especial mention of _Cantares de
Gesta_ about Bernardo del Carpio that were known and popular when
it was itself compiled, in the thirteenth century.
[247] See the Crónica General de España, ed. 1541, f. 227, a.
Notwithstanding this refusal, however, when great services are wanted
from Bernardo in troubled times, his father’s liberty is promised
him as a reward; but these promises are constantly broken, until he
renounces his allegiance, and makes war upon his false uncle, and
on one of his successors, Alfonso the Great.[248] At last, Bernardo
succeeds in reducing the royal authority so low, that the king again,
and more solemnly, promises to give up his prisoner, if Bernardo, on
his part, will give up the great castle of Carpio, which had rendered
him really formidable. The faithful son does not hesitate, and the
king sends for the Count, but finds him dead, probably by the royal
procurement. The Count’s death, however, does not prevent the base
monarch from determining to keep the castle, which was the stipulated
price of his prisoner’s release. He therefore directs the dead body to
be brought, as if alive, on horseback, and, in company with Bernardo,
who has no suspicion of the cruel mockery, goes out to meet it.
[248] Crónica Gen., ed. 1541, f. 236. a.
“And when they were all about to meet,” the old Chronicle goes on,
“Bernardo began to shout aloud with great joy, and to say, ‘Cometh
indeed the Count Don Sandias de Saldaña!’ And the King, Don Alfonso,
said to him, ‘Behold where he cometh! Go, therefore, and salute him
whom you have sought so much to behold.’ And Bernardo went towards him,
and kissed his hand; but when he found it cold, and saw that all his
color was black, he knew that he was dead; and with the grief he had
from it, he began to cry aloud and to make great moan, saying, ‘Alas!
Count Sandias, in an evil hour was I born, for never was man so lost
as I am now for you; for, since you are dead, and my castle is gone, I
know no counsel by which I may do aught.’ And some say in their ballads
(_cantares de gesta_) that the king then said, ‘Bernardo, now is not
the time for much talking, and therefore I bid you go straightway forth
from my land,’” etc.
This constitutes one of the most interesting parts of the old General
Chronicle: but the whole is curious, and much of it is rich and
picturesque. It is written with more freedom and less exactness of
style than some of the other works of its noble author; and in the
last division shows a want of finish, which in the first two parts is
not perceptible, and in the third only slightly so. But everywhere
it breathes the spirit of its age, and, when taken together, is not
only the most interesting of the Spanish chronicles, but the most
interesting of all that, in any country, mark the transition from its
poetical and romantic traditions to the grave exactness of historical
truth.
The next of the early chronicles that claims our notice is the one
called, with primitive simplicity, “The Chronicle of the Cid”; in some
respects as important as the one we have just examined; in others,
less so. The first thing that strikes us, when we open it, is, that,
although it has much of the appearance and arrangement of a separate
and independent work, it is substantially the same with the two hundred
and eighty pages which constitute the first portion of the Fourth
Book of the General Chronicle of Spain; so that one must certainly
have been taken from the other, or both from some common source. The
latter is, perhaps, the more obvious conclusion, and has sometimes been
adopted;[249] but, on a careful examination, it will probably be found
that the Chronicle of the Cid is rather taken from that of Alfonso
the Wise, than from any materials common to both and older than both.
For, in the first place, each, in the same words, often claims to be
a translation from the same authors; yet, as the language of both is
frequently identical for pages together, this cannot be true, unless
one copied from the other. And, secondly, the Chronicle of the Cid, in
some instances, corrects the errors of the General Chronicle, and in
one instance at least makes an addition to it of a date later than that
of the Chronicle itself.[250] But, passing over the details of this
obscure, but not unimportant, point, it is sufficient for our present
purpose to say, that the Chronicle of the Cid is the same in substance
with the history of the Cid in the General Chronicle, and was probably
taken from it.
[249] This is the opinion of Southey, in the Preface to his
“Chronicle of the Cid,” which, though one of the most amusing and
instructive books, in relation to the manners and feelings of the
Middle Ages, that is to be found in the English language, is not
quite so wholly a translation from its three Spanish sources as
it claims to be. The opinion of Huber on the same point is like
that of Southey.
[250] Both the chronicles cite for their authorities the
Archbishop Rodrigo of Toledo, and the Bishop Lucas of Tuy,
in Galicia, (Cid, Cap. 293; General, 1604, f. 313. b, and
elsewhere,) and represent them as dead. Now the first died in
1247, and the last in 1250; and as the General Chronicle of
Alfonso X. was _necessarily_ written between 1252 and 1282, and
_probably_ written soon after 1252, it is not to be supposed,
either that the Chronicle of the Cid, or any other chronicle in
the _Spanish_ language which the General Chronicle could use,
was already compiled. But there are passages in the Chronicle of
the Cid which prove it to be later than the General Chronicle.
For instance, in Chapters 294, 295, and 296 of the Chronicle
of the Cid, there is a correction of an error of two years in
the General Chronicle’s chronology. And again, in the General
Chronicle, (ed. 1604, f. 313. b,) after relating the burial of
the Cid, by the bishops, in a vault, and dressed in his clothes,
(“vestido con sus paños,”) it adds, “And thus he was laid where
he still lies” (“_E assi yaze ay do agora yaze_”); but in the
Chronicle of the Cid, the words in Italics are stricken out, and
we have instead, “And there he remained a long time, till King
Alfonso came to reign (“E hy estudo muy grand tiempo, fasta que
vino el Rey Don Alfonso a reynar”); after which words we have
an account of the translation of his body to another tomb, by
Alfonso the Wise, the son of Ferdinand. But, besides that this
is plainly an addition to the Chronicle of the Cid, made later
than the account given in the General Chronicle, there is a
little clumsiness about it that renders it quite curious; for, in
speaking of St. Ferdinand with the usual formulary, as “he who
conquered Andalusia, and the city of Jaen, and many other royal
towns and castles,” it adds, “As the history will relate to you
_farther on_ (“Segun que adelante vos lo contará la historia”).
Now the history of the Cid has nothing to do with the history
of St. Ferdinand, who lived a hundred years after him, and is
never again mentioned in this Chronicle; and therefore the little
passage containing the account of the translation of the body of
the Cid, in the thirteenth century, to its next resting-place
was probably cut out from some other chronicle which contained
the history of St. Ferdinand, as well as that of the Cid. My own
conjecture is, that it was cut out from the abridgment of the
General Chronicle of Alfonso the Wise made by his nephew Don
John Manuel, who would be quite likely to insert an addition so
honorable to his uncle, when he came to the point of the Cid’s
interment; an interment of which the General Chronicle’s account
had ceased to be the true one. Cap. 291.
It is a curious fact, though not one of consequence to this
inquiry, that the remains of the Cid, besides their removal
by Alfonso the Wise, in 1272, were successively transferred
to different places, in 1447, in 1541, again in the beginning
of the eighteenth century, and again, by the bad taste of the
French General Thibaut, in 1809 or 1810, until, at last, in 1824,
they were restored to their original sanctuary in San Pedro de
Cardenas. Semanario Pintoresco, 1838, p. 648.
When it was arranged in its present form, or by whom this was done, we
have no notice.[251] But it was found, as we now read it, at Cardenas,
in the very monastery where the Cid lies buried, and was seen there
by the youthful Ferdinand, great-grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella,
who was afterwards emperor of Germany, and who was induced to give the
abbot an order to have it printed.[252] This was done accordingly in
1512, since which time there have been but two editions of it, those
of 1552 and of 1593, until it was reprinted in 1844, at Marburg, in
Germany, with an excellent critical preface in Spanish, by Huber.
[251] If it be asked what were the authorities on which the
portion of the Crónica General relating to the Cid relies for
its materials, I should answer:--1. Those cited in the Prólogo
to the whole work by Alfonso himself, some of which are again
cited when speaking of the Cid. Among these, the most important
is the Archbishop Rodrigo’s “Historia Gothica.” (See Nic. Ant.,
Bibl. Vet., Lib. VIII. c. 2, § 28.) 2. It is probable there were
Arabic records of the Cid, as a life of him, or part of a life of
him, by a nephew of Alfaxati, the converted Moor, is referred to
in the Chronicle itself, Cap. 278, and in Crón. Gen., 1541, f.
359. b. But there is nothing in the Chronicle that sounds like
Arabic, except the “Lament for the Fall of Valencia,” beginning
“Valencia, Valencia, vinieron sobre ti muchos quebrantos,” which
is on f. 329. a, and again, poorly amplified, on f. 329. b,
but out of which has been made the fine ballad, “Apretada esta
Valencia,” which can be traced back to the ballad-book printed by
Martin Nucio, at Antwerp, 1550, though, I believe, no farther.
If, therefore, there be any thing in the Chronicle of the Cid
taken from documents in the Arabic language, such documents were
written by Christians, or a Christian character was impressed on
the facts taken from them.[*] 3. It has been suggested by the
Spanish translators of Bouterwek, (p. 255,) that the Chronicle
of the Cid in Spanish is substantially taken from the “Historia
Roderici Didaci,” published by Risco, in “La Castilla y el mas
Famoso Castellano” (1792, App., pp. xvi.-lx.). But the Latin,
though curious and valuable, is a meagre compendium, in which
I find nothing of the attractive stories and adventures of the
Spanish, but occasionally something to contradict or discredit
them. 4. the old “Poem of the Cid” was, no doubt, used, and
used freely, by the chronicler, whoever he was, though he never
alludes to it. This has been noticed by Sanchez, (Tom. I. pp.
226-228,) and must be noticed again, in note 28, where I shall
give an extract from the Chronicle. I add here only, that it is
clearly the Poem that was used by the Chronicle, and not the
Chronicle that was used by the Poem.
[*] Since writing this note, I learn that my friend Don Pascual
de Gayangos possesses an Arabic chronicle that throws much light
on this Spanish chronicle and on the life of the Cid.
[252] Prohemio. The good abbot considers the Chronicle to have
been written in the lifetime of the Cid, i. e. before A. D. 1100,
and yet it refers to the Archbishop of Toledo and the Bishop of
Tuy, who were of the thirteenth century. Moreover, he speaks
of the intelligent interest the Prince Ferdinand took in it;
but Oviedo, in his Dialogue on Cardinal Ximenes, says the young
prince was only eight years and some months old when he gave the
order. Quinquagena, MS.
As a part of the General Chronicle of Spain,[253] we must, with a
little hesitation, pronounce the Chronicle of the Cid less interesting
than several of the portions that immediately precede it. But still,
it is the great national version of the achievements of the great
national hero who freed the fourth part of his native land from the
loathed intrusion of the Moors, and who stands to this day connected
with the proudest recollections of Spanish glory. It begins with the
Cid’s first victories under Ferdinand the Great, and therefore only
alludes to his early youth, and to the extraordinary circumstances
on which Corneille, following the old Spanish play and ballads, has
founded his tragedy; but it gives afterwards, with great minuteness,
nearly every one of the adventures that in the older traditions are
ascribed to him, down to his death, which happened in 1099, or rather
down to the death of Alfonso the Sixth, ten years later.
[253] Sometimes it is necessary earlier to allude to a portion
of the Cid’s history, and then it is added, “As we shall relate
farther on”; so that it is quite certain the Cid’s history
was originally regarded as a necessary portion of the General
Chronicle. (Crónica General, ed. 1604, Tercera Parte, f. 92. b.)
When, therefore, we come to the Fourth Part, where it really
belongs, we have, first, a chapter on the accession of Ferdinand
the Great, and then the history of the Cid connected with that
of the reigns of Ferdinand, Sancho II., and Alfonso VI.; but the
whole is so truly an integral part of the General Chronicle and
not a separate chronicle of the Cid, that, when it was taken out
to serve as a separate chronicle, it was taken out as _the three
reigns_ of the three sovereigns above mentioned, beginning with
one chapter that goes back ten years before the Cid was born,
and ending with five chapters that run forward ten years after
his death; while, at the conclusion of the whole, is a sort of
colophon, apologizing (Chrónica del Cid, Burgos, 1593, fol., f.
277) for the fact that it is so much a chronicle of these three
kings, rather than a mere chronicle of the Cid. This, with the
peculiar character of the differences between the two that have
been already noticed, has satisfied me that the Chronicle of the
Cid was taken from the General Chronicle.
Much of it is as fabulous[254] as the accounts of Bernardo del Carpio
and the Children of Lara, though perhaps not more so than might be
expected in a work of such a period and such pretensions. Its style,
too, is suited to its romantic character, and is more diffuse and grave
than that of the best narrative portions of the General Chronicle. But
then, on the other hand, it is overflowing with the very spirit of the
times when it was written, and offers us so true a picture of their
generous virtues, as well as their stern violence, that it may well be
regarded as one of the best books in the world, if not the very best,
for studying the real character and manners of the ages of chivalry.
Occasionally there are passages in it like the following description of
the Cid’s feelings and conduct, when he left his good castle of Bivar,
unjustly and cruelly exiled by the king, which, whether invented or
not, are as true to the spirit of the period they represent, as if the
minutest of their details were ascertained facts.
[254] Masdeu (Historia Crítica de España, Madrid, 1783-1805,
4to, Tom. XX.) would have us believe that the whole is a fable;
but this demands too much credulity. The question is discussed
with acuteness and learning in “Jos. Aschbach de Cidi Historiæ
Fontibus Dissertatio,” (Bonnæ, 4to, 1843, pp. 5, etc.,) but
little can be settled about individual facts.
“And when he saw his courts deserted and without people, and the
perches without falcons, and the gateway without its judgment-seats, he
turned himself toward the East and knelt down and said, ‘Saint Mary,
Mother, and all other Saints, graciously beseech God that he would
grant me might to overcome all these pagans, and that I may gain from
them wherewith to do good to my friends, and to all those that may
follow and help me.’ And then he went on and asked for Alvar Fañez,
and said to him, ‘Cousin, what fault have the poor in the wrong that
the king has done us? Warn all my people, then, that they harm none,
wheresoever we may go.’ And he called for his horse to mount. Then
spake up an old woman standing at her door and said, ‘Go on with good
luck, for you shall make spoil of whatsoever you may find or desire.’
And the Cid, when he heard that saying, rode on, for he would tarry
no longer; and as he went out of Bivar, he said, ‘Now do I desire you
should know, my friends, that it is the will of God that we should
return to Castile with great honor and great gain.’”[255]
[255] The portion of the Chronicle of the Cid from which I have
taken the extract is among the portions which least resemble the
corresponding parts of the General Chronicle. It is in Chap.
91; and from Chap. 88 to Chap. 93 there is a good deal not
found in the parallel passages in the General Chronicle, (1604,
f. 224, etc.,) though, where they do resemble each other, the
phraseology is still frequently identical. The particular passage
I have selected was, I think, suggested by the first lines that
remain to us of the “Poema del Cid”; and perhaps, if we had the
preceding lines of that poem, we should be able to account for
yet more of the additions to the Chronicle in this passage. The
lines I refer to are as follows:--
De los sos oios tan fuertes · mientre lorando
Tornaba la cabeza, · e estabalos catando.
Vio puertas abiertas · e uzos sin cañados,
Alcándaras vacias, · sin pielles e sin mantos,
E sin falcones e sin · adtores mudados.
Sospiró mio Cid, ca · mucho avie grandes cuidados.
Other passages are quite as obviously taken from the poem.
Some of the touches of manners in this little passage, such as
the allusion to the judgment-seats at his gate, where the Cid in
patriarchal simplicity had administered justice to his vassals, and the
hint of the poor augury gathered from the old woman’s wish, which seems
to be of more power with him than the prayer he had just uttered, or
the bold hopes that were driving him to the Moorish frontiers,--such
touches give life and truth to this old chronicle, and bring its times
and feelings, as it were, sensibly before us. Adding its peculiar
treasures to those contained in the rest of the General Chronicle, we
shall find, in the whole, nearly all the romantic and poetical fables
and adventures that belong to the earliest portions of Spanish history.
At the same time, we shall obtain a living picture of the state of
manners in that dark period, when the elements of modern society were
just beginning to be separated from the chaos in which they had long
struggled, and out of which, by the action of successive ages, they
have been gradually wrought into those forms of policy which now give
stability to governments and peace to the intercourse of men.
CHAPTER IX.
EFFECTS OF THE EXAMPLE OF ALFONSO THE TENTH.--CHRONICLES OF HIS
OWN REIGN, AND OF THE REIGNS OF SANCHO THE BRAVE AND FERDINAND THE
FOURTH.--CHRONICLE OF ALFONSO THE ELEVENTH, BY VILLAIZAN.--CHRONICLES
OF PETER THE CRUEL, HENRY THE SECOND, JOHN THE FIRST, AND HENRY THE
THIRD, BY AYALA.--CHRONICLE OF JOHN THE SECOND.--TWO CHRONICLES OF
HENRY THE FOURTH, AND TWO OF FERDINAND AND ISABELLA.
The idea of Alfonso the Wise, simply and nobly expressed in the opening
of his Chronicle, that he was desirous to leave for posterity a record
of what Spain had been and had done in all past time,[256] was not
without influence upon the nation, even in the state in which it then
was, and in which, for above a century afterwards, it continued.
But, as in the case of that great king’s project for a uniform
administration of justice by a settled code, his example was too much
in advance of his age to be immediately followed; though, as in that
memorable case, when it was once adopted, its fruits became abundant.
The two next kings, Sancho the Brave and Ferdinand the Fourth, took
no measures, so far as we know, to keep up and publish the history of
their reigns. But Alfonso the Eleventh, the same monarch, it should
be remembered, under whom the “Partidas” became the law of the land,
recurred to the example of his wise ancestor, and ordered the annals of
the kingdom to be continued, from the time when those of the General
Chronicle ceased down to his own; embracing, of course, the reigns
of Alfonso the Wise, Sancho the Brave, and Ferdinand the Fourth, or
the period from 1252 to 1312.[257] This is the first instance of the
appointment of a royal chronicler, and may, therefore, be regarded
as the creation of an office of consequence in all that regards the
history of the country, and which, however much it may have been
neglected in later times, furnished important documents down to the
reign of Charles the Fifth, and was continued, in form at least, till
the establishment of the Academy of History in the beginning of the
eighteenth century.
[256] It sounds much like the “Partidas,” beginning, “Los sabios
antiguos que fueron en los tiempos primeros, y fallaron los
saberes y las otras cosas, tovieron que menguarien en sus fechos
y en su lealtad, si tambien no lo quisiessen para los otros que
avien de venir, como para si mesmos o por los otros que eran en
su tiempo,” etc. But such introductions are common in other early
chronicles, and in other old Spanish books.
[257] “Chrónica del muy Esclarecido Príncipe y Rey D. Alfonso, el
que fue par de Emperador, y hizo el Libro de las Siete Partidas,
y ansimismo al fin deste Libro va encorporada la Crónica del Rey
D. Sancho el Bravo,” etc., Valladolid, 1554, folio; to which
should be added “Crónica del muy Valeroso Rey D. Fernando,
Visnieto del Santo Rey D. Fernando,” etc., Valladolid, 1554,
folio.
By whom this office was first filled does not appear; but the Chronicle
itself seems to have been prepared about the year 1320. Formerly it
was attributed to Fernan Sanchez de Tovar; but Fernan Sanchez was a
personage of great consideration and power in the state, practised
in public affairs, and familiar with their history, so that we can
hardly attribute to him the mistakes with which this Chronicle abounds,
especially in the part relating to Alfonso the Wise.[258] But, whoever
may have been its author, the Chronicle, which, it may be noticed, is
so distinctly divided into the three reigns, that it is rather three
chronicles than one, has little value as a composition. Its narrative
is given with a rude and dry formality, and whatever interest it
awakens depends, not upon its style and manner, but upon the character
of the events recorded, which sometimes have an air of adventure about
them belonging to the elder times, and, like them, are picturesque.
[258] All this may be found abundantly discussed in the “Memorias
de Alfonso el Sabio,” by the Marques de Mondejar, pp. 569-635.
Clemencin, however, still attributes the Chronicle to Fernan
Sanchez de Tovar. Mem. de la Acad. de Historia, Tom. VI. p. 451.
The example of regular chronicling, having now been fairly set at the
court of Castile, was followed by Henry the Second, who commanded his
Chancellor and Chief-Justiciary, Juan Nuñez de Villaizan, to prepare,
as we are told in the Preface, in imitation of the ancients, an account
of his father’s reign. In this way, the series goes on unbroken, and
now gives us the “Chronicle of Alfonso the Eleventh,”[259] beginning
with his birth and education, of which the notices are slight, but
relating amply the events from the time he came to the throne, in
1312, till his death in 1350. How much of it was actually written
by the chancellor of the kingdom cannot be ascertained.[260] From
different passages, it seems that an older chronicle was used freely
in its composition;[261] and the whole should, therefore, probably be
regarded as a compilation made under the responsibility of the highest
personages of the realm. Its opening will show at once the grave and
measured tone it takes, and the accuracy it claims for its dates and
statements.
[259] There is an edition of this Chronicle (Valladolid, 1551,
folio) better than the old editions of such Spanish books
commonly are; but the best is that of Madrid, 1787, 4to, edited
by Cerdá y Rico, and published under the auspices of the Spanish
Academy of History.
[260] The phrase is, “Mandó á Juan Nuñez de Villaizan, Alguacil
de la su Casa, que la ficiese trasladar en Pergaminos, e fizola
trasladar, et escribióla Ruy Martinez de Medina de Rioseco,” etc.
See Preface.
[261] In Cap. 340 and elsewhere.
“God is the beginning and the means and the end of all things; and
without him they cannot subsist. For by his power they are made, and by
his wisdom ordered, and by his goodness maintained. And he is the Lord;
and, in all things, almighty, and conqueror in all battles. Wherefore,
whosoever would begin any good work should first name the name of God,
and place him before all things, asking and beseeching of his mercy
to give him knowledge and will and power, whereby he may bring it to
a good end. Therefore will this pious chronicle henceforward relate
whatsoever happened to the noble King, Don Alfonso, of Castile and
Leon, and the battles and conquests and victories that he had and did
in his life against Moors and against Christians. And it will begin in
the fifteenth year of the reign of the most noble King, Don Fernando,
his father.”[262]
[262] Ed. 1787, p. 3.
The reign of the father, however, occupies only three short chapters;
after which, the rest of the Chronicle, containing in all three hundred
and forty-two chapters, comes down to the death of Alfonso, who
perished of the plague before Gibraltar, and then abruptly closes. Its
general tone is grave and decisive, like that of a person speaking with
authority upon matters of importance, and it is rare that we find in it
a sketch of manners like the following account of the young king at the
age of fourteen or fifteen.
“And as long as he remained in the city of Valladolid, there were
with him knights and esquires, and his tutor, Martin Fernandez de
Toledo, that brought him up, and that had been with him a long time,
even before the queen died, and other men, who had long been used
to palaces, and to the courts of kings; and all these gave him an
ensample of good manners. And, moreover, he had been brought up with
the children of men of note, and with noble knights. But the king, of
his own condition, was well-mannered in eating, and drank little, and
was clad as became his estate; and in all other his customs he was
well conditioned, for his speech was true Castilian, and he hesitated
not in what he had to say. And so long as he was in Valladolid, he
sat three days in the week to hear the complaints and suits that came
before him; and he was shrewd in understanding the facts thereof, and
he was faithful in secret matters, and loved them that served him, each
after his place, and trusted truly and entirely those whom he ought
to trust. And he began to be much given to horsemanship, and pleased
himself with arms, and loved to have in his household strong men, that
were bold and of good conditions. And he loved much all his own people,
and was sore grieved at the great mischief and great harm there were
in the land through failure of justice, and he had indignation against
evil-doers.”[263]
[263] Ed. 1787, p. 80.
But though there are few sketches in the Chronicle of Alfonso the
Eleventh like the preceding, we find in general a well-ordered account
of the affairs of that monarch’s long and active reign, given with
a simplicity and apparent sincerity which, in spite of the formal
plainness of its style, make it almost always interesting, and
sometimes amusing.
The next considerable attempt approaches somewhat nearer to proper
history. It is the series of chronicles relating to the troublesome
reigns of Peter the Cruel and Henry the Second, to the hardly less
unsettled times of John the First, and to the more quiet and prosperous
reign of Henry the Third. They were written by Pedro Lopez de Ayala,
in some respects the first Spaniard of his age; distinguished, as
we have seen, among the poets of the latter part of the fourteenth
century, and now to be noticed as the best prose-writer of the same
period. He was born in 1332,[264] and, though only eighteen years
old when Peter ascended the throne, was soon observed and employed
by that acute monarch. But when troubles arose in the kingdom, Ayala
left his tyrannical master, who had already shown himself capable of
almost any degree of guilt, and joined his fortunes to those of Henry
of Trastamara, the king’s illegitimate brother, who had, of course,
no claim to the throne but such as was laid in the crimes of its
possessor, and the good-will of the suffering nobles and people.
[264] For the Life of Ayala, see Nic. Antonio, Bib. Vet., Lib. X.
c. 1.
At first, the cause of Henry was successful. But Peter addressed
himself for help to Edward the Black Prince, then in his duchy of
Aquitaine, who, as Froissart relates, thinking it would be a great
prejudice against the estate royal[265] to have a usurper succeed,
entered Spain, and, with a strong hand, replaced the fallen monarch
on his throne. At the decisive battle of Naxera, by which this was
achieved, in 1367, Ayala, who bore his prince’s standard, was taken
prisoner[266] and carried to England, where he wrote a part at least of
his poems on a courtly life. Somewhat later, Peter, no longer supported
by the Black Prince, was dethroned; and Ayala, who was then released
from his tedious imprisonment, returned home, and afterwards became
Grand-Chancellor to Henry the Second, in whose service he gained so
much consideration and influence, that he seems to have descended as
a sort of traditionary minister of state through the reign of John
the First, and far into that of Henry the Third. Sometimes, indeed,
like other grave personages, ecclesiastical as well as civil, he
appeared as a military leader, and once again, in the disastrous battle
of Aljubarrota, in 1385, he was taken prisoner. But his Portuguese
captivity does not seem to have been so long or so cruel as his English
one; and, at any rate, the last years of his life were passed quietly
in Spain. He died at Calahorra in 1407, seventy-five years old.
[265] The whole account in Froissart is worth reading, especially
in Lord Berners’s translation, (London, 1812, 4to, Vol. I. c.
231, etc.,) as an illustration of Ayala.
[266] See the passage in which Mariana gives an account of the
battle. Historia, Lib. XVII. c. 10.
“He was,” says his nephew, the noble Fernan Perez de Guzman, in the
striking gallery of portraits he has left us,[267] “He was a man of
very gentle qualities and of good conversation; had a great conscience
and feared God much. He loved knowledge, also, and gave himself much
to reading books and histories; and though he was as goodly a knight
as any, and of great discretion in the practices of the world, yet he
was by nature bent on learning, and spent a great part of his time in
reading and studying, not books of law, but of philosophy and history.
Through his means some books are now known in Castile that were not
known aforetime; such as Titus Livius, who is the most notable of the
Roman historians; the ‘Fall of Princes’; the ‘Ethics’ of Saint Gregory;
Isidorus ‘De Summo Bono’; Boethius; and the ‘History of Troy.’ He
prepared the History of Castile from the King Don Pedro to the King Don
Henry; and made a good book on Hunting, which he greatly affected, and
another called ‘Rimado de Palacio.’”
[267] Generaciones y Semblanzas, Cap. 7, Madrid, 1775, 4to, p.
222.
We should not, perhaps, at the present day, claim so much reputation
as his kinsman does for the Chancellor Ayala, in consequence of the
interest he took in books of such doubtful value as Guido de Colonna’s
“Trojan War,” and Boccaccio “De Casibus Principum,” but, in translating
Livy,[268] he unquestionably rendered his country an important service.
He rendered, too, a no less important service to himself; since a
familiarity with Livy tended to fit him for the task of preparing the
Chronicle, which now constitutes his chief distinction and merit.[269]
It begins in 1350, where that of Alfonso the Eleventh ends, and comes
down to the sixth year of Henry the Third, or to 1396, embracing that
portion of the author’s own life which was between his eighteenth year
and his sixty-fourth, and constituting the first safe materials for the
history of his native country.
[268] It is probable Ayala translated, or caused to be
translated, all these books. At least, such has been the
impression; and the mention of Isidore of Seville among the
authors “made known” seems to justify it, for, as a Spaniard of
great fame, St. Isidore must always have been _known_ in Spain in
every other way, except by a translation into Spanish. See, also,
the Preface to the edition of Boccaccio, Caída de Príncipes,
1495, in Fr. Mendez, Typografía Española, Madrid, 1796, 4to, p.
202.
[269] The first edition of Ayala’s Chronicles is of Seville,
1495, folio, but it seems to have been printed from a MS. that
did not contain the entire series. The best edition is that
published under the auspices of the Academy of History, by D.
Eugenio de Llaguno Amirola, its secretary (Madrid, 1779, 2
tom. 4to). That Ayala was the authorized chronicler of Castile
is apparent from the whole tone of his work, and is directly
asserted in an old MS. of a part of it, cited by Bayer in his
notes to N. Antonio, Bib. Vet., Lib. X. cap. 1, num. 10, n. 1.
For such an undertaking Ayala was singularly well fitted. Spanish
prose was already well advanced in his time; for Don John Manuel,
the last of the elder school of good writers, did not die till Ayala
was fifteen years old. He was, moreover, as we have seen, a scholar,
and, for the age in which he lived, a remarkable one; and, what is of
more importance than either of these circumstances, he was personally
familiar with the course of public affairs during the forty-six years
embraced by his Chronicle. Of all this traces are to be found in his
work. His style is not, like that of the oldest chroniclers, full
of a rich vivacity and freedom; but, without being over-carefully
elaborated, it is simple and business-like; while, to give a more
earnest air, if not an air of more truth to the whole, he has, in
imitation of Livy, introduced into the course of his narrative set
speeches and epistles intended to express the feelings and opinions of
his principal actors more distinctly than they could be expressed by
the mere facts and current of the story. Compared with the Chronicle
of Alfonso the Wise, which preceded it by above a century, it lacks
the charm of that poetical credulity which loves to deal in doubtful
traditions of glory, rather than in those ascertained facts which are
often little honorable either to the national fame or to the spirit
of humanity. Compared with the Chronicle of Froissart, with which it
was contemporary, we miss the honest-hearted, but somewhat childlike,
enthusiasm that looks with unmingled delight and admiration upon all
the gorgeous phantasmagoria of chivalry, and find, instead of it, the
penetrating sagacity of an experienced statesman, who looks quite
through the deeds of men, and, like Comines, thinks it not at all worth
while to conceal the great crimes with which he has been familiar, if
they can be but wisely and successfully set forth. When, therefore, we
read Ayala’s Chronicle, we do not doubt that we have made an important
step in the progress of the species of writing to which it belongs,
and that we are beginning to approach the period when history is to
teach with sterner exactness the lesson it has learned from the hard
experience of the past.
Among the many curious and striking passages in Ayala’s Chronicle, the
most interesting are, perhaps, those that relate to the unfortunate
Blanche of Bourbon, the young and beautiful wife of Peter the Cruel,
who, for the sake of María de Padilla, forsook her two days after his
marriage, and, when he had kept her long in prison, at last sacrificed
her to his base passion for his mistress; an event which excited, as
we learn from Froissart’s Chronicle, a sensation of horror, not only
in Spain, but throughout Europe, and became an attractive subject for
the popular poetry of the old national ballads, several of which we
find were devoted to it.[270] But it may well be doubted whether even
the best of the ballads give us so near and moving a picture of her
cruel sufferings as Ayala does, when, going on step by step in his
passionless manner, he shows us the queen first solemnly wedded in the
church at Toledo, and then pining in her prison at Medina Sidonia; the
excitement of the nobles, and the indignation of the king’s own mother
and family; carrying us all the time with painful exactness through the
long series of murders and atrocities by which Pedro at last reaches
the final crime which, during eight years, he had hesitated to commit.
For there is, in the succession of scenes he thus exhibits to us, a
circumstantial minuteness which is above all power of generalization,
and brings the guilty monarch’s character more vividly before us
than it could be brought by the most fervent spirit of poetry or of
eloquence.[271] And it is precisely this cool and patient minuteness
of the chronicler, founded on his personal knowledge, that gives its
peculiar character to Ayala’s record of the four wild reigns in which
he lived; presenting them to us in a style less spirited and vigorous,
indeed, than that of some of the older chronicles of the monarchy, but
certainly in one more simple, more judicious, and more effective for
the true purposes of history.[272]
[270] There are about a dozen ballads on the subject of Don
Pedro, of which the best, I think, are those beginning, “Doña
Blanca esta en Sidonia,” “En un retrete en que apenas,” “No
contento el Rey D. Pedro,” and “Doña Maria de Padilla,” the last
of which is in the Saragossa Cancionero of 1550, Parte II. f. 46.
[271] See the Crónica de Don Pedro, Ann. 1353, Capp. 4, 5, 11,
12, 14, 21; Ann. 1354, Capp. 19, 21; Ann. 1358, Capp. 2 and 3;
and Ann. 1361, Cap. 3.
[272] The fairness of Ayala in regard to Don Pedro has been
questioned, and, from his relations to that monarch, may
naturally be suspected;--a point on which Mariana touches,
(Historia, Lib. XVII. c. 10,) without settling it, but one of
some little consequence in Spanish literary history, where the
character of Don Pedro often appears connected with poetry and
the drama. The first person who attacked Ayala was, I believe,
Pedro de Gracia Dei, a courtier in the time of Ferdinand and
Isabella and in that of Charles V. He was King-at-Arms and
Chronicler to the Catholic sovereigns, and I have, in manuscript,
a collection of his professional _coplas_ on the lineages and
arms of the principal families of Spain, and on the general
history of the country;--short poems, worthless as verse, and
sneered at by Argote de Molina, in the Preface to his “Nobleza
del Andaluzia,” (1588,) for the imperfect knowledge their author
had of the subjects on which he treated. His defence of Don Pedro
is not better. It is found in the Seminario Erudito, (Madrid,
1790, Tom. XXVIII. and XXIX.,) with additions by a later hand,
probably Diego de Castilla, Dean of Toledo, who, I believe,
was one of Don Pedro’s descendants. It cites no sufficient
authorities for the averments which it makes about events that
happened a century and a half earlier, and on which, therefore,
it was unsuitable to trust the voice of tradition. Francisco de
Castilla, who certainly had blood of Don Pedro in his veins,
followed in the same track, and speaks, in his “Pratica de las
Virtudes,” (Çaragoça, 1552, 4to, fol. 28,) of the monarch and of
Ayala as
El gran rey Don Pedro, quel vulgo reprueva
Por selle enemigo, quien hizo su historia, etc.
All this, however, produced little effect. But, in process of
time, books were written upon the question;--the “Apologia
del Rey Don Pedro,” by Ledo del Pozo, (Madrid, folio, s. a.,)
and “El Rey Don Pedro defendido,” (Madrid, 1648, 4to,) by
Vera y Figueroa, the diplomatist of the reign of Philip IV.;
works intended, apparently, only to flatter the pretensions of
royalty, but whose consequences we shall find when we come to the
“Valiente Justiciero” of Moreto, Calderon’s “Médico de su Honra,”
and similar poetical delineations of Pedro’s character in the
seventeenth century. The ballads, however, it should be noticed,
are almost always true to the view of Pedro given by Ayala;--the
most striking exception that I remember being the admirable
ballad beginning “A los pies de Don Enrique,” Quinta Parte de
Flor de Romances, recopilado por Sebastian Velez de Guevara,
Burgos, 1594, 18mo.
The last of the royal chronicles that it is necessary to notice with
much particularity is that of John the Second, which begins with
the death of Henry the Third, and comes down to the death of John
himself, in 1454.[273] It was the work of several hands, and contains
internal evidence of having been written at different periods. Alvar
Garcia de Santa María, no doubt, prepared the account of the first
fourteen years, or to 1420, constituting about one third of the whole
work;[274] after which, in consequence perhaps of his attachment to the
Infante Ferdinand, who was regent during the minority of the king, and
subsequently much disliked by him, his labors ceased.[275] Who wrote
the next portion is not known;[276] but from about 1429 to 1445, John
de Mena, the leading poet of his time, was the royal annalist, and, if
we are to trust the letters of one of his friends, seems to have been
diligent in collecting materials for his task, if not earnest in all
its duties.[277] Other parts have been attributed to Juan Rodriguez del
Padron, a poet, and Diego de Valera,[278] a knight and gentleman often
mentioned in the Chronicle itself, and afterwards himself employed as
a chronicler by Queen Isabella.
[273] The first edition of the “Crónica del Señor Rey D. Juan,
segundo de este Nombre,” was printed at Logroño, (1517, fol.,)
and is the most correct of the old editions that I have used. The
best of all, however, is the beautiful one printed at Valencia,
by Monfort, in 1779, folio, to which may be added an Appendix by
P. Fr. Liciniano Saez, Madrid, 1786, folio.
[274] See his Prólogo, in the edition of 1779, p. xix., and
Galindez de Carvajal, Prefacion, p. 19.
[275] He lived as late as 1444; for he is mentioned more than
once in that year, in the Chronicle. See Ann. 1444, Capp. 14, 15.
[276] Prefacion de Carvajal.
[277] Fernan Gomez de Cibdareal, physician to John II., Centon
Epistolario, Madrid, 1775, 4to, Epist. 23 and 74; a work,
however, whose genuineness I shall be obliged to question
hereafter.
[278] Prefacion de Carvajal. Poetry of Rodriguez del Padron is
found in the Cancioneros Generales; and of Diego de Valera there
is “La Crónica de España abreviada por Mandado de la muy Poderosa
Señora Doña Isabel, Reyna de Castilla,” made in 1481, when its
author was sixty-nine years old, and printed, 1482, 1493, 1495,
etc.,--a chronicle of considerable merit for its style, and of
some value, notwithstanding it is a compendium, for the original
materials it contains towards the end, such as two eloquent and
bold letters by Valera himself to John II., on the troubles
of the time, and an account of what he personally saw of the
last days of the Great Constable, (Parte IV. c. 125,)--the last
and the most important chapter in the book. (Mendez, p. 138.
Capmany, Eloquencia Española, Madrid, 1786, 8vo, Tom. I. p. 180.)
It should be added, that the editor of the Chronicle of John
II. (1779) thinks Valera was the person who finally arranged
and settled that Chronicle; but the opinion of Carvajal seems
the more probable. Certainly, I hope Valera had no hand in the
praise bestowed on himself in the excellent story told of him
in the Chronicle, (Ann. 1437, Cap. 3,) showing how, in presence
of the king of Bohemia, at Prague, he defended the honor of his
liege lord, the king of Castile. A treatise of a few pages on
Providence, by Diego de Valera, printed in the edition of the
“Vision Deleytable,” of 1489, and reprinted, almost entire, in
the first volume of Capmany’s “Eloquencia Española,” is worth
reading, as a specimen of the grave didactic prose of the
fifteenth century. A Chronicle of Ferdinand and Isabella, by
Valera, which may well have been the best and most important of
his works, has never been printed. Gerónimo Gudiel, Compendio de
Algunas Historias de España, Alcalá, 1577, fol., f. 101. b.
But whoever may have been at first concerned in it, the whole work was
ultimately committed to Fernan Perez de Guzman, a scholar, a courtier,
and an acute as well as a witty observer of manners, who survived John
the Second, and probably arranged and completed the Chronicle of his
master’s reign, as it was published by order of the Emperor Charles
the Fifth;[279] some passages having been added as late as the time
of Ferdinand and Isabella, who are more than once alluded to in it as
reigning sovereigns.[280] It is divided, like the Chronicle of Ayala,
which may naturally have been its model, into the different years of
the king’s reign, each year being subdivided into chapters; and it
contains a great number of important original letters and other curious
contemporary documents,[281] from which, as well as from the care used
in its compilation, it has been considered more absolutely trustworthy
than any Castilian chronicle that preceded it.[282]
[279] From the phraseology of Carvajal, (p. 20,) we may infer
that Fernan Perez de Guzman is chiefly responsible for the style
and general character of the Chronicle. “Cogió de cada uno lo
que le pareció mas probable, y abrevió algunas cosas, tomando la
sustancia dellas; porque así creyó que convenia.” He adds, that
this Chronicle was much valued by Isabella, who was the daughter
of John II.
[280] Anno 1451, Cap. 2, and Anno 1453, Cap. 2. See, also, some
remarks on the author of this Chronicle by the editor of the
“Crónica de Alvaro de Luna,” (Madrid, 1784, 4to,) Prólogo, pp.
xxv.-xxviii.
[281] For example, 1406, Cap. 6, etc.; 1430, Cap. 2; 1441, Cap.
30; 1453, Cap. 3.
[282] “Es sin duda la mas puntual i la mas segura de quantas
se conservan antiguas.” Mondejar, Noticia y Juicio de los mas
Principales Historiadores de España, Madrid, 1746, fol., p. 112.
In its general air, there is a good deal to mark the manners of
the age, such as accounts of the court ceremonies, festivals, and
tournaments that were so much loved by John; and its style, though, on
the whole, unornamented and unpretending, is not wanting in variety,
spirit, and solemnity. Once, on occasion of the fall and ignominious
death of the Great Constable Alvaro de Luna, whose commanding spirit
had, for many years, impressed itself on the affairs of the kingdom,
the honest chronicler, though little favorable to that haughty
minister, seems unable to repress his feelings, and, recollecting
the treatise on the “Fall of Princes,” which Ayala had made known in
Spain, breaks out, saying: “O John Boccaccio, if thou wert now alive,
thy pen surely would not fail to record the fall of this strenuous and
bold gentleman among those of the mighty princes whose fate thou hast
set forth. For what greater example could there be to every estate?
what greater warning? what greater teaching to show the revolutions
and movements of deceitful and changing fortune? O blindness of the
whole race of man! O unexpected fall in the affairs of this our world!”
And so on through a chapter of some length.[283] But this is the only
instance of such an outbreak in the Chronicle. On the contrary, its
general tone shows, that historical composition in Spain was about to
undergo a permanent change; for, at its very outset, we have regular
speeches attributed to the principal personages it records,[284] such
as had been introduced by Ayala; and, through the whole, a well-ordered
and documentary record of affairs, tinged, no doubt, with some of the
prejudices and passions of the troublesome times to which it relates,
but still claiming to have the exactness of regular annals, and
striving to reach the grave and dignified style suited to the higher
purposes of history.[285]
[283] Anno 1453, Cap. 4.
[284] Anno 1406, Capp. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 15; Anno 1407, Capp. 6,
7, 8, etc.
[285] This Chronicle affords us, in one place that I have
noticed,--probably not the only one,--a curious instance of the
way in which the whole class of Spanish chronicles to which it
belongs were sometimes used in the poetry of the old ballads we
so much admire. The instance to which I refer is to be found in
the account of the leading event of the time, the violent death
of the Great Constable Alvaro de Luna, which the fine ballad
beginning “Un Miercoles de mañana” takes plainly from this
Chronicle of John II. The two are worth comparing throughout, and
their coincidences can be properly felt only when this is done;
but a little specimen may serve to show how curious is the whole.
The Chronicle (Anno 1453, Cap. 2) has it as follows:--“E vidó a
Barrasa, Caballerizo del Principe, e llamóle é dixóle: ‘Ven acá,
Barrasa, tu estas aqui mirando la muerte que me dan. Yo te ruego,
que digas al Principe mi Señor, que dé mejor gualardon a sus
criados, quel Rey mi Señor mandó dar á mi.’”
The ballad, which is cited as anonymous by Duran, but is found
in Sepúlveda’s Romances, etc., 1584, (f. 204,) though not in the
edition of 1551, gives the same striking circumstance, a little
amplified, in these words:--
Y vido estar a Barrasa,
Que al Principe le servia,
De ser su cavallerizo,
Y vino a ver aquel dia
A executar la justicia,
Que el maestre recebia:
“Ven aca, hermano Barrasa,
Di al Principe por tu vida,
Que de mejor galardon
A quien sirve a su señoria,
Que no el, que el Rey mi Señor
Me ha mandado dar este dia.”
So near do the old Spanish chronicles often come to being poetry,
and so near do the old Spanish ballads often come to being
history. But the Chronicle of John II. is, I think, the last to
which this remark can be applied.
If I felt sure of the genuineness of the “Centon Epistolario” of
Gomez de Cibdareal, I should here cite the one hundred and third
Letter as the material from which the Chronicle’s account was
constructed.
Of the disturbed and corrupt reign of Henry the Fourth, who, at one
period, was nearly driven from his throne by his younger brother,
Alfonso, we have two chronicles: the first by Diego Enriquez de
Castillo, who was attached, both as chaplain and historiographer, to
the person of the legitimate sovereign; and the other by Alonso de
Palencia, chronicler to the unfortunate pretender, whose claims were
sustained only three years, though the Chronicle of Palencia, like that
of Castillo, extends over the whole period of the regular sovereign’s
reign, from 1454 to 1474. They are as unlike each other as the fates
of the princes they record. The Chronicle of Castillo is written with
great plainness of manner, and, except in a few moral reflections,
chiefly at the beginning and the end, seems to aim at nothing but the
simplest and even the driest narrative;[286] while the Chronicle of
Palencia, who had been educated in Italy under the Greeks recently
arrived there from the ruins of the Eastern Empire, is in a false
and cumbrous style; a single sentence frequently stretching through
a chapter, and the whole work showing that he had gained little but
affectation and bad taste under the teachings of John Lascaris and
George of Trebizond.[287] Both works, however, are too strictly annals
to be read for any thing but the facts they contain.
[286] When the first edition of Castillo’s Chronicle was
published I do not know. It is treated as if still only in
manuscript by Mondejar in 1746 (Advertencias, p. 112); by
Bayer, in his notes to Nic. Antonio, (Bib. Vetus, Vol. II. p.
349,) which, though written a little earlier, were published
in 1788; and by Ochoa, in the notes to the inedited poems of
the Marquis of Santillana, (Paris, 1844, 8vo, p. 397,) and in
his “Manuscritos Españoles” (1844, p. 92, etc.). The very good
edition, however, prepared by Josef Miguel de Flores, published
in Madrid, by Sancha, (1787, 4to,) as a part of the Academy’s
collection, is announced, on its title-page, as the _second_. If
these learned men have all been mistaken on such a point, it is
very strange.
[287] For the use of a manuscript copy of Palencia’s Chronicle I
am indebted to my friend, W. H. Prescott, Esq., who notices it
among the materials for his “Ferdinand and Isabella,” (Vol. I. p.
136, Amer. ed.,) with his accustomed acuteness. A full life of
Palencia is to be found in Juan Pellicer, Bib. de Traductores,
(Madrid, 1778, 4to,) Second Part, pp. 7-12.
Similar remarks must be made about the chronicles of the reign of
Ferdinand and Isabella, extending from 1474 to 1504-16. There are
several of them, but only two need be noticed. One is by Andres
Bernaldez, often called “El Cura de los Palacios,” because he was
curate in the small town of that name, though the materials for his
Chronicle were, no doubt, gathered chiefly in Seville, the neighbouring
splendid capital of Andalusia, to whose princely Archbishop he was
chaplain. His Chronicle, written, it should seem, chiefly to please
his own taste, extends from 1488 to 1513. It is honest and sincere,
reflecting faithfully the physiognomy of his age; its credulity, its
bigotry, and its love of show. It is, in truth, such an account of
passing events as would be given by one who was rather curious about
them than a part of them; but who, from accident, was familiar with
whatever was going on among the leading spirits of his time and
country.[288] No portion of it is more valuable and interesting than
that which relates to Columbus, to whom he devotes thirteen chapters,
and for whose history he must have had excellent materials, since not
only was Deza, the Archbishop, to whose service he was attached, one
of the friends and patrons of Columbus, but Columbus himself, in 1496,
was a guest at the house of Bernaldez, and intrusted to him manuscripts
which, he says, he has employed in this very account; thus placing his
Chronicle among the documents important alike in the history of America
and of Spain.[289]
[288] I owe my knowledge of this manuscript, also, to my friend
Mr. Prescott, whose copy I have used. It consists of one hundred
and forty-four chapters, and the credulity and bigotry of its
author, as well as his better qualities, may be seen in his
accounts of the Sicilian Vespers, (Cap. 193,) of the Canary
Islands, (Cap. 64,) of the earthquake of 1504, (Cap. 200,) and
of the election of Leo X. (Cap. 239). Of his prejudice and
partiality, his version of the bold visit of the great Marquis of
Cadiz to Isabella, (Cap. 29,) when compared with Mr. Prescott’s
notice of it, (Part I. Chap. 6,) will give an idea; and of his
intolerance, the chapters (110-114) about the Jews afford proof
even beyond what might be expected from his age. There is an
imperfect article about Bernaldez in N. Antonio, Bib. Nov., but
the best materials for his life are in the egotism of his own
Chronicle.
[289] The chapters about Columbus are 118-131. The account
of Columbus’s visit to him is in Cap. 131, and that of the
manuscripts intrusted to him is in Cap. 123. He says, that, when
Columbus came to court in 1496, he was dressed as a Franciscan
monk, and wore the cord _por devocion_. He cites Sir John
Mandeville’s Travels, and seems to have read them (Cap. 123); a
fact of some significance, when we bear in mind his connection
with Columbus.
The other chronicle of the time of Ferdinand and Isabella is that of
Fernando del Pulgar, their Councillor of State, their Secretary, and
their authorized Annalist. He was a person of much note in his time,
but it is not known when he was born or where he died.[290] That he
was a man of wit and letters, and an acute observer of life, we know
from his notices of the Famous Men of Castile; from his Commentary on
the Coplas of Mingo Revulgo; and from a few spirited and pleasant
letters to his friends that have been spared to us. But as a chronicler
his merit is inconsiderable.[291] The early part of his work is not
trustworthy, and the latter part, beginning in 1482 and ending in 1490,
is brief in its narrative, and tedious in the somewhat showy speeches
with which it is burdened. The best of it is its style, which is
often dignified; but it is the style of history, rather than that of
a chronicle; and, indeed, the formal division of the work, according
to its subjects, into three parts, as well as the philosophical
reflections with which it is adorned, show that the ancients had been
studied by its author, and that he was desirous to imitate them.[292]
Why he did not continue his account beyond 1490, we cannot tell. It has
been conjectured that he died then.[293] But this is a mistake, for we
have a well-written and curious report, made by him to the queen, on
the whole Moorish history of Granada, after the capture of the city in
1492.[294]
[290] A notice of him is prefixed to his “Claros Varones”
(Madrid, 1775, 4to); but it is not much. We know from himself
that he was an old man in 1490.
[291] The first edition of his Chronicle, published by an
accident, as if it were the work of the famous Antonio de
Lebrija, appeared in 1565, at Valladolid. But the error was soon
discovered, and in 1567 it was printed anew, at Saragossa, with
its true author’s name. The only other edition of it, and by far
the best of the three, is the beautiful one, Valencia, 1780,
folio. See the Prólogo to this edition for the mistake by which
Pulgar’s Chronicle was attributed to Lebrija.
[292] Read, for instance, the long speech of Gomez Manrique to
the inhabitants of Toledo. (Parte II. c. 79.) It is one of the
best, and has a good deal of merit as an oratorical composition,
though its Roman tone is misplaced in such a chronicle. It is
a mistake, however, in the publisher of the edition of 1780 to
suppose that Pulgar first introduced these formal speeches into
the Spanish. They occur, as has been already observed, in the
Chronicles of Ayala, eighty or ninety years earlier.
[293] “Indicio harto probable de que falleció ántes de la toma de
Granada,” says Martinez de la Rosa, “Hernan Perez del Pulgar, el
de las Hazañas.” Madrid, 1834, 8vo, p. 229.
[294] This important document, which does Pulgar some honor as
a statesman, is to be found at length in the Seminario Erudito,
Madrid, 1788, Tom. XII. pp. 57-144.
The Chronicle of Ferdinand and Isabella by Pulgar is the last instance
of the old style of chronicling that should now be noticed; for though,
as we have already observed, it was long thought for the dignity of
the monarchy that the stately forms of authorized annals should be
kept up, the free and picturesque spirit that gave them life was no
longer there. Chroniclers were appointed, like Fernan de Ocampo and
Mexia; but the true chronicling style was gone by, not to return.
CHAPTER X.
CHRONICLES OF PARTICULAR EVENTS.--THE PASSO HONROSO.--THE SEGURO DE
TORDESILLAS.--CHRONICLES OF PARTICULAR PERSONS.--PERO NIÑO.--ALVARO DE
LUNA.--GONZALVO DE CÓRDOVA.--CHRONICLES OF TRAVELS.--CLAVIJO, COLUMBUS,
BALBOA, AND OTHERS.--ROMANTIC CHRONICLES.--RODERIC AND THE DESTRUCTION
OF SPAIN.--GENERAL REMARKS ON THE SPANISH CHRONICLES.
_Chronicles of Particular Events._--It should be borne in mind, that
we have thus far traced only the succession of what may be called the
general Spanish chronicles, which, prepared by royal hands or under
royal authority, have set forth the history of the whole country, from
its earliest beginnings and most fabulous traditions, down through
its fierce wars and divisions, to the time when it had, by the final
overthrow of the Moorish power, been settled into a quiet and compact
monarchy. From their subject and character, they are, of course,
the most important, and, generally, the most interesting, works of
the class to which they belong. But, as might be expected from the
influence they exercised and the popularity they enjoyed, they were
often imitated. Many chronicles were written on a great variety of
subjects, and many works in a chronicling style which yet never bore
the name. Most of them are of no value. But to the few that, from
their manner or style, deserve notice we must now turn for a moment,
beginning with those that refer to particular events.
Two of these special chronicles relate to occurrences in the reign
of John the Second, and are not only curious in themselves and
for their style, but valuable, as illustrating the manners of the
time. The first, according to the date of its events, is the “Passo
Honroso,” or the Passage of Honor, and is a formal account of a
passage at arms which was held against all comers in 1434, at the
bridge of Orbigo, near the city of Leon, during thirty days, at a
moment when the road was thronged with knights passing for a solemn
festival to the neighbouring shrine of Santiago. The challenger
was Suero de Quiñones, a gentleman of rank, who claimed to be thus
emancipated from the service of wearing for a noble lady’s sake a chain
of iron around his neck every Thursday. The arrangements for this
extraordinary tournament were all made under the king’s authority.
Nine champions, _mantenedores_, we are told, stood with Quiñones, and
at the end of the thirty days it was found that sixty-eight knights
had adventured themselves against his claim; that six hundred and
twenty-seven encounters had taken place; and that sixty-six lances
had been broken;--one knight, an Aragonese, having been killed, and
many wounded, among whom were Quiñones and eight out of his nine
fellow-champions.[295]
[295] Some account of the Passo Honroso is to be found among the
Memorabilia of the time in the “Crónica de Juan el IIº,” (ad Ann.
1433, Cap. 5,) and in Zurita, “Anales de Aragon” (Lib. XIV. c.
22). The book itself, “El Passo Honroso,” was prepared on the
spot, at Orbigo, by Delena, one of the authorized scribes of
John II.; and was abridged by Fr. Juan de Pineda, and published
at Salamanca, in 1588, and again at Madrid, under the auspices
of the Academy of History, in 1783 (4to). Large portions of the
original are preserved in it verbatim, as in sections 1, 4, 7,
14, 74, 75, etc. In other parts, it seems to have been disfigured
by Pineda. (Pellicer, note to Don Quixote, Parte I. c. 49.) The
poem of “Esvero y Almedora,” in twelve cantos, by D. Juan María
Maury, (Paris, 1840, 12mo,) is founded on the adventures recorded
in this Chronicle, and so is the “Passo Honroso,” by Don Ángel de
Saavedra, Duque de Rivas, in four cantos, in the second volume of
his Works (Madrid, 1820-21, 2 tom. 12mo).
Strange as all this may sound, and seeming to carry us back to the
fabulous days when the knights of romance
“Jousted in Aspramont or Montalban,”
and Rodamont maintained the bridge of Montpellier, for the sake of
the lady of his love, it is yet all plain matter of fact, spread
out in becoming style, by an eyewitness, with a full account of the
ceremonies, both of chivalry and of religion, that accompanied it.
The theory of the whole is, that Quiñones, in acknowledgment of being
prisoner to a noble lady, had, for some time, weekly worn her chains;
and that he was now to ransom himself from this _fanciful_ imprisonment
by the payment of a certain number of _real_ spears broken by him
and his friends in fair fight. All this, to be sure, is fantastic
enough. But the ideas of love, honor, and religion displayed in the
proceedings of the champions,[296] who hear mass devoutly every day,
and yet cannot obtain Christian burial for the Aragonese knight who
is killed, and in the conduct of Quiñones himself, who fasts each
Thursday, partly, it should seem, in honor of the Madonna, and partly
in honor of his lady,--these and other whimsical incongruities are
still more fantastic. They seem, indeed, as we read their record, to
be quite worthy of the admiration expressed for them by Don Quixote
in his argument with the wise canon,[297] but hardly worthy of any
other; so that we are surprised, at first, when we find them specially
recorded in the contemporary Chronicle of King John, and filling, long
afterwards, a separate chapter in the graver Annals of Zurita. And
yet such a grand tournament was an important event in the age when it
happened, and is highly illustrative of the contemporary manners.[298]
History and chronicle, therefore, alike did well to give it a place;
and, indeed, down to the present time, the curious and elaborate record
of the details and ceremonies of the Passo Honroso is of no little
value as one of the best exhibitions that remain to us of the genius of
chivalry, and as quite the best exhibition of what has been considered
the most characteristic of all the knightly institutions.
[296] See Sections 23 and 64; and for a curious vow made by one
of the wounded knights, that he would never again make love to
nuns as he had done, see Sect. 25.
[297] Don Quixote makes precisely such a use of the Passo Honroso
as might be expected from the perverse acuteness so often shown
by madmen,--one of the many instances in which we see Cervantes’s
nice observation of the workings of human nature. Parte I. c. 49.
[298] Take the years immediately about 1434, in which the Passo
Honroso occurred, and we find four or five instances. (Crónica
de Juan el IIº, 1433, Cap. 2; 1434, Cap. 4; 1435, Capp. 3 and
8; 1436, Cap. 4.) Indeed, the Chronicle is full of them; and in
several, the Great Constable Alvaro de Luna figures.
The other work of the same period to which we have referred gives
us, also, a striking view of the spirit of the times; one less
picturesque, indeed, but not less instructive. It is called “El Seguro
de Tordesillas,” the Pledge or the Truce of Tordesillas, and relates
to a series of conferences held in 1439, between John the Second and
a body of his nobles, headed by his own son, who, in a seditious and
violent manner, interfered in the affairs of the kingdom, in order to
break down the influence of the Constable de Luna.[299] It receives
its peculiar name from the revolting circumstance, that, even in the
days of the Passo Honroso, and with some of the knights who figured
in that gorgeous show for the parties, true honor was yet sunk so
low in Spain, that none could be found on either side of this great
quarrel,--not even the King or the Prince,--whose word would be taken
as a pledge for the mere personal safety of those who should be engaged
in the discussions at Tordesillas. It was necessary, therefore, to find
some one not strictly belonging to either party, who, invested with
higher powers and even with supreme military control, should become the
depositary of the general faith, and, exercising an authority limited
only by his own sense of honor, be obeyed alike by the exasperated
sovereign and his rebellious subjects.[300]
[299] The “Seguro de Tordesillas” was first printed at Milan,
1611; but the only other edition, that of Madrid, 1784, (4to,) is
much better.
[300] “Nos desnaturamos,” “We falsify our natures,” is the
striking old Castilian phrase used by the principal personages on
this occasion, and, among the rest, by the Constable Alvaro de
Luna, to signify that they are not, for the time being, bound to
obey even the king. Seguro, Cap. 3.
This proud distinction was given to Pedro Fernandez de Velasco,
commonly called the Good or Faithful Count Haro; and the “Seguro de
Tordesillas,” prepared by him some time afterwards, shows how honorably
he executed the extraordinary trust. Few historical works can challenge
such absolute authenticity. The documents of the case, constituting the
chief part of it, are spread out before the reader; and what does not
rest on their foundation rests on that word of the Good Count to which
the lives of whatever was most distinguished in the kingdom had just
been fearlessly trusted. As might be expected, its characteristics are
simplicity and plainness, not elegance or eloquence. It is, in fact,
a collection of documents, but it is an interesting and a melancholy
record. The compact that was made led to no permanent good. The Count
soon withdrew, ill at ease, to his own estates; and in less than two
years his unhappy and weak master was assailed anew, and besieged in
Medina del Campo, by his rebellious family and their adherents.[301]
After this, we hear little of Count Haro, except that he continued to
assist the king from time to time, in his increasing troubles, until,
worn out with fatigue of body and mind, he retired from the world,
and passed the last ten years of his life in a monastery, which he
had himself founded, and where he died at the age of threescore and
ten.[302]
[301] See Crónica de Juan el IIº, 1440-41 and 1444, Cap. 3. Well
might Manrique, in his beautiful Coplas on the instability of
fortune break forth,--
Que se hizo el Rey Don Juan?
Los Infantes de Aragon,
Que se hizieron?
Que fue de tanto galan,
Que fue de tanta invencion,
Como truxeron?
Luis de Aranda’s commentary on this passage is good, and well
illustrates the old Chronicle;--a rare circumstance in such
commentaries on Spanish poetry.
[302] Pulgar (Claros Varones de Castilla, Madrid, 1775, 4to,
Título 3) gives a beautiful character of him.
* * * * *
_Chronicles of Particular Persons._--But while remarkable _events_,
like the Passage of Arms at Orbigo and the Pledge of Tordesillas, were
thus appropriately recorded, the remarkable _men_ of the time could
hardly fail occasionally to find fit chroniclers.
Pero Niño, Count de Buelna, who flourished between 1379 and 1453, is
the first of them. He was a distinguished naval and military commander
in the reigns of Henry the Third and John the Second; and his Chronicle
is the work of Gutierre Diez de Gamez, who was attached to his person
from the time Pero Niño was twenty-three years old, and boasted the
distinction of being his standard-bearer in many a rash and bloody
fight. A more faithful chronicler, or one more imbued with knightly
qualities, can hardly be found. He may be well compared to the “Loyal
Serviteur,” the biographer of the Chevalier Bayard; and, like him, not
only enjoyed the confidence of his master, but shared his spirit.[303]
His accounts of the education of Pero Niño, and of the counsels given
him by his tutor;[304] of Pero’s marriage to his first wife, the lady
Constance de Guebara;[305] of his cruises against the corsairs and Bey
of Tunis;[306] of the part he took in the war against England, after
the death of Richard the Second, when he commanded an expedition that
made a descent on Cornwall, and, according to his chronicler, burnt
the town of Poole and took Jersey and Guernsey;[307] and finally, of
his share in the common war against Granada, which happened in the
latter part of his life and under the leading of the Constable Alvaro
de Luna,[308] are all interesting and curious, and told with simplicity
and spirit. But the most characteristic and amusing passages of the
Chronicle are, perhaps, those that relate, one to Pero Niño’s gallant
visit at Girfontaine, near Rouen, the residence of the old Admiral
of France, and his gay young wife,[309] and another to the course of
his true love for Beatrice, daughter of the Infante Don John, the
lady who, after much opposition and many romantic dangers, became his
second wife.[310] Unfortunately, we know nothing about the author of
all this entertaining history except what he modestly tells us in the
work itself; but we cannot doubt that he was as loyal in his life as he
claims to be in his true-hearted account of his master’s adventures and
achievements.
[303] The “Crónica de Don Pero Niño” was cited early and often,
as containing important materials for the history of the reign
of Henry III., but was not printed until it was edited by Don
Eugenio de Llaguno Amirola (Madrid, 1782, 4to); who, however, has
omitted a good deal of what he calls “fábulas caballerescas.”
Instances of such omissions occur in Parte I. c. 15, Parte II. c.
18, 40, etc., and I cannot but think Don Eugenio would have done
better to print the whole; especially the whole of what he says
he found in the part which he calls “La Crónica de los Reyes de
Inglaterra.”
[304] See Parte I. c. 4.
[305] Parte I. c. 14, 15.
[306] Parte II. c. 1-14.
[307] Parte II. c. 16-40.
[308] Parte III. c. 11, etc.
[309] Parte II. c. 31, 36.
[310] Parte III. c. 3-5. The love of Pero Niño for the lady
Beatrice comes, also, into the poetry of the time; for he
employed Villasandino, a poet of the age of Henry III. and John
II., to write verses for him, addressed to her. See Castro, Bibl.
Esp., Tom. I. pp. 271 and 274.
Next after Pero Niño’s Chronicle comes that of the Constable Don Alvaro
de Luna, the leading spirit of the reign of John the Second, almost
from the moment when, yet a child, he appeared as a page at court,
in 1408, down to 1453, when he perished on the scaffold, a victim to
his own haughty ambition, to the jealousy of the nobles nearest the
throne, and to the guilty weakness of the king. Who was the author of
the Chronicle is unknown.[311] But, from internal evidence, he was
probably an ecclesiastic of some learning, and certainly a retainer of
the Constable, much about his person, and sincerely attached to him. It
reminds us, at once, of the fine old Life of Wolsey by his Gentleman
Usher, Cavendish; for both works were written after the fall of the
great men whose lives they record, by persons who had served and loved
them in their prosperity, and who now vindicated their memories with a
grateful and trusting affection, which often renders even their style
of writing beautiful by its earnestness, and sometimes eloquent. The
Chronicle of the Constable is, of course, the oldest. It was composed
between 1453 and 1460, or about a century before Cavendish’s Wolsey.
It is grave and stately, sometimes too stately; but there is a great
air of reality about it. The account of the siege of Palenzuela,[312]
the striking description of the Constable’s person and bearing,[313]
the scene of the royal visit to the favorite in his castle at Escalona,
with the festivities that followed,[314] and, above all, the minute
and painful details of the Constable’s fall from power, his arrest,
and death,[315] show the freedom and spirit of an eyewitness, or, at
least, of a person entirely familiar with the whole matter about which
he writes. It is, therefore, among the richest and most interesting of
the old Spanish chronicles, and quite indispensable to one who would
comprehend the troubled spirit of the period to which it relates; the
period known as that of the _bandos_, or armed feuds, when the whole
country was broken into parties, each in warlike array, fighting for
its own head, but none fully submitting to the royal authority.
[311] The “Crónica de Don Alvaro de Luna” was first printed at
Milan, 1546, (folio,) by one of the Constable’s descendants, but,
notwithstanding its value and interest, only one edition has been
published since,--that by Flores, the diligent Secretary of the
Academy of History (Madrid, 1784, 4to). “Privado del Rey” was the
common style of Alvaro de Luna;--“Tan privado,” as Manrique calls
him;--a word which almost became English, for Lord Bacon, in his
twenty-seventh Essay, says, “The modern languages give unto such
persons the names of _favorites_ or _privadoes_.”
[312] Tít. 91-95, with the curious piece of poetry by the court
poet, Juan de Mena, on the wound of the Constable during the
siege.
[313] Tít. 68.
[314] Tít. 74, etc.
[315] Tít. 127, 128. Some of the details--the Constable’s
composed countenance and manner, as he rode on his mule to the
place of death, and the awful silence of the multitude that
preceded his execution, with the universal sob that followed
it--are admirably set forth, and show, I think, that the author
witnessed what he so well describes.
The last of the chronicles of individuals written in the spirit of
the elder times, that it is necessary to notice, is that of Gonzalvo
de Córdova, “the Great Captain,” who flourished from the period
immediately preceding the war of Granada to that which begins the reign
of Charles the Fifth; and who produced an impression on the Spanish
nation hardly equalled since the earlier days of that great Moorish
contest, the cyclus of whose heroes Gonzalvo seems appropriately to
close up. It was about 1526 that the Emperor Charles the Fifth desired
one of the favorite followers of Gonzalvo, Hernan Perez del Pulgar, to
prepare an account of his great captain’s life. A better person could
not easily have been selected. For he is not, as was long supposed,
Fernando del Pulgar, the wit and courtier of the time of Ferdinand and
Isabella.[316] Nor is the work he produced the poor and dull Chronicle
of the life of Gonzalvo first printed in 1580, or earlier, and often
attributed to him.[317] But he is that bold knight who, with a few
followers, penetrated to the very centre of Granada, then all in arms,
and, affixing an Ave Maria, with the sign of the cross, to the doors
of the principal mosque, consecrated its massive pile to the service
of Christianity, while Ferdinand and Isabella were still beleaguering
the city without; an heroic adventure, with which his country rang from
side to side at the time, and which has not since been forgotten either
in its ballads or in its popular drama.[318]
[316] The mistake between the two Pulgars--one called Hernan
Perez del Pulgar, and the other Fernando del Pulgar--seems to
have been made while they were both alive. At least, I so infer
from the following good-humored passage in a letter from the
latter to his correspondent, Pedro de Toledo: “E pues quereis
saber como me aveis de llamar, sabed, Señor, que me llaman
Fernando, e me llamaban e llamaran Fernando, e si me dan el
Maestrazgo de Santiago, tambien Fernando,” etc. (Letra XII.,
Madrid, 1775, 4to, p. 153.) For the mistakes made concerning them
in more modern times, see Nic. Antonio, (Bib. Nova, Tom. I. p.
387,) who seems to be sadly confused about the whole matter.
[317] This dull old anonymous Chronicle is the “Crónica del
Gran Capitan Gonzalo Fernandez de Córdoba y Aguilar, en la qual
se contienen las dos Conquistas del Reino de Napoles,” etc.,
(Sevilla, 1580, fol.,)--which does not yet seem to be the first
edition, because, in the _licencia_, it is said to be printed,
“porque hay falta de ellas.” It contains some of the family
documents that are found in Pulgar’s account of him, and was
reprinted at least twice afterwards, viz., Sevilla, 1582, and
Alcalá, 1584.
[318] Pulgar was permitted by his admiring sovereigns to have
his burial-place where he knelt when he affixed the Ave Maria to
the door of the mosque, and his descendants still preserve his
tomb there with becoming reverence, and still occupy the most
distinguished place in the choir of the cathedral, which was
originally granted to him and to his heirs male in right line.
(Alcántara, Historia de Granada, Granada, 1846, 8vo, Tom. IV., p.
102; and the curious documents collected by Martinez de la Rosa
in his “Hernan Perez del Pulgar,” pp. 279-283, for which see next
note.) The oldest play known to me on the subject of Hernan Perez
del Pulgar’s achievement is “El Cerco de Santa Fe,” in the first
volume of Lope de Vega’s “Comedias” (Valladolid, 1604, 4to). But
the one commonly represented is by an unknown author, and founded
on Lope’s. It is called “El Triunfo del Ave Maria,” and is said
to be “de un Ingenio de este Corte,” dating probably from the
reign of Philip IV. My copy of it is printed in 1793. Martinez
de la Rosa speaks of seeing it, and of the strong impression it
produced on his youthful imagination.
As might be expected from the character of its author,--who, to
distinguish him from the courtly and peaceful Pulgar, was well called
“He of the Achievements,” _El de las Hazañas_,--the book he offered to
his monarch is not a regular life of Gonzalvo, but rather a rude and
vigorous sketch of him, entitled “A Small Part of the Achievements of
that Excellent Person called the Great Captain,” or, as is elsewhere
yet more characteristically said, “of the achievements and solemn
virtues of the Great Captain, both in peace and war.”[319] The modesty
of the author is as remarkable as his adventurous spirit. He is hardly
seen at all in his narrative, while his love and devotion to his great
leader give a fervor to his style, which, notwithstanding a frequent
display of very unprofitable learning, renders his work both curious
and striking, and brings out his hero in the sort of bold relief in
which he appeared to the admiration of his contemporaries. Some parts
of it, notwithstanding its brevity, are remarkable even for the details
they afford; and some of the speeches, like that of the Alfaquí to
the distracted parties in Granada,[320] and that of Gonzalvo to the
population of the Abbaycin,[321] savor of eloquence as well as wisdom.
Regarded as the outline of a great man’s character, few sketches have
more an air of truth; though, perhaps, considering the adventurous and
warlike lives both of the author and his subject, nothing in the book
is more remarkable than the spirit of humanity that pervades it.[322]
[319] This Life of the Great Captain, by Pulgar, was printed
at Seville, by Cromberger, in 1527; but only one copy of
this edition--the one in the possession of the Royal Spanish
Academy--is now known to exist. A reprint was made from it at
Madrid, entitled “Hernan Perez del Pulgar,” 1834, 8vo, edited
by D. Fr. Martinez de la Rosa, with a pleasant Life of Pulgar
and valuable notes, so that we now have this very curious little
book in an agreeable form for reading,--thanks to the zeal and
persevering literary curiosity of the distinguished Spanish
statesman who discovered it.
[320] Ed. Fr. Martinez de la Rosa, pp. 155, 156.
[321] Ibid., pp. 159-162.
[322] Hernan Perez del Pulgar, el de las Hazañas, was born in
1451, and died in 1531.
* * * * *
_Chronicles of Travels._--In the same style with the histories of their
kings and great men, a few works should be noticed in the nature of
travels, or histories of travellers, though not always bearing the
name of Chronicles.
The oldest of them, which has any value, is an account of a Spanish
embassy to Tamerlane, the great Tartar potentate and conqueror. Its
origin is curious. Henry the Third of Castile, whose affairs, partly in
consequence of his marriage with Catherine, daughter of Shakspeare’s
“time-honored Lancaster,” were in a more fortunate and quiet condition
than those of his immediate predecessors, seems to have been smitten
in his prosperity with a desire to extend his fame to the remotest
countries of the earth; and for this purpose, we are told, sought to
establish friendly relations with the Greek Emperor at Constantinople,
with the Sultan of Babylon, with Tamerlane or Timour Bec the Tartar,
and even with the fabulous Prester John of that shadowy India which was
then the subject of so much speculation.
What was the result of all this widely spread diplomacy, so
extraordinary at the end of the fourteenth century, we do not know,
except that the first ambassadors sent to Tamerlane and Bajazet chanced
actually to be present at the great and decisive battle between those
two preponderating powers of the East, and that Tamerlane sent a
splendid embassy in return, with some of the spoils of his victory,
among which were two fair captives, who figure in the Spanish poetry
of the time.[323] King Henry was not ungrateful for such a tribute of
respect, and, to acknowledge it, despatched to Tamerlane three persons
of his court, one of whom, Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo, has left us a
minute account of the whole embassy, its adventures and its results.
This account was first published by Argote de Molina, the careful
antiquary of the time of Philip the Second,[324] and was then called,
probably in order to give it a more winning title, “The Life of the
Great Tamerlane,”--_Vida del Gran Tamurlan_,--though it is, in fact,
a diary of the voyagings and residences of the ambassadors of Henry
the Third, beginning in May, 1403, when they embarked at Puerto Santa
María, near Cadiz, and ending in March, 1406, when they landed there on
their return.
[323] Discurso hecho por Argote de Molina, sobre el Itinerario de
Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo, Madrid, 1782, 4to, p. 3.
[324] The edition of Argote de Molina was published in 1582; and
there is only one other, the very good one printed at Madrid,
1782, 4to.
In the course of it, we have a description of Constantinople, which is
the more curious because it is given at the moment when it tottered to
its fall;[325] of Trebizond, with its Greek churches and clergy;[326]
of Teheran, now the capital of Persia;[327] and of Samarcand, where
they found the great Conqueror himself, and were entertained by him
with a series of magnificent festivals continuing almost to the moment
of his death,[328] which happened while they were at his court, and
was followed by troubles embarrassing to their homeward journey.[329]
The honest Clavijo seems to have been well pleased to lay down his
commission at the feet of his sovereign, whom he found at Alcalá; and
though he lingered about the court for a year, and was one of the
witnesses of the king’s will at Christmas, yet on the death of Henry
he retired to Madrid, his native place, where he spent the last four
or five years of his life, and where, in 1412, he was buried in the
convent of Saint Francis, with his fathers, whose chapel he had piously
rebuilt.[330]
[325] They were much struck with the works in mosaic in
Constantinople, and mention them repeatedly, pp. 51, 59, and
elsewhere. The reason why they did not, on the first day, see all
the relics they wished to see in the church of San Juan de la
Piedra is very quaint, and shows great simplicity of manners at
the imperial court: “The Emperor went to hunt, and left the keys
with the Empress his wife, and when she gave them, she forgot to
give those where the said relics were,” etc. p. 52.
[326] Page 84, etc.
[327] Page 118, etc.
[328] Pages 149-198.
[329] Page 207, etc.
[330] Hijos de Madrid, Ilustres en Santidad, Dignidades, Armas,
Ciencias, y Artes, Diccionario Histórico, su Autor D. Joseph Ant.
Alvarez y Baena, Natural de la misma Villa; Madrid, 1789-91, 4
tom. 4to;--a book whose materials, somewhat crudely put together,
are abundant and important, especially in what relates to the
literary history of the Spanish capital. A Life of Clavijo is to
be found in it, Tom. IV. p. 302.
His travels will not, on the whole, suffer by a comparison with those
of Marco Polo or Sir John Mandeville; for, though his discoveries are
much less in extent than those of the Venetian merchant, they are,
perhaps, as remarkable as those of the English adventurer, while the
manner in which he has presented them is superior to that of either.
His Spanish loyalty and his Catholic faith are everywhere apparent. He
plainly believes that his modest embassy is making an impression of his
king’s power and importance, on the countless and careless multitudes
of Asia, which will not be effaced; while, in the luxurious capital of
the Greek empire, he seems to look for little but the apocryphal relics
of saints and apostles which then burdened the shrines of its churches.
With all this, however, we may be content, because it is national; but
when we find him filling the island of Ponza with buildings erected by
Virgil,[331] and afterwards, as he passes Amalfi, taking note of it
only because it contained the head of Saint Andrew,[332] we are obliged
to recall his frankness, his zeal, and all his other good qualities,
before we can be quite reconciled to his ignorance. Mariana, indeed,
intimates, that, after all, his stories are not to be wholly believed.
But, as in the case of other early travellers, whose accounts were
often discredited merely because they were so strange, more recent and
careful inquiries have confirmed Clavijo’s narrative; and we may now
trust to his faithfulness as much as to the vigilant and penetrating
spirit he shows constantly, except when his religious faith, or his
hardly less religious loyalty, interferes with its exercise.[333]
[331] “Hay en ella grandes edificios de muy grande obra, que fizo
Virgilio.” p. 30.
[332] All he says of Amalfi is, “Y en esta ciudad de Malfa dicen
que está la cabeza de Sant Andres.” p. 33.
[333] Mariana says that the Itinerary contains “muchas otras
cosas asaz maravillosas, si verdaderas.” (Hist., Lib. XIX.
c. 11.) But Blanco White, in his “Variedades,” (Tom. I. pp.
316-318,) shows, from an examination of Clavijo’s Itinerary, by
Major Rennell, and from other sources, that its general fidelity
may be depended upon.
But the great voyagings of the Spaniards were not destined to be in
the East. The Portuguese, led on originally by Prince Henry, one
of the most extraordinary men of his age, had, as it were, already
appropriated to themselves that quarter of the world by discovering
the easy route of the Cape of Good Hope; and, both by the right of
discovery and by the provisions of the well-known Papal bull and
the equally well-known treaty of 1479, had cautiously cut off their
great rivals, the Spaniards, from all adventure in that direction;
leaving open to them only the wearisome waters that were stretched
out unmeasured towards the West. Happily, however, there was one
man to whose courage even the terrors of this unknown and dreaded
ocean were but spurs and incentives, and whose gifted vision, though
sometimes dazzled from the height to which he rose, could yet see,
beyond the waste of waves, that broad continent which his fervent
imagination deemed needful to balance the world. It is true, Columbus
was not born a Spaniard. But his spirit was eminently Spanish. His
loyalty, his religious faith and enthusiasm, his love of great and
extraordinary adventure, were all Spanish rather than Italian, and were
all in harmony with the Spanish national character, when he became a
part of its glory. His own eyes, he tells us, had watched the silver
cross, as it slowly rose, for the first time, above the towers of the
Alhambra, announcing to the world the final and absolute overthrow of
the infidel power in Spain;[334] and from that period,--or one even
earlier, when some poor monks from Jerusalem had been at the camp of
the two sovereigns before Granada, praying for help and protection
against the unbelievers in Palestine,--he had conceived the grand
project of consecrating the untold wealth he trusted to find in his
westward discoveries, by devoting it to the rescue of the Holy City
and sepulchre of Christ; thus achieving, by his single power and
resources, what all Christendom and its ages of crusades had failed to
accomplish.[335]
[334] In the account of his first voyage, rendered to his
sovereigns, he says he was in 1492 at Granada, “adonde, este
presente año, á dos dias del mes de Enero, por fuerza de armas,
_vide_ poner las banderas reales de Vuestras Altezas en las
torres de Alfambra,” etc. Navarrete, Coleccion de los Viajes y
Descubrimientos que hicieron por Mar los Españoles desde Fines
del Siglo XV., Madrid, 1825, 4to, Tom. I. p. 1;--a work admirably
edited, and of great value, as containing the authentic materials
for the history of the discovery of America. Old Bernaldez, the
friend of Columbus, describes more exactly what Columbus saw: “E
mostraron en la mas alta torre primeramente el estandarte de Jesu
Cristo, que fue la Santa Cruz de plata, que el rey traia siempre
en la santa conquista consigo.” Hist. de los Reyes Católicos,
Cap. 102, MS.
[335] This appears from his letter to the Pope, February, 1502,
in which he says, he had counted upon furnishing, in twelve
years, 10,000 horse and 100,000 foot soldiers for the conquest of
the Holy City, and that his undertaking to discover new countries
was with the view of spending the means he might there acquire in
this sacred service. Navarrete, Coleccion, Tom. II. p. 282.
Gradually these and other kindred ideas took firm possession of his
mind, and are found occasionally in his later journals, letters,
and speculations, giving to his otherwise quiet and dignified style
a tone elevated and impassioned like that of prophecy. It is true,
that his adventurous spirit, when the mighty mission of his life was
upon him, rose above all this, and, with a purged vision and through
a clearer atmosphere, saw, from the outset, what he at last so
gloriously accomplished; but still, as he presses onward, there not
unfrequently break from him words which leave no doubt, that, in his
secret heart, the foundations of his great hopes and purposes were
laid in some of the most magnificent illusions that are ever permitted
to fill the human mind. He believed himself to be, in some degree at
least, inspired; and to be chosen of Heaven to fulfil certain of the
solemn and grand prophecies of the Old Testament.[336] He wrote to his
sovereigns in 1501, that he had been induced to undertake his voyages
to the Indies, not by virtue of human knowledge, but by a Divine
impulse, and by the force of Scriptural prediction.[337] He declared,
that the world could not continue to exist more than a hundred and
fifty-five years longer, and that, many a year before that period, he
counted the recovery of the Holy City to be sure.[338] He expressed
his belief, that the terrestrial paradise, about which he cites the
fanciful speculations of Saint Ambrose and Saint Augustin, would be
found in the southern regions of those newly discovered lands, which
he describes with so charming an amenity, and that the Orinoco was one
of the mystical rivers issuing from it; intimating, at the same time,
that, perchance, he alone of mortal men would, by the Divine will, be
enabled to reach and enjoy it.[339] In a remarkable letter of sixteen
pages, addressed to his sovereigns from Jamaica in 1503, and written
with a force of style hardly to be found in any thing similar at the
same period, he gives a moving account of a miraculous vision, which
he believed had been vouchsafed to him for his consolation, when at
Veragua, a few months before, a body of his men, sent to obtain salt
and water, had been cut off by the natives, thus leaving him outside
the mouth of the river in great peril.
[336] One of the prophecies he supposed himself called on to
fulfil was that in the eighteenth Psalm. (Navarrete, Col., Tom.
I. pp. xlviii., xlix., note; Tom. II. pp. 262-266.) In King
James’s version, the passage stands thus:--“Thou hast made me the
head of the heathen; a people whom I have not known shall serve
me. As soon as they hear of me, they shall obey me; the strangers
shall submit themselves unto me.” vv. 43, 44.
[337] “Ya dije que para la esecucion de la impresa de las Indias
no me aprovechó razon ni matematica ni mapamundos;--llenamente se
cumplió lo que dijo Isaías, y esto es lo que deseo de escrebir
aquí por le reducir á V. A. á memoria, y porque se alegren del
otro que yo le dije de Jerusalen por las mesmas autoridades, de
la qual impresa, si fe hay, tengo por muy cierto la vitoria.”
Letter of Columbus to Ferdinand and Isabella (Navarrete, Col.,
Tom. II. p. 265). And elsewhere in the same letter he says: “Yo
dije que diria la razon que tengo de la restitucion de la Casa
Santa á la Santa Iglesia; digo que yo dejo todo mi navegar desde
edad nueva y las pláticas que yo haya tenido con tanta gente
en tantas tierras y de tantas setas, y dejo las tantas artes y
escrituras de que yo dije arriba; solamente me tengo á la Santa
y Sacra Escritura y á algunas autoridades proféticas de algunas
personas santas, que por revelacion divina han dicho algo desto.”
Ibid., p. 263.
[338] “Segund esta cuenta, no falta, salvo ciento e cincuenta y
cinco años, para complimiento de siete mil, en los quales digo
arriba por las autoridades dichas que habrá de fenecer el mundo.”
Ibid., p. 264.
[339] See the very beautiful passage about the Orinoco River,
mixed with prophetical interpretations, in his account of his
third voyage, to the King and Queen, (Navarrete, Col., Tom. I.
pp. 256, etc.,)--a singular mixture of practical judgment and
wild, dreamy speculation. “I believe,” he says, “that _there_ is
the terrestrial paradise, at which no man can arrive except by
the Divine will,”--“Creo, que allá es el Paraiso terrenal, adonde
no puede llegar nadie, salvo por voluntad divina.” The honest
Clavijo thought he had found another river of paradise on just
the opposite side of the earth, as he journeyed to Samarcand,
nearly a century before. Vida del Gran Tamorlan, p. 137.
“My brother and the rest of the people,” he says, “were in a vessel
that remained within, and I was left solitary on a coast so dangerous,
with a strong fever and grievously worn down. Hope of escape was dead
within me. I climbed aloft with difficulty, calling anxiously and not
without many tears for help upon your Majesties’ captains from all
the four winds of heaven. But none made me answer. Wearied and still
moaning, I fell asleep, and heard a pitiful voice which said: ‘O fool,
and slow to trust and serve thy God, the God of all! What did He more
for Moses, or for David his servant? Ever since thou wast born, thou
hast been His especial charge. When He saw thee at the age wherewith
He was content, He made thy name to sound marvellously on the earth.
The Indies, which are a part of the world, and so rich, He gave them to
thee for thine own, and thou hast divided them unto others as seemed
good to thyself, for He granted thee power to do so. Of the barriers of
the great ocean, which were bound up with such mighty chains, He hath
given unto thee the keys. Thou hast been obeyed in many lands, and thou
hast gained an honored name among Christian men. What did He more for
the people of Israel when He led them forth from Egypt? or for David,
whom from a shepherd He made king in Judea? Turn thou, then, again unto
Him, and confess thy sin. His mercy is infinite. Thine old age shall
not hinder thee of any great thing. Many inheritances hath He, and very
great. Abraham was above a hundred years old when he begat Isaac; and
Sarah, was she young? Thou callest for uncertain help; answer, Who hath
afflicted thee so much and so often? God or the world? The privileges
and promises that God giveth, He breaketh not, nor, after he hath
received service, doth He say that thus was not his mind, and that His
meaning was other. Neither punisheth He, in order to hide a refusal of
justice. What He promiseth, that He fulfilleth, and yet more. And doth
the world thus? I have told thee what thy Maker hath done for thee, and
what He doth for all. Even now He in part showeth thee the reward of
the sorrows and dangers thou hast gone through in serving others.’ All
this heard I, as one half dead; but answer had I none to words so true,
save tears for my sins. And whosoever it might be that thus spake, he
ended, saying, ‘Fear not; be of good cheer; all these thy griefs are
written in marble, and not without cause.’ And I arose as soon as I
might, and at the end of nine days the weather became calm.”[340]
[340] See the letter to Ferdinand and Isabella, concerning his
fourth and last voyage, dated, Jamaica, 7 July, 1503, in which
this extraordinary passage occurs. Navarrete, Col., Tom. I. p.
303.
Three years afterwards, in 1506, Columbus died at Valladolid, a
disappointed, broken-hearted old man; little comprehending what he had
done for mankind, and still less the glory and homage that through all
future generations awaited his name.[341]
[341] To those who wish to know more of Columbus as a writer
than can be properly sought in a classical life of him like that
of Irving, I commend as precious: 1. The account of his first
voyage, addressed to his sovereigns, with the letter to Rafael
Sanchez on the same subject (Navarrete, Col., Tom. I. pp. 1-197);
the first document being extant only in an abstract, which
contains, however, large extracts from the original made by Las
Casas, and of which a very good translation appeared at Boston,
1827 (8vo). Nothing is more remarkable, in the tone of these
narratives, than the devout spirit that constantly breaks forth.
2. The account, by Columbus himself, of his third voyage, in a
letter to his sovereigns and in a letter to the nurse of Prince
John; the first containing several interesting passages showing
that he had a love for the beautiful in nature. (Navarrete, Col.,
Tom. I. pp. 242-276.) 3. The letter to the sovereigns about
his fourth and last voyage, which contains the account of his
vision at Veragua. (Navarrete, Col., Tom. I. pp. 296-312.) 4.
Fifteen miscellaneous letters. (Ibid., Tom. I. pp. 330-352.) 5.
His speculations about the prophecies, (Tom. II. pp. 260-273,)
and his letter to the Pope (Tom. II. pp. 280-282). But whoever
would speak worthily of Columbus, or know what was most noble and
elevated in his character, will be guilty of an unhappy neglect,
if he fails to read the discussions about him by Alexander von
Humboldt; especially those in the “Examen Critique de l’Histoire
de la Géographie du Nouveau Continent,” (Paris, 1836-38, 8vo,
Vol. II. pp. 350, etc., Vol. III. pp. 227-262,)--a book no less
remarkable for the vastness of its views than for the minute
accuracy of its learning on some of the most obscure subjects
of historical inquiry. Nobody has comprehended the character
of Columbus as he has,--its generosity, its enthusiasm, its
far-reaching visions, which seemed watching beforehand for the
great scientific discoveries of the sixteenth century.
But the mantle of his devout and heroic spirit fell on none of his
successors. The discoveries of the new continent, which was soon
ascertained to be no part of Asia, were indeed prosecuted with spirit
and success by Balboa, by Vespucci, by Hojeda, by Pedrárias Dávila, by
the Portuguese Magellanes, by Loaisa, by Saavedra, and by many more;
so that in twenty-seven years the general outline and form of the
New World were, through their reports, fairly presented to the Old.
But though some of these early adventurers, like Hojeda, were men
apparently of honest principles, who suffered much, and died in poverty
and sorrow, yet none had the lofty spirit of the original discoverer,
and none spoke or wrote with the tone of dignity and authority that
came naturally from a man whose character was so elevated, and whose
convictions and purposes were founded in some of the deepest and most
mysterious feelings of our religious nature.[342]