tutelary saints suffered martyrdom, and a miraculous image, called
Nuestra Señora de la Sotteraña, which is obviously far from possessing
the antiquity its devotees claim for it.
* * * * *
Characteristics very similar to San Vicente are exhibited by the church
of San Pedro in the picturesque Mercado Grande. Dating from the latter
part of the twelfth century, we find here also the apsidal east end, the
square lantern, and the entrances at the west end and beside the
transepts. The western porch is very fine, and above it is a very
beautiful wheel-window. The north doorway is more richly sculptured, and
is later than the rest of the fabric. There are a few points of
difference between this church and that previously described. There is
no triforium, and the clerestory windows are of a single light, and much
larger than those of the nave. As at San Vicente, the apsidal chapels
have been spoilt by injudicious painting. In the transept are the tombs
of the rival families of Blasco Jimeno and Esteban Domingo,
distinguished by shields of six and thirteen bezants respectively. The
church is in every respect a noble edifice, but loses interest after you
have visited the almost identical basilica of San Vicente. Nor will
your attention be long engaged by the modern monument to the illustrious
natives of Avila in the centre of the market-place, crowned by the
statue of Santa Teresa. Here took place in 1491 the _auto da fé_ of the
Jew, Benito Garcia, found guilty of murdering a Christian child, and
stealing a consecrated Host for the purpose of sacrilegious rites. It
should be added that no particular child could be put forward by the
prosecution as having been murdered, and the suppositious victim went
down to posterity simply as the Niño de la Guardia--la Guardia being the
village where the crime was supposed to have taken place. The body was
conveniently assumed to have been taken up to heaven. Its disappearance
did not benefit the luckless Hebrews, two of whom, before the execution
of Garcia, were torn to pieces by red-hot pincers.
* * * * *
The town proper having always been regarded as an acropolis, the greater
number of churches are situated outside the walls. Several of these,
like those already described, are of considerable interest. The doughty
Nalvillos is said to lie beneath the flags of the church of Santiago.
San Andrés is an interesting Romanesque structure, spoilt, however, by
the addition of an incongruous sacristy. To the north-west of the town,
near the river (Adaja), is the curious little sanctuary of San Segundo,
with a wooden roof, and rather suggestive of Norman architecture. It
marks the spot whereon fell an unfortunate Saracen, who was pushed over
the turret above by the sainted Secundus. Some of the ashes of that
muscular Christian are preserved here, beneath the fine alabaster statue
which represents him kneeling with an open book before him. The
sanctuary is believed to occupy the site of the earliest Christian
church of Avila. The actual edifice is not nearly so old as the ruined
and abandoned church of San Isidore, now fast crumbling away.
* * * * *
One of the most important monuments of the city is the church of the
Dominican monastery of Santo Tomás (now used as a missionary college).
It was founded in 1478 by Doña Maria Davila, wife of a Viceroy of
Sicily, and completed in 1493. Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor,
interested the Catholic sovereigns in the work, and the cost was met by
the confiscated property of Jews and heretics. The cloisters and
conventual buildings are devoid of interest. The west front is in a poor
late Gothic style, and distinguished by richness rather than beauty.
The two massive flanking buttresses are outlined with a ball ornament,
and end in eaves, corbel tables, and paltry pinnacles. Beneath the gable
is a huge escutcheon, and beneath this again a round window. The doorway
is within a deep porch; the archivolt is pointed and elaborately fluted
and carved; on either side of the doorway are statues of saints of the
Dominican order beneath canopies. The interior is more interesting. The
chancel is almost square, the transept short; and, curious to relate,
not only is the choir placed in a gallery in the western nave, but the
altar is correspondingly elevated at the eastern end. Street thought the
effect of this arrangement very fine, an opinion which all are not
likely to share. The reredos is tastefully carved and painted. The choir
stalls are good, as usual in Spain, particularly the royal chairs, which
have splendid canopies, and bear the device of the yoke and sheaf of
arrows.
Interest here, however, centres mainly in the superb Renaissance
monument to the Infante Juan, eldest son of Ferdinand and Isabel, who
died at Salamanca in 1497, aged nineteen. Ferdinand, to soften the blow,
caused his wife to be informed that he and not the prince had perished;
and such, in Isabel’s temperament, was the excess of conjugal over
maternal affection, that her relief when the real state of things was
revealed to her enabled her to bear the loss of her son with comparative
composure. The tomb was the work of Domenico Alessandro the Florentine,
specimens of whose skill we have seen in the cathedral. At the corners
of the sarcophagus are eagles; the sides are covered with reliefs of the
Virgin and the Baptist, and of the Cardinal and Theological Virtues. On
the edge of the upper slab are carved escutcheons, angels, trophies, and
garlands. The recumbent effigy of the prince, crowned, and with sword
and mantle, is marvellously well done. The sculptor has expressed
adolescence in stone. This rightly ranks among the finest works of art
in Spain. Hardly inferior is the tomb of Juan Davila and his wife, Joana
Velazquez de la Torre, the prince’s attendants, also by the Florentine.
Don Juan is shown clad in somewhat fantastic armour; a page kneeling at
his feet holds his helmet. Sphynxes are placed at the corners of the
sarcophagus, the sides of which bear medallions representing St. James
destroying infidels, and St. John the Divine in a cauldron of boiling
oil.
In the sacristy is a tomb more impressive than either of these, but in
a very different sense. A plain slab covers the body of Tomás de
Torquemada, Grand Inquisitor of Spain. He lies here in the temple reared
on the fortunes of the men and women he had plundered and burned. There
is no inscription to tell us who rests here; but Torquemada is as little
likely to be forgotten as Attila or Nero. Few things in Avila create a
deeper, sadder impression than the tomb of this strange, sinister
priest.
* * * * *
His was one phase of the religious temperament, not perhaps more
difficult of comprehension to us modern northerners than Teresa’s. We
execrate the one and revere the other, and understand neither. Still, we
know enough to see that the Inquisitor and the Nun stand respectively
for what is worst and best in the Spanish character. And, happily, the
woman’s fame has far outshone the man’s.
We may assume that no one who visits Avila is ignorant of the leading
events in her career, or needs to be told what manner of woman she was.
What we have to do is to follow her footsteps through her native city.
The house in which she was born on March 28, 1515, has been converted
into an ugly church (Nuestra Seráfica Madre Santa Teresa de Jesus). The
exterior is in the baroque style. The room in which she first saw the
light is now a chapel in the worst taste, and contains her rosary,
sandals, and even one of her fingers. It was from this house that she
stole away with her brother Lorenzo, determined to seek martyrdom at the
hands of the Moors. Here she indulged in those ‘worldly conversations’
and that light reading which to her carefully polished conscience in
after years appeared fraught with such dire peril. Here her vocation was
born; and to this house she returned from the cloister in after years to
watch by the deathbed of her father, Alonso de Cepeda.
It was in the Carmelite convent of the Incarnation, north of the city,
that Teresa took the veil on All Souls’ Day 1533. Nothing remains of the
structure as it was in her day. More interesting is the convent of ‘Las
Madres,’ which occupies the site of the first foundation of the reformed
order. The poor chapel of St. Joseph gave way in 1608 to the present
handsome church designed by Francisco de Mora, who spared the tomb and
chapel of Teresa’s brother, Lorenzo. Other fine monuments are those of
Bishop Alvaro de Mendoza, and of Francisco Velazquez and his wife. In
the garden of the convent is shown an apple-tree planted by the saint.
Her body does not rest here, but at Alba de Tormes, where she expired on
October 15, 1582.
You may also visit, for her sake, the church of San Juan in the Mercado
Chico, where she was baptized on April 7, 1515.
Attached to the Dominican convent is the sumptuous chapel of Mosén Rubio
de Bracamonte, which was founded by Doña Maria de Herrera in 1516. The
architecture represents the transition from late Gothic to Renaissance.
The interior is richly adorned with marbles, the semicircular windows
with stained glass. The tomb of the patron (Mosén Rubio, lord of Fuente
del Sol) and his wife is in keeping with the splendour of the edifice,
which is further enriched by two ancient paintings of Saints Jerome and
Anthony of Padua. The reredos dates from the early seventeenth century.
The dark granite of which the houses of Avila are built gives them a
spurious air of antiquity. Very few date from before the age of Charles
V. Near the cathedral is the mansion of the Marquis de Velada, whose
ancestor, Gomez Velada, entertained the Emperor here in 1534. Opposite
is an interesting doorway, with the figure of an armed knight,
surrounded by escutcheons and enclosed within a trefoil arch. A
magnificent doorway, likewise sculptured with armed figures and overhung
by a kind of bartizan, leads into the fine courtyard of the palace of
the Condes de Polentinos. An interesting house is that of the Davilas of
Villafranca. The escutcheon with thirteen bezants between two chained
slaves, supported by mounted heralds, was won by the family in an
expedition to Ronda. At the side is a picturesque window with a grating,
above which is the inscription _Petrus Davila et Maria Cordubensis uxor
MDXLI._, and beneath, in Spanish, ‘Where one door shuts another opens.’
The houses of the Bracamontes and of the Counts of Superunda deserve
notice.
VI
ZARAGOZA
While certain cities may lay claim to having been at one time or another
the capital of the united kingdom of Leon and Castile, and while, in
fact, two often held the rank at the same time, Zaragoza, from its
reconquest by the Christians to the unification of the Spanish monarchy,
was the undisputed capital of the kingdom of Aragon. We must not expect
on that account to find that it was any more amenable to the royal
authority, or any less turbulent than the cities of the sister state. On
the contrary, nowhere in the Peninsula was liberty more highly prized or
more strenuously vindicated, than in the chief city of Aragon. And it
holds what out of Spain, at any rate, will be considered the honourable
distinction of having offered the most determined resistance to the
establishment of the Inquisition. Many cities in the dominions of His
Catholic Majesty are entitled to style themselves ‘most heroic.’ None
assuredly deserve the description better than this, the Numantia of
modern Spain.
An Iberian town seems to have existed here from the remotest times, and
to have been known as Salduba. On its annexation by the Romans, it was
rechristened Caesaraugusta, and under that name is referred to by
Pompeius Mela as the most famous of the inland cities of Tarraconensis.
Christianity took root here at an early date. Bishops of Caesaraugusta
are mentioned by St. Cyprian, and the local martyrology includes the
names of Saints Valerus, Vincent, and Engracia. When, in the year 542,
Zaragoza was besieged by the Franks under Childebert, the exposition of
the relics of these martyrs is said to have sufficed to propitiate the
enemy and to preserve the town from destruction.
In the year 713 the city opened its gates to Muza, the Moorish invader,
without, as Don Francisco Codera believes, striking a blow. The Crescent
reigned over Zaragoza for four centuries. During that time there were
many changes of rulers. The blood of martyrs again watered the soil
under the cruel Wali, Othman Aben Nasr, though generally throughout the
period of Muslim domination the Christians enjoyed the same freedom as
their co-religionists, under the same yoke, in other parts of Spain.
Their principal church having been converted into a mosque, San Pablo
was, during this period, their place of worship.
In the year 778 occurred the famous expedition of Charlemagne, around
which an almost impenetrable veil of poetry and legend was woven through
the Middle Ages. Hoseya al Arabi having been superseded in the
government of the city by order of the Khalifa, Abd-ur-Rahman, appealed
for assistance to the great Emperor of the West, who, for motives which
remain obscure, entered Spain with a considerable force. On reaching
Zaragoza, he found that Al Arabi had already regained possession of the
city; and either on that account, or because his late ally refused to
open the gates, he retraced his steps towards the north. In the pass of
Roncesvalles his rearguard was attacked and cut up by the
mountaineers--a reverse which has been immortalised as the occasion of
the death of the Paladin Roland, and commemorated in the legendary lore
of nearly every European tongue.
At the latter end of the ninth century Zaragoza (or Sarakusta, as it was
called by the Moors), shook off the yoke of the Khalifas, and under the
sway of the renowned Hafsûn became for a short time an independent
state. More lasting was the monarchy set up at the close of the eleventh
century, on the break-up of the Spanish Khalifate, by the vigorous
Almundhir Ben Hud, whose power extended from Lerida to Guadalajara, from
the mountains of Biscay to the Mediterranean. His son and successor,
Suleyman, made the mistake of dividing his dominions among his four
sons, Sarakusta being assigned to the eldest, Ahmed Almuktader. But,
united or disunited, the Moors of north-eastern Spain were incapable of
offering an effective resistance to the ever-growing power of the
Christian kingdom of Aragon. In the spring of 1118, Alfonso el
Batallador appeared before the walls of Zaragoza with a formidable host.
The city held out till the garrison witnessed the total defeat of an
army sent to their relief by the Almoravides. All hope being then gone,
the gates were opened on December 18, 1118, and Zaragoza became the
capital of the kingdom of Aragon.
As such, it was endowed with a very liberal charter--the _fuero_, of
which we read so often in Aragonese history. The defence of these
liberties was intrusted to twenty magistrates, who were invested with
authority to deal in the most summary and drastic fashion with
evildoers, whatever might be their station. Nor did they hesitate, in
after years, to raze the castles of any barons who threatened the peace
of the city. Domestic affairs were regulated by twelve jurates,
representing the twelve parishes. Pedro II. amplified these privileges,
and decreed that the municipality should not be responsible for its acts
even to the sovereign.
The history of Zaragoza during the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth
centuries is full of instances of civil strife, of faction fights, and
of struggles with the royal authority. The citizens refused to recognise
Alfonso III. as king till he had been crowned within their walls. They
paid dearly for their arrogance under Pedro IV., who hanged thirty of
their number at the Toledo gate, and burnt the articles of the Union--a
pact extorted from one of his predecessors--in a public assembly.
Under Fernando I. the city’s privileges were further curtailed. But as
licence and disorder showed no signs of abating, a kind of vigilance
committee was formed in 1454, headed by Jimeno Gordo. This worthy put
down all disturbances with iron hand, and waged war on the neighbouring
barons. His career was cut short in 1474 by Ferdinand the Catholic, who
caused him to be publicly executed. All the disorderly elements of the
city rejoiced at his death.
The introduction of the Inquisition met with much opposition in several
Spanish towns, but nowhere more than at Zaragoza. Deputations were sent
from the states of Aragon to wait on the king at Valladolid, to urge
upon him the withdrawal of the obnoxious tribunal, without avail. Such
contemptuous indifference to the laws and wishes of the people of Aragon
roused the Zaragozans to a dangerous pitch of exasperation. About
midnight, September 14, 1485, a party of six men entered the cathedral,
and found the Inquisitor, Pedro de Arbues of Epila, in prayer before the
altar. They at once transfixed him with their swords and knives, but
only a few of the blows struck home, thanks to the shirt of mail which
the victim, like most of the Inquisitors, wore beneath his cassock. The
deed, of course, only riveted the chains of the Holy Office more firmly
upon the Aragonese.
Most of the assassins were captured, and perished in the flames. De
Arbues was canonised in 1664. There can be no question that the
Inquisition was established contrary to the laws of the country, and
that the man met his death through presuming to discharge unlawful
functions. He died for having broken the law, his executioners for
having vindicated it.
The persistent encroachments of the Crown upon their constitutional
rights during the next century met with strenuous resistance from the
people of Aragon. The long-impending storm burst in 1590. Antonio Pérez,
having incurred the anger of Philip II., fled to Zaragoza, and invoked
the protection of the states. According to the _fueros_, he was then
confined in the prison of the Manifestacion pending his trial. But the
Holy Office impudently removed him from the custody of the law, and
threw him into their prison of the Aljaferia. A popular tumult followed.
Pérez was released and taken back to his first prison. The Viceroy, the
Marqués de Almenara, died of chagrin, it is said, at the insults he had
received from the crowd. Four months later a fresh riot broke out, and
enabled Pérez to make good his escape to France.
Philip now sent an army of 14,000 men into Aragon to re-establish his
authority on the ruins of the constitution. The Justiciary, Juan de
Lanuza, summoned the people to defend their country. But the Castilians
dispersed this hastily collected force at the first encounter, and
entered Zaragoza unopposed on December 12. Juan de Lanuza and many
other persons of note were judicially murdered; the leaders of the
aristocracy were imprisoned, and the city sacked from end to end.
Never again did Zaragoza raise its head in defiance of the King of
Spain. The _fueros_ continued nominally in force till 1707, when they
were formally abrogated by Philip V. in revenge perhaps for the defeat
sustained before the walls at the hands of Stanhope and Stahremberg. But
the spirit of the people was far from being crushed. They might bow
before their own king, but they would not bend the knee to a foreigner.
Zaragoza’s defence in 1808 is one of the most glorious episodes in the
history of the nation. When the revolution broke out at Madrid on May 2,
the citizens expelled the Governor, Guillelmi, and elected as leader Don
Jose Palafox, a young noble of great personal courage and charm. He was
assisted by a priest named Santiago Sas, his secretary Boggiero, who is
said to have penned all his proclamations, and by three peasant leaders,
‘Tio’ Jorge, ‘Tio’ Marin, and Mariano Cerezo. All their equipment for
war consisted at the outset of 220 men, a few muskets, and sixteen guns;
yet when Lefebvre Desnouettes arrived before the place on June 15, he
met with so stubborn a resistance that he was compelled to proceed
cautiously. He reduced the city indeed to a heap of ruins, but he had
not taken it when Dupont’s surrender at Bailen obliged him, on August
15, to raise the siege.
The French reappeared in December 1808, to the number of 18,000 men,
under the command of Marshals Lannes, Moncey, Mortier, and Junot. The
city was attacked on two sides at once, but more especially from the
Jesuit convent on the left bank of the Ebro, which the Spaniards had
neglected to secure. What followed may be read in the pages of Napier.
The besiegers breached the wall near the convent of Santa Engracia, and
the combat was continued day after day in the streets of the town. Every
house was held as a fortress, every few yards of street was defended by
a barricade. In answer to the summons to surrender rang Palafox’s
defiant ‘War to the knife and to the last ditch!’ The women in many
cases fought beside the men. When Maria Agustin saw her sweetheart fall
at his post, she took the linstock from his hand and fired the gun
herself. The fame of this ‘Maid of Saragossa’ has penetrated every
land. For twenty-one days the fighting continued in the streets.
Finally, on February 21, 1809, the defenders capitulated on honourable
terms. The town was a smoking heap of ruins and of dead. Zaragoza had
shown an astonished world that the spirit of Saguntum and Numantia yet
lived in Spaniards. And, we doubt not, it still lives.
The city soon arose from the ashes. It rapidly recovered its prosperity,
which took a fresh impetus on the opening of the four railways, east,
west, north, and south. Here you see both the Old and the New Spain--the
one with its heroic, glorious memories, the other with its promise of
things as great and happier.
THE CITY
Zaragoza stands on the right bank of the Ebro in an oasis in the desert
of Aragon. Nothing could be more attractive than the immediate environs,
or more desolate than the country a few miles farther out. Such a
situation was familiar to the Berber conquerors, who made themselves at
home here and left their mark on the architecture of the city long after
the last ‘Tagarin’ Moor had been expelled. Not, of course, that Zaragoza
is to be compared as regards Musulman architecture with Seville,
Cordova, Granada, and Toledo; but the Moor has left behind him
unmistakable evidences of his presence, and an interesting monument
called the Aljaferia, which endures, though oft and oft restored, to
this day.
The name seems to be derived from Jaffir, a not uncommon name among the
Moors, and borne perhaps by one of the Beni Hud dynasty, for whom the
building served as a palace. At the conquest in 1118 it was allotted by
Alfonso the Battler to the Benedictine order. In the fourteenth century
it again became the residence of royalty, and doubtless was entirely
transformed and repaired. It was the scene of great splendour at the
coronation of King Martin, and of several of his successors. To-day it
presents a sad and dilapidated appearance. The imposing staircase,
decorated with fine stucco work, is the creation of the Catholic
sovereigns, who seem to have had some idea of reconstituting the past
glories of the palace in true Moorish style. The ceilings of some of the
chambers are in the artesonado style--the work of fifteenth-century
artificers. The most beautiful is to be seen in the Salon de la Alcoba,
where was born in 1271 the sainted Princess Isabel, afterwards Queen of
Portugal, and persistently confounded by English writers with St.
Elizabeth of Hungary. Everywhere among the decorations appear the
devices and mottoes of Ferdinand and Isabel.