GALICIA
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
A RIBBON OF IRON (The Great Siberian Railway)
IN RUSSIAN TURKESTAN
RUSSIA: TRAVELS AND STUDIES
WOMAN IN TRANSITION
[Illustration: THE PORTICO DE GLORIA, IN THE CATHEDRAL OF SANTIAGO]
GALICIA
THE SWITZERLAND OF SPAIN
BY
ANNETTE M. B. MEAKIN
“Lugar mais hermoso
No mundo n’hachara
Qu’aquel de Galicia
Galicia encantada.”
ROSALIA CASTRO
WITH 105 ILLUSTRATIONS AND A MAP
METHUEN & CO.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON
_First Published in 1909_
THIS VOLUME
IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED
TO
HER MAJESTY
VICTORIA EUGENIA
GALICIA’S QUEEN
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. ANCIENT GALICIA 1
II. THE GEOGRAPHY OF GALICIA 17
III. THE FIRST GOLDEN AGE 24
IV. THE SALVE REGINA 39
V. THE LANGUAGE OF GALICIA 49
VI. PILGRIMS TO SANTIAGO 60
VII. THE ARCHITECTURE OF GALICIA 78
VIII. THE CATHEDRAL OF SANTIAGO 94
IX. THE PÓRTICO DE GLORIA 107
X. SCULPTURED CAPITALS 126
XI. THE ROYAL HOSPITAL 136
XII. THE COLEGIATA DE SAR 145
XIII. LA CORUÑA 152
XIV. EMIGRATION 172
XV. ROSALIA CASTRO 182
XVI. SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA 190
XVII. GALICIA’S LIVESTOCK 210
XVIII. PADRON 222
XIX. LA BELLÍSIMA NOYA 231
XX. PONTEVEDRA 254
XXI. VIGO AND TUY 276
XXII. ORENSE 286
XXIII. MONFORTE AND LUGO 297
XXIV. BETANZOS AND FERROL 308
XXV. THE GREAT MONASTERIES OF GALICIA 317
XXVI. TREES, FRUITS, AND FLOWERS 343
XXVII. DIVES CALLAECIA 352
BIBLIOGRAPHY 359
INDEX 363
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
THE _PÓRTICO DE GLORIA_ IN THE CATHEDRAL OF SANTIAGO _Frontispiece_
FACING PACE
MAP OF GALICIA 1
THE RIVER SIL, ORENSE 22
WHERE THE SIL JOINS THE CABE 57
A MOUNTAIN VINEYARD 57
THE TREASURY, SANTIAGO CATHEDRAL 102
PUERTA DE LAS PLATERIAS, SANTIAGO CATHEDRAL 102
PUERTA SANTA, SANTIAGO CATHEDRAL 102
THE SILVER ALTAR WITH STATUE OF ST. JAMES IN SANTIAGO CATHEDRAL 104
THE STONE COFFIN IN WHICH THE LOST BODY OF ST. JAMES
WAS DISCOVERED IN 1879. IT HAD BEEN HIDDEN THERE
WHEN SIR FRANCIS DRAKE ATTACKED CORUÑA 104
WINDOW IN THE PALACE OF GELMIREZ 127
ARCHWAY IN THE PALACE OF GELMIREZ 127
SCULPTURE IN THE CHAPEL BENEATH SANTIAGO CATHEDRAL 127
SCULPTURE IN THE REFECTORY OF THE PALACE OF GELMIREZ 128
SCULPTURE IN THE CHAPEL 130
SCULPTURED PILLAR IN THE CHAPEL 130
ENTRANCE TO THE CHAPEL BENEATH SANTIAGO CATHEDRAL 130
SCULPTURED CAPITALS EXACTLY BENEATH THE _PÓRTICO DE GLORIA_ 132
THE PALACE OF GELMIREZ 132
ENTRANCE TO THE ROYAL HOSPITAL AT SANTIAGO 136
VESTIBULE OF THE ROYAL HOSPITAL 140
CLOISTER IN THE ROYAL HOSPITAL 140
CONVENT OF SAN PAYO, WHERE EACH NUN HAD A SEPARATE
KITCHEN AND A MAID TO WAIT ON HER 142
ROYAL HOSPITAL, SANTIAGO 142
A CORNER OF A CLOISTER, ROYAL HOSPITAL, SANTIAGO 144
A DOORWAY LEADING TO A CLOISTER, ROYAL HOSPITAL, SANTIAGO 144
A SCULPTURED ALTAR, ROYAL HOSPITAL, SANTIAGO 144
INTERIOR OF THE COLEGIATA DE SAR 147
CLOISTER OF THE COLEGIATA DE SAR 147
PEASANTS IN COSTUMES PECULIAR TO GALICIA 154
A NATIVE CART 158
A STREET IN LA CORUÑA 158
A WATER-CARRIER 158
KEEPING MAY DAY 158
THE TOWER OF HERCULES 159
THE TOMB OF SIR JOHN MOORE ON THE RAMPARTS OF LA CORUÑA 159
PADRON 228
BRIDGE OF ALONSO WHERE THE TAMBRE JOINS THE RIA DE NOYA 228
NOYA 234
THE BED OF SAN MAMED, NOYA 236
CLOISTER OF SAN JUSTO DE TOJOSUTOS 236
GROUP OF MUSICIANS; ONE IS HOLDING THE GALICIAN BAGPIPE 239
MERCHANT’S PALACE OF SIXTEENTH CENTURY, NOYA 239
RUINED CHURCH OF CAMBADOS 256
INTERIOR OF SANTA MARIA LA GRANDE 256
THE CHURCH OF SANTA MARIA LA GRANDE AND HOUSES ONCE
INHABITED BY MERCHANT FISHERMEN 256
OLD JEWISH QUARTER, PONTEVEDRA 260
THE RUINS OF SANTA DOMINGO NOW AN OPEN-AIR ARCHÆOLOGICAL
MUSEUM, PONTEVEDRA 260
PART OF THE MUSEUM OF ARCHÆOLOGY, PONTEVEDRA 262
TOMB OF AN AMBASSADOR TO TAMERLANE IN THE MUSEUM
OF SANTA DOMINGO, PONTEVEDRA 262
THE VILLAGE OF COMBARRO, PONTEVEDRA 267
A NATIVE DOVECOT 267
CASTELLO MOS, NOW THE SUMMER RESIDENCE OF THE MARQUIS
DE LA VEGA DE ARMIJO, PONTEVEDRA 272
PREHISTORIC WRITING DISCOVERED ON BOULDERS NEAR THE
TOWN OF PONTEVEDRA IN 1907 274
(_From a Drawing by E. Campo_)
BELL TOWER OF THE CATHEDRAL, TUY 282
THE CATHEDRAL AT TUY 282
PORCH OF TUY CATHEDRAL 284
APSE OF THE PARISH CHURCH AT ALLARIZ 289
FAÇADE OF THE CHURCH OF EL MOSTEIRO 289
ENTRANCE TO ORENSE CATHEDRAL 289
STONE REREDOS IN THE CAPILLA DE LOS CONDES, MONTERREY 290
THE PUENTE MAYOR, ONE OF THE WONDERS OF ORENSE 290
NORTHERN ENTRANCE TO ORENSE CATHEDRAL 292
SIDE ENTRANCE TO THE CHURCH OF SANTA DOMINGO AT TUY 292
ROMANESQUE FAÇADE OF THE PARISH CHURCH AT ALLARIZ 292
WINDOW IN THE CHURCH OF SANTIAGO AT RIBADAVIA 292
TOWER NEAR MONTERREY 294
CHURCH OF AQUASANTAS 294
APSE OF THE CHURCH OF EL MOSTEIRO 294
APSE OF A CHURCH NEAR ORENSE 296
CONVENTUAL CHURCH OF THE MONASTERY OF OSERA 296
PART OF THE APSE OF THE CHURCH OF AQUASANTAS 296
THE MARKET-PLACE, LUGO 312
CHILDREN PLAYING HIDE-AND-SEEK AMONG THE COFFINS EXPOSED
FOR SALE IN A STREET OF SANTIAGO 312
ROMANESQUE SIDE ENTRANCE TO CHURCH OF TIOBRE, BETANZOS 312
TOMB OF ANDRADA, BETANZOS 312
THE MONASTERY OF OSERA, ORENSE 321
CLOISTERS IN THE MONASTERY OF OSERA, TWO PICTURES 321
CLOISTER IN THE COLEGIATA DE JUNQUERA DE AMBIA 321
CLOISTER IN THE MONASTERY OF CELANOVA 329
SANTA COMBA DE BANDE 332
HORSESHOE ARCH IN SANTA COMBA DE BANDE 332
ORATORY OF SAN MIGUEL IN GARDEN OF CELANOVA MONASTERY 332
MONASTERY AND CHURCH OF CELANOVA 332
THE RIVER CABE 335
MY GUIDE LEADING ME UP TO THE MONASTERY OF SAN ESTEVAN 335
THE BISHOP’S CLOISTER, MONASTERY OF SAN ESTEVAN, ORENSE 338
ROCK-HEWN CHAPEL IN THE MONASTERY OF SAN PEDRO DE ROCAS 340
VESTIBULE OF THE ROCK CHAPELS OF SAN PEDRO DE ROCAS 340
PRIMITIVE MAIZE BARN IN VILLAGE NEAR OSERA 345
MOUNTAIN SLOPE CULTIVATED IN STEPS OR TERRACES, ORENSE 345
[Illustration: MAP OF
GALICIA]
GALICIA
CHAPTER I
ANCIENT GALICIA
Ancient Galicia--Never conquered by the Moors--The cradle of
Spanish nobility--A goal for pilgrims--Modern writers on Galicia--A
rich literature--National traditions--Martial genius--No
Basques--Iberian words--Ligurians in Spain--Barrows and
tumuli--Druidical stones--Celtic Spain--Derivation of
“Galicia”--Scotch and Irish traditions--Julius Cæsar--Phœnician
colonies--The Cassiterides--Plato’s theory--Iron
implements--Quintus Fabius--Brutus in Galicia--The theatre of
Cæsar’s battles--The Roman Legions--The most ancient of all the
Spanish kingdoms
Galicia is the least known and the least written about of all the little
kingdoms that go to the making of Spain. Her boundaries have been
greatly reduced since the days when the Romans divided the Peninsula
into five provinces and called one of them Galicia. In the fourth and
fifth centuries, when the Sueves and the Vandals poured into Spain, they
made Galicia their centre, and their kingdom extended into what is now
the kingdom of Portugal, while Braga, now a Portuguese town, was for a
long time the residential city of their kings. At the end of the seventh
century King Witiza resided in Galicia, not as its king, but as the
companion of his father in the kingdom of the Goths, whose seat was
Toledo; it was as governor of Galicia that he resided at Tuy. In the
days of the historian Mariana part of his palace was still to be seen
there. His father died in 706, and he then became king of the Goths. The
irruption of the Saracens in 713 again changed the aspect of the
Peninsula, and the limits of Galicia were contracted; but Spanish
geographers to this day call her a _reino_, or kingdom, and divide her
into four little provinces--Coruña, Pontevedra, Orense, and Lugo. Like
our Wales, Galicia once had kings of her own, and at a later date the
title “king of Galicia” was given to the heir to the Spanish throne,
just as that of “Prince of Asturias” is given now. It is an interesting
fact that Moorish historians speak of that part of the Peninsula which
retained the Christian faith during their occupation as “Galicia,” and
of all the rest of the territory as “Spain.” Just as Novgorod proudly
boasts of never having been conquered by the Tartars when the rest of
Russia was subjected to their sway, so Galicia is proud to remember that
she, at least, was never conquered by the Moors.
Galicia may justly be called the cradle of the Spanish nobility, for
almost all Spain’s proudest families have their roots in Gallegan soil,
their titles having been given to their ancestors as a reward for the
heroic resistance they offered to the Moors.
During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Galicia seems to have
been left out of count, and to have gradually sunk into oblivion. Even
the Spaniards themselves know very little about her to-day. Yet in the
Middle Ages her fame as a goal of pilgrims rivalled that of Palestine,
not only throughout Spain, but throughout the length and breadth of
Christendom; while earlier still, when she bravely resisted Julius
Cæsar’s attempt at conquest, she won for herself no little glory.
The small amount of information relative to Galicia which is to be
obtained from English and French books is distinctly unfavourable. We
are told that her climate is damp and rainy, and that her inhabitants
are dull, stubborn, and stupid; while her wonderful history, her
exquisite scenery, and her fascinating architecture are barely alluded
to, if not passed over in absolute silence. It is to Spanish writers
that we must turn for information that is neither superficial nor
unreliable.
There exists in the Spanish language a rich literature relating to
Galicia, but a good history of this province has yet to be written.
Aguiar began to write one in the thirties of the nineteenth century, but
death frustrated the completion of his design, as it did those of
several other competent men who had planned a similar task.[1] Aguiar
explained in his first volume that he had been led to undertake the work
by finding how unjustly and incorrectly Galicia had been treated by
earlier writers, and how little she was known to the rest of Spain, in
spite of her being one of the most important, one of the most beautiful,
and one of the most cultured of the Spanish provinces. He further
complained that no historians had ever taken the trouble to visit
Galicia, except Ambrosio Morales,[2] whose sole object in doing so was
to search for antiquities for the Escurial collection.
Galicia was the province that suffered most from the political
unification of Spain; she was the one most sacrificed to the
centralisation of political administration, partially, no doubt, in
consequence of her position being the most distant and the most isolated
one. There are many devoted Gallegans who compare their beloved
territory to Finland, to Ireland and Hungary, and are never tired of
saying that self-government alone could restore to her the prosperity
that has forsaken her shores. They feel that as long as she is governed
at a distance and by strangers she can never hope to raise her head.
Less troubled by invaders, less influenced by the Moors than the rest of
Spain, Galicia at one time became the centre in which was propagated the
purest of Spain’s lyric poetry; she constituted a neo-Gothic society the
hearth on which were kindled the earliest flames of Peninsular
civilisation;[3] hither came even kings to complete their education, and
the language of Galicia--“O crown of fame!”--was the medium chosen by
Spain’s greatest troubadours in which to express their poetic thoughts.
But Galicia lost her political existence, and with it her culture was
also extinguished.
But neither unification nor centralisation have the power to destroy
national traditions, and Galicia is still, as one of her children has
expressed it, “the land of glorious recollections.” The songs of her
bards are still in the hearts of her people, and a passionate love for
her mountains, vales, and rivers is perhaps the most marked of all the
interesting traits to be found in the Gallegan character.
We were all taught at school, if not in the nursery, that Spain was
conquered by the Romans, and later on by the Moors,--all Spain, except
one little corner to the north-west,--and some of us have wondered how
it came to pass that one little corner of the Peninsula should have
succeeded in resisting so stoutly, not only Julius Cæsar, but the
Moorish hosts who for eight long centuries held sway over the rest of
the land. We have wondered what sort of people the Gallegans were, and
whence came their martial genius, and, above all, their unconquerable
love of liberty.
Every group of human beings, every town, every nation, leaves to
posterity some record of its civil life and of its customs, according to
the degree of civilisation in which it lived. These records come down to
us preserved in rocks and stones, in hieroglyphics, in Runic characters
and in Greek and Latin inscriptions, in lines upon parchment and in
rustic dwellings. Such is the book in which our past is written, the
book in which every generation has written a page. Some British
ethnologists still think that the Basques are the oldest inhabitants of
Spain, and that they once spread all over the Peninsula, but, as Barros
Sivelo[4] and others have pointed out, that is impossible, for there is
no trace of the Basques in the whole of Galicia. On the other hand, it
has been proved many times and beyond all doubt that Celtic tribes
inhabited that part of Spain for a considerable period. Borrow, after
translating the Bible into Basque, strongly opposed the theory that this
language was of Celtic origin. As this gifted student of languages spoke
Erse, the native language of Ireland, fluently as well as that of the
Basques, I think we may consider him a competent judge when he tells us
that “perhaps in the whole of Europe it would be difficult to discover
two languages which exhibit fewer points of mutual resemblance than the
Basque and the Irish.”[5]
The oldest-known inhabitants of Spain were called Iberians. There are
many theories about these people as to who they really were and whence
they came, the most interesting and probable theory being that of Marcus
Varro (who was about ten years older than Cicero), that conscientious
historians believed that they were originally Scythian Iberians, and
that they made their way from the neighbourhood of Armenia by way of
northern Africa to Spain.[6] It is, at any rate, an interesting fact
that Georgia also bore the name of Iberia in olden days, and that the
hemispheric writing found among the Georgians of the present day is
brought to our memory by the appearance of the wonderful hemispheric
writing still to be distinctly traced upon the boulders of Galicia.
Furthermore, we learn from the chronicle of Idatius, written in the
fifth century, that the Roman Emperor Theodosius was born in the town of
Cauca, in the province of Galicia.[7] No one can say with certainty
where the town of Cauca was situated, but it is thought to have been
somewhere between Braga and the river Miño. Now the word _cauca_ in the
language of the ancient Scythians meant “white,” and the name of the
mountains of Georgia which divide Europe from Asia is “Caucasus,” said
to have been given to them on account of their peaks being eternally
“white” with snow.[8] So here we have at least one Asiatic Iberian name
given to a town of Galicia, and we should in all probability find others
were we to begin to search for them.[9]
The Iberians of the Caucasus are believed to have established themselves
on the banks of the Caucasian rivers as far back as 3000 B.C. They
multiplied so fast, we are told, that four hundred years after their
arrival numbers of them wandered forth to seek a new home. They hurried
along the northern coast of Africa and entered Spain by what was then
the Isthmus of Hercules. But when the Celts came to Spain there were two
other peoples already there besides the Iberians--the Ligurians and the
Phœnicians. Jubainville assures us that the presence of Ligurians in
Spain is attested by the presence of twenty-one names ending in _asco_,
_asca_, _ascon_, and _usco_, and three of these names are found in
Galicia. The Phœnicians never conquered Spain, they were only her
masters as far as commerce was concerned. From the first to the last the
Spanish Peninsula has never been completely conquered by any of its
invaders except the Romans.
I have not had an opportunity of following the more recent
anthropological studies of Señor Anton Ferrandez in connection with the
subject of the first inhabitants of Spain, but in some of his lectures
in the Athenæum of Madrid he has propounded a theory that the two
primitive races of Spain were that of the Cro-Magnon and that of the
Celto-Slav. His conviction had been supported, moreover, by the recent
discovery of prehistoric antiquities in Egypt analogous to those that
have been found in Spain such as stone instruments, ornamental vases,
and pictorial engravings upon rocks, representations of men and animals.
In certain cases the signs discovered on Egyptian rocks have been found
to be identical with those found in central Spain (Fuencaliente, Cueva
di los Letreros, etc.); even the red colour with which some of them were
engraved appeared to be the same. It is also anticipated that the recent
discoveries made by Evans in the island of Crete may throw more light
upon this problem.[10] I saw recently in the Archæological Museum at
Madrid some cases of glazed terra-cotta fragments from the neighbourhood
of Cordova exactly similar to those that have been found at Arezzo in
Italy, and which are considered to be Etruscan; in another room I found
some remarkable stone figures of women with peaked head-dresses, said to
be Phœnician antiquities, but which bore an unmistakable resemblance to
the stone _babus_ found on the plains of Russia, and attributed to the
Huns.[11] The Spanish ones were, it is true, very much smaller, but the
attitude and the position of the hands was identical. Another recent
discovery is that of fragments of pottery in various parts of Spain
bearing the zigzag ornamentation--supposed to represent the running of
water--which is so often found upon Egyptian pottery.[12] Señor Melida
considers this a fresh testimony to the Libian origin of the primitive
inhabitants of Spain.
So far no comparative study has been made of the barrows and tumuli of
Spain, but it has at least been ascertained that there are none in the
east and only a few in the centre, while in the north, west, and south
they are frequently to be met with--a fact that has been supposed by
some to indicate the isolation in which their constructors lived. There
are two distinct kinds of dolmen: some are square in form, notably those
in Cataluña and Andalusia; others are circular, with walls arranged in a
conical form--the latter being the type most frequent in Galicia and in
Portugal.
In Galicia, barrows, locally known as _castros_, are very numerous. On
one occasion four were pointed out to me during an hour’s drive. As
Señor Villa Amil has remarked, they are too well fortified to be
temples, and too numerous and too near together to be war camps. During
the Middle Ages the Gallegans used them as forts; and earlier still,
when defending themselves against the Romans, they made them their chief
strongholds. These _castros_ are frequently mentioned in the _Historia
Compostelana_, and always as fortresses. Señor Villa Amil concludes that
they must have originally been, at one and the same time, both
fortresses and towns. Strabo’s statement that the Celts lived in little
villages close to one another supports this view. Some authors, taking
the accessary for the principal, have called these _castros_, _mamoas_,
or _modorras_; but _mamoas_ are, in fact, what archæologists have agreed
to call _tumuli_. In the old Latin documents of Galicia these last are
called _mamulas_ and _mamonas_. The most important articles found in
these _mamoas_ are the so-called torcs, or torques, of massive gold,
with coarse workmanship and very little ornamentation. Señor Villa Amil
explains the paucity of iron instruments by the climatic conditions of
the country, which he thinks lead to the total decomposition of iron
weapons. Handmills of two pieces of granite have been found, very
similar to those discovered in French caves. Though he has found many
fragments of pottery, Señor Villa Amil has never come across a whole
vase, and he takes this as a proof that the people who formed these
tumuli could not have used funeral urns; the fragments are in almost
every case of a material which gives them an undoubtedly historic
character--they are of clay mixed with sand and scattered over with
mica. Some iron instruments and some bronze jewellery, more finely
worked than the gold torques, were found with these. Our friend
concludes that the tumuli must be prehistoric citadels which continued
to be used as fastnesses right down to the end of the Middle Ages.
Melida states that on all the _mamoas_ of Galicia there have been found
indications of the cremation of the dead. Señor Macineira has prepared a
map of the _castros_ in the neighbourhood of Ortigueira (Galicia),
showing which of them he considers to be of ante-Roman and which of
Roman origin,[13] those of Roman origin being similar to our “Cæsar’s
camps.” Many of them served as defences of the coast. They are oblong or
circular in shape with double parapets, often showing that much thought
must have been expended upon their construction. It is supposed that the
ante-Roman ones were used as the residences of tribal chiefs as well as
for sepulchres, while Druidical stones resembling those of Stonehenge
are to be seen in several wild and mountainous spots, and huge heaps of
stones like the cairns of Scotland and Ireland also testify to Celtic
customs. Galicia certainly rivals the British Isles in her megalithic
remains; she can also boast of “rocking” boulders[14] such as those that
were formerly used as tests of female virtue in Brittany. That Celts
inhabited Galicia at a very early period in the history of the human
race is certain, but they were not her earliest inhabitants. Barros
Sivelo was convinced, after years of study, that the earliest
inhabitants of Galicia were neither Celts nor Iberians. To discover who
were the forerunners of these two races will be the business of
archæology, and in archæology the words “prehistoric” and “historic”
cease to have any value, for every object that comes down to us from
the earliest times is itself a historical document, which, if properly
interpreted, will help to throw light upon the past.
Jubainville,[15] who has devoted years of patient study to the ancient
history of the Celtic race, tells us in his latest work that the Britons
reached Great Britain from the continent in the eleventh century B.C.,
and that their language is represented to-day by two of their living
daughters, the Welsh-speaking people in Britain and the Breton-speaking
people of Brittany in France. He also believes that the Celts penetrated
into Spain from France before Druidism had reached Gaul from its
birthplace, Britain. When the Celts and the Iberians had, in certain
parts of Spain, amalgamated into one race, they began to be called
Celtiberians; but in the corner of Spain with which we have now to do a
small group of Celtic tribes kept themselves quite distinct from the
Iberians. The Celts of Galicia were still Celts pure and simple when the
Romans, under Decimus Brutus, conquered that province in B.C. 136, and
it is from them that the present inhabitants of Galicia have inherited
their Celtic place-names, their Celtic bagpipe, their Celtic dances,
their Celtic temperament, and many other things Celtic which they share
with their neighbours of Scotland, Ireland, and Brittany to-day.
Celtic Spain is thought to have embraced part of Lusitania (now the
north of Portugal), the whole of the territory now called Galicia,
Asturias, and all the other northern kingdoms of the Peninsula. Paul
Orosius, a local writer of the fourth century, is one of our authorities
here, but Manuel de la Huerta y Vega was somewhat doubtful on this
point.
With regard to the derivation of the word “Galicia” there are still many
contested opinions. Florez[16] tells us that the ancients spelt it both
with a C and a G. Martial speaks of “Oceano Callaico,” and Brutus was
called “Callaicus” when he returned to Rome for his “triumph.” St.
Isidore of Seville derived the word “Galicia” from γαλα, the
Greek word for milk, thinking that the inhabitants had received the name
on account of their milky-white complexions. Julius Cæsar begins his
_Commentaries_ by saying that they called themselves Celts in their own
language[17] and that the Roman equivalent was “Galli,” but Florez
argues that as the Celts had relations with the Greeks long before they
had any with Rome, we must take the name _Galatos_ to be much more
ancient than that of Galli, the former having been used by the Greeks,
and the latter by the Romans. St. Isidore says that the Gallegos were
also called Galos, and that both these names originated in the fairness
of their complexions; but again Florez demurs, assuring us that he has
never seen in any document the name of Gallos applied to the Gallegans.
“We know,” he adds, “that the Celts entered Galicia, but the territory
they occupied was called ‘_celtico_,’ not ‘galico’ nor ‘galiciense.’”
Mela and others thought, on the other hand, that the term _Calaicos_ was
derived from the name of a town called Cale. Florez says that it is
certain, from the writings of Sallust, that there once existed a town of
the name of Cale to the north of the Duero, and that at the mouth of
that river there was a Portus Cale, from which the name of Portugal is
derived; but he concludes his chapter on this subject by declaring that
it is impossible to say what is the true derivation of the word
“Galicia.”
The question as to how and whence the Celts entered Galicia has become
of late years a thorny subject to Spanish students of Gallegan history,
and a foreigner who has followed their discussions can hardly approach
it without feeling that he is treading upon dangerous ground. I shall
avoid taking it upon myself to decide which of the many theories put
before the Spanish public is nearest to the truth. There are some who
think that Galicia, Ireland, and America were once connected by land,
and there are many who maintain that in prehistoric times there must
have been a close maritime intercourse between Ireland and Galicia.
Both the Scotch and the Irish have traditions to the effect that the
native races of Scotland and Ireland are descended from Spaniards.
Curiously enough, I came across a proof of the freshness of such
traditions in the minds of the Irish of my own day just as I was
starting for Galicia in 1907. An Irish maid who was assisting me to
prepare for my departure, on hearing that Spain was the destination of
my journey, remarked, “That is the country my people came from. All the
Irish came from Spain a long time ago.” “Are you quite sure?” I asked.
“Yes,” she replied, “quite sure. Everybody in Ireland knows that; even
the poor people know it.”
Some Spanish writers believe that the Celts, passing from Galicia to
Ireland, crossed thence to England. “But if it is true,” says Aguiar,
“that the English Celts came to France from England, how comes it that
Julius Cæsar tells us that the Galli went to England to be instructed in
the sciences?” Others are of the opinion that the earliest inhabitants
of Galicia entered Spain at a much earlier date than that which the
Gauls settled in France--Herodotus having written about Spanish Celts,
but not about French ones. They believe that the Spanish Celts are a
branch of the Cimmerians described by Herodotus as dwelling in the
Crimea,[18] who disappeared completely from the neighbourhood of the
Black Sea, and were thought to have settled in Wales under the name of
Cimbri.[19] There have come down to our own times many geographical
names, not only in Britain, but also in Galicia, containing the roots
Cam, Camb, Cambr, Cim, and Cimbr.
The earliest documentary information about Galicia comes to us from the
Romans, from the writings of Julius Cæsar, Strabo, and Pliny the
Younger, from Justin, Silicus Italicus, and Asclepiades. The last-named
writer speaks of Greek colonies in Galicia and Lusitania, but many
Spanish writers have discredited their existence, and Barros Sivelo
affirms that there is not a single monument in Galicia testifying to the
Greeks having settled there. Recent writers have devoted much time to
the extraction of imaginary Greek roots from words in daily use among
the Gallegan peasantry, but, as far as I can judge, too much free play
has been allowed to their imagination; and when one remembers how
distinct are the traces left by Greek colonies in other parts of the
world, one naturally looks for more substantial proof than that which is
afforded by a page or two of strained philological comparisons.[20] The
tradition has, however, been handed down to us that several Gallegan
towns, notably those of Tuy and Pontevedra, owe their origin to Greek
settlers, and certain Greek customs are said to be still extant there.
There were Phœnician colonies in Galicia in the twentieth century B.C.
In Pontevedra I came across an interesting little Spanish book with the
title, “A Critical Dissertation, undertaken to prove that William
Cambden was wrong in stating that the islands to which the Phœnicians
came for tin were the Scilly Islands, and that these islands (known to
the ancients as the Cassiterides) are those which are situated on the
coast of the kingdom of Galicia”[21] (opposite Vigo harbour). Ptolemy
wrote of them as being ten in number, and all inhabited, except one, by
a people who clad themselves in long black tunics with a girdle round
their waist, who walked staff in hand and wore beards like goats.
Pliny, quoting Herodotus, owned that he knew nothing about the islands
in question, “_Nec Cassiterides novi insulas, unde ad nos venit
stanum._” The first writer to mention these islands is Herodotus.
Himilcon’s expedition is supposed by the Spanish historian Velazquez to
have taken place in 400 B.C. Cornide quotes many Spanish writers who
believed the Cassiterides to have been situated on the coast of Galicia;
he then complains that Cambden only quoted that part of Diodorus Siculus
which was favourable to his theory, and passed over in silence the words
“_supra Lusitanorum provinciam multum stannei est metalli in insulis
videlicet occidentalibus Oceano Iberico adjacentibus quas idcirco
Cassiterides nuncuparit_.” How could this passage possibly refer to the
Scilly Islands? Then, too, if the Scilly Islands were once so rich in
tin, it surely is strange that they now show traces of nothing but
granite and quartz. But what islands are these on the Gallegan coast
that may once have contained so rich a supply of tin? Only a group of
minute ones opposite the harbour of Vigo. “Perhaps,” say some, “the
group contained larger islands once; they may have been swallowed by the
sea.”
The Phœnicians had long held sway over the empire of the sea, and to
this they owed their immense wealth. In the Bible they are alluded to as
merchant princes. They visited India for their own private interests,
and fetched thence gold, precious stones, valuable woods, ivory,
monkeys, and peacocks’ feathers. Herodotus tells us that to satisfy the
curiosity of Necho, king of Egypt, they sailed round Africa, starting
from the Red Sea and taking three years for the voyage. When they
explored the coast of Africa they brought away as trophies the skins of
some Ethiopian women who had refused to be taken captive alive. The
Carthaginians and the Phœnicians were both from the same Semitic stock
as the Hebrews. Aguiar, quoting Pliny, says that Midacritus made a
voyage to the Cassiterides in 1600 B.C., thus initiating commerce in the
famed tin of these islands, and he goes on to say that without doubt the
Cassiterides, if they were not on the coast of Galicia, were the British
Isles. The Phœnicians even visited Ireland and brought information to
the Romans about far-off Thule. If these navigators reached Britain,
where vestiges of their language still remain, they must of a certainty
have been acquainted with the coast of Galicia, whose mountains
contained tin of so fine a quality that where English tin contained six
parts per hundred of lead these contained thirty. According to
Jubainville, it was from the Phœnicians that the Celts (after their
establishment in Gaul) heard of the rich mines in Spain which induced
them to conquer that country. The power of the Phœnicians was already in
its decline when they came under the sway of Persia about the year 537
B.C. Jubainville believes that the word Cassiterides is derived through
the Greek χασσιτερος, from a Celtic root _cassi_, meaning
agreeable--whence also he derives the Irish word _caise_, meaning
esteem, love. He believes that the Celts from what is now
Hesse-Darmstadt, being pleased with Great Britain, gave it that name,
and he agrees with Reinach’s suggestion that tin came to be called
χασσιτερος, because it was found in the country known by that
name.[22]
Galicia has traditions reaching back into the remotest antiquity. The
name of the famous tower of Hercules, at the entrance to the harbour of
Coruña, proves the presence of Phœnicians in Galicia. It was they who
named the Straits of Gibraltar the Pillars of Hercules, and they who
gave the name of Hercules to a tower they erected in the harbour of
Cadiz.
Local archæologists are, as we have seen, convinced that some other race
dwelt in Galicia before it was invaded by the Celts, but they tell us
that, so far, no very distinct vestige of such people has been traced,
there is nothing sufficiently definite to prove their identity.
The fact that no iron implements from their time had been discovered
till quite recently, leads to the conclusion that they were in absolute
ignorance of the use of metals, but I speak with hesitation on this
point, awaiting the final decision of Señor Villa Amil at the
conclusion of the interesting studies he is engaged in with respect to
the iron instruments he has himself excavated in Galicia. Barros Sivelo,
quoting Italicus, says that the ancient Celts wore their hair flowing
down their backs, and semicircular caps upon their heads, while their
women wore high peaked head-dresses covered with black veils which
drooped over their foreheads. These people had a strange custom of
exposing their sick upon the public highways in order that those who had
suffered from the same malady might recommend a cure.
Florez says that Galicia sent forth the flower of her youth to fight
under Hannibal, and he quotes Silius Italicus, “_Misit dives Gallaecia
pubes_,” etc.
For twenty-four years Rome and Carthage had fought over Sicily. After
the Sicilian defeat the Carthaginians, who were (like the Phœnicians) of
Semitic extraction, landed at Cadiz with the flower of their army that
they might gain in Spain what they had lost in Sicily.[23] Their leader
was Hamilcar Barca, whose ambition it was to conquer Italy as well as
Spain. Carthage had exploited Spain for four hundred years when, after
the second Punic war, Rome took up the cause of the inhabitants of Spain
against their Carthaginian oppressors, and Hamilcar found a worthy
opponent in Scipio Africanus. The people of Spain, after fighting on the
side of Scipio, were also crushed by the Romans in their turn, but they
cost Rome every year an army and a consul. The cruelty of Lucullus and
Galba made the name of Rome hateful to Spanish ears. Spanish bandits
continually attacked the Roman legions; Rome feared insurrection more
and more, and at last was not ashamed to buy with gold the life of her
enemy.
When Quintus Fabius had subjugated the greater part of Lusitania,[24]
now northern Portugal, the tribes dwelling in Galicia came down against
the Roman cities, continually raiding them in flying columns, and
fleeing to the mountains for refuge when the Romans gave them chase.
Brutus, when he crossed the river Limia, was the leader of an expedition
sent out to follow and punish them. In all these skirmishes the Gallegan
women played a prominent part, taking the field beside their husbands
and brothers, and employing their weapons with the greatest courage and
determination. They received their wounds with silent fortitude, and no
cry of pain ever escaped their lips, even when the wounds which laid
them low were mortal. Both sexes preferred death to loss of liberty, and
when taken prisoners they put themselves and their little ones to death
that they might not fall into slavery.
In the year 131 B.C., Brutus, entering Rome in triumph, received the
name of Calaicus[25] in honour of his successes in Galicia.
Nevertheless, he had not succeeded in penetrating into Galicia farther
than the river Miño. Valerius Maximus tells us that Brutus found one
city in Lusitania--Cinania or Cinninia--so hard to conquer that at last
he sent legates to offer them money, to which the citizens replied that
their ancestors had left them iron in order that they might defend their
city, not gold with which to buy liberty from an avaricious emperor--“A
speech,” adds Valerius Maximus, “that would have sounded better in the
_mouths_ of the Romans than in their ears.” The name of this city is not
mentioned by other writers, and no trace of its site has remained.
The inscription relating to the Triumph of Brutus shows that Galicia as
well as Lusitania belonged to “Further Spain.” But in the time of Julius
Cæsar historians spoke of that general’s having made Galicia and
Lusitania equally the goal of his campaigns. “Further Spain” was the
theatre of his battles from first to last. It was there that he set the
seal to his triumph over the sons of Pompey, and there that he did the
deeds of prowess that won him, first the title of Quæstor, and at length
that of Prætor of Spain. It was when he received the last-mentioned
title that his head began to be filled with the idea of a universal
empire, and that he added ten Cohorts to the twenty he had already.[26]
For one of his expeditions in these parts he caused ships full of troops
to be sent round the coast from Cadiz. Doubling Cape Finisterre, he
arrived with his fleet before Coruña (Brigantium), and terrifying the
nations who had never before set eyes on such an Armada. Galicia was
peopled at that time with many different tribes and races.
Strabo, writing in the reign of the Emperor Tiberius, stated that
between the Tagus and Cape Finisterre there dwelt as many as thirty
different races, most of whom bore such strange names that the Greeks
and Romans found them difficult to pronounce, and Mela remarks that some
of these names could not be fitted to the Roman tongue. Plutarch tells
us that Julius Cæsar then conquered not only the Lusitanians and
Gallegans, but also many peoples till then unheard of at Rome. It was
then that, proud of their general, his soldiers for the first time
proclaimed Cæsar _Imperator_ (they being intoxicated with the booty with
which he had enriched them). It was in Galicia that Julius Cæsar first
dreamed of becoming an emperor.
When the Gallegans fled for refuge to their mountains, these seemed
inaccessible to the Roman legions. In fact, so much importance did
Augustus attach to their complete subjugation, that, rather than trust
the task to one of his generals, he prepared to command in person; but
in spite of all his efforts he was so continually repulsed that he fell
ill from sheer worry, and was obliged to retire from the field and leave
his generals in command. At last the Romans gained the upper hand, and
Augustus made Galicia into a province. It was then that Galicia was
separated from Lusitania by the river Duero. She was not separated from
Taraconensis till the reign of Constantine the Great, in the year 330.
The Emperor Theodocius, we have already observed, was born in Galicia in
346. It is thought that his son Arcadius was also born there. The mother
of the latter, Flacila, was herself a native of Galicia; the poet
Claudia praises her beauty in a poem in honour of the marriage of the
Emperor Honorius. It was in the reign of Theodocius that the heresy of
Priscillian spread throughout Galicia.[27]
From the year 411 the northern barbarians who had invaded Spain, the
Sueves and Vandals, began to hold sway over Galicia. As these two tribes
could not manage to agree, it ended in the Vandals vacating that
territory and passing southward to Bætica: thence they passed over to
Africa in the year 429. The Sueves, who were one of the bravest of the
German tribes, then spread all over Galicia, the Gallegans defending
themselves in the mountain fastnesses with great bravery, and often
forcing the Sueves to make treaties with them.
Very little is known about the doings of the Sueves during the century
and a half of their power, before they were finally overthrown by
Theodoricus, king of the Goths. But certain recent Spanish historians
have filled in that part of their narrative with original legends, and
made as much as they could out of the historical fact of the conversion
of the king of the Sueves to Christianity through the instrumentality of
St. Martin Dumiensis. In the year 585, Leovigild, king of the Goths,
finally destroyed the kingdom of the Sueves, and made himself lord of
all the territory within and around Galicia which had come under their
rule. Although St. Martin was the means of the conversion of King Miro,
his people were not brought into the fold of the Church till the reign
of Recaredo, son of Leovigild.
Florez impresses upon his readers that the kingdom of Galicia is the
most ancient of all the Spanish kingdoms; that not only is it older than
that of the Goths, but also than that of the Franks in Gaul, seeing that
it existed in the year 411, and never from that date did it cease to be
a kingdom. So wide did its boundaries become at one time, that
Archbishop Rodrigo spoke, in his _History of the Barbarians_, of the
king of the Sueves as practically the sole monarch in Spain. Leovigild
did not destroy it, he incorporated it into the kingdom of the Goths.
“Therefore,” says Florez, “the Spanish monarchy clearly dates from the
year 411, when the Sueves established the kingdom of Galicia, that being
quite independent of the Roman Empire.”