This is the only day in the year when the consecrated Host is
exposed, about the streets, to the gaze of the adoring multitude. The
triumphal character of the procession which issues forth from the
principal church of every town of note in the kingdom, and a certain
dash of bitter and threatening zeal which still lies disguised under
the ardent and boundless devotion displayed on this festival, shew
but too clearly the spirit of defiance which suggested it in the heat
of the controversies upon the real presence. It is within my memory
that the taste for dignity and decorum which this Metropolitan
Church has ever evinced in the performance of religious worship,
put an end to the boisterous and unbecoming appendages which an
inveterate custom had annexed to this pageant.
At a short distance in front of the procession appeared a group of
seven gigantic figures, male and female, whose dresses, contrived
by the most skilful tailors and milliners of the town, regulated
the fashion at Seville for the ensuing season. A strong man being
concealed under each of the giants and giantesses, the gaping
multitude were amused at certain intervals with a very clumsy dance,
performed by the figures, to the sound of the pipe and tabor. Next to
the Brobdignag dancers, and taking precedence of all, there followed,
on a moveable stage, the figure of a Hydra encircling a castle,
from which, to the great delight of all the children of Seville, a
puppet not unlike Punch, dressed up in a scarlet jacket trimmed with
morrice-bells, used often to start up; and having performed a kind of
wild dance, vanished again from view into the body of the monster.
The whole of this compound figure bore the name of _Tarasca_, a word
of which I do not know either the meaning or derivation. That these
figures were allegorical no one can doubt who has any knowledge of
the pageants of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It would
be difficult, however, without the help of an obscure tradition,
to guess that the giants in perriwigs and swords, and their fair
partners in caps and petticoats, were emblems of the seven deadly
sins. The Hydra, it should seem, represented Heresy, guarding the
castle of Schism, where Folly, symbolized by the strange figure in
scarlet, displayed her supreme command. This band of monsters was
supposed to be flying in confusion before the triumphant sacrament.
Mixed with the body of the procession, there appeared three sets of
dancers; the _Valencianos_, or natives of the kingdom of Valencia,
who, in their national costume of loose waistcoats, puffed linen
sleeves, bound at the wrists and elbows with ribbons of various
colours, and broad white trowsers reaching only to the knees,
performed a lively dance, mingling their steps with feats of
surprising agility: after these followed the sword-dancers in the old
martial fashion of the country: and last of all, the performers of
an antiquated Spanish dance--I believe the _Chacona_, dressed in the
national garb of the sixteenth century.
A dance of the last-mentioned description, and in a similar
costume, is still performed before the high altar in the presence
of the chapter, at the conclusion of the service on this day and
the following se’nnight. The dancers are boys of between ten and
fourteen, who, under the name of _Seizes_,[41] are maintained at
the college which the Cathedral supports for the education of the
acolytes, or inferior ministers. These boys, accompanied by a full
orchestra, sing a lyric composition in Spanish, which, like the
Greek chorusses, consists of two or three systems of metres, to
which the dancers move solemnly, going through a variety of figures
in their natural step, till, ranged at the conclusion of the song,
in two lines facing each other as at the outset, they end with a
gentle caper, rattling the castanets, which hitherto lay silent and
concealed in their hands. That this grotesque performance should be
allowed to continue, is, I believe, owing to the pride which this
chapter take in the privilege, granted by the Pope to the dancers,
of wearing their hats within view of the consecrated host--a liberty
which the King himself cannot take, and which, if I am not misled by
report, no one besides can boast of, except the Dukes of Altamira,
who, upon certain occasions, clap on their hat, at the elevation of
the host, and draw the sword, as if shewing their readiness to give a
conclusive answer to any argument against transubstantiation.
[41] This name is, as far as I know, peculiar to Seville. The
similarity of its sound and that of _sizars_ used at Cambridge,
seems to denote a common origin in the two words.
The _Corpus Christi_ procession begins to move out of the cathedral
exactly at nine in the morning. It consists in the first place of the
forty communities of friars who have convents in this town. They
follow one another in two lines, according to the established order
of precedence. The strangeness and variety of their dresses, no less
than their collective numbers, would greatly strike any one but a
Spaniard, to whom such objects are perfectly familiar.--Next appears
the long train of relics belonging to the Cathedral, placed each by
itself on a small stage moved by one or more men concealed under
the rich drapery which hangs on its sides to the ground. Vases of
gold and silver, of different shapes and sizes, contain the various
portions of the inestimable treasure whereof the following is an
accurate catalogue:
A tooth of Saint Christopher.
An agate cup used at Mass by Pope Saint Clement, the immediate
successor of Saint Peter.
An arm of Saint Bartholomew.
A head of one of eleven thousand virgins.
Part of Saint Peter’s body.
Ditto of Saint Lawrence.
Ditto of Saint Blaise.
The bones of the Saints Servandus and Germanus.
Ditto of Saint Florentius.
The Alphonsine tables, left to the Cathedral by King Alphonso the
Wise, containing three hundred relics.
A silver bust of Saint Leander, with his bones.
A thorn from our Saviour’s crown.
A fragment of the true cross.
Last of all appears the body of prebendaries and canons, attended
by their inferior ministers. Such, however, is the length of the
procession, and the slow and solemn pace at which it proceeds, that,
without a break in the lines, it takes a whole hour to leave the
church. The streets, besides being hung up with more taste than for
the processions of the Passion Week, are shaded all the way with a
thick awning, and the pavement is strewed with rushes. An article of
the military code of Spain obliges whatever troops are quartered in a
town where this procession takes place, to follow it under arms; and
if sufficient in number, to line the streets through which it is to
pass.
Under all these circumstances, the first appearance of the host in
the streets is exceedingly imposing. Encircled by jewels of the
greatest brilliancy, surrounded by lighted tapers and enthroned on
the massive, yet elegant temple of silver already mentioned when
describing the _Monument_,[42] no sooner has it moved to the door
of the church than the bells announce its presence with a deafening
sound, the bands of military music mix their animating notes with
the solemn hymns of the singers, clouds of incense rise before the
moving shrine, and the ear is thrilled by the loud voice of command,
and the clash of the arms which the kneeling soldiers strike down
to the ground. When the concealed bearers of the shrine[43] present
it at the top of the long street where the route commences, the
multitudes which crowd both the pavement and windows, fall prostrate
in profound adoration, without venturing to rise up till the object
of their awe is out of sight. Flowers are often scattered from the
windows, and the most beautiful nosegays adorn the platform of the
moveable stage.
[42] See page 253.
[43] See Letter II. p. 34.
Close behind the host follows the archbishop, surrounded by his
ecclesiastical retinue. One of his chaplains carries a large double
cross of silver, indicative of metropolitan dignity. The train of the
purple mantle is supported by another clergyman. These, like the rest
of the prelate’s attendants and pages, are young men of family, who
disdain not this kind of service, in the expectation of high church
preferment. But what gives all this state the most unexpected finish
is an inferior minister in his surplice bearing a circular fan of
richly embroidered silk about two feet in diameter, and attached to
a silver rod six feet in length. At a convenient distance from the
archbishop this fan is constantly waved, whenever during the summer
months he attends the cathedral service, thus relieving him from the
oppressive effects of his robes under the burning sun of Andalusia.
This custom is, I believe, peculiar to Seville.