_ADARGA_
(_Royal Armoury, Madrid_)]
The Royal Armoury contains another sword improperly attributed both to
Ferdinand the Third and Ferdinand the Catholic. It dates from the
fifteenth century, and has a blade of unusual strength intended to
resist plate armour. This blade, which has a central ridge continued to
the very point, is very broad towards the handle, tapers rapidly, and
measures thirty-two inches. At the broader end, and on a gilded ground
embellished with concentric circles, are graven such legends as:--
"The Lord is my aid. I will not fear what man may do to me, and will
despise my enemies. Superior to them, I will destroy them utterly."
"Make me worthy to praise thee, O sweet and blessed Virgin Mary."
The handle is of iron, with traces of gilded decoration, and corded with
black silk. The Count of Valencia de Don Juan says that no reliable
information can be found concerning this fine arm. Its length and
general design would allow of its being used with one hand or with
both, and either slung from the saddle-bow or round the middle of a
warrior on foot.
Another handsome sword, wrongly attributed by the ignorant to Alfonso
the Sixth, is kept at Toledo, in the sacristy of the cathedral. The
scabbard is adorned with fourteenth-century enamel in the _champlevé_
style. Baron de las Cuatro Torres considers that this sword belonged to
the archbishop Don Pedro Tenorio (see p. 269), and adduces his proofs in
the _Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Excursiones_ for March 1897. The
prelate in question, appointed to command an army sent against Granada,
was, like so many of the Spanish mediæval clerics, of a warlike temper,
and "exchanged with great alacrity his rochet for his harness, and his
mitre for his helm."
One of the most ridiculous and barefaced forgeries in the Royal Armoury
is a sixteenth-century sword which has inscribed upon its blade the name
of the redoubtable Bernardo del Carpio. The Count of Valencia de Don
Juan says he remembers to have met with other blades of later mediæval
make, engraved with such legends as "belonging to Count
Fernán-Gonzalez," or even "Recaredus Rex Gothorum," while others in
this armoury are ascribed, without the least authority of fact or common
sense, to García de Paredes, Alvaro de Sande, and Hernando de Alarcón.
Others, again, with less extravagance, though not on solid proof, are
said to have belonged to Hernán Cortés, the Count of Lemos, and Diego
Hurtado de Mendoza.
Some, upon the other hand, belonged undoubtedly to celebrated Spanish
warriors of the olden time. Such are the swords of the Count of Coruña,
of Gonzalo de Córdova, and of the conqueror of Peru, Francisco Pizarro.
The first of these weapons (Pl. lvii., No. 4) has a superb hilt carved
in the style of the Spanish Renaissance, with crossbars curving down, a
_pas d'âne_, and a Toledo blade of six _mesas_ ("tables") or surfaces,
grooved on both sides, and ending in a blunt point. The armourer's mark,
which seems to represent a _fleur-de-lis_ four times repeated, is that
of the swordsmith Juan Martinez, whose name we read upon the blade,
together with the words IN TE DOMINE SPERAVI, and on the other side, in
Spanish, PARA DON BERNARDINO XVAREZ DE MENDOZA, CONDE DE CORVÑA.
The sword of "the great captain," Gonzalo de Córdova (1453-1515), is
not of Spanish make (Plate lvii., No. 3). It has a straight blade with
bevelled edges. The pommel and _quillons_ are decorated with Renaissance
carving, and the bars, which are of gilded iron, grow wider at their end
and curve towards the blade. The pommel, of gilded copper, is spherical,
and bears, upon one side, a scene which represents a battle, together
with the words GONSALVI AGIDARI VICTORIA DE GALLIS AD CANNAS. Upon the
other side are carved his arms. Other inscriptions in Latin are also on
the pommel and the blade.
The Count of Valencia de Don Juan believed that this sword was a present
to Gonzalo from the corporation of some Italian town, and that it
replaced, as an _estoque real_, or sword of ceremony, the state sword
(see p. 252) of Ferdinand and Isabella.
[Illustration: LIV
SPANISH SWORDS
(_Royal Armoury, Madrid_)]
Pizarro's sword remained in possession of his descendants, the Marquises
of La Conquista, until as recently as 1809, in which year this family
presented it to a Scotch officer named John Downie, who had fought in
the Peninsular War against the French. Downie, in turn, bequeathed it to
his brother Charles, lieutenant-colonel in the Spanish army, from
whom it passed into the hands of Ferdinand the Seventh. The appearance
of this sword is not remarkable. It has a stout, four-surfaced blade,
with a powerful _recazo_ or central ridge, engraved with the Christian
name of Mateo Duarte, a swordsmith who was living at Valencia in the
middle of the sixteenth century. The hilt is of blued (_pavonado_)
steel, inlaid with leaves and other ornament in gold. The pommel is a
disc; the _quillons_ are straight, or very nearly so, and there is a
_pas d'âne_ (Plate lvii., No. 2).
The sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries are famous as the epoch of
the Spanish rapier. Toledo, as the world is well aware, enjoyed an
undisputed name for the production of these weapons. Within this ancient
and historic capital generations of artists bequeathed, from father to
son, and son to grandson, the secret (if there were a secret) of the
tempering of these matchless arms; nor have Toledo blades deteriorated
to this day. Many an idle superstition seeks to justify the talent and
dexterity of these swordsmiths; though probably the key to all their
skill was merely in the manual cunning, based on constant practice, of
the craftsman, as well as in the native virtues of the water of the
Tagus.
In one of my books I have described the workshop of an armourer of
Toledo in the sixteenth century. "After a few moments we entered the
Calle de las Armas, which struck me as having grown a good deal
narrower; and my companion, pausing beside an open doorway topped with a
sign depicting a halberd and a sword, invited me to enter. Two or three
steps led downwards to a dark, damp passage, and at the end of this was
a low but very large room, blackened by the smoke from half a dozen
forges. The walls were hung with a bewildering variety of arms and parts
of armour--gauntlets and cuirasses; morions, palettes, and
lobster-tails; partisans and ranseurs; halberds, bayonets, and
spontoons; as well as swords and daggers without number. Several anvils,
with tall, narrow buckets filled with water standing beside them, were
arranged about the stone-paved floor; and beside each forge was a large
heap of fine, white sand.
"The showers of sparks, together with a couple of ancient-looking lamps
whose flames shook fitfully to and fro in the vibration, showed thirty
or forty workmen busily engaged; and what with the clanging of the
hammers, the roaring of the bellows, and the strident hissing of the hot
metal as it plunged into the cold water, the racket was incessant.
"My cicerone surveyed the discordant scene with all the nonchalance of
lifelong custom, daintily eluding the columns of scalding steam, or
screening his _chambergo_ from the sparks. Finding, however, that I was
powerless to understand the remarks he kept addressing to me, he finally
held up his finger and gave the signal to cease work; upon which the
_oficial_ handed him a bundle of papers which I took to be accounts, and
the men, doffing their leathern aprons, and hanging them in a corner,
filed eagerly away.
"'It is quite simple,' said my companion, as though divining the query I
was about to put to him; 'and indeed, I often wonder why we are so
famous. They say it is the water; but any water will do. Or else they
say it is the sand; and yet this sand, though clean and pure, is just
the same as any other. Look! The blade of nearly all our swords is
composed of three pieces--two strips of steel, from Mondragón in
Guipúzcoa, and an iron core. This latter is the _alma_, or soul. The
three pieces are heated and beaten together; and when they grow red-hot
and begin to throw out sparks, they are withdrawn from the fire, and a
few handfuls of sand are thrown over them. The welding of the pieces is
then continued on the anvil; and, finally, the file is brought to bear
on all unevennesses, and the weapon passes on to the temperer, the
grinder, and the burnisher.'
"'It is in the tempering that we have earned our principal renown,
although this process is quite as simple as the rest. Upon the
forge--see, here is one still burning--a fire is made in the form of a
narrow trench, long enough to receive four-fifths of the length of the
weapon. As soon as the metal reaches a certain colour' (I thought I
noted a mischievous twinkle in the armourer's eyes, as though this
_certain colour_ were the key to all our conversation), 'I take these
pincers, and, grasping the portion which had remained outside the fire,
drop the weapon so, point downwards, into the bucket of water. Any curve
is then made straight by beating upon the concave side, and the part
which had been previously kept outside the trench of fire returns to the
forge and is duly heated. The entire blade is next smeared with mutton
fat, and rested against the wall to cool, point upwards. There is
nothing more except the finishing. Your sword is made.'"[138]
[138] _Toledo and Madrid: their Records and Romances_; pp. 99-101.
[Illustration: LV
SWORD
(_13th Century. Royal Armoury, Madrid_)]
The following passage from Bowles' _Natural History of Spain_, written
in 1752, is also of especial interest here:--"At a league's distance
from Mondragón is a mine of varnished, or, as miners term it, frozen
iron. It lies in the midst of soft red earth, and produces natural
steel--a very curious circumstance, seeing that, as I am assured, there
is no other mine of this description in the kingdom. A tradition exists
that the iron from this mine was used for making the swords, so
celebrated for their tempering, presented by Doña Catalina, daughter of
the Catholic Sovereigns, to her husband, Henry the Eighth of England. A
few of these swords are yet extant in Scotland, where the natives call
them _André Ferrara_,[139] and esteem them greatly. The famous
sword-blades of Toledo, and the Perrillo blades of Zaragoza, which are
still so highly valued, as well as others made elsewhere, are said to
have been forged from the iron of this mine, which yields forty per
cent. of metal. It is, however, somewhat hard to melt. With a little
trouble it is possible to secure excellent steel, because this mine,
like many another, possesses in itself the quality of readily taking
from the coal of the forge the spirit which is indispensable for making
first-rate swords; but without cementation I do not think it would serve
for making good files or razors."
[139] Andrés Ferrara was a well-known armourer of Zaragoza.
"The swords of which I spoke as being so famed were generally either of
a long shape, for wearing with a ruff; or broad, and known as the
_arzón_, for use on horseback. It is probable that when the ruff was
suddenly abandoned at the beginning of this century, large quantities of
ready-fitted swords began to be imported from abroad, of such a kind as
was demanded by the novel clothing. This would account for the decline
and the eventual collapse of our factories, and the loss of our art of
tempering swords. Concerning the mode of executing this, opinions
differ. It is said by some that the blades were tempered in winter only,
and that when they were withdrawn for the last time from the furnace,
the smiths would shake them in the air at great speed three times on a
very cold day. Others say that the blades were heated to a
cherry-colour, then plunged for a couple of seconds into a deep jar
filled with oil or grease, and changed forthwith to another vessel of
lukewarm water, after which they were set to cool in cold water; all
these operations being performed at midwinter. Others, again, declare
that the blades were forged from the natural iron of Mondragón by
placing a strip of ordinary iron along their core so as to give them
greater elasticity; and that they were then tempered in the ordinary
manner, though always in the winter. Such are the prevailing theories
about the iron swords of Mondragón, which are, in truth, of admirable
quality."
Magnificent examples of Toledo sword-blades, produced while her craft
was at the zenith of its fame--that is, throughout the sixteenth and the
seventeenth centuries--are in the Royal Armoury (Pl. lvii., Nos. 5, 6,
7). Among them are a series of _montantes_ made for tournament or war,
and a superb blade, dated 1564, forged for Philip the Second by Miguel
Cantero. The Count of Valencia de Don Juan considered this to be one of
the finest weapons ever tempered; adding that the sword-blades of the
city of the Tagus were held in such esteem all over Europe that he had
seen, in numerous museums of the Continent, weapons professing to be
Toledo-made, in which the blade and mark are evidently forged; bearing,
for instance, _Ernantz_ for Hernandez, _Johanos_ for Juanes, and _Tomas
Dailae_ for Tomás de Ayala.
It is generally agreed that the changes in the national costume,
together with the importation of a lighter make of sword from France,
were directly responsible for the decline of the Toledo sword-blades
early in the eighteenth century. However, this decline was only
temporary. Townsend wrote in 1786: "From the Alcazar we went to visit
the royal manufactory of arms, with which I was much pleased. The steel
is excellent, and so perfectly tempered, that in thrusting at a target,
the swords will bend like whalebone, and yet cut through a helmet
without turning their edge. This once famous manufacture had been
neglected, and in a manner lost, but it is now reviving."
Laborde endorsed these praises subsequently: "Within a few years the
fabrication of swords has been resumed at Toledo; the place allotted to
this object is a handsome edifice, a quarter of a league distant from
the city, which commands the banks of the Tagus. This undertaking has
hitherto been prosperous; the swords are celebrated for the excellence
of their blades, which are of finely tempered steel."
[Illustration: LVI
OLD SWORD
(_Erroneously attributed to the Cid. Collection
of the Marquis of Falces_)]
The modern small-arms factory of Toledo, situated on the right bank of
the Tagus, a mile from the city walls, had, in fact, been opened in
1783, when the same industry was also reviving at Vitoria, Barcelona,
and elsewhere. Toledo worthily maintains to-day her ancient and
illustrious reputation for this craft. The Tagus still supplies its
magic water for the tempering, while part of the prime material of the
steel itself proceeds from Solingen and Styria, and the rest from Trubia
and Malaga.
Cutlery continued to be made in Spain all through the eighteenth
century. Colmenar says that the knives of Barcelona were considered
excellent. According to Laborde, cutlery was made at Solsona and Cardona
in Cataluña, at Mora in New Castile, and at Albacete in Murcia. "The
cutlery of Solsona is in great repute; but the largest quantity is made
at Albacete. In the latter place are about twenty-eight working cutlers,
each of whom employs five or six journeymen, who respectively
manufacture annually six or seven thousand pieces, amounting in the
whole to about one hundred and eighty thousand pieces."[140]
[140] Vol. iv. p. 358.
FIREARMS
Cannon of a primitive kind were used in Spain comparatively early. A
large variety of names was given to these pieces, such as _cerbatanas_,
_ribadoquines_, _culebrinas_, _falconetes_, _pasavolantes_, _lombardas_
or _bombardas_, and many more; but the oldest, commonest, and most
comprehensive name of all was _trueno_, "thunder," from the terrifying
noise of the discharge. This word was used for both the piece and the
projectile. The Count of Clonard quotes Pedro Megía's _Silva de Varias
Lecciones_ to show that gunpowder was known in Spain as early as the
eleventh century. "Thunders" of some description seem to have been used
at the siege of Zaragoza in 1118; and a Moorish author, writing in 1249,
describes in fearsome terms "the horrid noise like thunder, vomiting
fire in all directions, destroying everything, reducing everything to
ashes." Al-Jattib, the historian of Granada, wrote at the beginning of
the fourteenth century that the sultan of that kingdom used at the siege
of Baza "a mighty engine, applying fire thereto, prepared with naphtha
and with balls." The Chronicle of Alfonso the Eleventh describes in a
quaint and graphic passage the crude artillery of that period, and the
panic it occasioned. At the siege of Algeciras in 1342, "the Moors that
were within the city threw many 'thunders' at the (Christian) host,
together with mighty balls of iron, to such a distance that several
overpassed the army, and some did damage to our host. Also, by means of
'thunders' they threw arrows exceeding great and thick, so that it was
as much as a man could do to lift them from the ground. And as for the
iron balls these 'thunders' hurled, men were exceedingly afraid thereof;
for if they chanced to strike a limb they cut it off as clean as with a
knife, and though the wound were but a slight one, yet was the man as
good as dead; nor was any chirurgery that might avail him, both because
the balls came burning hot, like flame, and because the powder which
discharged them was of such a kind that any wound it made was surely
mortal; and such was the violence of these balls, that they went through
a man, together with all his armour."
Towards the close of the same century the testament of Don Pedro Tenorio
(see p. 256), the bellicose archbishop of Alcalá de Henares, who
ruled that diocese from 1376 to 1399, contains the following
passage:--"_Item_. We bought crossbows and bassinets both for foot and
horse, together with shields, pikes, javelins, darts, lombards, hemp,
powder, and other munitions for the castles of our Church; of which
munitions we stored the greater quantity at Talavera and at Alcalá de
Henares, purposing to deposit them at Cazorla and in the castles of
Canales and of Alhamin, which we are now repairing after they were
thrown down by the King Don Pedro, and for the tower of Cazorla, which
we are now erecting. And it is our will that all of these munitions be
for the said castles and tower; and that no one lay his hand on them, on
pain of excommunication, excepting only the bishop elected and confirmed
who shall succeed us; and he shall distribute them as he holds best
among the aforesaid castles. And all the best of these munitions shall
be for the governorship of Cazorla, as being most needed there to
overthrow the enemies of our faith; and we have duly lodged the shields
and crossbows, parted from the rest, upon the champaign of Toledo;
whither should arrive more shields from Valladolid, that all together
may be carried to Cazorla."
[Illustration: LVII
SPANISH SWORDS
(_Royal Armoury, Madrid_)]
The article from which I quote this passage adds that the palace of the
archbishop at Alcalá de Henares was fortified with cannon until the
beginning of the nineteenth century.[141]
[141] Escudero de la Peña; _Claustros, Escalera, y Artesonados del
Palacio Arzobispal de Alcalá de Henares_; published in the _Museo
Español de Antigüedades_.
Cannon are mentioned with increasing frequency throughout the fifteenth
century; and in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella we read of lombards
of enormous size, which had to be dragged across the Andalusian hills
and plains by many scores of men and beasts; which frequently stuck fast
and had to be abandoned on the march; and which, even in the best of
circumstances, could only be discharged some twice or thrice a day.
In reading documents and chronicles of older Spain, it is easy to
confound the early forms of cannon with the engines similar to those
employed by the Crusaders in the Holy Land, and built for hurling stones
or arrows of large size. Such engines were the _trabuco_, the
_almajanech_ or _almojaneque_, the _algarrada_, and the _fundíbalo_ or
Catalan _fonevol_. Beuter, in his _Chronicle of Spain and of Valencia_,
describes the latter as "a certain instrument which has a sling made
fast to an extremity of wood ... made to revolve so rapidly that the
arm, on being released, projects the stone with such a force as to
inflict much harm, even in distant places, whither could reach no
missile slung by the hand of man."
Turning to portable Spanish firearms, we find that the precursor of the
arquebus, musket, and rifle seems to have been a weapon which was
introduced about the middle of the fifteenth century, and called the
_espingarda_. Alfonso de Palencia says it was employed against the
rebels of Toledo in 1467; and the Chronicle of Don Alvaro de Luna
relates that when this nobleman was standing beside Don Iñigo
d'Estúñiga, upon a certain occasion in 1453, "a man came out in his
shirt and set fire to an _espingarda_, discharging the shot thereof
above the heads of Don Alvaro and of Iñigo d'Estúñiga, but wounding an
esquire."
[Illustration: LVIII
MARKS OF TOLEDAN ARMOURERS (15TH-17TH CENTURIES), FROM
SWORDS IN THE ROYAL ARMOURY AT MADRID]
As time advanced, portable firearms of first-rate quality were made
throughout the northern Spanish provinces, and also in Navarra,
Cataluña, Aragon, and Andalusia. The inventory of the Dukes of
Alburquerque mentions, in 1560, "four flint arquebuses of Zaragoza
make ... another arquebus of Zaragoza, together with its fuse," and
"arquebuses of those that are made within this province" (_i.e._ of
Segovia). Cristóbal Frisleva, of Ricla in Aragon, and Micerguillo of
Seville were celebrated makers of this arm; but probably these and all
the other Spanish masters of this craft derived their skill from foreign
teaching, such as that of the brothers Simon and Peter Marckwart (in
Spanish the name is spelt _Marcuarte_,) who were brought to Spain by
Charles the Fifth.[142]
[142] The brothers Marckwart, or possibly one or other of them, are
believed to have stamped their arquebuses with a series of small
sickles, thus:
[Illustration]
The Royal Armoury contains some finely decorated guns, made for the
kings of Spain at the close of the seventeenth century and early in the
eighteenth, by Juan Belen, Juan Fernandez, Francisco Baeza y Bis, and
Nicolás Bis. The last-named, pupil of Juan Belen, was a German; but all
these gunsmiths lived and worked at Madrid. Nicolás was arquebus-maker
to Charles the Second from 1691, and afterwards held the same post from
Philip the Fifth. He died in 1726, and the Count of Valencia de Don Juan
says that in 1808--that is, before it was plundered by the mob--the
Royal Armoury contained no fewer than fifty-three weapons of his
manufacture. One of the guns which bear his mark, and still exist, is
inscribed with the words, "I belong to the Queen our lady" (Isabel
Farnese, first wife of Philip the Fifth), combined with the arms of León
and Castile, and of the Bourbon family. This weapon was used, or
intended to be used, for hunting.
Diego Esquivel, another gunsmith of Madrid, was also famous early in the
eighteenth century, as, later on, were Manuel Sutil, José Cano,
Francisco Lopez, Salvador Cenarro, Isidro Soler (author of a
_Compendious History of the Arquebus-makers of Madrid_), Juan de Soto,
and Sebastián Santos.
Swinburne wrote from Cataluña in 1775; "the gun-barrels of Barcelona are
much esteemed, and cost from four to twenty guineas, but about five is
the real value; all above is paid for fancy and ornament; they are made
out of the old shoes of mules."
[Illustration: LIX
_BRIDONA_ SADDLE
(_15th Century. Royal Armoury, Madrid_)]