CASTILIAN LITERATURE
“Isabel’s death,” says Butler Clarke, “marks the beginning of a period
of anarchy.”
The peace that she had done so much to promote and that her presence had
insured was threatened by the incapacity of her successor, and by the
restless rivalry of the Archduke Philip and his father-in-law. Prescott
describes Isabel as “Ferdinand’s good genius,” and her loss was to make
obvious to the Castilians his less attractive side,—the suspicion, and
want of faith and generosity, that during their joint rule her more
kingly qualities had tended to disguise. The old feeling against him as
a foreigner, which his personal valour in the Moorish war had partly
obliterated, now reappeared and was intensified by disgust at his prompt
remarriage. Ferdinand was not in the least sentimental, and thus failed
to take into account the large part played by sentiment in national
history. The fact that he regretted Isabel’s death would have struck him
as a foolish reason for missing any advantage that unfortunate
occurrence might afford, and he re-entered the matrimonial market with
great promptitude.
He was now fifty-three and the bride selected by him a girl of eighteen,
Germaine de Foix, a daughter of the Count of Narbonne, who with her
brother Gaston represented the younger branch of the House of Navarre.
Such a union was naturally attractive to Aragonese ambitions, ever
watchful to establish dynastic links with that northern kingdom, though
at the moment as it happened the Navarrese connection was of merely
secondary importance. Germaine de Foix was a niece of Louis XII., and by
his marriage with her (October, 1505) Ferdinand succeeded in breaking
the dangerous combination of France and Flanders that might otherwise
have proved his ruin.
By no arguments on his part, however subtle, could he evade Joanna’s
right of succession to the Castilian throne; yet in her state of mental
weakness its acknowledgment handed over the practical control of public
affairs to her King-Consort; and with the Archduke Philip established as
a hostile element in Castile, and Louis XII. an enemy hovering on the
Pyrenees, Aragon and her King would have fared ill indeed.
[Illustration:
FERDINAND OF ARAGON
CARVED WOODEN STATUE FROM CATHEDRAL AT MALAGA
]
Ferdinand’s marriage relieved the immediate tension of such a
possibility; but its achievement courted even greater national disaster.
The birth of a son could only mean the destruction of the union between
Castile and Aragon, on which the foundations of Spanish empire had been
laid; while by the terms of the marriage treaty Ferdinand also risked
the dismemberment of his own dominions. Louis XII. was willing to cede
as dowry for his niece the rights over Naples which he had failed to
maintain by force of arms; but the price he demanded in return was the
restoration of that half of the Kingdom which was guaranteed to him by
the original Partition Treaty, should Germaine and the Spanish monarch
have no heirs.
This bargain made and cemented by large quantities of Spanish gold to
indemnify Louis for the expenses to which he had been put during the
Neapolitan wars, the French King proceeded to forbid the Archduke and
Joanna a passage through France, until they had arrived at some amicable
understanding with Ferdinand as to the future government of their
kingdom. Philip, seeing himself outwitted, sulkily complied, and, in the
Treaty of Salamanca (signed in November, 1505) agreed that he, his wife,
and father-in-law should “jointly govern and administer Castile,”
Ferdinand receiving one half of the public revenues.
The peace thus extorted by circumstances was never intended to be kept;
and, from the moment that the new King and Queen of Castile put foot in
their land, they did their uttermost to encourage the growing opposition
to Aragonese interference. Ferdinand, thwarted and ignored by his
son-in-law and deserted by the Castilians, at length departed in dudgeon
to visit the kingdom that Gonsalvo de Cordova had won for him in Naples;
but it was not destined that the work to which he and Isabel had given
the greater part of their lives should come to nought. In the autumn of
1506 the Archduke Philip died at Burgos; and Joanna, sunk in one of her
moods of morbid lethargy, referred those of her subjects, who would have
persuaded her to rule for herself, to Ferdinand’s authority.
From July, 1507, when Ferdinand returned to Spain, till his death in
January, 1516, he governed Castile as regent; while the loss of the only
child born to him of his union with Germaine de Foix preserved his
dominions intact for “Joanna the Mad” and her eldest-born, the future
Emperor Charles V. Naples, it is true, by the terms of his second
marriage treaty should have been once more divided with the French
Crown; but the Catholic King was to reap the reward of loyalty to the
Holy See, and received a papal dispensation from the fulfilment of his
inconvenient pledge.
Victories on the North African coast against Barbary pirates and the
conquest of Southern Navarre closed his days in a halo of glory; and he
passed to his final resting-place beside Isabel in the Royal Chapel at
Granada regretted even by the Castilians and mourned by the Aragonese as
their “last King.” Henceforth Spain was to be one and undivided.
“No reproach attaches to him,” says Guicciardini of Ferdinand, “save his
lack of generosity and faithlessness to his word.” Peter Martyr declares
that “contrary to the belief of all men he died poor.” Like Henry VII.
of England he had been quick to lay hands on wealth, doling it out to
others with the grudging reluctance of the miser; but the exhausted
treasury he left showed that his main inspiration had been economy not
avarice. His ambitions had been expensive, and Spain was to pay heavily
both in money and the more precious coin of human life; but the fact
that she could afford to enter the great national struggle with France
at all marks the economic transformation that had taken place since the
days of Henry IV. of Castile. She had passed from industrial infancy to
prosperity and an assured commercial position; her population had
increased; peace at home had given her financial security; while as the
depôt for European trade with the New World vistas of profit opened
before her.
The Catholic sovereigns were not blind to this great future, and the
legislation of their reign dealt largely with measures for fostering
national industries. If such protection was often misguided it was like
the over-anxious care of a mother, that may be as dangerous to a child’s
welfare as the opposite vice of neglect. Each age has its theories of
political economy and looks back with superior contempt on the failings
of its predecessors. To twentieth-century eyes the economic outlook of
the fifteenth is often exasperatingly foolish; yet in the days of
Ferdinand and Isabel it appeared the height of wisdom, and efforts to
put it into practice were eagerly demanded by the Cortes. Industry, it
was felt, must be wrapped in the cotton-wool of a myriad restrictions;
it must be artificially nourished and subjected to constant supervision
and interference, or it would die of exposure to the rough-and-tumble of
competition. That industrial death might be sometimes due to sheer
weariness of life in intolerable fetters was a diagnosis of which no
mediæval economist would ever have dreamt; and Ferdinand and Isabel
firmly believed that their paternal legislation must prove a panacea for
every public ill.
[Illustration:
GRANADA CATHEDRAL, ROYAL CHAPEL, TOMB OF FERDINAND AND ISABEL
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY LACOSTE, MADRID
]
Low prices demanded a cheap labour-market, therefore the obvious step
was to fix a maximum wage for the worker, that he might not hope to
exceed however worthy of his hire. Cheap labour must live, therefore a
maximum price must be placed on corn that the wage-earner might be
enabled to buy bread. Were grain grown for neighbourly love not a
profit, this solution of an almost universal difficulty might have
succeeded; but agriculture was never popular in Castile, and such
arbitrary dealings tended to depress it still further.
Farmers turned for their profit to the production of wine or oil, or
with a still keener eye to business devoted their energies to sheep or
cattle breeding. This was the staple industry of rural districts, so
extensive and flourishing that in the fourteenth century it had
established a kind of trades-union, or _mesta_ to look after its
interests and secure it privileges. During the winter months the cattle
fed at will on the wide tablelands of Castile; but with the coming of
summer their owners drove them to pasture in mountain districts such as
Leon and Galicia. It was on these journeys to and fro that agriculture
and grazing came into conflict; for where the herds had passed they left
a wilderness. Legislation indeed forbade the trampling down of vineyards
and of meadows of corn or hay, but compensation for these damages was
difficult to obtain from a corporation so powerful that it had won for
itself a large measure of royal protection. Tolls paid on the migratory
cattle formed a considerable part of the public revenue; and kings of
Castile had thus been persuaded to foster a trade so lucrative to their
own pockets, granting graziers not only immunity from certain imposts
but also special rights with regard to wood-cutting and the freedom of
the regular cattle-tracks from any enclosure or limitation. Ferdinand
and Isabel renewed these privileges and in 1500 placed a member of the
Royal Council at the head of the _mesta_, bringing that important body
under their immediate control.
If the laws of the maximum and the protection of rival industries hit
agriculture hard, so also did the _alcabala_, a tax of ten per cent. on
the sale-price of all goods. Originally imposed as a temporary means of
raising money, it had become one of the main sources of the sovereigns’
revenues, and, while it burdened every commercial transaction, laid a
triple charge on corn in the form first of grain and then of meal and
bread.
The _alcabala_ has been described by a modern historian as “one of the
most successful means ever devised by a government for shackling the
industry and enterprise of its subjects”; and Queen Isabel herself seems
to have realized its blighting nature, for, in 1494, she agreed, on
Ximenes’s advice, to commute it in the case of certain towns for a fixed
sum to be levied by the municipality. Even so, the question of its
legality still troubled her conscience; but the request in her will that
a special committee should collect evidence and decide the matter justly
was, like her kindly thought for the Indians of the New World,
afterwards disregarded.
Perhaps it may be asked how, under such adverse circumstances
agriculture survived at all; yet at the beginning of the sixteenth
century Castile was not only growing sufficient corn for her own needs
but even exporting it to the rest of the peninsula. The explanation lies
in a comparison not with the gigantic production of modern times, but
with the preceding age, when the scorching breath of anarchy had
withered the fields. The government of Queen Isabel’s reign, if it
favoured the more popular cattle-trade, at least protected the farmer
and labourer from pillage; while, by forbidding the tolls which, during
Henry IV.’s misrule, territorial lords had levied at will at every
river-ford and turn of the road, it gave a sudden freedom to the
circulation of corn as well as of other merchandise. Even more effective
was the abolition in 1480 of the export duty on grain, cattle, and goods
passing from Castile to Aragon, whereby the cornfields of Murcia were
enabled to compete with its grazing lands, until at length a series of
bad harvests restored the old predominance of the live-stock industry.
The real decline of agriculture, like that of industry, was to set in at
the close of the sixteenth century under Isabel’s great-grandson. The
reign of the Catholic sovereigns and the early years of Charles V. stand
out as a golden age of commercial prosperity. The production of wool and
silk increased almost tenfold; the fairs drew foreign merchants from
every part of Europe; while Flemish and Italian artisans, attracted by
an offer of ten years’ freedom from taxation, settled in the large towns
to pursue and teach their handicrafts.
[Illustration:
BURGOS CATHEDRAL
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY LACOSTE, MADRID
]
The numberless _pragmaticas_, or royal proclamations and ordinances,
issued at this time show how vigilant was Ferdinand and Isabel’s
interest in all that concerned the welfare of their land. In 1486 the
cloth-workers of Murcia complained that their trade was being killed by
external competition; their looms stood idle, and whereas 50,000 sheep
had been needed in old days to provide them with wool, now only some
8000 grazed in their meadows. The response to their petition was a
command that for two years no woollen fabrics should enter Murcia; while
the import of silk thread from Naples, that threatened the silk industry
of Granada, was similarly forbidden. These are only two instances of
measures that ranged from awarding bounties to owners of ships of six
hundred tons and upwards by way of encouraging navigation to minute
instructions as to shoes, hats, embroideries, and armour.
Much of this scheme of protection was well-considered and beneficial.
Since merchant ships were liable to be impressed in time of war, the
navy, once almost negligible, throve rapidly on the royal preference
shown to large vessels, and also owing to a law commanding that no goods
should be shipped in a foreign craft while there was a Spanish boat in
the harbour. The small merchantmen suffered of course; but the squadron
that the sovereigns dispatched to Flanders with the Infanta Joanna in
1496 presented the proud array of one hundred and thirty vessels
containing some two thousand souls.
Legislation usually has its dark side; and the sovereigns’ efforts to
establish the commercial progress of their land on a sound basis were
vitiated by the theory which they shared with their age that precious
metals are not merely a convenient medium of exchange but an object of
value in themselves. The lust of gold had been the curse that Columbus
carried with him to the New World to corrupt his earthly paradise,
blinding the settlers to the true wealth of its soil. It was to be the
curse also of Spain, where the glitter of bars and ingots was to draw
men away from the humbler yet necessary occupation of a life in the
fields to adventure their fortunes across the ocean, or to overcrowd the
streets of Seville, the home market of the Western Continent.
“Gold” and “ever more gold” was the popular cry; and Ferdinand and
Isabel, in their eagerness that their new discovery should not enrich
other nations, passed stringent laws forbidding the export of precious
metals. The Spanish merchant, at the home frontier or harbour, must
state from what locality he came, where he was going, and for how long,
and how much coin he had with him;—his answers being written down and
signed in the presence of three witnesses, that any subterfuge might
afterwards be confuted. The foreign merchant had not even this
indulgence. In exchange for what he imported from his own country he
must take back neither coin nor bullion, however small the quantity, but
exports in the form of goods manufactured in Spain; and these by a
proclamation of 1494 might not include brocades nor embroideries woven
or worked with gold thread.
Thus by excessive care what might have been a lucrative industry was
ruined; the more that sumptuary laws prohibited the wearing of rich
stuffs in Spain itself save by a limited part of the population. A
desire for splendid clothing, like the love of beauty, is imprinted deep
in human hearts, and “fine feathers” are the usual accompaniment of
commercial prosperity; but Ferdinand and Isabel regarded with horror
what they considered as the growing extravagance of the lower classes.
The latter were intended to work, not to flaunt fine stuffs in the faces
of the aristocracy; and the silk-trade, its growth watered by
protection, was stunted by restrictions on its sales.
On the splendour of Isabel and her Court we have already remarked; but
it is significant that, at Tordesillas in 1520, the Commons nevertheless
looked back to the reign of the Catholic sovereigns as a time of
economy, complaining to the young Emperor that the daily expenses of his
household were ten times as great as those of his grandparents.
Ferdinand and his Queen were gorgeous in their dress and ceremony; but
it was the considered maintenance of their ideal of dignity not the
careless extravagance of those who spend what others have earned, and
therefore fail to realize its true value.
They did not let themselves be imprisoned behind the bars of pomp
[wrote the Royal Council to Charles, soon after Ferdinand’s death] for
it seemed to them that there was greater security in the good
reputation of their government than in the magnificence of their
household.
It has been urged as an instance of parsimony in contrast to their
personal expenditure that the Catholic sovereigns, in spite of their
professed love of learning, did not with the exception of the College at
Avila found or endow any school or college; and had the education of
their land depended solely on the support of the royal treasury such
criticism would be just. It will be seen however that, given the
momentum of royal encouragement, private enterprise, often almost as
well endowed as sovereignty and with far less claims upon its purse, was
quite capable of acting “Alma Mater” to the would-be scholars of Spain.
The civil wars of Henry IV.’s reign had, it is true, developed muscle
and sword-play rather than the literary mind; but the blows suffered by
culture at the hands of anarchy, though heavy, had not proved mortal.
Men were still alive who recalled the artistic traditions of the Court
of John II., Isabel’s father, and rejoiced to see their revival under
his daughter. It was not only that Isabel herself, by her own studies
and the careful education of her children, set an example which an
obsequious Court must necessarily follow; but her whole attitude to life
expressed her belief in the importance of this learning that the average
young noble would otherwise have held in little esteem.
In 1474 the art of printing was introduced into Spain; and before the
end of the century presses were set up in Valencia, Saragossa,
Barcelona, Seville, Salamanca, Toledo, and all the large cities of the
two kingdoms. The Queen, quick to realize the power this invention might
become, granted freedom from taxation to German and Italian printers of
repute; just as she had encouraged the advent of picked engineers and
artisans that the best brains of Europe, whatever the line of their
development, might be at her disposal. Spanish books, classics, and
classical translations were published; while, in contrast to the heavy
tariffs usually levied on imports, foreign books were allowed free
entrance into the home markets.
Isabel’s own library displayed a catholic taste in literature; the
collection ranging from devotional works and treatises on philosophy,
grammar, and medicine, to manuscript copies or translations of Latin,
Greek, and Italian authors, such as Plutarch, Livy, Virgil, Aristotle,
and Boccaccio; together with national chronicles, and collections of
contemporary poems.
When she and Ferdinand built the Church of San Juan de los Reyes, as a
thanksgiving for their victory over the Portuguese at Toro, they also
endowed the Convent attached to it with a library; while they took a
deep interest in the foundation of the University of Alcalá de Henares,
of which Ximenes de Cisneros laid the foundation stone in 1500, the
building being finally open to students eight years later. Queen Isabel
was then dead; but the glory of Alcalá may be said to radiate from her
reign, which had seen a man of Cisneros’s intelligence appointed to the
Archbishopric of Toledo, to use its wealthy revenues not like Alfonso
Carrillo of old for violence or alchemy but for the furtherance of
education and knowledge. Cisneros had been in Italy, and his scheme of
endowment showed that for all his austerity he had not remained wholly
uninfluenced by the spirit of the classical renaissance. Of the
forty-two professorships at Alcalá, six were devoted to the study of
Latin grammar, four to ancient languages, and four to rhetoric and
philosophy.
[Illustration:
COINS, CATHOLIC KINGS
FROM LAFUENTE’S “HISTORIA GENERAL DE ESPAÑA,” VOL. VII.
]
The Archbishop had once denounced the idea of an Arabic version of the
Scriptures to Fra Fernando de Talavera as “pearls cast before swine”;
but though he condemned the languages of his own day as a medium for
Holy Writ, maintaining that ordinary people would through ignorance
misinterpret truths to their souls’ damnation, yet the crowning work of
his life was to be an edition of the Bible in the principal languages of
the ancient world. Under his criticism and supervision the first
Polyglot Bible was printed in 1517 a few months before his death; the
Old Testament being printed in Hebrew, Latin, Greek, and Chaldean; the
New Testament in Greek and the Vulgate of Saint Jerome. The errors of
such a mighty work in that unscientific age were naturally many; but the
mere fact of its production shows that the literary spirit was keenly
alive. It was a triumph for Alcalá; and the name of the new university
soon became famous in Europe.
Other educational institutions were also founded in this reign at
Siguenza, Valladolid, Toledo, Santiago, and Avila; mainly through the
enterprise of wealthy Churchmen; the College of Santa Cruz at
Valladolid, like Alcalá de Henares, owing its origin to an Archbishop of
Toledo, though to Ximenes’s predecessor, Cardinal Mendoza. Well-endowed
professorships and the report of the growing enthusiasm in Spain for
classical knowledge drew scholars of repute from Italy, some by direct
invitation to lecture and teach, others in the train of nobles anxious
by their patronage to display their literary taste.
The Lombard, Peter Martyr of Anghiera, whose name we have so often
mentioned, accompanied the Count of Tendilla on his return from an
embassy at Rome, and was at once requested by the Queen to open a school
for the young Castilian aristocracy, which was prone, in his own words,
“to regard the pursuit of letters as a hindrance to the profession of
arms that it alone thought worthy of consideration.”
[Illustration:
COINS, CATHOLIC KINGS
FROM LAFUENTE’S “HISTORIA GENERAL DE ESPAÑA,” VOL. VII.
]
Martyr preferred to follow the fortunes of the Christian army in Granada
to their conclusion, probably judging that until the Cross had triumphed
he would receive little attention; but on the establishment of peace he
began to lecture in Salamanca, the oldest university in Spain, “Mother
of the Liberal Arts,” as Lucio Marineo fondly called her. He also opened
schools in Valladolid, Saragossa, and other important cities. The young
Duke of Villahermosa, Ferdinand’s nephew, and the Duke of Guimaraens,
Isabel’s cousin, set an example by their attendance to other youths of
high birth, till Peter Martyr’s house was thronged with students,
convinced that classical and philosophical knowledge would enhance their
military laurels rather than detract from them.
Martyr’s own Latin style, as shown in his copious letters to illustrious
contemporaries, and in his account of the New World, was for the most
part crude; but what it lacked in elegance was counterbalanced by vigour
and the accuracy and insight of his information. He is thus a valuable
authority for Isabel’s reign, like his fellow-countryman the Sicilian
Lucio Marineo, whose encyclopedic work _De Memorabilibus Hispaniæ_
throws considerable light on the Spanish history of his day. Marineo was
introduced to the Castilian Court in 1484 by the Admiral, Don Fadrique
Enriquez, and from that date till 1496 held the post of Professor of
Latin Poetry and Eloquence in the University of Salamanca. So great was
the enthusiasm inspired by his lectures that they were attended not only
by the ordinary student but by archbishops and bishops, and many of the
leading nobles and ladies of the Court.
Less remembered now, but famous then, was the Portuguese, Arias Barbosa,
who founded the study of Greek in Salamanca. He had been educated in
Italy, the reputation of whose universities was still to lure young
Spaniards from the rival institutions of their own land. It was indeed a
happy influence, for numbers of the most promising students returned
home to widen the outlook of Castilian scholarship by the light of
foreign methods and research.
Of these the greatest was undoubtedly Antonio de Lebrija, who has been
called the “most cultivated and original of all the Spanish humanists of
his time.” An Andalusian by birth, he had been sent at nineteen to the
University of Bologna, and, after ten years’ study in Italy, settled
down first in Seville, and then at Salamanca and Alcalá to teach and
publish what he had acquired. One of the editors of the _Polyglot
Bible_, he left works not only on theology but on law, archæology,
history, natural science, and geography. Perhaps those of most lasting
value to his countrymen were his Latin dictionary published in 1492, and
his Spanish and Latin grammars.
[Illustration:
COINS, CATHOLIC KINGS
FROM LAFUENTE’S “HISTORIA GENERAL DE ESPAÑA,” VOL. VII.
]
[Illustration:
COINS, CATHOLIC KINGS
FROM LAFUENTE’S “HISTORIA GENERAL DE ESPAÑA,” VOL. VII.
]
His daughter Francisca also maintained the literary reputation of the
family as professor of rhetoric at Alcalá. In an age, when the love of
letters had been inspired largely by a cultured Queen, it was natural
that the sexes should share their enthusiasm; and Isabel’s tutor,
Beatriz de Galindo “La Latina,” and other ladies famous for their
classical knowledge, lectured publicly at Salamanca and elsewhere to
large audiences.
“Learning” had become a fashion, as in the time of John II.; and the
literature of the day bore the stamp of the courtly atmosphere in which
it had been bred. The old rough-hewn ballads with their popular appeal
had yielded to polished lyrics, often purposely obscure in meaning, and
filled with classical allusions and conceits; the epics of national
heroes, such as “King Rodrigo” and “the Cid,” to sober chronicles of
contemporary events or to imaginative fiction, the more highly eulogized
as it increased in extravagance.
In the pompous and long-winded speeches introduced into historical
scenes after the manner of Livy, in the Dantesque allegory and amatory
verses addressed by Spanish “Petrarchs” to their “Lauras,” may be seen
the outcome of the literary demand for translations of Latin authors,
and the masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance. At the same time the
union of the two kingdoms under Ferdinand and Isabel secured for the
Castilian tongue its final triumph over those of Catalonia and Valencia;
though the stately and vigorous conqueror acquired in the struggle
something of the romantic spirit and spontaneous gaiety, with which
Provençal troubadours had endowed its rivals.
Spanish literature [it has been said] takes its root in French and
Italian soil ... yet it may be claimed for Spain ... that she used her
models without compromising her originality, absorbing here, annexing
there, and finally dominating her first masters.
Her era of literary fame was to dawn under the Emperor Charles V., and
reach its zenith with his son; but tokens of the coming glory may be
traced to a much earlier date when, amid the florid weeds of imitation
or pedantry, there yet bloomed occasional flowers of genuine beauty and
sweetness. Such are the _Coplas de Manrique_, stanzas written on the
death of his father by the brilliant young soldier Jorge Manrique, a
partisan of Queen Isabel in her early struggles. Longfellow has rendered
them into English verse with a charm, that, if it does not attain to the
imperishable grandeur of the original, yet in its quick sympathy bridges
the centuries.
[Illustration:
COINS, FERDINAND
FROM LAFUENTE’S “HISTORIA GENERAL DE ESPAÑA,” VOL. VII.
]
[Illustration:
COINS, FERDINAND
FROM LAFUENTE’S “HISTORIA GENERAL DE ESPAÑA,” VOL. VII.
]
Behold of what delusive worth
The bubbles we pursue on earth,
The shapes we chase;
Amid a world of treachery;
They vanish ere death shuts the eye,
And leave no trace.
Time steals them from us,—chances strange,
Disastrous accidents, and change,
That come to all;
Even in the most exalted state,
Relentless sweeps the stroke of fate;
The strongest fall.
Who is the champion? Who the strong?
Pontiff and priest, and sceptred throng?
On these shall fall
As heavily the hand of Death,
As when it stays the shepherd’s breath
Beside his stall....
Tourney and joust, that charmed the eye,
And scarf and gorgeous panoply,
And nodding plume,—
What were they but a pageant scene?
What but the garlands, gay and green,
That deck the tomb?...
His soul to Him, Who gave it, rose;
God lead it to its long repose,
Its glories rest!
And though the warrior’s sun has set,
Its light shall linger round us yet,
Bright, radiant, blest.
These are a few of the forty-two stanzas, in which with almost flawless
simplicity of style Manrique mourns in his own personal loss the sorrow
and regret of all the human race. He begins with the vanity of life; he
ends with a plea for resignation; not an Omar Khayyam’s bitter surrender
to inevitable destiny but a confident trust in a God who is both Creator
and Saviour.
Other verses of Manrique are to be found in the various _cancioneros_,
or collections of Castilian poetry and song, that were gathered together
in the course of the fifteenth century; but none deserve nor have reaped
the same applause. In 1511, a _Cancionero General_ was printed at
Valencia, that may be taken as typical of Queen Isabel’s reign and those
of her father and brother. It declared its contents as “many and divers
works of all, or of the most notable troubadours of Spain”; and it is
indeed a varied collection of devotional hymns, moral discussions,
love-songs, ballads, riddles, _villancicos_ or poems supposed to be of
rustic origin, and _invenciones_ or rhymes concocted by the chivalry of
Castile to explain the devices on their shields.
In all there are over eleven hundred pieces; but few, especially of
those that represent the close of the century, have the note of
distinction. The true spirit of song is sometimes there, rising with
sudden power and conviction in scattered lines or stanzas; but for the
most part imprisoned in a maze of forms and unrealities that leave our
emotions and our imaginations cold. The butterfly is still enwrapped in
the chrysalis.
Spanish prose, during the reign of the Catholic Sovereigns, was in the
same transitional stage as poetry. The promise of good things was
working to its fulfilment, but the harvest would be reaped in another
age. In the national chronicles, the oldest form of prose literature,
this change may be seen at work. The narratives of the reign of Henry
IV., covering the earlier years of Isabel’s life, are mere annals,
sometimes more or less impartial as in the case of “Enriquez del
Castillo,” or else frankly partisan, like the pages that bear the name
of Alonso de Palencia.[12] Their value lies either in their picturesque
style, or in the descriptions of scenes, at which the authors themselves
were present.
Footnote 12:
This chronicle is probably a rough extract of part of Mosen Diego de
Valera’s _Memorial de Hazanas_,—taken in its turn from Palencia’s _Las
Decadas de Las Cosas de mi Tiempo_, which was originally written in
Latin.
The same may be said of Andres Bernaldez’s _Historia de Los Reyes
Católicos_, one of the most valuable authorities for the reign of
Ferdinand and Isabel. Bernaldez, parish priest of Los Palacios near
Seville, was no ambitious historian; and it is not his lack of bias nor
his well-balanced judgment that has won him the thanks of posterity, but
rather the simplicity with which he recounts events that he himself had
witnessed or that had touched him nearly. We are grateful that he had
the kindly thought of memorizing his impressions of the war in Granada,
and of recalling the deeds of the hero Columbus, who once stopped in his
house; but the work of sifting the grain of his information from the
chaff is left to his readers.
In Hernando de Pulgar, author of the _Cronica de los Reyes Católicos_,
on the other hand, we find what might be called the historical
consciousness in embryo. The beginning of this work which relates to a
period before 1482 when he became official historiographer and secretary
to the Queen is often wildly inaccurate; but the latter portion which is
much more careful shows an attempt to produce a chronological summary
that should give to each event its due importance. If the style is
sometimes heavy, its very prolixity provides a wealth of circumstantial
detail; and though his admiration for the sovereigns, and in especial
for the Queen, have laid him open to the charge of flattery, the tone of
his chronicle is in the main neither illiberal nor fulsome.
It is to a later reign and Zurita’s _Anales de Aragon_ that we must turn
for the first piece of real historical work founded on a study of
original documents and contemporary foreign sources; but in descriptive
power Hernando de Pulgar remains infinitely Zurita’s superior. Besides
his _Cronica de Los Reyes Católicos_, he wrote also _Claros Varones_, a
series of biographical sketches of illustrious people of his own day.
They are carefully drawn portraits, by many critics considered his best
work; but their realism is impaired by his tendency to blur the fine
edges of appreciation with over-enthusiastic praise.
It is the courtier’s temptation, which the trend of the Castilian
literature of his time towards exaggeration would do little to mitigate.
Fantasy not realism was the popular demand amongst the cultured in their
leisure hours; and those, for whom the ballads were too rough and the
chronicles too heavy, fed with delight on “Romances of Chivalry” as
insipid in style as their adventures were far removed from real life.
Cervantes, in the story of his mad Knight, Don Quixote, was to kill
these monsters of imagination with his satire, but in condemning the
whole brood as fit material for a bonfire he spared their original
model, _Amadis de Gaula_. The latter is found by the Priest and the
Barber, Master Nicholas, on the shelves of the old Knight’s library.
This, as I have heard say [exclaimed the Priest], was the first book
of chivalry printed in Spain, and all the rest have had their
foundation and rise from it; therefore I think, as head of so
pernicious a sect, we ought to condemn him to the fire without mercy.
Not so, Sir [answered the Barber], for I have heard also that it is
the best of all books of this kind; and therefore as being singular in
his art he ought to be spared.
With this judgment the Priest at once concurred.
The exact source from which _Amadis de Gaula_ emerged is buried in
mystery. It bears the stamp of French influence; but, in the form it
appeared in Spain during the fifteenth century, was a translation by
Ordoñez de Montalvo of the work of a Portuguese Knight who fought at the
battle of Aljubarrota. Gaula, the kingdom of Amadis’s birth is
Wales;—the time—“not many years after the passion of Our Redeemer”; but
neither geography nor chronology is of much importance to the romance
that relates the wanderings of an imaginary Prince, his love for
“Oriana, the true and peerless lady,” daughter of an imaginary King of
England, and his encounters with other Knights and various magicians and
giants; until at length a happy marriage brings his trials to a
temporary conclusion.
The immense popularity that this book enjoyed led to innumerable
imitations; one of them, the story of “Esplandion” a supposed son of
Amadis, by Montalvo himself; but all reproduced and exaggerated the
faults of the earlier book, without achieving the charm of style that
here and there illuminated its pages. The heroes of these romances are
indeed a dreary company, differing only, as it has been said, “in the
size of the giants they slay and in the degree of improbability of their
colourless adventures and loves.”
A variation of this type of literature were the “Visionary Romances,” of
which the _Carcel de Amor_ or _Prison of Love_ is perhaps the best
example. This was the work of a fifteenth-century poet, Diego de San
Pedro, who describes how in a vision he saw “savage Desire” lead an
unhappy Knight in chains to torture him in the Castle of Love. This
victim’s release brings allegory to an end, and introduces a wearisome
round of adventures much in the style of the ordinary romance. The
_Carcel de Amor_ was printed in 1492, and delighted the Court of
Ferdinand and Isabel; but Cervantes’s Priest and Barber, had they found
it, would have undoubtedly pitched it through the library window to
increase the bonfire in the courtyard below.
Very different was the _Celestina_, first printed in Burgos in 1499, and
now generally believed to be the work of a lawyer, Fernando de Rojas.
Here are no shadowy Knights condemned to struggle through endless pages
with imaginary beasts; but men and women at war with sin and moved by
passions that are as eternal as human life itself. The author describes
it as a “Tragicomedia,” since it begins in comedy and ends in tragedy.
It is the tale of a certain youth, Calisto, who, rejected by the
heroine, Melibea, bribes an old woman, Celestina, to act as go-between;
until at length through her evil persuasions virtue yields to his
advances. The rest of the book works out the Nemesis; Calisto being
surprised and slain at a secret meeting with his mistress, Celestina
murdered for her ill-gotten money by her associates, while Melibea
herself commits suicide. The whole is related in dialogue, often witty
and even brilliant; but marred for the taste of a later age by gross and
indecent passages.
The _Celestina_ has been classed both as novel and play, and might
indeed be claimed as the forerunner of both these more modern Spanish
developments. It is cast in the form of acts; but their number
(twenty-one) and the extreme length of many of the speeches make it
improbable that it was ever acted. Nevertheless its popularity, besides
raising a host of imitations more or less worthless, insured it a
lasting influence on Castilian literature; and the seventeenth century
witnessed its adaptation to the stage.
Other dialogues, with less plot but considerable dramatic spirit, are
the _Coplas de Mingo Revulgo_, and the _Dialogue between Love and an Old
Man_ by Rodrigo Cota. The former of these represents a conversation
between two shepherds, satirizing the reign of Henry IV.; the latter the
disillusionment of an old man who, having allowed himself to be tricked
by Love whom he believed he had cast out of his life for ever, finds
that Love is mocking him and that he has lost the power to charm.
Whether these pieces were acted or no is not certain; but they bear
enough resemblance to the _Representaciones_ of Juan del Enzina, which
certainly were produced, to make it probable that they were. Juan de
Enzina was born about the year 1468, and under the patronage of the Duke
of Alva appeared at Ferdinand and Isabel’s Court, where he became famous
as poet and musician. Amongst his works are twelve “Églogas,” or
pastoral poems, six secular in their tone and six religious, the latter
being intended to celebrate the great church festivals.
The secular _Representaciones_ deal with simple incidents and show no
real sense of dramatic composition; but with the other six they may be
looked on as a connecting link between the old religious “Mysteries” and
“Miracle Plays” of the early Middle Ages and the coming Spanish drama.
Their author indeed stands out as “Father” of his art in Spain, for a
learned authority of the reign of Philip IV. has placed it on record
that “in 1492, companies began to represent publicly in Castile plays by
Juan del Enzina.”
If the literature of Spain during the fifteenth and early sixteenth
centuries may be described by the general term “transitional,” marking
its development from crudity of ideas and false technique towards a slow
unfolding of its true genius, painting at the same date was still in its
infancy; while architecture and the lesser arts of sculpture,
metal-work, and pottery had already reached their period of greatest
glory.
Schools of painting existed, it is true, at Toledo and in Andalusia; but
the three chief artists of the Court of Isabel came from Flanders; and
most of the pictures of the time exhibit a strong Flemish influence,
which can be recognized in their rich and elaborate colouring, clearly
defined outlines, and the tall gaunt figures so dear to northern taste.
Of Spanish painters, the names of Fernando Gallegos “the Galician,” of
Juan Sanchez de Castro a disciple of the “Escuela Flamenca,” and of
Antonio Rincon and his son Fernando, stand out with some prominence; but
it is doubtful if several of the pictures formerly attributed to
Antonio, including a Madonna with Ferdinand and Isabel kneeling in the
foreground, are really his work.
In architecture at this time the evidence of foreign influence is also
strong. On the one hand are Gothic Churches like San Juan de Los Reyes
at Toledo or amongst secular buildings, the massive castle of Medina del
Campo; on the other, in contrast to these northern designs, Renaissance
works with their classic-Italian stamp, such as the Hospital of Santa
Cruz at Toledo or the College of the same name at Valladolid. Yet a
third element is the Moresque, founded on Mahometan models, such as the
horseshoe arch of the Puerta del Perdón of the old Mosque at Seville
overlaid with the emblems of Christian worship. The characteristics of
North, South, and East, are distinct; yet moulded, as during the
previous centuries, by the race that borrowed them to express ideals
peculiarly its own.
“Let us build such a vast and splendid temple,” said the founders of
Seville Cathedral in 1401, “that succeeding generations of men will say
that we were mad.”
It is the arrogant self-assertion of a people absolutely convinced, from
king to peasant, of their divine mission to astonish and subdue the
world in the name of the Catholic Faith and Holy Church. The triumphant
close of their long crusade intensified this spiritual pride; and
Spanish architecture and sculpture ran riot in a wealth of ornament and
detail, that cannot but arrest though it often wearies the eye.
Such was the “plateresque” or “silversmith” method of elaborate
decoration, seen at its best at Avila in the beautiful Renaissance tomb
of Prince John, which though ornate is yet refined and pure, at its most
florid in the façade of the Convent of San Pablo at Valladolid. Under
its blighting spell the strong simplicity of an earlier age withered;
and Gothic and Renaissance styles alike were to perish through the false
standard of merit applied to them by a decadent school.
[Illustration:
FAÇADE OF SAN PABLO AT VALLADOLID
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY LACOSTE, MADRID
]
The first impression emerging from a survey of Queen Isabel’s reign is
the thought of the transformation those thirty years had wrought in the
character of her land. It is not too much to say that in this time Spain
had passed from mediævalism to take her place in a modern world. She had
conquered not only her foes abroad but anarchy at home. She had evolved
a working-system of government and discovered a New World. She had
trampled out heresy; and thus provided a solution of the religious
problem at a time when most of the other nations of Europe were only
beginning to recognise its difficulties.
Not all these changes were for the best. On the heavy price paid in
blood and terror for the realization of the ideal “One people, one
Faith” we have already remarked. We can see it with clear eyes now; but
at the time the sense of orthodoxy above their fellows, that arose from
persecuting zeal, gave to the Spanish nation a special power; and Isabel
“the Catholic” was the heroine of her own age above all for the bigotry
that permitted the fires and tortures of the Inquisition.
A woman ... [says Martin Hume] whose saintly devotion to her Faith
blinded her eyes to human things, and whose anxiety to please the God
of Mercy made her merciless to those she thought His enemies.
With this verdict, a condemnation yet a plea for understanding, Isabel,
“the persecutor” must pass before the modern judgment-bar. In her
personal relations, both as wife and mother, and in her capacity as
Queen on the other hand she deserves our unstinted admiration.
The reign of Ferdinand and Isabel [says Mariéjol] may be summarized in
a few words. They had enjoyed great power and they had employed it to
the utmost advantage both for themselves and the Spanish nation. Royal
authority had been in their hands an instrument of prosperity.
Influence abroad,—peace at home,—these were the first fruits of the
absolute monarchy.
If criticism maintains that this benevolent government degenerated into
despotism during the sixteenth century, while Spain became the tool and
purse of imperial ambitions, it should be remembered that neither
Castilian Queen nor Aragonese King could have fought the evils they
found successfully with any other weapon than their own supremacy, nor
is it fair to hold them responsible for the tyranny of their successors.
Ferdinand indeed may be blamed for yielding to the lure of an Italian
kingdom; but even his astuteness could not have foreseen the successive
deaths that finally secured the Spanish Crown for a Hapsburg and an
Emperor.
These were the tricks of Fortune, who according to Machiavelli is “the
mistress of one-half our actions.” The other half is in human reckoning;
and Isabel in her sincerity and strength shaped the destiny of Castile
as far as in her lay with the instinct of a true ruler.
“It appeared the hand of God was with her,” says the historian, Florez,
“because she was very fortunate in those things that she undertook.”
APPENDIX I
HOUSE OF TRASTAMARA IN CASTILE AND ARAGON
John I. of Castile = Eleanor of Aragon
|
+--------------------+-------------------+
| |
Henry III. = Catherine, dau. Ferdinand
of Castile of John of Gaunt k. of Aragon,
| |
| +--------------------------+---------+
| | |
John II. = Mary John II.
1406–1454 Joanna (2) = of Aragon = (1) Blanche,
| Enriquez | 1458–1479 | Queen of
| | | | Navarre
| | +--+-------+---+-------+
+------------------+----------+---+ +-----------+ | | |
| | | | | | |
Henry IV. Alfonso Isabel = Ferdinand Charles Blanche Eleanor
of Castile d. 1468 of Castile | of Aragon of Viana m. Henry IV. m. Gaston,
1454–1474 1474–1504 | 1479–1516 d. 1461 of Castile, Count of Foix
m. (1) Blanche | d. 1464 d. 1479 |
of Navarre; +---------------+---+---------+------------+--------------+ +----+----------+
(2) Joanna of | | | | | | |
Portugal Isabel John Joanna Maria Catherine Gaston John Vicomte
m. (1) Alfonso d. 1497 m. Philip, m. Emmanuel m. (1) Prince m. Madeleine de Narbonne
Joanna of Portugal; m. Margaret Archduke of Portugal Arthur of Wales; of Valois m. sister of
“La Beltraneja” (2) Emmanuel, k. of Austria of Austria (2) Henry VIII. d. 1470 Louis XII.
of Portugal | of England | |
| +---------------+ +-------------+ +-----+------+
| | | | | | |
Miguel Charles I. of Spain Ferdinand Francis Catherine Gaston Germaine
d. 1500 Emperor Charles V. Phœbus m. Jean de
1479–1483 d’Albret Foix
1483–1517
APPENDIX II
PRINCIPAL AUTHORITIES FOR THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ISABEL OF CASTILE
A. CONTEMPORARY.
BERNALDEZ (ANDRÉS) (Curate of Los Palacios), _Historia de Los Reyes_.
CARVAJAL (GALINDEZ), _Anales Breves_.
CASTILLO (ENRIQUEZ DEL), _Crónica del Rey Enrique_ IV.
MARTYR (PETER), _Opus Epistolarum_.
PULGAR (HERNANDO DE), _Crónica de Los Reyes Católicos_.
—— _Claros Varones_.
SICULO (LUCIO MARINEO), _Sumario de la ... Vida ... de Los Católicos
Reyes_.
ZURITA, _Anales de Aragon_, vols. v. and vi.
B. LATER AUTHORITIES.
ALTAMIRA, _Historia de España_, vol. ii.
BERGENROTH, _Calendar of State Papers_, vol. i.
BUTLER CLARKE, “The Catholic Kings,” (_Cambridge Modern History_, vol.
i.).
—— _Spanish Literature_.
CLEMENCIN, _Elogio de La Reina Isabel_.
FLORES, _Reinas Católicas_.
HUME (MARTIN), _Queens of Old Spain_.
IRVING (WASHINGTON), _Conquest of Granada_.
—— _Life of Christopher Columbus_.
LAFUENTE, _Historia de España_, vols. vi. and vii.
LEA, _History of the Inquisition in Spain_. 4 v.
MARIÉJOL, _L’Espagne sous Ferdinand et Isabelle_.
PRESCOTT, _History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella_.
SABATINI (RAFAEL), _Torquemada and the Spanish Inquisition_.
THACHER (JOHN BOYD), _Christopher Columbus_. 3 v.
TICKNOR, _History of Spanish Literature_, v. i.
YOUNG (FILSON), _Life of Christopher Columbus_. 2 v.
SOME ADDITIONAL AUTHORITIES CONSULTED.
Volumes xiv., xxxix., lxxxviii., and others of the _Documentos
Inéditos_.
Volume lxii. and others of the _Boletin de La Real Academia_.
AMADOR DE LOS RIOS, _Historia de Madrid_.
ARMSTRONG (E.), Introduction to _Spain, Her Greatness and Decay_, by
MARTIN HUME.
BERWICK and ALBA, _Correspondencia de Fuensalida_.
COLMENARES, _Historia de Segovia_.
_Diary of Roger Machado._
FITZMAURICE-KELLY, _History of Spanish Literature_.
MARIÉJOL, _Pierre Martyr d’Anghera: Sa vie et ses œuvres_.
_Memoirs of Philip de Commines._
[Illustration: MAP OF SPAIN SHOWING THE BOUNDARIES OF THE VARIOUS
KINGDOMS IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY]
INDEX
A
Abraham “El Gerbi,” 211, 213
Aguilar, Alonso de, 177, 180, 182, 281–3
Ajarquia, 176, 181
_Alcabala_, 384, 394, 395
Alcalá de Henares, University of, 402
Alexander VI. (Rodrigo Borgia), 85, 236, 239, 248, 261, 306, 353, 354,
360, 363
Alfonso V. of Aragon, 24, 25, 35, 115–119, 350
Alfonso of Castile, brother of Isabel, 22, 35, 46, 52, 56, 60, 64, 65
Alfonso II. of Naples, 350, 353, 354, 356
Alfonso V. of Portugal, 52, 70, 96, _et seq._; 107, _et seq._
Alfonso, son of John II. of Portugal, 223, 337
Alfonso, Archbishop of Saragossa, 244, 330
Alhama, 165, 170
Aliator, 176, 181, 182
Aljubarrota, Battle of, 30
Almeria, 161, 204, 216, 220, 280
Alpujarras, The, 278, 280
Alvaro, Don, of Portugal, 212
Amadis de Gaula, 414
Anne of Beaujeu, 340
Anne of Brittany, 340
Aranda, Council of, 239
Aranda, Pedro de, 261
Architecture, Castilian, 419–420
Arras, Cardinal of, 73, 81
Arthur, Prince of Wales, 373, 374
Atella, capitulation of, 362
“Audiences” in Seville, 136
_Auto-de-Fe_, 256
Ayora, Gonsalvo de, 192
Azaator, Zegri, 274
B
Baeza, 216, 217, 219, 220, 223, 280
Bahamas, discovery of, 304
Barbosa, Arias, 406
Barcelona, 38, 39, 40, 50, 75, 305, 328, 352
Bernaldez, Andres, Curate of Los Palacios, 168, 263, 412
Berri, Charles, Duke of (later of Guienne), 72, 81, 83
Biscay, Province of, 100, 101, 112, 117
Blanche of Navarre, 26
Blanche, dau. of John II. of Aragon, 27, 28, 43, 44
Boabdil, 172, 181, _et seq._; 198, 203, _et seq._; 208, 221–223, 227,
_et seq._
Bobadilla, Beatriz de (Marchioness of Moya), 62, 74, 84, 85, 212, 213,
298
Bobadilla, Francisco de, 314
Borgia, Cæsar, 364. (_See_ also Alexander VI.)
Burgos, 54, 55, 60, 103, 106;
Bishop of, 72, 74
C
Cabrera, Andres de (later Marquis of Moya), 83, 86, 112, 114, 298
Cadiz, Marquis of, 136, 139, 140, 165 _et seq._; 175, 177, 180, 183,
200, 201, 209, 212, 216
_Cancionero General_, 410
_Carcel de Amor_, 415
Cardenas, Alonso de, 153, 176;
Gutierre de, 88, 217, 229
Carrillo, Archbishop, 58, 59, 60, 63, 64, 68, 76, 78, 79, 80, 85, 89,
90, 94, 96, 100, 105, 108, 109, 111, 232, 239, 240
Castillo, Enriquez del, 87, 411
Catherine of Aragon, 334, 372, 374
Celestina, 416
Charles of Austria, son of Archduke Philip, 378, 384, 390, 396, 408
Charles, The Bold, 116, 117
Charles VIII. of France, 186, 340, 347, 348, 351, _et seq._; 363
Charles of Viana, 26, 36, _et seq._
Church, Castilian, 13, _et seq._; 104, 231, _et seq._; 249, 250
Cid Haya, 216, 220, 223
Cifuentes, Count of, 177, 180
Cisneros, Ximenes de, 242, _et seq._; 273, _et seq._; 402, 403
Claude, dau. of Louis XII., 378
Columbus, Bartholomew, 289, 315
Columbus, Christopher, early life, 286;
nautical theories, 291;
appears at Spanish Court, 295;
character, 294, 298, 300, 302, 314;
appearance, 295;
prepares to leave Spain, 299;
first voyage, 303, 305;
reception at Barcelona, 305;
second voyage, 307;
views on slavery, 310;
third voyage, 314;
arrest, 315;
fourth voyage, 316;
devotion to Queen Isabel, 298, 313, 317;
death, 317
Columbus, Diego, 294, 299, 317
Commines, Philip de, 48
Conversos, The, 251, 252, 253
_Coplas de Manrique_, 408
_Coplas de Mingo Revulgo_, 417
Cordova, Gonsalvo de, 189, 206, 280, 361, 367, 371
Cortes, the Castilian, 18
Cota, Rodrigo, 417
Cueva, Beltran de La (Count of Ledesma, Duke of Alburquerque), 32, 33,
45, 48, 51, 52, 54, 57, 62, 64, 89, 151
D
D’Aubigny, Stuart, 361
Davila, Juan Arias, 261
De Puebla, 374
Diaz, Bartholomew, 289
E
Edict of Grace, 255
Egypt, Sultan of, 219, 278
Eleanor, dau. of John II. of Aragon, 43, 44, 359
Emmanuel of Portugal, 273, 338, 343, 372
Enriquez, Fadrique, Admiral of Castile, 36, 58, 59, 60, 74
Enzina, Juan del, 417, 418
Escalas, Conde de, 205, 206, 207
Española, 305, 309, 313, 314, 316
Estella, 49, 51
Estepar, El Feri Ben, 281, 282
F
Fadrique (the younger), 155
Federigo of Naples, 355, 364, 370
Ferdinand of Aragon (The Catholic) character, 2, 69, 174, 210, 324,
325, 330, 332, 370, 371, 387, 391;
appearance, 89;
diplomacy, 346, 352, 358, 359, 364, 372, 375;
birth, 26;
becomes heir to throne of Aragon, 40;
alliance with Isabel, 35, 69, 77, _et seq._;
meeting with Isabel, 208;
reconciliation with Henry IV., 86;
becomes King of Aragon, 118;
attempted assassination of, 328;
military measures, 102, 103, 166, _et seq._; 112, 168, 175, 191, 196,
201, 216, 219, 280, 379;
attitude to Jews, 264, 265, 271;
to _Mudejares_, 283;
to the Inquisition, 249, 255, 258;
to Roman See, 235, 239, 254;
to his children, 335;
to Columbus, 296, 297, 313;
foreign policy of, 335;
receives submission of Boabdil, 229;
second marriage, 388;
regent of Castile, 390;
estimate of his work, 422
Ferdinand, son of Archduke Philip, 379
Ferrante I. of Naples, 36, 349, 350, 353, 356
Ferrante II., 354, 356, 361, 364, 369
Fez, King of, 221, 229
Florence, 349, 350, 353
Foix, Catherine de, 339
Foix, Gaston de, 43, 75
Foix, Gaston de (the younger), 43
Foix, Germaine de, 388, 390
Fonseca, Alonso de, 30, 240
Fornovo, battle of, 361
Francis Phœbus of Navarre, 111, 339
Fuenterrabia, meeting of, 48
G
Galicia, settlement of, 133
Galindo, Beatriz de, 332, 407
Genoa, 25
Geraldino, Alessandro, 299, 333
Giron, Pedro, Master of Calatrava, 36, 60, 62, 63
Granada, City of, 215, 224, 227, _et seq._;
Kingdom of, 160, 188;
partition Treaty of, 365, 366
Guadix, 173, 206, 216, 220, 221, 223, 224, 280
Guejar, 280
Guiomar, Doña, 31, 233
Guipuzcoa, 100, 106, 112, 117
Guzman, Ramir Nuñez de, 155, 156
H
Hamet, “El Zegri,” 199, 200, 201, 202, 206, 210, 211, 213, 214
Haro, Count of, 101, 129
Henry IV. of Castile (Prince of Asturias), 23, 27, 28;
(King), 24, 36, 39, 44, 54, 55, 56, 70, 71, 80, _et seq._; 158, 160,
253
Henry VII. of England, 373
Henry, “The Navigator,” of Portugal, 289
I
Inquisition in Castile, 249, 253–261
Isabel of Castile, character, 1, 4, 5, 131, 233, 319, 324, 327, 328,
336;
love of her Faith, 325;
attitude to her confessors, 241, 242, 243, 326, 327, 329;
love of learning, 332, 333, 400 _et seq._;
devotion to Ferdinand, 329;
her magnificence, 321, 323, 399;
her justice, 130, 135, 136, _et seq._; 155;
birth, 22;
childhood, 34, 46, 52, 67;
suggested alliances, 35, 39, 53, 62, 68, 70, 72, 73;
marriage with Ferdinand, 69, 74, 76, 77, _et seq._;
joins her brother Alfonso, 65;
reconciliation with Henry IV., 84, 85, 86;
accession, 88, 91, 92;
appeals to Archbishop Carrillo, 100;
celebrates battle of Toro, 109;
quells riot in Segovia, 112, _et seq._;
visits Seville, 115, 136;
disputes with Ferdinand, 186;
legislation and reforms of, 147, 150, 153, 392, _et seq._;
military measures of, 106, 168, 187, _et seq._; 192, 194, _et seq._;
218;
visits camps, 207, 211, 226;
entry into Granada, 230;
attitude to the Castilian Church, 234, 235, 236, 247, 248;
to the Inquisition, 249, 254, 255, 258;
to the Jews, 264, 265, 271;
to the _Mudejares_, 273, 279, 280, 284;
to the Roman See, 235–239, 254;
to Columbus, 285, 295, 297, 298, 303, 315;
to slavery, 312–313;
to her children, 331, 334, 377, 380, 381;
her will, 383;
her death, 384;
survey of her reign, 421.
Isabel, mother of Isabel of Castile, 33, 34
Isabel, dau. of Isabel of Castile, 82, 207, 223, 337, 338, 343, 344,
345
Isabella, the city, 313
Ismail, Sultan, 162
J
James IV. of Scotland, 374, 375
Jews, 6, 250, 252, 263, _et seq._
Joanna, “La Beltraneja,” 45, 46, 81–83, 93, 94, 99, 119, 120, 336
Joanna of Portugal, wife of Henry IV., 30, 31, 32, 33, 44, 45, 52
Joanna of Aragon, dau. of Isabel of Castile, 334, 341, 342, 375, _et
seq._; 390
Joanna (Queen of Aragon), 26, 27, 40, 41, 42, 75
John II. of Aragon, 24, 25, 26, 28, 36, 40, 101, 364
John II. of Castile, 22, 23, 27
John II. of Portugal, 107, 108, 118, 289, 292, 307, 338
John, son of Ferdinand and Isabel, 115, 216, 223, 331, 332, 339, 344
L
Lebrija, Antonio de, 406
Lerin, Count of, 280
Lisbon, Treaty of, 118, 336
Literature, Castilian, 407, _et seq._
Loja, 175, 176, 201, 205
Lopera, battle of, 200
Louis XI. of France, 42, 43, 47, _et seq._; 81, 100, 106, 110, 115,
116, 117, 118, 186, 339, 346, 347
Louis XII. of France (Duke of Orleans), 355, 357;
(King), 363, 365, 388, 389
Lucena, 181
Ludovico, “Il Moro,” 348, _et seq._; 364
M
Machado, Roger, 321, 323, 373
Madeleine, sister of Louis XI., 43, 339
Madrigal, Cortes of, 124
Malaga, 173, 204, 208, 209, _et seq._
Margaret of Austria, 340–344
Maria, dau. of Ferdinand and Isabel, 338, 372
Marineo, Lucio, 405
Marriage-settlement of Ferdinand and Isabel, 79
Martyr, Peter, 195, 219, 385, 404–405
Mary of Burgundy, 83, 117
Maximilian, King of the Romans, 340, 358
Medina-Celi, Duke of, 295
Medina del Campo, Concord of, 56, 253;
Junta of, 57
Medina-Sidonia, Duke of, 136, 140, 168, 189, 190
Mendoza, family of, 52, 76, 82, 84, 89;
Diego Hurtado de, 246;
Pedro Gonsalez de (Bishop of Calahorra), 62;
(Bishop of Siguenza), 67;
(Cardinal of Spain), 84, 89, 90, 108, 150, 154, 187, 229, 232, 233,
234, 240, 243, 244, 255, 299, 404
Merlo, Diego de, 165, 169
Miguel, grandson of Ferdinand, 345
Military Orders, 10, _et seq._, 152, 154
Moclin, 207
Montalvo, Alfonso Diaz de, 146
Montpensier, Count of, 361, 362
_Moriscos_, the, 284
_Mudejares_, the, 15, 196, 271, _et seq._
_Muladies_, the, 170
Muley Abul Hacen, 162, 163, 164, 167, 169, _et seq._, 198, 202, 203
N
Naples, 349, 350, 354, 356, 357, 361, 362, 364, 365, 366
Naples, Joanna II. of, 25
Navarre, 37, 40, 339, 388
O
Olito, Treaty of, 47
Olmedo, battle of, 64
_Ordenanzas Reales_, 146
Ovando, Nicholas de, 316
P
Painting, Castilian, 418–419
Palencia, Alonso de, 411
Paredes, Count of, 105, 153
Passage of Arms, 33
Paul II. Pope, 79, 85
Perez, Fra Juan, 299, 300
Philip, Archduke of Austria, 341, 375, 379, 389, 390
Pinzon, The Brothers, 303
Pius II., Bull of Pope, 78, 81
Plasencia, Count of (Duke of Arévalo), 93, 96, 98, 110
_Polyglot-Bible_, 403, 406
Printing, introduction of, 401
Pulgar, Hernando de (“He of the Exploits”), 225, 226;
(Author), 412, 413
Q
Quintanilla, Alonso de, 295
R
Ramirez, Francisco, 192, 283
Rapallo, sack of, 356
Rojas, Fernando de, 416
Ronda, 201, 202, 281
Royal Council, the, 142, 143
Roussillon and Cerdagne, 47, 75, 82, 111, 186, 346, 351, 352, 379
S
Salamanca, Treaty of, 389
_Sanbenito_, 256
Santa Cruz, College of, 404
Santa Fé, 226, 227
Santa Hermandad, La, 123, _et seq._; 131, 132
Santiago, Mastership of. _See_ Military Orders
Segovia, 19, 65, 112
Sforza, Gian Galeazzo, 348, 349, 357
Silva, Alonso de, 359
Sixtus IV., Pope, 85, 117, 118, 237, 254
_Suprema, La_, 259
T
Talavera, Fra Fernando de, 119, 151, 241, 272, 277, 278, 305, 323, 326
Tendilla, Count of, 272, 276, 278, 305, 404
Toledo, Cortes of, 141, _et seq._
Tordesillas, Treaty of, 307
Toro, battle of, 108;
citadel of, 102
Toros de Guisandos, 67
Torquemada, Thomas de, 258, 261, 266
V
Velez-Malaga, 161, 204, 208, 209
Venegas, Cacim, 171, 180
Venice, League of, 360
Vespucci, Amerigo, 317
Villahermosa, Alfonso, Duke of, 103, 125, 175
Villena, Marquis of (Juan Pacheco), 28, 29, 30, 36, 53, 56, 61, 62, 63,
67, 70, 80, 82, 84, 86, 87;
(the younger), 87, 93, 94, 96, 98, 100, 105, 111
Y
Yañez, Alvar, 135
Z
“Zagal, Abdallah, El,” 173, 181, 201, 203, 209, 215, 216, 220, 221
Zahara, 163, 164, 200
Zamora, 98, 107
Zoraya, 171, 172
Zurita, 413
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_A Selection from the Catalogue of_
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
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Old
Court Life in Spain
By Frances M. Elliot
Author of “Old Court Life in France,” etc.
_2 vols. With 8 Photogravures and 48 Other Illustrations._
_$5.00_
The author presents a picturesque record of the romantic early days of
courtly Spain, concluding her narrative with the reign of Ferdinand and
Isabella and the new era of things ushered in by them. There pass before
the reader’s gaze the martial figures of the Gothic kings, those
barbarians of the North who ruled Spain for two centuries and a half,
forgetting, under the spell of its sunny clime, the rugged gods that
received the worship of their ancestors. With the downfall of Roderick,
the Moors sweep into the country and henceforth the history is that of a
divided land, where the Cross is elevated against the Crescent, where
clash of sword and scimitar frequently resounds, and Saracen warriors
vie in gallantry and skill with those who do battle for the Faith.
Old
Court Life in France
By Frances Elliot
Author of “Old Court Life in Spain,” etc.
_Two Volumes. Octavo. With 60 Photogravure and Other Illustrations. Net
$5.00. Carriage 50 cents_
“Probably the most readable and successful work of the kind ever
attempted. It has been through many editions, and its popularity remains
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“Mrs. Elliot’s is an anecdotal history of the French Court from Francis
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in the History of
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This volume comprises a study of twenty of the most famous of the Popes
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Alfred the Great
Maker of England
848–899 A. D.
_By_
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Of Somerville College, Oxford
_8vo. $2.50_
Few royal lives have been richer in fulfillment and more decisive in
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Danish invader was checked, and the first beginnings of a royal navy
were made. His is the most important name in English history prior to
the coming of the Normans.
New York =G. P. Putnam’s Sons= London
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. P. 18, corrected "An occasion of" to "On an occasion of".
2. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in
spelling.
3. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
4. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
5. Enclosed bold or blackletter font in =equals=.