THE CONDITION OF SPAIN BEFORE THE MOORISH INVASION
To one whose fancy roves to Spain in his dream of fair women there comes
at once the picture of a dark-eyed beauty gazing out discreetly from
behind her lattice window, listening to the tinkling sound of her
lover's mandolin, and sighing at the ardor of his passion; or again, she
may be going abroad, with lace mantilla about her shapely head, armed
with her fan,--that article of comfort and coquetry, as it has been
called,--which is at once a shield and an allurement as wielded by her
deft fingers. With the thought of Spain there comes also the snap of the
castanets and the flash of bright-colored skirts as they move in time to
the _tarantella_. All in all, it is the poet's land of beauty and
pleasure, music and the dance, with _Dolce far niente_ as its motto,
rose-entwined.
Free from the poet's spell, however, and under the guidance of the
sterner muse of history, this picture of sweet content vanishes for a
time as the more rugged outlines of another and an earlier age attract
our attention. Fact and conjecture are somewhat intermingled as they
concern the early history of Spain, but enough is known to give us a
fairly clear idea of the general condition of the country. The original
inhabitants of the peninsula--the Iberians--antedate authentic
historical records, but some centuries before the Christian era it is
certain that there was a Celtic invasion from the North which resulted
in a mingling of these two races and the appearance of the Celtiberians.
The life of these early inhabitants was rude and filled with privations,
but they were brave and hardy, having no fear of pain or danger, and
possessed by the love of liberty. In this primitive society the
occupations of the men were almost exclusively those connected with the
pursuit of war, and the wives and mothers were given a large measure of
domestic responsibility and were treated with great respect. To them was
intrusted not only the education of the younger children, but the care
of the land as well, and there is nothing to show that they failed in
either of these duties. They were more than good mothers and good
husbandmen, however, for more than once, in case of need, these early
Spanish women donned armor and fought side by side with their husbands
and brothers, sword or lance in hand, nothing daunted by the fierceness
of the struggle and always giving a good account of themselves in the
thick of the battle.
Hannibal's wife was a woman of Spain, it is true, but it is to her less
eminent sisters that we must turn in order to discover the most
conspicuous cases of feminine bravery and heroism, which are accompanied
in almost every instance by a similar record for the men, as the lot of
men and women was cast along the same lines in those days, and the
national traits are characteristic of either sex. A most fervid
patriotism was inbred in these people, and throughout all the long years
of Roman conquest and depredation these native Celtiberians, men and
women, proved time and time again that they knew the full significance
of the Latin phrase which came from the lips of their conquerors--_Dulce
et decorum est pro patria mori_ [It is sweet and glorious to die for
one's country]. When Hannibal essayed to capture the stronghold of
Saguntum, a fortified city on the eastern coast of Spain, and probably
of Phoenician origin, he found himself confronted by no easy task. On
account of his early residence in Spain and his familiarity with the
people and the country, he had found its conquest an affair of no great
difficulty for the most part, but here at Saguntum all the conditions
were changed. The resistance was most stubborn, in spite of the fact
that the besieging force consisted of one hundred and fifty thousand
men. Hannibal himself was wounded while fighting under the walls; and
when the end came, the fall of Saguntum was due to famine rather than to
the force of arms. Then the Saguntines, men, women, and children, were
of the opinion that surrender was ignoble, and they all preferred death
at the hands of the enemy to any timorous act of submission.
Some thirteen years later, in B. C. 206, the Romans, who were now making
a systematic endeavor to subdue the whole country, laid siege to Ataspa;
and although the details of the investment of the city are far from
complete, the imperfect records of the event show that the force of the
enemy was so overwhelming that the inhabitants of the ill-fated city saw
at once the futility of a prolonged resistance and resolved to do or die
without delay. Accordingly, a small guard was left behind to kill the
women and children and set fire to the town, and the rest of the doughty
little garrison, with banners waving and bugles sounding in defiance,
sallied forth from the city gates, and each man went to his death with
his face to the enemy. The thrilling tale of the final capture of the
city of Numantia by Scipio Africanus furnishes but further proof of this
indomitable courage of the early Spaniards. After a siege and blockade
of sixteen months, the Numantians, threatened by famine, and unable to
secure terms of honorable capitulation, decided that death was better
than the horrors of Roman slavery; and so they killed each other in
their patriotic zeal, wives and daughters perishing at the hands of
their fathers and their husbands, and the last man, after setting fire
to the town, threw himself into the flames. When the Roman conquerors
marched through the stricken city they could discover nothing but "ruin,
blood, solitude, and horror." By B. C. 72 practically all of Spain had
submitted to the Romans, but Pompey found to his surprise that the old
Spanish spirit was not entirely dead when he attempted to take
possession of the town of Calahorra on the Ebro. The details of the
affair almost pass belief. As usual, the defence was dogged; and when
the town was threatened with famine, it is said that the men not only
killed the women and children, but actually salted their flesh and
stored it for future consumption! This was not mere savagery, it was
fanatic devotion to a patriotic principle, and there is naught to show
that the deed was done under protest from the victims.
The superior organization of the Romans was bound to conquer, however,
in the end, and by the time of Julius Caesar the whole country had been
subjected. This gradual supremacy of the Romans was accompanied by a
gradual dying out of those early, sturdy virtues which had so marked the
Spanish people. Life in that pre-Christian era had been rude and
uncouth; there was little education or refinement; but there was a
certain rugged nobility of character which cannot but command our
admiration. The general manners and customs of the time are, for the
most part, marked by great decency and purity; women justly merited the
respect which was shown them, and the family was recognized as a
necessary factor in national strength. As an interesting bit of
information which will show, indirectly at least, that women were held
in high regard, it may be noted that a number of old coins have been
found, coming from this early day, which bear upon one side a woman's
head.
The prosperity which came with the advent of the Romans was the result,
in great part, of the unexampled peace which the whole peninsula now
enjoyed. The mines were worked, the olive groves yielded a rich harvest
of oil, the fields were tilled and much Spanish wheat was sent abroad,
and, in everything but the mining, the women worked side by side with
the men. Flax had been brought to Spain long before by the
Phoenicians, and no special attention had been given to its culture;
but now matters were quite changed, and the finest linen to be found in
all the Western world came from the dexterous hands of the Spanish
women. This time of peace and comfort cannot be considered as an unmixed
blessing, however; for with the decline of war the sterner virtues
languished, and much of that primitive simplicity of an earlier day lost
its freshness and naivete and gave way to the subtle vices and corrupt
influences which never failed to follow in the wake of Latin conquest.
The strength and virility of the nation had been sapped by the Romans,
as thousands of Spaniards were forced into the Roman legions and forced
to fight their oppressors' battles in many distant lands, and very few
of them came home even to die. With this enormous depletion of the male
population, it was but natural that there should be a certain mixture of
races which was not always an aid to public morals. Marriage between
Roman citizens and the women of the so-called barbarian nations was
rarely recognized by law; many of the Spanish women, as prisoners of
war, were sold into slavery; and with such a social system imposed by
the conquerors, it is easy to see that contamination was inevitable.
With the gradual decay of Roman power, the colonial dependencies of this
great empire were more and more allowed to fall into the almost absolute
control of unscrupulous governors, who did not miss an occasion to levy
extortionate taxes and manage everything in their own interests. As the
natural result of the raids of the barbarian hordes--the Alans, the
Suevians, the Vandals, and the Goths--Spain was losing all that
semblance of national unity which it had acquired under Roman rule, and
was slowly resolving itself into its primitive autonomous towns.
Finally, Euric the Goth, who had founded a strong government in what is
now southern France, went south of the Pyrenees in the last part of the
fifth century, defeated the Roman garrison at Tarragona, and succeeded
in making a treaty with the emperor, whereby he was to rule all Spain
with the exception of the Suevian territory in the northwest. Now begins
that third process of amalgamation which was to aid in the further
evolution of the national type. First, the native Iberians were blended
with the early Celtic invaders to form the Celtiberian stock, then came
the period of Roman control, to say nothing of the temporary
Carthaginian occupancy, and now, finally, on the ruins of this Roman
province, there rose a Gothic kingdom of power and might. The
foundations of Roman social life were already tottering, for it had been
established from the beginning upon the notion of family headship, and
the individual had no natural rights which the government was bound to
respect, and, all in all, it was little calculated to inspire the esteem
and confidence of the proud Spaniard, who prized his personal liberty
above all else. In literature and in art Roman influences were dominant
and permanent, but, as Martin Hume says: "The centralizing governmental
traditions which the Roman system had grafted upon the primitive town
and village government of the Celtiberians had struck so little root in
Spain during six centuries, that long before the last legionaries left
the country the centralized government had fallen away, and the towns
with their assembly of all free citizens survived with but little
alteration from the pre-Roman period."
This being the case when the Goths appeared, it was easy for them to
start out afresh on their own lines, and all the more so as many of
their governmental ideas were peculiarly adapted to the Spanish
temperament. The Goths at the time of their appearance in Spain were no
longer barbarians, as their long contact with Rome had given them ample
opportunity for education, and they deserve to be considered as
disseminators of civilization. Their easy conquest of Spain can then be
accounted for in two ways: first, there was not sufficient warlike
spirit in the country to successfully oppose them; secondly, they were
hailed as liberators rather than as conquerors, because at their coming
the real barbarians, who were still threatening the country, were forced
to leave. The central idea of the Gothic social system, which was soon
established in all parts of the country, was its recognition of the
independence of the individual, and especially of the women of the
family. The head of the household did not consider himself as the sole
possessor of all rights and privileges; the women and children were
expected to do their share of fighting the enemy, and were given their
share of food and plunder in all equity. The equality of the wife with
her husband was strictly enjoined, not only in the marriage ceremony,
but also by law, which gave her full control of her own property and a
half-interest in the possessions held by them both in common.
Alaric II. caused to be published in 506 the code of laws which had been
compiled by King Euric, but which was called the _Breviarium
Alaricianium_, wherein, among various other matters, the rights of women
are especially enforced. This code was intended only for the use of the
Goths, who took position at once as a ruling and noble race, and the
rest of the population was still governed by the old Roman code. For
almost a hundred and fifty years this double system of legal procedure
was maintained, and then its many disadvantages became so evident that a
vigorous king sought to remedy the tottering fortunes of the Gothic
realm by promulgating a single code, to which all should be subject and
which should represent the better features of the two codes hitherto in
vogue. Chindaswinth, who ruled from 642 to 654, was responsible for this
new departure; and his son Recceswinth, who followed him upon the
throne, was the first to administer the revised code, which is known as
the _Lex Visigothorum_. Although the document is but an adaptation of
the Roman law to the special needs of the country from the standpoint of
Christianity, it shows at the same time the strong influence of the
social traditions of the Goths, and especially with reference to its
treatment of women.
It is evident from a perusal of these laws that the Goths had high
ideals of family life, and that it was their most earnest endeavor to
maintain, by means of legal enactment, a rather unusual state of social
purity. Women were held in high esteem and occupied a most respected and
influential position, and Caesar's wife was their common model. The moral
condition of the Romanized Spaniards fell far short of the Gothic
standards, however, and it is evident that the new code endeavored to
correct the numerous social evils which then afflicted the country. The
loose habits of the Romans had been followed all too quickly, and the
custom of keeping many slaves in a household had led to a domestic
promiscuity which was appalling in some instances, so that the Gothic
desire for reform is easily explained. It is interesting to note in this
connection that the best account to be found of the moral status of the
whole people at this time is contained by implication in the list of
things which they are forbidden by law to do. So, the _Lex Visigothorum_
is not only a tribute to the moral sense of its promulgators, but at the
same time a storehouse of information with regard to a rather obscure
period in Spanish history.
All things considered, one of the most startling things in the new code
was a severe statute forbidding public prostitutes, for it is somewhat
difficult to believe that the moral tone of society at that time would
warrant so stringent a measure. A public flogging was prescribed as the
penalty which would be inflicted upon all who failed to obey the
statute, and it is altogether probable that the law was administered
with the same Puritanic rigor which had brought it into existence. Other
provisions there were, animated by this same spirit, which were levelled
at the social evils incident to the practice of holding slaves. A woman
who had intrigued with her own slave or who wished to marry him was
condemned to death in the most summary fashion; and even if the man were
a freedman, the penalty was just the same. What a glimpse this gives us
of the life of the time, when the slaves were often more charming and
more intelligent than their rough masters, and how clear it is that the
Goths considered a household conducted with decency and with order as an
important element in national prosperity and well-being!
As one might naturally expect, the laws relating to the subject of
marriage and divorce are equally severe, even when the contracting
parties belong to the same class in society. The equality between wife
and husband was again provided for, as it had been in the earlier code,
and the woman was again given full control of her own property and a
half-interest in the things which had been common property. Once
married, divorce was forbidden except in the case of adultery on the
woman's part; and though it is clear to see that this was not equal
justice for both man and wife, yet such was the fact. When infidelity
was proved, the law provided that the wife and her paramour should be
delivered up to the tender mercies of the injured husband, who had the
right to punish them according to his own inclination. He was given the
power of life and death even, under these circumstances, and too often
it is to be feared that the punishment became a bloody revenge
sanctioned by law. Marriage between Jews and Christians had long been
forbidden, as it had been discovered by experience that such a union was
bound to lead to proselyting in one form or another; and the death
penalty was inflicted upon all who were not content to abide by the
statute. Marriage between Goths and Romans had been legalized in 652,
but for many years before that time the two races had been kept apart;
for the Goths, as the ruling race, considered it prejudicial to their
interests to ally themselves in this way with their subjects.
Woman's place in the criminal procedure of the time was unique. It
appears that the punishment inflicted for any given crime depended not
so much upon the importance of the offence as upon the importance of the
criminal, and that almost every injury might be atoned for by the
payment of a certain sum of money, the amount depending upon the rank of
the person making the payment. Such money payments, wherever a woman was
involved, were regulated according to the following scale of values:
from her birth to the age of fifteen, she was valued at only one-half
the price of a man of her own class; from fifteen to twenty, she was
considered of equal value; from twenty to forty, she was rated as worth
one-sixth less than a man; and after forty, at even less than half.
Inasmuch as both men and women were amenable to the same laws with but
this difference in the amount of the penalty in any given case, it would
appear that women were recognized to possess a smaller money-earning
power than the men; and such was undoubtedly the case, in spite of the
fact that both men and women seemed to share alike the various daily
tasks in the earlier and simpler days of Gothic rule in Spain. Such
participation on the part of the women was by no means common among the
Romans, and this fact, together with the spread of slavery, did much to
put the women in this secondary position, so far as ability to work was
concerned.
With all this apparent equality in fact and in the eyes of the law, it
is somewhat doubtful whether or not the wives and mothers really enjoyed
a high degree of personal liberty. Their legal rights were clearly
defined, but it is certain that they were looked upon as inferior
beings. The prevalent customs with regard to the marriage dower show in
no uncertain fashion that the wife was considered to a certain extent as
the chattel and property of her husband; for a woman could not marry
without a dower, but it was paid not by but to her parents, and by her
future husband. A marriage of that description may be likened to the
sale of a bill of goods. In further proof of this dependent position of
the women, and to show the care which was taken to protect them from
contamination of any kind, one of the statutes regulating the practice
of medicine presents certain interesting features. This law prohibited
surgeons from bleeding any freewoman except in the presence of her
husband, her nearest relative, or at least of some properly appointed
witness. A Salic law dating from about the same period imposed a fine of
fifteen pieces of gold upon anyone who should improperly press a
woman's hand, but there seems to be nothing to show that the Goths
considered legislation upon this important point necessary. Even under
these conditions the physician's position was somewhat precarious, as it
was provided that in case he should withdraw enough of the patient's
blood to cause death, he became the slave of the patient's heir at law!
Spain was like the greater part of the rest of Europe at this time with
regard to its intellectual atmosphere; Christianity and Roman
civilization had not yet succeeded in stamping out the old pagan beliefs
of the early inhabitants, and superstition and ignorance were for a long
time characteristic traits of the majority of the people. The air was
peopled with demons, the devil himself was no infrequent visitor,
witches and fortune tellers were not without influence, and stealthily,
by night, many mystic rites were celebrated. Many of the Christian
beliefs of the time are likewise the result of ignorance and
superstition, but at that time, naturally, only the pagan ideas were
condemned. Accordingly, while the law of the Goths recognized trial by
ordeal, wherein God is summoned to bear miraculous witness in favor of
the innocent, the same law condemned belief in witchcraft! The favorite
ordeal among the Goths was trial by red-hot iron. The Church took charge
of this ceremony, which was accompanied by a most solemn ritual, and all
this was legal and religious and approved by the highest authorities!
But the poor witches had to go! It was charged that they were able to
produce storm and ruin by means of their incantations, that they offered
nightly sacrifices to devils, and that in general they were in league
with the powers of darkness and productive of much disorder.
Furthermore, soothsayers were not to be consulted concerning the death
of a king; and any freeman disobeying this edict was soundly flogged,
lost his property by confiscation, and was condemned to perpetual
servitude. These mysterious and redoubtable old women who gathered
simples upon the mountain side and dealt in the black art had formerly
been very numerous, and, although they have always continued to exist in
Spain, their number was much diminished by means of the enforcement of
the new law.
In addition to the various social and political questions which were
demanding settlement at this time, there was a matter of ecclesiastical
difference which caused great trouble and confusion. The Goths, though
Christians, belonged to the Arian branch of the Church, while the
Spaniards were firm believers in the Athanasian or Latin form of
Christianity, and the struggle for supremacy between the two went on for
many years before either side was willing to submit. Near the beginning
of the sixth century, Clothilda, daughter of the Frankish king, Clovis,
was married to Amalaric, the Gothic king, whose capital was then in the
old city of Narbonne. Political advantages were supposed to come from
this international alliance, but the results were quite to the contrary.
The queen was an Athanasian, and the king an Arian Catholic, and neither
was willing to endure the heresy of the other. Amalaric used his most
persuasive arts in his attempts to win over his wife to the Gothic point
of view, but his endeavor was in vain, and she remained obstinately true
to the God of her fathers. Finally, irritated beyond measure, the king
ordered that Clothilda should no longer be allowed to make public
profession of her religion, and the result was a merry war which led to
the defeat and final death of the Arian sovereign. Late in this same
sixth century there was in Spain another Frankish queen, who not only
held steadfastly to her own faith, but was the indirect means whereby
all the country was induced to abandon the Arian creed. The native
Catholic clergy, under the leadership of Leander, a most noted
churchman, and Bishop of Seville, had long urged the necessity of such a
change, but the Goths were unwilling to submit; and so matters stood
until Prince Hermenegild, urged on by Leander, and most of all by his
wife Ingunda, led a revolt against his father, King Leovgild. The revolt
was not a success, but the star of the Athanasian party was rising
rapidly, and the open stand of the queen for the Latin doctrines gave
great impetus and power to the whole movement. The triumph was complete
when Leovgild's son and heir, Recared, saw that further opposition was
useless and publicly announced his conversion to the faith of Rome.
In the early history of the Church in Spain there are many interesting
references to women which are not generally known, but which reveal, on
the whole, a condition of affairs similar to that which was to be found
in other parts of Europe at the same time. Monasteries were probably
unknown in the peninsula before the middle of the sixth century, but
from a very early day it is certain that women as well as men were
taking vows of perpetual chastity and devoting themselves to a life of
holy works. Early in the fourth century the Council of Elvira prescribed
penalties for professed nuns who might desire to reenter the world, and
the Council of Saragossa, in 380, declared that no virgin should be
allowed to devote herself to a religious life until she had reached the
mature age of forty years. That same Council of Elvira was the first in
the history of the Church to ordain the celibacy of the secular clergy,
and its thirty-third canon forbade the bishops, priests, and deacons of
the peninsula to live as husbands with their wives. In the year 591, the
first Synod of Toledo, over which Bishop Leander presided, enacted
various canons which give some interesting sidelights on the times. It
appears that ecclesiastics had already been forbidden to keep women
servants in their houses, but the rule was so often disregarded that it
was enacted that in the future, as a punishment for such intractable
churchmen, their servants should be sold as slaves and the proceeds
handed over to some charitable organization. In just what way this
punishment was to affect the clergy, beyond causing them temporary
annoyance, it is difficult to understand, but there is no doubt as to
the fact.
In all of the seven centuries preceding the Moorish conquest of Spain
there had been some little progress, so far as the position of women was
concerned, but it cannot be said that the advance had been great. The
original Gothic ideas on this subject had been far superior to those
held by the Romans, but the rigor of the old ideas lost force in time,
and, if the accounts of the Church historians be true, the last Goths to
wield the sceptre were so corrupt and led such abandoned lives that God,
in his vengeance, sent the Mohammedan horde upon them. In all these
shifting times the conditions of life were such that few women were able
to take any prominent part in public affairs; or if they did, the
imperfect records of the epoch fail to make mention of it. At intervals
there were queens, like Ingunda, possessed of a strong and decided
character and ready to take a part in the control of affairs, but they
were the exception and not the rule, as the education of women was so
very limited that few of them knew enough to see beyond a very narrow
horizon. Probably the most enlightened woman in all this period was the
nun Florentina, sister of Bishop Leander of Seville, who was far-famed
for her good works. At the time of her death in 603, she had risen to
such distinction on account of her character and her ability that she
was made the general director of a system of over forty convents, which
were under her continual inspection and control. Such, in brief, is her
story; further details are wanting, but even this is enough to impress
us with the fact that she must have been a great woman and
representative of all that was good and noble in her day.