_Seville under the Catholic Kings_
'In her own interior Spain had an arduous problem to solve--she had
to overcome the old energetic resistance of a whole people--the
tolerably numerous descendants of the former lords and conquerors
of the country who still adhered to the Arabian manners and
language, and even in part professed the doctrines of the
Mohammedan.'--SCHLEGEL, _Philosophy of History_.
Seville in the sixteenth century was at the height of its prosperity. We
have seen how the discoveries of Columbus, Magellan, and the brothers
Pizarro enriched the city, brought vessels to the port with costly
store, and opened a vast foreign trade. In every quarter of the town the
hum of industry was heard. The Morisco artisans, who had become
'reconciled' to the Christian creed, laboured in stone and metal, and
there were silk weavers, leather workers, potters, and gold and silver
smiths. One hundred and thirty thousand persons worked at the looms,
which were numbered at sixteen thousand.
Learning and the arts benefited by the increase of the city's wealth.
The university, founded by Alfonso the Learned, was extended; the
cathedral library was enlarged, and Seville became famous for its poets,
historians, romance writers, and playwrights. Pacheco, painter and poet,
had his circle of gifted artists and men of letters; and the doors of
the Casa Pilatos, the beautiful mansion of the Dukes of Alcalá, were
open to all the lovers of learning and the students of art. Sculptors
and painters were constantly employed upon works of art for the royal
palace, the cathedral, and the churches. The _Mudéjar_ architects and
builders were engaged by rich dons, who had prospered by the discovery
of the New World, to design and erect sumptuous residences in the
Morisco style. Charitable institutions, such as the Hospital de la
Caridad, were founded and liberally endowed, and an asylum for foundling
children was built in the Calle de la Cuna. The highly ornate Casa de
Ayuntamiento, or City Hall, was designed by Diego de Riaño, and Hernan
Ruiz built the upper part of the Giralda.
The Emperor Charles V., one of the wisest rulers of Spain, occasionally
made his residence at the Alcázar during the palmy days of Seville,
though he favoured Segovia and Valladolid. The marriage of the monarch
with Isabella, daughter of Emanuel, King of Portugal, was celebrated in
the Alcázar of Seville with much splendour, and the ceremony was
followed by feasts and diversions. Isabella of Portugal was a gifted
woman, and extremely beautiful, and the union proved very happy. Charles
was at this time highly admired in the city; but at a later date even
the loyal Sevillians showed their displeasure with the Emperor. Certain
of the merchants of the town disregarded the royal command that all the
bullion brought in by the India fleet should be stored in the warehouse
of the Board of Trade, and kept there in case the Government required to
raise funds quickly for war expenses. The owners of the gold naturally
preferred their shipments to the Government bonds promising repayment.
They therefore secretly removed the bullion to their own houses. This
action angered Charles, as the same practice enraged Philip at a later
date, and the Emperor ordered the culprits to be put in chains, sent to
prison, and to be deprived of their possessions. The command was heeded
at once; and the merchants, and the officials who had connived at the
misdemeanour of removing the bullion, were conveyed under a strong guard
to Simancas. One of the offenders was put on the rack and died under
torture. The gold was, however, never recovered by the State.
The gorgeous Salón de Carlos V. was constructed in the royal palace
during the reign of the Emperor, who also laid out the gardens on a new
plan, and built the handsome pavilion in the grounds.
Philip II. had been on the throne for many years before he paid his
first visit to the southern metropolis. The King loved his mountain
palace, the Escorial, where he passed his days in writing records of his
reign, sending dispatches, and shooting with the gun and crossbow.
Prescott says: 'It was a matter of complaint in the Cortes that he thus
withdrew himself from the eyes of his subjects.' Even in his visits to
Madrid, Segovia and Seville, Philip avoided society, and shut himself up
in his closet with a great heap of papers on his table. When he
travelled, the King rode in a close carriage, and tried to avoid the
gaze of his subjects. As he grew older he developed a still stronger
aversion to being seen abroad.
In 1570, at the time of the preparations for the great war with the
Turks, the recluse-King came to Seville. His entry was made the occasion
of a splendid ceremonial and a demonstration of loyalty on the part of
the inhabitants. Philip came from Córdova, and was met on the outskirts
of the city by the officials and soldiery. Taking his oath to respect
the privileges of the city, the Sovereign rode through the crowded
streets in pomp, accompanied by knights and guards. A splendid canopy
was held by the chief justices over the King's head as he proceeded to
the Cathedral to take part in a solemn service. The monarch then took
up quarters in the Alcázar, which he occupied for a fortnight. During
his stay in Seville, Philip appeared at the _fêtes_ which had been
arranged for his entertainment. To show their homage to the King, the
people of the city subscribed a hundred thousand ducats as a donation
towards the cost of Philip's marriage with his fourth wife, Anne of
Austria.
The heavy expenses of the war in the Netherlands and with Turkey led to
a despotic method of obtaining pecuniary supplies. Philip needed money,
and to secure it as quickly as possible, he ordered that the officials
of the Casa de la Contratación at Seville should seize the cargoes of
gold and silver that had just arrived in the port. This action aroused
much indignation in the city, and the people grew incensed when the
command was again given to confiscate the bullion consigned to merchants
of Seville. When a number of treasure ships were on their homeward
journey, the King sent Admiral Alvaro de Bazán to the Azores to
intercept the vessels; and immediately upon the arrival of the fleet at
San Lucar, the whole of the shipment was sent to Santander, and from
that port to Flanders.
Under Philip II. the Church in Seville rose to great power, and
increased in wealth. The Archbishop of the city received an income of
eighty thousand ducats a year, and the minor clergy profited by the
King's patronage of the Church. It is not surprising that many of the
sons of families of rank and position crowded into the profession of
priest, and that the number of persons in holy orders soon swelled
enormously. Arts and handicrafts were not considered gentlemanlike
pursuits; the industry of the city was relegated to Spaniards of low
birth, to the _Mudéjares_, and to aliens. The _caballero_ of Seville
aspired to join the Church Militant, or to enter the army. When Philip
III., the Good, came to the throne there were no less than fourteen
thousand chaplains in the diocese, while a hundred clerics were on the
staff of the Cathedral alone.
[Illustration: FOUNTAIN IN BATH, ALCÁZAR.]
The oppression of the Moriscoes in the city became severer in the days
of Philip II. Doubt was cast upon the genuineness of belief among the
'reconciled' Moors, and they were bidden to cease reading books in the
Arabic language, to abandon their ceremonies, to change their mode of
dress, and to speak in Spanish. The public baths, built by the cleanly
Moriscoes, were destroyed in every city, and the _Mudéjares_ were even
forbidden to bathe in their own houses. These mandates exasperated the
Moriscoes throughout Andalusia. They rebelled and fought desperately;
but after frightful bloodshed and suffering, they were quelled and
broken down, never to regain their ancient sway. The suppression of the
heretics was complete by the time of Philip III. And at this time began
the decline of Seville's prosperity.
When Philip V. reigned, the sixteen thousand looms of the city had been
reduced to less than three hundred, and the population was thinned to 'a
quarter of its former number of inhabitants.' In the fruitful district
around Seville the vineyards and olive gardens were in a state of
neglect, and fields once fertile became wastes. Trade declined rapidly
with the extirpation of heresy. The industrial population was deprived
of its most skilful and industrious members when the last band of
Moriscoes quitted the city. In the seventeenth century Andalusia
suffered fearful poverty. Whole villages were deserted, the land was
going out of cultivation, and the tax-collectors were enjoined to seize
the beds and such wretched furniture as the indigent peasants possessed
in their cheerless houses.
When Philip II. died, loyal Seville honoured the departed King by a
magnificent funeral service in the Cathedral. A monument, forty-four
feet square, and forty-one feet in height, was designed by Oviedo, at a
cost of fifteen thousand ducats. Montañes, the famous sculptor, whose
work is to be seen in several of the Seville churches, produced some of
the statuary to adorn the monument, and the young Pacheco, then unknown,
assisted in the decoration. On November 25, 1598, the mourning multitude
flocked to the dim Cathedral. While the people knelt upon the stones,
and the solemn music floated through the long aisles, there was a
disturbance among a part of the congregation. A man was charged with
deriding the imposing monument, and creating a disorder in the holy
edifice. He was a tax-gatherer and ex-soldier of the city, named Don
Miguel de Servantes Saavedra. Some of the citizens took his side, for
there was a feud between the civil and ecclesiastical authorities of
Seville, and the tax-gatherer had merely shown public spirit. The
brawler, whom we know as Cervantes, was expelled from the Cathedral with
his companions, and order was restored. But he had his revenge. He went
to his room and composed a satirical poem upon the tomb of the King,
which was soon published and read everywhere in the city. Here is one of
the English translations of the poem:--
TO THE MONUMENT OF THE KING AT SEVILLE.
'I vow to God I quake with my surprise!
Could I describe it, I would give a crown--
And who, that gazes on it in the town,
But starts aghast to see its wondrous size;
Each part a million cost, I should devise;
What pity 'tis, ere centuries have flown,
Old Time will mercilessly cast it down!
Thou rival'st Rome, O, Seville, in my eyes!
I bet the soul of him who's dead and blest,
To dwell within this sumptuous monument
Has left the seats of sempiternal rest!
A fellow tall, on deeds of valour bent,
My exclamation heard. "Bravo!" he cried,
"Sir Soldier, what you say is true, I vow!
And he who says the contrary has lied!"
With that, he pulls his hat upon his brow,
Upon his sword hilt he his hand doth lay
And frowns--and--nothing does, but walks away.'
The discovery of the New World, with its opulence of treasure, and the
expulsion of the Moriscoes, did not yield a permanent prosperity to
Seville. Even before the death of Philip II., the few far-sighted and
reflective men doubted whether a great influx of gold and silver, and
the annihilation of freedom of thought, were likely to benefit Spain,
either in the material or spiritual sense. The gold fever seized like a
frenzy upon the avaricious, and the early colonisers turned their backs
upon any country that lacked precious minerals. Nothing save gold and
silver was considered valuable. As a consequence these minerals became
redundant, and in the meantime the cultivation of the land at home and
abroad, and the development of manufactures, were neglected. No one had
the enterprise to prevent the silting up of the tidal waters of the
Guadalquivir, and so Seville lost its importance as a busy port.
While nobles were fighting for gold, and harrying heretics, briars and
weeds were spreading over the fields that the patient Moors had tilled
and made marvellously fertile. The establishment of the _alcavala_ tax
upon farming produce and manufactured articles hastened the decline of
agriculture and of crafts in Andalusia. Finally, under the Bourbons,
Cadiz became the rival of Seville, and the Council of the Two Indies was
removed to the southern port in 1720. In good or ill fortune Seville
remained loyal, winning for itself the title of: _Muy noble, muy leal,
muy heroica é invicta, i.e._, 'Very noble, very loyal, very brave and
invincible.'
Some interesting pictures of Seville at the close of the eighteenth and
beginning of the nineteenth centuries are to be found in the _Letters
from Spain_, by D. Leucadio Doblado, written in 1824. Doblado is the
pseudonym of Blanco White, son of the British Vice-Consul at Seville in
those days. White was born in the city in 1775, brought up as a
Spaniard, and sent to the University. His parents were very austere
Catholics, but reading and study developed a sceptical tendency in young
White's mind, and he subsequently came to England and was well-known in
Unitarian circles.
In his _Life_, Blanco White describes the quaint ceremony of entrance
into the University of Seville. 'Every day of the week preceding the
admission, the candidate was obliged to walk an hour in the principal
quadrangle of the college, attended by one of the servitors, and his own
servant or page--a needy student who, for the sake of board, lodgings
and the cast-off clothes of his master, was glad in that humble capacity
to go through the course of studies necessary for the profession--Divinity,
Law or Medicine--which he intended to follow.' The custom of the
_caravanas_ was a trying ordeal for the student. He was compelled to run
the gauntlet of the gibes of a mob of spectators, as a trial of his
patience. No physical violence was permitted, except when a candidate
lost his temper. An irascible victim was speedily ducked in the basin of
the fountain of the quadrangle. Ladies came to see the sport. When White
passed through this ordeal, he was dressed in fantastic garments, and
led by his tormentors by a rope.
In 1800, Blanco White saw the outbreak of yellow fever that ravaged the
city. The plague began in Triana, and the infection was said to have
been brought from Cadiz by seamen. As in previous instances of
pestilence, there was no enforced isolation of the diseased, and no
relief of the suffering poor. Prayers were offered for succour in the
Cathedral and the churches, and a special service of the Rogativas, used
in the times of severe affliction, was performed on nine days after
sunset. One of the choicest relics of the Cathedral, a piece of the True
Cross, or _Lignum Crucis_, was exhibited as a charm on the Giralda
Tower. Many persons advised that a wooden crucifix, in one of the
chapels of the suburbs, should be also employed. It had been of great
service in the plague of 1649, staying the epidemic after half of the
inhabitants had been destroyed. A day was fixed for the solemn ceremony
of blessing the four winds of heaven with the True Cross from the
Cathedral treasury. The great fane was crowded with supplicants. As the
priest made the sign of the Cross, with the golden casket containing the
_Lignum Crucis_, a frightful clap of thunder made the Cathedral tremble.
In forty-eight hours the deaths increased tenfold. The heat, the
polluted air of the Cathedral, the infection that spread among the
worshippers, and the fatigue of the service caused a great spread of the
fever in the city. Eighteen thousand persons perished from the
pestilence.
During the Peninsular War, Soult's troops did considerable damage to
parts of Seville. The church that contained the bones of Murillo was
pillaged by the soldiers, and the tomb of the great painter was
destroyed. On February 1, 1810, the city surrendered with all its stores
and arsenal, and Joseph marched in. The French force had appeared before
Seville in January 1810. 'In Seville all was anarchy,' writes Sir W. F.
P. Napier, in his _History of the War in the Peninsula_; 'Palafox and
Montijo's partisans were secretly ready to strike, the ancient Junta
openly prepared to resume their former power.' It was a time of revolt
in the city; mobs went through the streets, calling for the deposition
of the Junta, and vowing violence against the members. Seville was
besieged for the last time in 1843, at the time of Espartero's regency.
An account of the siege is given in _Revelations of Spain_, by an
English Resident, who writes: 'I saw full twenty houses in different
parts of the city--this was about the entire number--which Van Halen's
shells had entirely gutted. The balls did limited damage--a mere crack
against the wall, for the most part a few stones dashed out, and there
an end. But the bombs--that was indeed a different matter! Wherever they
fell, unless they struck the streets, and were buried in the ground,
they carried destruction. Lighting on the roof of a house, they
invariably pierced through its four or five floors, and bursting below,
laid the building in ruins.' Probably not more than twenty lives were
lost through the bursting of the shells. Most of the men of the city
were defending the walls, and the women took refuge in the churches. The
Cathedral sheltered a large number of women and children, who slept and
cooked there. The Junta of Seville occupied the Convent of San Paolo
during the siege.
Edward VII. of England, when Prince of Wales, paid a visit to Seville,
and spent several days in the city, in 1876.
We have now briefly surveyed the more interesting events in the history
of the city and noted incidents in the lives of eminent Sevillians from
the time of the Goths until the present century.