Reccared (601) and the rout of the Guadelete (711), no fewer than
fifteen sovereigns sat on the throne of Spain. Toledo was the theatre of
their barbaric triumphings, their violent entrances and tragic exits.
Now the city would resound with the savage, exultant yells of the
townsmen, as they dragged the body of the usurper Witeric up and down
the steep, uneven streets--to cast the bleeding, shapeless thing that
had so lately been a king, upon a dunghill. Now, the people would be
acclaiming Wamba, greatest of the Visigoths--after the strange scene at
Gerticos, where the crown was forced upon him at the sword’s point;
another time, a long procession of captives would file through the
gates, to witness to the old king’s triumph in Narbonnese Gaul. Not a
“demise of the crown” but there would be angry mutterings among the
townsfolk, and whispers of murder, compulsion, and fraud. And while the
kings raved and the people wept, the Church grew every day stronger--so
strong that usurper and legitimate sovereign alike had perforce to
obtain her sanction to his election and accession. And as the years went
on, the spark of religious zeal in the breast of Spain was fanned into
flame, and we read of fierce onslaughts on the Jewish citizens, and of
merciless edicts, condemning them to penalties painful and humiliating.
Dark days were these for the Children of Israel whose home Toledo so
long had been; but darker still were impending for their persecutors and
for the royal line of the Visigoths.
An exact picture of society in Spain at this period has been preserved
in the Etymologies of Isidore Pacense. The Visigoths were a primitive,
barbarous people, who had imposed upon themselves the outward
appearances of Roman, or rather of Byzantine, civilisation. The
contemptuous reference of Hallam to this “obscure race” is undeserved.
Even in their earlier stages of development the Goths manifested many
noble qualities--notably, a clemency towards their enemies--which were
not conspicuous in the more polished nations of the South. And though
they never properly assimilated the culture of the Latins, they attained
to a degree of refinement and civilisation which compares favourably
with that reached by contemporaries. “Spain,” remarks the author of
“Toledo” in the “Monumentos Arquitectónicos de España,” “may then fairly
and proudly claim that, while in Central Europe art had acquired no
distinctive form--in the midst of the bitterness of slavery, when,
before the abjuration of Reccared, the fusion of the races was not
legally recognised--the Iberian Peninsula had developed a definite and
evident artistic and literary individuality. That individuality must
have been the result of the fortuitous conjunction and union of Latin
traditions, more or less degenerate, with influences originally
Byzantine and with those other transformed elements introduced by the
Germanic hosts of Atawulf; but, even then, it remains an individuality,
which asserts itself in the surviving examples of Visigothic culture,
and which was transmitted to the generations succeeding the Moslem
conquest.”
According to the standpoint of the critic, the Gothic kings’ taste for
pomp and luxury may be interpreted as proof of their civilised instincts
or of their native barbarism. For of the splendour of the Court of
Toledo we have abundant testimony. From the writings of Isidore, we
learn that the nobles used only goblets and basins of the precious
metals, that their garments were of superfine silk, and their ornaments
of the richest jewels. The elaborate ceremonial of the royal household
may be inferred from the list of functionaries--the First Count, or
Chief Butler, the _Escancias_; the Count Chamberlain, or _Cubiculario_;
the Master of the Horse, _Estabulario_; the Major Domo, or _Numerario_;
the Steward, or _Silonario_; the Master of the Pages, or _Espartarius_;
the Count of the _Sagrarios_, or Sacred Things; and the Treasurer, or
_Argentarios_. These offices were only held by the highest nobles. In
the Cluny Museum at Paris and the Royal Armoury at Madrid are preserved
the superb Votive Crowns discovered at Guarrazar in 1858. These
priceless objects proclaim the wealth and munificence of the Visigothic
monarchs. They are composed of double hoops of gold, decorated on the
outside by three bands in relief. The outer bands are set with pearls
and sapphires, and the middle band with the same stones in a setting of
a red vitreous substance. The crown is suspended by four chains from a
double gold rosette, which encloses a piece of rock crystal set in
facets. Each chain consists of four links, shaped like the leaf of the
pear-tree, and _percées à jour_. In its original state the crown of King
Swinthila, now in the Madrid Armoury, had, hanging from its lower rim, a
cross and twenty-two letters, making up the inscription, SVINTHILANUS
REX OFFERET. All and each of these letters were actual jewels, set in
the red glassy paste already mentioned, to them being attached large
single pearls and pear-shaped sapphires. Though only twelve letters were
remaining when the crown was discovered, the dedication was skilfully
reconstructed by Señores de Madrazo and Amador de los Rios. The crown of
Recceswinth in the Cluny Museum and the crown of the Abbot Theodosius at
Madrid do not differ greatly from that of Swinthila in style and
material. Though the workmanship is rude compared with modern specimens
of the goldsmith’s art, these crowns still excite admiration by their
beauty and richness. Inquiring into the origin of their style, Señor de
Riaño arrives at the conclusion that it “must be looked for in the East;
their manufacture was most probably Spanish. We cannot imagine the
extraordinary magnificence of the Visigothic court, so similar to that
of Constantinople and other contemporary ones, without the presence at
each of a group of artists whose task was to satisfy these demands.” Not
only the applied arts, but letters and learning were cultivated at
Toledo. Swinthila and Recceswinth delighted in the composition of
epistles and verses, in which, unfortunately, the taste, acquired from
the Byzantines, for long-winded, flowery and involved phrases is
painfully apparent. Recceswinth interested himself in the collection and
revision of ancient manuscripts. In his reign flourished the learned and
saintly Ildefonso, who was publicly thanked for his work on the
perpetual virginity of Mary by the martyr Saint Leocadia, who came
expressly from Heaven for the purpose. One of Ildefonso’s successors in
the see of Toledo, Julian, was a Jew by birth, or at least descent. He
was renowned for his erudition and especially as a polemical writer.
Though he narrowly escaped excommunication as a heretic, he is now
venerated as a saint, and was buried beside St. Ildefonso.
As the seat of a Court which did something more than ape the culture of
the Latins (_pace_ Mr. Leonard Williams), Toledo rose from an obscure
Roman colony into a city of dignity and importance. It is supposed to
have reached its highest stage of development in the reign of King Wamba
(672-680), whose mutilated statue confronts the traveller on approaching
the town from the railway-station. Most of the buildings ascribed by the
chroniclers, however, to that king were in all probability only restored
by his orders, and were originally constructed by his predecessors.
Isidore Pacense enumerates among the edifices existing in his time in
Spain, basilicas, monasteries, oratories, and hermitages; the _Aula
Regia_, or royal residence, “distinguished before all other buildings by
the richness of the four porticos which encircled it”; the _Atrii_ of
the nobility, which were allowed only three porticos; hospitals,
guest-houses, and _Repositaria_, or treasure-houses. It is reasonable to
assume that the capital of Spain would have possessed buildings of all
the kinds specified during the hundred years that elapsed between the
death of Athanagild and the accession of Wamba.
To the former king is attributed the foundation of the sanctuary
converted later into the Hermitage of Cristo de la Luz, and the Church
of Santa Justa, reconstructed in the sixteenth century. From an
inscription on marble found in 1581, near the Convent of San Juan de la
Penitencia, it would appear that Reccared built a church consecrated to
the Virgin in the year 587. The text runs: IN NOMINE DNI CONSECRA | TA
ECCLESIA SCTE MARIE | IN CATHOLICO DIE PRIMO | IDUS APRILIS ANNO FELI |
CITER PRIMO REGNI D-NI | NOSTRI GLORIOSISSIMI H | RECCAREDI REGIS ERA |
DCXXV. To Liuba II. is ascribed the erection of the Church of San
Sebastian, where some capitals and shafts, discovered in 1899, exist to
attest its Visigothic origin. The Basilica of Santa Leocadia dated from
the days of Sisebut (612-621): and though the chroniclers assign no date
to the dedication of the Church of San Ginés there can be no doubt that
it took place in the seventh century. Wamba adorned with statuary and
partially restored the city walls, but it is an error, based on a
corrupt text of Isidore Pacense’s, to suppose that he built them.
The site of the Aula Regia, or Palace of the Visigothic kings, has long
been a matter of dispute among archæologists. The author of the article
on Toledo in the “Monumentos Arquitectónicos” decides in favour of the
plot of ground covered by the Convents of the Concepcion and the
Comendadores de Santiago, the ruined Hospital of Santa Cruz, and the new
extension of the Paseo del Miradero--close to the Zocodover, in the
north-east angle of the city. Adjacent to the palace was the Basilica of
Saints Peter and Paul, “which seems,” says Señor Menendez y Pidal, “to
have been the royal pantheon, opened only for the entombment of the
sovereign and the taking the oath of allegiance to his successor.” Here
were suspended the votive crowns, afterwards buried at Guarrazar; here
probably were interred Athanagild, Leovigild, Reccared I., Liuba II.,
Gundemar, Sisebut, Reccared II., Tulga, Erwig, Egica, and Witica. Their
very dust has long since been scattered by the wind--who shall say
where? In a hall attached to that Basilica, in similar annexes to the
Basilicas of Santa Leocadia and Santa Maria de la Sede Real, were held
those ecclesiastical synods which so powerfully contributed to the
shaping of the destinies of Spain. Santa Leocadia’s church is now known
as the Cristo de la Vega; the Basilica de Santa Maria faced the Bridge
of Alcantara and was in after years known as Santa Maria de Alficem.
Here Recceswinth is said to have been crowned, the temple being
afterwards restored by Erwig, Wamba’s successor.
Not a single building erected by the Visigothic kings exists to-day.
“Destroyed by man’s fury and by the vicissitudes of time,” regretfully
observes Señor Amador de los Rios, “or altered till all trace of their
original form has been lost, by the pious care which intended to
preserve them, you may seek in vain in the city of Wamba for an intact
monument of that age; not even the walls ascribed to that prince have
remained entire. Fragments of friezes; isolated capitals, which have
adorned later edifices, oddly out of place in the scheme of decorations,
or cut and defaced; broken shafts, perhaps bearing some inscriptions;
pieces of a hinge, a metope, a lintel, or an impost, perhaps some
dedicatory tablet--this is all that has escaped at Toledo the
devastating scythe of time.”
These relics, however, are fortunately numerous. For a detailed
description of the more important, the reader is referred to the
“Monumentos Arquitectónicos de España.” Some we shall notice more
particularly in dealing with the edifices of which they now form part.
Under Wamba the Visigothic monarchy reached the apex of its greatness.
Under his four successors, Erwig, Egica, Witica, and Roderic, State and
people are said to have become hopelessly enervated. The old Gothic
vigour blazed up now and again in some individual ruler or statesman,
but failed to communicate itself to the nation. The kingdom was
tottering to its fall. The taste for display and the amenities of
existence grew stronger in this period of decline. Never was there such
wealth and splendour in Toledo as when it fell a prey to the hosts of
Islam. The rapid decay of this once great and martial race is without a
parallel in history. It is difficult to assign to it a cause. Luxury was
the privilege only of the nobility and clergy, and could hardly have
corrupted the whole people. Modern writers lamely attribute the final
catastrophe to ecclesiastical influence and domination. Perhaps when all
has been said, the state of Spain under Witica and Roderic was not much
worse than under subsequent rulers of other dynasties; and the downfall
may have been due, not so much to the effeminacy of the vanquished, as
to the extraordinary military genius of the conquerors. Historians would
have said little about the degeneracy of the Visigoths if the battle of
the Guadalete had had a different issue.
The Hispano-Goths, as Catholics, evinced a fanatical and intolerant
temper which had been conspicuously lacking in them as Arians. Harsh
edicts continued to be promulgated against the Jews--then, as till a
much later date, a most important element in the population of Toledo.
The unlucky Children of Israel may have derived in the intervals of
persecution some malicious consolation from the bitter quarrels between
the king and the Catholic clergy. Witica was an enemy, or what was
probably regarded as the same thing, a would-be reformer of the Church.
To his impiety, indeed, monkish writers are fond of ascribing the
destruction of the Gothic kingdom. His predecessor, Egica, did not
hesitate to condemn to excommunication, exile, and confiscation of
property, Sisebert, the powerful Archbishop of Toledo. Perhaps some
clerkly chronicler, by way of retaliation for this outrage upon his
order, invented the following discreditable story, to be found in the
pages of Lozano.
King Egica had conceived an ardent passion for the beautiful Doña Luz,
who is described as the grand-daughter of Kindaswinth, and the sister of
Roderic, afterwards king. Her love, however, was given to her uncle, Don
Favila, Duke or Governor of Cantabria. The lovers, wearied at last by
the king’s opposition to their union, went through a secret and
simplified form of marriage in the lady’s bedchamber before a statue of
the Virgin. In the course of time. Doña Luz became a mother. Egica’s
suspicions had already been enkindled, and fearing his wrath, she placed
the new-born infant in a little ark and set it afloat on the bosom of
the Tagus. As her maids pushed out the tiny craft from the foot of the
steep path that leads down from Toledo, a radiance diffused itself
around the sleeping child and for long marked his passage down the broad
stream. The irate monarch, divining that Doña Luz must in some way have
disposed of her child, caused a census to be taken of all the children
born in and around the city within the past three months with the names
of the respective fathers. The number of births was recorded at
35,428--a very surprising total for Toledo! And, which is still more
remarkable and highly creditable to the city, the parentage of these
numerous infants was in every case authenticated. What then had become
of Doña Luz’s baby? Baffled in his quest, the king suborned one of his
minions, Melias by name, to accuse the unfortunate lady of incontinency.
The penalty for this offence, we are told, was nothing less than death
by fire; and for that fate Egica bade Doña Luz prepare, unless she could
secure a defender or otherwise clear her reputation. At the eleventh
hour, the valorous champion appeared in the person of Don Favila, who
disproved the charge made against his lady-love to the satisfaction of
mediæval intelligences, by the simple method of running her accuser
through the body. This, however, did not satisfy the sceptical monarch,
who insisted on a further ordeal by combat. A knight named Bristes,
cousin of the recreant Melias, was challenger and accuser on this
occasion, and was quickly despatched by the doughty Favila.
In the meantime the ark containing Pelayo, the infant child of Doña Luz
and her champion, had reached Alcantara, where the little passenger
almost miraculously fell into the hands of his mother’s other uncle,
Grafeses. This benevolent prince took every care of the child,
unsuspicious, of course, of his origin. Attracted to Court by the noise
of these scandals and combats, he found a handkerchief in his niece’s
room, the counterpart of one which he had discovered in the little ark.
Doña Luz soon confessed to him the whole story, and he endeavoured to
intercede for her with the king. Egica, probably more exasperated than
ever, insisted on a third duel between Favila and a knight called
Longaris. Both combatants had been wounded when a holy hermit appeared
on the scene, and admonished the king as to his wickedness and hardness
of heart. Egica repented and consented to the public celebration of the
marriage of Favila and Doña Luz. Here we have a fine romantic account of
the origin of the heroic Pelayo, the restorer of the monarchy and the
saviour of the Spanish nation.
Wilder, more romantic still, and better known are the legends clustering
round the last king of the Goths. The scene of most of these is laid in
Toledo. Here was held that wonderful tournament, to which resorted all
the crowned heads of Europe--aye, even such potentates as the Emperor of
Constantinople and the King of Poland. A new city of palaces was reared
in the Vega by the hospitable Roderic to accommodate his fifty thousand
noble guests. This splendid function may have taken place before or
after the king’s strange marriage with the bewitching Moorish princess
Elyata (re-baptized Exilona), who had been washed ashore by the sea on
the coast of Valencia. Lovely as was his consort, Roderic did not, as we
all know, remain faithful to her. Here enters the mournful and very
shadowy figure of Florinda, otherwise known as La Cava. This peerless
damsel was confided to the care of the king by her father, the trusty
Julian (or Illán), governor of Ceuta. Alas for the maiden! while bathing
in the Tagus, her charms were only too well revealed to Roderic, gazing
from his palace windows on the cliff above. A glimpse of a shapely leg
scarce concealed by a diaphanous mantle decided the fate of
Florinda--and of Spain. What he could not effect by persuasion, the
king effected by violence. Perhaps he hoped that the proud Julian’s
daughter would keep silence as to her own dishonour. He was mistaken. A
trusty page, spurring night and day, quickly bore the fatal tidings to
the father at distant Ceuta, and the missive in which the wronged
Florinda implored vengeance on her betrayer.
To the no doubt conscience-stricken Roderic, seated in good old kingly
fashion upon his throne, appeared two venerable strangers with a message
of mysterious import. When Hercules had founded (as some men say)
Toledo, not far from the city, among the mountains, he had reared a
tower, of which these uncouth brethren were the guardians, as their
ancestors, in an unbroken line, had been before them. On this tower and
on its unknown and fearful contents, the demigod had laid a necromantic
spell. It had been the custom of each of the Kings of Spain to affix to
the massive doors a new lock, and now Roderic was summoned to fulfil
this duty, for failing this and if any rash mortal should discover the
secret of the tower, ruin, absolute and immediate, must overtake his
kingdom. Agog with curiosity, with a brilliant cavalcade, the king
clattered through the streets of his capital, and found the wondrous
tower in the recesses of the hills. The aged custodians besought him to
hasten and to affix his seal to the enchanted doors. In vain! it was
with another intention the impetuous sovereign had come hither. He burst
open the doors and rushed in, where never man since Hercules had dared
to tread. Before him stood a gigantic statue in bronze, which dealt
blows with a great mace unceasingly to right and left. On its breast
were inscribed the words, _I do my duty_. Roderic sternly adjured the
creature of enchantment to let him pass. It obeyed. In the interior of
the tower the King found a casket of rich workmanship. A legend thereon
warned him of the doom that would overtake him who should open it.
Roderic forced open the lid. He beheld a fold of linen on which were
painted the figures of Moorish warriors in battle-array. As he gazed the
figures seemed to move, to grow larger, to assume the proportions of
men. He beheld a battlefield where Goths and Moors contended for the
mastery. Breathless, he awaited the issue. The Goths were flying, and he
saw his own white steed, Orelia, galloping through the fray--riderless.
Affrighted, the king and his attendants rushed to the door. There lay
the two ancient custodians, dead. Thunder rolled, a storm burst over the
land, and Roderic and his cavaliers drew not rein till they reached the
palace of Toledo. Next day the stout-hearted Goths reascended to the
hills. But as they approached, behold a great eagle swooped down from
the sky holding in its talons a flaming brand! The tower blazed up like
matchwood. Then arose a great wind which carried the ashes to every part
of Spain; and every man on whom a portion of the ashes fell was
afterwards slain in battle by the Moors.
These direful portents must surely have prepared Roderic for treachery,
conspiracies, and unpleasantness of all kinds. But when Count Julian
arrived, smiling and deferential, to take his daughter home to Ceuta, he
seems to have suspected nothing, feared nothing. The rest of the
story--Julian’s invitation to the Moors, the rout of Guadalete, the
disappearance of Roderic--relates to the history of Spain generally, not
to that of Toledo. Dozy believes that Julian actually existed, but he
seems to have been a Byzantine governor of Ceuta, not a Spaniard. It is
hardly necessary to say that Florinda is as much a figment of the
imagination as the enchanted tower. Yet near the Puente de San Martin
(above which never king’s palace stood) some fragments of masonry are
pointed out as the Baños de la Cava (Florinda’s Bath). They are, in
reality, but the remains of a Moorish tomb.
In July 711, King Roderic set out from Toledo, never to return. Upon the
news of the rout of Guadalete, all the magnates and prelates abandoned
the city. Its surrender to the Moorish host of the one-eyed Tarik was
the work of the Jews, who had not forgotten the persecutions of Sisebert
and Egica. There were Jews in the invading army under the command of
Kaula-al-Yahudi. When Tarik appeared before the walls, a venerable
Israelite was let down in a basket, and, approaching him, offered to
admit him to the city if liberty and the free exercise of their religion
were guaranteed to his race. The Berber joyfully accepted these terms,
and on the following day proud Toledo--deserted by its Christian
inhabitants--was annexed to the Saracen Khalifate.
TOLEDO UNDER THE MOOR
Never again was Toledo to attain to the wealth and splendour it
possessed under Wamba and his successors. The invaders, fresh from the
conquest of the richest provinces of Africa, were dazzled by the
magnificence of the spoils that fell to them in the dark-browed city
above the Tagus. The Arabian historians have need of all their powers of
hyperbole to over-estimate the richness of the treasure. There was
enough and to spare, Al Leyth Ibn Saïd tells us, for every soldier in
the army. The humblest troopers might have been seen staggering under
the weight of priceless silks and garments, chains of gold, and strings
of precious stones. The rude Berbers, fresh from their mountains, but
ill appreciated the value of the loot, and cut the costliest fabrics in
two or more pieces to adjust their shares. A magnificent carpet,
composed of superb embroidery, interwoven with gold and ornamented with
filigree work, and profusely set with gems, is said to have been treated
in this way by the troopers into whose greedy hands it fell. It would be
interesting to learn the place of manufacture of this carpet, for from
the silence of St. Isidore upon the subject of textile fabrics, it would
seem that they were not made in his time in Spain.