The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Volume III Part 42

[150] Fernando de Pulgar, after enumerating various cavaliers of his acquaintance, who had journeyed to distant climes in quest of adventures and honorable feats of arms, continues, "E oi decir de otros Castellanos que con animo de Caballeros fueron por los Reynos estrafios a facer armas con qualquier Caballero que quisiere facerlas con ellos, e por ellas ganaron honra para si, e fama de valientes y esforzados Caballeros para los Fijosdalgos de Castilla." Claros Varones, t.i.t. 17.

[151] "Son todos," says the Admiral, "de ningun ingenio en las armas, y muy cobardes, que mil no aguadarian tres!" (Primer Viage de Colon.) What could the bard of chivalry say more?

"Ma quel ch'al timor non diede albergo, Estima la vil turba e l'arme tante Quel che dentro alla mandra all' aer cupo, Il numer dell' agnelle estimi il lupo."

Orlando Furioso, canto 12.

[152] L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, fol. 30.

[153] "I Spagnoli," says the Venetian minister, "non solo in questo paese di Granata, ma in tutto 'l resto della Spagna medesimamente, non sono molto industriosi, ne piantano, ne lavorano volontieri la terra; ma se danno ad altro, e piu volontieri vanno alia guerra, o alle Indie ad acquistarsi faculta, che per tal vie." (Viaggio, fol. 25.) Testimonies to the same purport thicken, as the stream of history descends. See several collected by Capmany (Mem. de Barcelona, tom. iii. pp. 358, et seq.), who certainly cannot be charged with ministering to the vanity of his countrymen.

[154] One may trace its immediate influence in the writings of a man like the Curate of Los Palacios, naturally, as it would seem, of an amiable, humane disposition; but who complacently remarks, "They (Ferdinand and Isabella) lighted up the fires for the heretics, in which, with good reason, they have burnt, and shall continue to burn, so long as a soul of them remains"! (Reyes Catolicos, MS., cap. 7.) It becomes more perceptible in the literature of later times, and, what is singular, most of all in the lighter departments of poetry and fiction, which seem naturally devoted to purposes of pleasure. No one can estimate the full influence of the Inquisition in perverting moral sense, and infusing the deadly venom of misanthropy into the heart, who has not perused the works of the great Castilian poets, of Lope de Vega, Ercilla, above all Calderon, whose lips seem to have been touched with fire from the very altars of this accursed tribunal.

[155] The late secretary of the Inquisition has made an elaborate computation of the number of its victims. According to him, 13,000 were publicly burned by the several tribunals of Castile and Aragon, and 191,413 suffered other punishments, between 1481, the date of the commencement of the modern inst.i.tution, and 1518. (Hist. de l'Inquisition, tom. iv. chap. 46.) Llorente appears to have come to these appalling results by a very plausible process of calculation, and without any design to exaggerate. Nevertheless, his data are exceedingly imperfect, and he has himself, on a revision, considerably reduced, in his fourth volume, the original estimates in the first. I find good grounds for reducing them still further. 1. He quotes Mariana, for the fact, that 2000 suffered martyrdom at Seville, in 1481, and makes this the basis of his calculations for the other tribunals of the kingdom. Marineo, a contemporary, on the other hand, states, that "in the course of a few years they burned nearly 2000 heretics;" thus not only diffusing this amount over a greater period of time, but embracing all the tribunals then existing in the country. (Cosas Memorables, fol. 164.) 2. Bernaldez states, that five-sixths of the Jews resided in the kingdom of Castile.

(Reyes Catolicos, MS., cap. 110.) Llorente, however, has a.s.signed an equal amount of victims to each of the five tribunals of Aragon, with those of the sister kingdom, excepting only Seville.

One might reasonably distrust Llorente's tables, from the facility with which he receives the most improbable estimates in other matters, as, for example, the number of banished Jews, which he puts at 800,000. (Hist. de l'Inquisition, tom. i. p. 261.) I have shown, from contemporary sources, that this number did not probably exceed 160,000, or, at most, 170,000.

(Part I., Chapter 17.) Indeed, the cautious Zurita, borrowing, probably, from the same authorities, cites the latter number. (a.n.a.les, tom. v. fol.

9.) Mariana, who owes so much of his narrative to the Aragonese historian, converting, as it would appear, these 170,000 individuals into families, states the whole in round numbers, at 800,000 souls. (Hist. de Espana, tom. ii. lib. 26, cap. 1.) Llorente, not content with this, swells the amount still further, by that of the Moorish exiles, and by emigrants to the New World, (on what authority?) to 2,000,000; and, going on with the process, computes that this loss may fairly infer one of 8,000,000 inhabitants to Spain, at the present day! (Ibid., ubi supra.) Thus the mischief imputed to the Catholic sovereigns goes on increasing in a sort of arithmetical progression, with the duration of the monarchy.

Nothing is so striking to the imagination as numerical estimates; they speak a volume in themselves, saving a world of periphrasis and argument; nothing is so difficult to form with exactness, or even probability, when they relate to an early period; and nothing more carelessly received, and confidently circulated. The enormous statements of the Jewish exiles, and the baseless ones of the Moorish, are not peculiar to Llorente, but have been repeated, without the slightest qualification or distrust, by most modern historians and travellers.

[156] In the two closing Chapters of Part I. of this History, I have noticed the progress of letters in this reign; the last which displayed the antique coloring and truly national characteristics of Castilian poetry. There were many circ.u.mstances, which operated, at this period, to work an important revolution, and subject the poetry of the Peninsula to a foreign influence. The Italian Muse, after her long silence, since the age of the _tricentisti_, had again revived, and poured forth such ravis.h.i.+ng strains, as made themselves heard and felt in every corner of Europe.

Spain, in particular, was open to their influence. Her language had an intimate affinity with the Italian. The improved taste and culture of the period led to a diligent study of foreign models. Many Spaniards, as we have seen, went abroad to perfect themselves in the schools of Italy; while Italian teachers filled some of the princ.i.p.al chairs in the Spanish universities. Lastly, the acquisition of Naples, the land of Sannazaro and of a host of kindred spirits, opened an obvious communication with the literature of that country. With the nation thus prepared, it was not difficult for a genius like that of Boscan, supported by the tender and polished Garcila.s.so, and by Mendoza, whose stern spirit found relief in images of pastoral tranquillity and ease, to recommend the more finished forms of Italian versification to their countrymen. These poets were all born in Isabella's reign. The first of them, the princ.i.p.al means of effecting this literary revolution, singularly enough, was a Catalan, whose compositions in the Castilian proved the ascendency which this dialect had already obtained. The second, Garcila.s.so de la Vega, was son of the distinguished statesman and diplomatist of that name, so often noticed in our History; and Mendoza was a younger son of the amiable count of Tendilla, the governor of Granada, whom he resembled in nothing but his genius. Both the elder Garcila.s.so and Tendilla had represented their sovereigns at the papal court, where they doubtless became tinctured with that relish for the Italian, which produced such results in the education of their children.

The new revolution penetrated far below the superficial forms of versification; and the Castilian poet relinquished, with his _redondillas_ and artless _asonantes_, the homely, but heartful themes of the olden time; or, if he dwelt on them, it was with an air of studied elegance and precision, very remote from the Doric simplicity and freshness of the romantic minstrelsy. If he aspired to some bolder theme, it was rarely suggested by the stirring and patriotic recollections of his nation's history. Thus, nature and the rude graces of a primitive age gave way to superior refinement and lettered elegance; many popular blemishes were softened down, a purer and n.o.bler standard was attained, but the national characteristics were effaced; beauty was everywhere, but it was the beauty of art, not of nature. The change itself was perfectly natural. It corresponded with the external circ.u.mstances of the nation, and its transition from an insulated position to a component part of the great European commonwealth, which subjected it to other influences and principles of taste, and obliterated, to a certain extent, the peculiar features of the national physiognomy.

How far the poetic literature of Castile was benefited by the change, has been matter of long and hot debate between the critics of the country, in which I shall not involve the reader. The revolution, however, was the growth of circ.u.mstances, and was immediately effected by individuals, belonging to the age of Ferdinand and Isabella. As such, I had originally proposed to devote a separate chapter to its ill.u.s.tration. But I have been deterred from it by the unexpected length, to which the work has already extended, as well as by the consideration, on a nearer view, that these results, though prepared under a preceding reign, properly fall under the _domestic_ history of Charles V.; a history which still remains to be written. But who will attempt a _pendant_ to the delineations of Robertson?