The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Volume II Part 27

Some time after, the archbishop encountered Mendoza in one of the avenues of the palace, and, as the latter was turning off to avoid the meeting, he saluted him with the t.i.tle of adelantado of Cazorla. Mendoza stared with astonishment at the prelate, who repeated the salutation, a.s.suring him, "that, now he was at full liberty to consult his own judgment, without the suspicion of any sinister influence, he was happy to restore him to a station, for which he had shown himself well qualified." It is scarcely necessary to say, that Ximenes was not importuned after this with solicitations for office. Indeed, all personal application he affected to regard as of itself sufficient ground for a denial, since it indicated "the want either of merit or of humility in the applicant." [29]

After his elevation to the primacy, he retained the same simple and austere manners as before, dispensing his large revenues in public and private charities, but regulating his domestic expenditure with the severest economy, [30] until he was admonished by the Holy See to adopt a state more consonant with the dignity of his office, if he would not disparage it in popular estimation. In obedience to this, he so far changed his habits, as to display the usual magnificence of his predecessors, in all that met the public eye,--his general style of living, equipage, and the number and pomp of his retainers; but he relaxed nothing of his own personal mortifications. He maintained the same abstemious diet, amidst all the luxuries of his table. Under his robes of silk or costly furs he wore the coa.r.s.e frock of St. Francis, which he used to mend with his own hands. He used no linen about his person or bed; and he slept on a miserable pallet like that used by the monks of his fraternity, and so contrived as to be concealed from observation under the luxurious couch in which he affected to repose. [31]

As soon as Ximenes entered on the duties of his office, he bent all the energies of his mind to the consummation of the schemes of reform which his royal mistress, as well as himself, had so much at heart. His attention was particularly directed to the clergy of his diocese, who had widely departed from the rule of St. Augustine, by which they were bound.

His attempts at reform, however, excited such a lively dissatisfaction in this reverend body, that they determined to send one of their own number to Rome, to prefer their complaints against the archbishop at the papal court. [32]

The person selected for this delicate mission was a shrewd and intelligent canon by the name of Albornoz. It could not be conducted so privately as to escape the knowledge of Ximenes. He was no sooner acquainted with it, than he despatched an officer to the coast, with orders to arrest the emissary. In case he had already embarked, the officer was authorized to fit out a fast sailing vessel, so as to reach Italy, if possible, before him. He was at the same time fortified with despatches from the sovereigns to the Spanish minister, Garcila.s.so de la Vega, to be delivered immediately on his arrival.

The affair turned out as had been foreseen. On arriving at the port, the officer found the bird had flown. He followed, however, without delay, and had the good fortune to reach Ostia several days before him. He forwarded his instructions at once to the Spanish minister, who in pursuance of them caused Albornoz to be arrested the moment he set foot on sh.o.r.e, and sent him back as a prisoner of state to Spain; where a close confinement for two and twenty mouths admonished the worthy canon of the inexpediency of thwarting the plans of Ximenes. [33]

His attempts at innovation among the regular clergy of his own order were encountered with more serious opposition. The reform fell most heavily on the Franciscans, who were interdicted by their rules from holding property, whether as a community, or as individuals; while the members of other fraternities found some compensation for the surrender of their private fortunes, in the consequent augmentation of those of their fraternity. There was no one of the religious orders, therefore, in which the archbishop experienced such a dogged resistance to his plans, as in his own. More than a thousand friars, according to some accounts, quitted the country and pa.s.sed over to Barbary, preferring rather to live with the infidel, than conform to the strict letter of their founder's rules. [34]

One account represents the migration as being to Italy and other Christian countries, where the conventual order was protected; which would seem the most probable, though not the best authenticated, statement of the two.

The difficulties of the reform were perhaps augmented by the mode in which it was conducted. Isabella, indeed, used all gentleness and persuasion; [35] but Ximenes carried measures with a high and inexorable hand. He was naturally of an austere and arbitrary temper, and the severe training which he had undergone made him less charitable for the lapses of others; especially of those, who, like himself, had voluntarily incurred the obligations of monastic rule. He was conscious of the rect.i.tude of his intentions; and, as he identified his own interests with those of the church, he regarded all opposition to himself as an offence against religion, warranting the most peremptory exertion of power.

The clamor raised against his proceedings became at length so alarming, that the general of the Franciscans, who resided at Rome, determined to antic.i.p.ate the regular period of his visit to Castile for inspecting the affairs of the order. As he was himself a conventual, his prejudices were of course all enlisted against the measures of reform; and he came over fully resolved to compel Ximenes to abandon it altogether, or to undermine, if possible, his credit and influence at court. But this functionary had neither the talent nor temper requisite for so arduous an undertaking.

He had not been long in Castile before he was convinced that all his own power, as head of the order, would be incompetent to protect it against the bold innovations of his provincial, while supported by royal authority. He demanded, therefore, an audience of the queen, in which he declared his sentiments with very little reserve. He expressed his astonishment that she should have selected an individual for the highest dignity in the church, who was dest.i.tute of nearly every qualification, even that of birth; whose sanct.i.ty was a mere cloak to cover his ambition; whose morose and melancholy temper made him an enemy not only of the elegances, but the common courtesies of life; and whose rude manners were not compensated by any tincture of liberal learning. He deplored the magnitude of the evil, which his intemperate measures had brought on the church, but which it was, perhaps, not yet too late to rectify; and he concluded by admonis.h.i.+ng her, that, if she valued her own fame, or the interests of her soul, she would compel this man of yesterday to abdicate the office, for which he had proved himself so incompetent, and return to his original obscurity!

The queen, who listened to this violent harangue with an indignation, that prompted her more than once to order the speaker from her presence, put a restraint on her feelings, and patiently waited to the end. When he had finished, she calmly asked him, "If he was in his senses, and knew whom he was thus addressing?" "Yes," replied the enraged friar, "I am in my senses, and know very well whom I am speaking to;--the queen of Castile, a mere handful of dust, like myself!" With these words, he rushed out of the apartment, shutting the door after him with furious violence. [36]

Such impotent bursts of pa.s.sion could, of course, have no power to turn the queen from her purpose. The general, however, on his return to Italy, had sufficient address to obtain authority from His Holiness to send a commission of conventuals to Castile, who should be a.s.sociated with Ximenes in the management of the reform. These individuals soon found themselves mere ciphers; and, highly offended at the little account which the archbishop made of their authority, they preferred such complaints of his proceedings to the pontifical court, that Alexander the Sixth was induced, with the advice of the college of cardinals, to issue a brief, November 9th, 1496, peremptorily inhibiting the sovereigns from proceeding further in the affair, until it had been regularly submitted for examination to the head of the church. [37]

Isabella, on receiving this unwelcome mandate, instantly sent it to Ximenes. The spirit of the latter, however, rose in proportion to the obstacles it had to encounter. He sought only to rally the queen's courage, beseeching her not to faint in the good work, now that it was so far advanced, and a.s.suring her that it was already attended with such beneficent fruits, as could not fail to secure the protection of Heaven.

Isabella, every act of whose administration may be said to have had reference, more or less remote, to the interests of religion, was as little likely as himself to falter in a matter which proposed these interests as its direct and only object. She a.s.sured her minister that she would support him in all that was practicable; and she lost no time in presenting the affair, through her agents, in such a light to the court of Rome, as might work a more favorable disposition in it. In this she succeeded, though not till after multiplied delays and embarra.s.sments; and such ample powers were conceded to Ximenes, in conjunction with the apostolic nuncio, as enabled him to consummate his grand scheme of reform, in defiance of all the efforts of his enemies. [38]

The reformation thus introduced extended to the religious inst.i.tutions of very order equally with his own. It was most searching in its operation, reaching eventually to the moral conduct of the subjects of it, no less than the mere points of monastic discipline. As regards the latter; it may be thought of doubtful benefit to have enforced the rigid interpretation of a rule, founded on the melancholy principle, that the amount of happiness in the next world is to be regulated by that of self-inflicted suffering in this. But it should be remembered, that, however objectionable such a rule may be in itself, yet, where it is voluntarily a.s.sumed as an imperative moral obligation, it cannot be disregarded without throwing down the barrier to unbounded license; and that the rea.s.sertion of it, under these circ.u.mstances, must be a necessary preliminary to any effectual reform of morals.

The beneficial changes wrought in this latter particular, which Isabella had far more at heart than any exterior forms of discipline, are the theme of unqualified panegyric with her contemporaries. [39] The Spanish clergy, as I have before had occasion to remark, were early noted for their dissolute way of life, which, to a certain extent, seemed to be countenanced by the law itself. [40] This laxity of morals was carried to a most lamentable extent under the last reign, when all orders of ecclesiastics, whether regular or secular, infected probably by the corrupt example of the court, are represented (we may hope it is an exaggeration) as wallowing in all the excesses of sloth and sensuality. So deplorable a pollution of the very sanctuaries of religion could not fail to occasion sincere regret to a pure and virtuous mind like Isabella's.

The stain had sunk too deep, however, to be readily purged away. Her personal example, indeed, and the scrupulous integrity with which she reserved all ecclesiastical preferment for persons of unblemished piety, contributed greatly to bring about an amelioration in the morals of the secular clergy. But the secluded inmates of the cloister were less open to these influences; and the work of reform could only be accomplished there, by bringing them back to a reverence for their own inst.i.tutions, and by the slow operation of public opinion.

Notwithstanding the queen's most earnest wishes, it may be doubted whether this would have ever been achieved without the co-operation of a man like Ximenes, whose character combined in itself all the essential elements of a reformer. Happily, Isabella was permitted to see before her death, if not the completion, at least the commencement, of a decided amendment in the morals of the religious orders; an amendment, which, so far from being transitory in its character calls forth the most emphatic eulogium from a Castilian writer far in the following century; who, while he laments their ancient laxity, boldly challenges comparison for the religious communities of his own country, with those of any other, in temperance, chast.i.ty, and exemplary purity of life and conversation. [41]

The authority on whom the life of Cardinal Ximenes mainly rests, is Alvaro Gomez de Castro. He was born in the village of St. Eulalia, near Toledo, in 1515, and received his education at Alcala, where he obtained great repute for his critical acquaintance with the ancient cla.s.sics. He was afterwards made professor of the humanities in the university; a situation which he filled with credit, but subsequently exchanged for the rhetorical chair in a school recently founded at Toledo. While thus occupied, he was chosen by the university of Alcala to pay the most distinguished honor, which could be rendered to the memory of its ill.u.s.trious founder, by a faithful record of his extraordinary life. The most authentic sources of information were thrown open to him. He obtained an intimate acquaintance with the private life of the cardinal, from three of his princ.i.p.al domestics, who furnished abundance of reminiscences from personal observation, while the archives of the university supplied a ma.s.s of doc.u.ments relating to the public services of its patron. From these and similar materials, Gomez prepared his biography, after many years of patient labor. The work fully answered public expectation; and its merits are such as to lead the learned Nic. Antonio to express a doubt, whether anything more excellent or perfect in its way could be achieved; "quo opere in eo genere an praestantius quidquam aut perfectius, esse possit, non immerito saepe dubitavi." (Bibliotheca Nova, tom. i. p. 59.) The encomium may be thought somewhat excessive; but it cannot be denied, that the narrative is written in an easy and natural manner, with fidelity and accuracy, with commendable liberality of opinion, though with a judgment sometimes warped into an undue estimate of the qualities of his hero. It is distinguished, moreover, by such beauty and correctness of Latinity, as have made it a text-book in many of the schools and colleges of the Peninsula. The first edition, being that used in the present work, was published at Alcala, in 1569. It has since been reprinted twice in Germany, and perhaps elsewhere. Gomez was busily occupied with other literary lucubrations during the remainder of his life, and published several works in Latin prose and verse, both of which he wrote with ease and elegance. He died of a catarrh, in 1580, in the sixty-sixth year of his age, leaving behind him a reputation for disinterestedness and virtue, which is sufficiently commemorated in two lines of his epitaph;

"Nemini unquam sciens nocui, Prodesse quam pluribus curavi."

The work of Gomez has furnished the basis for all those biographies of Ximenes which have since appeared in Spain. The most important of these, probably, is Quintanilla's; which, with little merit of selection or arrangement, presents a copious ma.s.s of details, drawn from every quarter whence his patient industry could glean them. Its author was a Franciscan, and employed in procuring the beatification of Cardinal Ximenes by the court of Rome; a circ.u.mstance which probably disposed him to easier faith in the _marvellous_ of his story, than most of his readers will be ready to give. The work was published at Palermo in 1653.

In addition to these authorities I have availed myself of a curious old ma.n.u.script, presented to me by Mr. O. Rich, ent.i.tled "Suma de la Vida del R. S. Cardenal Don Fr. Francisco Ximenez de Cisneros." It was written within half a century after the cardinal's death, by "un criado de la casa de Coruna." The original, in "very ancient letter," was extant in the archives of that n.o.ble house in Quintanilla's time, and is often cited by him. (Archetypo, apend., p. 77.) Its author evidently had access to those contemporary notices, some of which furnished the basis of Castro's narrative, from which, indeed, it exhibits no material discrepancy.

The extraordinary character of Ximenes has naturally attracted the attention of foreign writers, and especially the French, who have produced repeated biographies of him. The most eminent of these is by Flechier, the eloquent bishop of Nismes. It is written with the simple elegance and perspicuity, which characterize his other compositions; and in the general tone of its sentiments, on all matters both of church and state, is quite as orthodox as the most bigoted admirer of the cardinal could desire.

Another life, by Marsollier, has obtained a very undeserved repute. The author, not content with the extraordinary qualities really appertaining to his hero, makes him out a sort of universal genius, quite ridiculous, rivalling Moliere's Dr. Pancrace himself. One may form some idea of the historian's accuracy from the fact, that he refers the commencement and conduct of the war of Granada chiefly to the counsels of Ximenes, who, as we have seen, was not even introduced at court till after the close of the war. Marsollier reckoned largely on the ignorance and _gullibility_ of his readers. The event proved he was not mistaken.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Carbajal, a.n.a.les, MS., ano 1495.--Salazar de Mendoza, Cron. del Gran Cardenal, lib. 2, cap. 45, 46.--Zurita, a.n.a.les, tom. v. fol. 61.--Pulgar, Claros Varones, t.i.t. 4.

His disorder was an abscess on the kidneys, which confined him to the house nearly a year before his death. When this event happened, a white cross of extraordinary magnitude and splendor, shaped precisely like that on his arms, was seen in the heavens directly over his house, by a crowd of spectators, for more than two hours; a full account of which was duly transmitted to Rome by the Spanish court, and has obtained easy credit with the princ.i.p.al Spanish historians.

[2] Alvaro Gomez says of him, "Nam praeter clarissimum tum natalium, tum fortunae, tum dignitatis splendorem, quae in ilio ornamenta summa erant, incredibilem animi sublimitatem c.u.m pari morum facilitate, elegantiaque conjunxerat; ut merito loc.u.m in republica summo proximum ad supremum usque diem tenuerit." (De Rebus Gestis, fol. 9.) Martyr, noticing the cardinal's death, bestows the following brief but comprehensive panegyric on him.

"Periit Gonsalus Mendotiae, domus splendor et lucida fax; periit quem universa colebat Hispania, quem exteri etiam principes venerabantur, quem ordo cardineus collegam sibi esse gloriabatur." Opus Epist., epist. 158.

[3] Salazar de Mendoza, Cron. del Gran Cardenal, pp. 263-273, 381-410.

[4] "Gran varon, y muy experimentado y prudente en negocios," says Oviedo of the cardinal, "_pero a vueltas de las negociaciones desta vida_, tuvo tres hijos varones," etc. Then follows a full notice of this graceless progeny. Quincuagenas, MS., bat. 1, quinc. 1, dial. 8.

[5] Salazar de Mendoza, Cron. del Gran Cardenal, lib. 2, cap. 66.

The doctor Pedro Salazar de Mendoza's biography of his ill.u.s.trious relative is a very fair specimen of the Spanish style of book-making in ancient times. One event seems to suggest another with about as much cohesion as the rhymes of "The House that Jack built." There is scarcely a place or personage of note, that the grand cardinal was brought in contact with in the course of his life, whose history is not made the theme of profuse dissertation. Nearly fifty chapters are taken up, for example, with the distinguished men, who graduated at the college of Santa Cruz.

[6] "Non hoc," says Tacitus with truth, "praecipuum amicorum munus est, prosequi defunctum ignavo questu; sed quae voluerit meminisse, quae mandaverit exsequi." Annales, lib. 2, sect. 71.

[7] Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., epist. 143.--Carbajal, a.n.a.les, MS., ano 1494.--Salazar de Mendoza, Cron. del Gran Cardenal, lib. 2, cap. 45.

A foundling hospital does not seem to have come amiss in Spain, where, according to Salazar, the wretched parents frequently destroyed their offspring by casting them into wells and pits, or exposing them in desert places to die of famine. "_The more compa.s.sionate_," he observes, "laid them at the doors of churches, where they were too often worried to death by dogs and other animals." The grand cardinal's nephew, who founded a similar inst.i.tution, is said to have furnished an asylum in the course of his life to no less than 13,000 of these little victims! Ibid., cap.

61.

[8] Salazar de Mendoza, Cron, del Gran Cardenal, lib. 2, cap. 46.--Gomez, De Rebus Gestis, fol. 8.

The dying cardinal is said to have recommended, among other things, that the queen should repair any wrong done to Joanna Beltraneja, by marrying her with the young prince of the Asturias; which suggestion was so little to Isabella's taste that she broke off the conversation, saying, "the good man wandered and talked nonsense."

[9] It is singular, that Fiddlier should have blundered some twenty years in the date of Ximenes's birth, which he makes 1457. (Hist. de Ximenes, liv. 1, p. 3.) It is not singular, that Marsollier should. Histoire du Ministere du Cardinal Ximenez, (Toulouse, 1694,) liv. 1, p. 3.

[10] The honorable extraction of Ximenes is intimated in Juan Vergara's verses at the end of the Complutensian Polyglot:

"Nomine Cisnerius clara de stirpe parentum, Et meritis factus clarior ipse suis."

Fray Pedro de Quintanilla y Mendoza makes a goodly genealogical tree for his hero, of which King Pelayo, King Pepin, Charlemagne, and other royal worthies are the respectable roots. (Proemia Dedicatoria, pp. 5-35.) According to Gonzalo de Oviedo, his father was a poor hidalgo, who, having spent his little substance on the education of his children, was obliged to take up the profession of an advocate. Quincuagenas, MS.

[11] Quintanilla, Archetypo, p. 6.--Gomez, De Rebus Gestis, Ximen., fol.

2.--Idem, Miscellanear., MS., ex Bibliotheca, Regia Matritensi, tom. ii.

fol. 189.

[12] Gomez, De Rebus Gestis, fol. 2.--Idem, Miscellanear., MS., ubi supra.--Eugenio de Robles, Compendio de la Vida y Hazanas del Cardenal Don Fray Francisco Ximenez de Cisneros, (Toledo, 1604,) cap. 11.

[13] Quintanilla, Archetype, pp. 8, 10.--Gomez, De Rebus Gestis, fol. 2.-- Flechier, Hist. de Ximenes, pp. 8-10.--Suma de la Vida del R. S. Cardenal Don Fr. Francisco Ximenez de Cisneros, sacada de los Memoriales de Juan de Vallejo, Paje de CEamara, e de algunas Personas que en su Tiempo lo vieron: para la Il.u.s.trisima Senora Dona Catalina de la Zerda, Condesa de Coruna, a quien Dios guarde, y de su Gracia, por un Criado de su Casa, MS.

[14] Suma de la Vida de Cisneros, MS.--Gomez, De Rebus Gestis, fol. 3.-- Robles, Vida de Ximenez, cap. 11.--Oviedo, Quincuagenas, MS., dial, de Ximeni.

[15] Quintanilla, Archetypo, p. ll.--Gomez, Miscellanear., MS., ubi supra.--Idem, De Rebus Gestis, fol. 4.

This edifice, says Salazar de Mendoza, in respect to its sacristy, choir, cloisters, library, etc., was the most sumptuous and noted of its time. It was originally destined by the Catholic sovereigns for their place of sepulture; an honor afterwards reserved for Granada, on its recovery from the infidels. The great chapel was garnished with the fetters taken from the dungeons of Malaga, in which the Moors confined their Christian captives. Monarquia, tom. i. p. 410.

[16] Flechier, Hist. de Ximenes, p. 14.--Quintanilla, Archetype, pp. 13, 14.--Gomez, De Rebus Gestis, fol. 4.--Suma de la Vida de Cisneros, MS.-- Oviedo, Quincuagenas, MS.