Read Ebook: Isabel of Castile and the making of the Spanish nation 1451-1504 by Plunket Ierne L Ierne Lifford

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 978 lines and 102705 words, and 20 pages

PAGE

CASTILE IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 1

ACCESSION OF ISABEL: THE PORTUGUESE WAR. 1475-1479 88

ORGANIZATION AND REFORM 121

THE MOORISH WAR. 1481-1483 158

THE FALL OF GRANADA: THE MOORISH WAR. 1484-1492 185

THE INQUISITION 231

THE EXPULSION OF THE JEWS AND MUDEJARES 263

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 285

ISABEL AND HER CHILDREN 319

THE ITALIAN WARS. 1494-1504 346

CASTILIAN LITERATURE 387

INDEX 427

TOLEDO, LA PUERTA DEL SOL 106 From a photograph by Anderson, Rome.

TOLEDO, CHURCH OF SAN JUAN DE LOS REYES 110 From a photograph by Anderson, Rome.

SEGOVIA, THE ALCAZAR 114 From a photograph by Lacoste, Madrid.

ALHAMBRA, COURT OF LIONS 178 From a photograph by Anderson, Rome.

RONDA, THE TAJO OR CHASM 200 From a photograph by Lacoste, Madrid.

MALAGA TO-DAY 214 From a photograph by Lacoste, Madrid.

ALHAMBRA, PATIO DE L'ALBERCA 226 From a photograph by Anderson, Rome.

AVILA, TOMB OF PRINCE JOHN, SON OF FERDINAND AND ISABEL 334 From a photograph by Lacoste, Madrid.

AVILA, THE CATHEDRAL 336 From a photograph by Hauser and Menet.

AVILA FROM BEYOND THE CITY WALLS 344 From a photograph by Lacoste, Madrid.

FERDINAND OF ARAGON 388 Carved wooden statue from the Cathedral at Malaga.

GRANADA CATHEDRAL, ROYAL CHAPEL, TOMB OF FERDINAND AND ISABEL 392 From a photograph by Lacoste, Madrid.

BURGOS CATHEDRAL 396 From a photograph by Lacoste, Madrid.

FA?ADE OF SAN PABLO AT VALLADOLID 420 From a photograph by Lacoste, Madrid.

MAP AT END

ISABEL OF CASTILE

There are some characters in history, whose reputation for heroism is beyond reproach in the eyes of the general public. There are others, however, whose claims to glory are ardently contested by posterity, and none more than Isabel of Castile, in whose case ordinary differences of opinion have been fanned by that most uncompromising of all foes to a fair estimate, religious prejudice. Thus the Catholic, while deploring the extreme severity of the methods employed for the suppression of heresy, would yet look on her championship of the Catholic Faith as her chief claim to the admiration of mankind. The Protestant on the other hand, while acknowledging the glories of the Conquest of Granada and the Discovery of the New World, would weigh them light in the balance against the fires and tortures of the Inquisition and the ruthless expulsion of the Jews.

One solution of the problem has been to make the unfortunate Ferdinand the scapegoat of his Queen's misdeeds. Whatever tends to the glory of Spain, in that, if not the originator, she is at least the partner and moving spirit. When acts of fanaticism hold the field, they are the result of Ferdinand's material ambitions or the religious fervour of her confessors; Isabel's ordinarily independent and clear-sighted mind being reduced for the sake of her reputation to a condition of credulous servility.

Faced by the witness of the Queen's undoubted popularity, he sweeps it away with a tribute to Spanish manhood: "The praise bestowed on the character of Isabel is, to no small amount, due to the chivalrous character of the Spaniards, who never forgot that the Queen was a lady."

Such an assumption must be banished, along with Isabel's weak-mindedness on religious matters, to the realms of historical fiction. The very Castilians who extol her glory and merit do not hesitate to draw attention in bald terms to her sister-in-law's frailties. Indeed a slight perusal of Cervantes' famous novel, embodying so much of the habits and outlook of Spain at a slightly later date will show it was rather the fashion to praise a woman for her beauty than to credit her with mental or moral qualities of any strength.

The Catholic Queen, like other individuals of either sex, must stand or fall by the witness of her own actions and speech; and these seen in the light of contemporary history will only confirm the tradition of her heroism, which the intervening centuries have tended to blur. The odium that sometimes attaches to her name is largely due to the translation of Spanish ideals and conditions of life in the Middle Ages into the terms that rule the conduct of the twentieth century.

"Quien dice Espa?a dice todo," says the old proverb,--"He who says Spain has said everything."

This arrogance is typical of the self-centred, highly strung race, that had been bred by eight centuries of war against the Infidel. The other nations of Western Europe might have their occasional religious difficulties; but, in the days before Luther and Calvin were born, none to the same extent as Spain were faced by the problem of life in daily contact with the unpardonable crime of heresy, in this case the more insidious that it was often masked by outward observance of rule and ritual.

The greater part of the modern world would dismiss the matter with a shrug of its shoulders and the comfortable theory that truth, being eternal, can take care of itself; but this freedom of outlook was yet to be won on the battlefields of the Renaissance and in the religious wars of the sixteenth century. It would be an anachronism to look for it in Spain at a time when the influence of the new birth of thought and culture had extended no further than an imitation of Italian poets.

Isabel's bigotry is an inheritance she shared with the greater part of her race in her own day, the logical sequence of her belief in the exclusive value of the divine in man's nature, as against any claims of his human body. If she pursued her object, the salvation of souls, with a relentless cruelty, from which we turn away to-day in sick disgust, we must remember that Spain for the most part looked on unmoved. Where opposition was shown, as in her husband's kingdom of Aragon, it was rather the spirit of independence than of mercy that raised its head.

Indeed the religious persecution was in no way disproportionate to the severity of the criminal procedure of the reign, as will be seen by a glance at the usual sentences passed on those convicted of any crime. The least with which a thief could hope to escape from his judges was the loss of a limb, but the more likely fate was to be placed with his back to a tree, and there, after a hasty confession of his sins, shot or burnt.

The word "Castile" itself conveys to an imaginative mind a picture of that mediaeval land of castles, whose ramparts were not only a defence against the Moors but also the bulwark of a turbulent nobility. In vain the Crown had striven to suppress its over-powerful subjects. The perpetual crusade upon the southern border proved too alluring a recruiting-ground for the vices of feudalism; and many a mail-clad count led out to battle a larger following of warriors than the sovereign to whom he nominally owed obedience.

A great territorial magnate could also renounce the obedience he owed to his sovereign by the simple method of sending a messenger who should, in the King's presence, make the following declaration: "Se?or, on behalf of ... I kiss your hand and inform you that henceforth he is no more your vassal."

The weakness of the Castilian Crown was further aggravated in the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries by disputed successions and long minorities; the nobles using the confusion these engendered to wring concessions from the rival claimants, or to seize them from inexperienced child rulers.

"A breastplate would have served him better!" exclaimed the Count of Benavente, when at the beginning of Queen Isabel's reign he heard of the death of some man bearing a royal safe-conduct.

"Do you wish then that there was no King in Castile?" asked the Queen indignantly; to which the Count replied cheerfully: "Not so! I would there were many, for then I should be one of them."

His words are the expression of the aristocratic ideal of life in his own day. It was perhaps most nearly realized in the case of the Grand Masterships of the three great Military Orders of Santiago, Calatrava, and Alcantara. These Orders had been called into existence by the crusade; but their original purpose was gradually obscured by the wealth and influence that made them the resort of the ambitious rather than of the enthusiast. Like the Monastic Orders, their members were bound by vows: obedience, community of property, strict conjugal fidelity, sometimes celibacy; but dispensations could be bought, and the gains to be reaped more than compensated for any theoretical austerities or submission.

The main canon of their creed, war against the Infidel, was readily accepted by every aspirant knight; the only drawback being that his inborn love of fighting led him to take part as well in whatever other kind of war happened to dawn on the horizon, no matter if it were against his own sovereign. How formidable this would prove for the sovereign we can imagine when we learn that in the fifteenth century the combined revenues of the Orders amounted to something like 145,000 ducats, while the Master of Santiago could call into the field a force of four hundred fully-armed cavaliers and one thousand lances. In addition he possessed the patronage of numerous "commanderies," rich military posts that brought with them the rents of subject towns and villages, and that were eagerly sought by the highest in the land.

Footnote 1:

The Castilian Church was also in a sense above the law; for the clergy were exempt from ordinary taxation, paying to the Crown instead a small portion of their tithes. Like the nobles they could neither be imprisoned for debt nor suffer torture; while legally they came under ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and were subject only to its penalties and censures. Archbishops, bishops, and abbots, were for the most part younger sons of wealthy nobles and shared the outlook and ambitions of their class. The Castilian prelate of the early fifteenth century found it as natural to don his suit of mail and draw his sword as to celebrate Mass or hear confessions. It would not be dislike of shedding blood nor a faint heart that would distinguish him from laymen on the battlefield, but the surcoat embroidered with a cross, that he wore in deference to his profession.

The worldly character of the higher ranks of the clergy had permeated also to the lower; and vice, ignorance, and careless levity sapped the influence of the ordinary parish priest and corrupted the monasteries and convents. Here and there were signs of an awakening, but for the most part the spiritual conscience of the Castilian Church lay dormant.

The Castilian Church also displayed her national prejudice, as we shall see later, in her hatred and suspicion of the alien races that formed such a large element of the Spanish population. These had sunk their roots deep in the soil during the centuries of Moorish conquest when, from behind the barrier of the Asturian mountains in the far north-west, the pure Castilian alone had been able to beat back the advancing waves of Mahometanism. As he at length descended from his refuge, where the sword or the hunting-spear had been his sole means of livelihood, he might profess to despise the believers in Allah, from whom he wrested back the land of his fathers, but in practice he was glad enough to accept them as a subject race. The Moorish warriors, who fell on the battlefield or retreated southwards before their foes, left in Christian territory a large residue of the more peaceful Arabs and Berbers, willing to till the fields, work at the looms, and fulfil all those other tasks of civilized national life that the Castilian was inclined to imagine degrading to his own dignity. Left behind also were colonies of prosperous Jews, whose ancestors, hounded from every Christian court, had found a home under the tolerant rule of the caliphs of Cordova.

Agriculture, industry, and commerce thus became stamped, unfortunately for Spain, with the taint of subjection. Not that the Castilian took no share as the years passed in the economic life of his country; for the legislation of the fifteenth century shows the middle and lower classes busily engaged in occupations such as cattle-breeding, sheep-farming, and mining; and, more especially in the south, of fruit-growing, and the production of silk, wine, and oil. The basis of a progressive national life was there; but perpetual war against the Moors and internal discord, combined with racial prejudice against the industrious alien, gave to the profession of arms a wholly disproportionate value.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet