Astorga

“ According to some accounts, Astorga was the seat of the earliest bishopric in the peninsula, having been consecrated in the first century by Santiago or his immediate followers; historically, however, the first known bishop was Dominiciano, who lived about 347 A. D.
In the fourth and fifth centuries several heresies or false doctrines were ripe in Spain. Of one of these, Libelatism, Astorga was the centre; the other, Priscilianism, originally{168} Galician, found many adherents in the fortress-town, more so than elsewhere, excepting only Tuy, Orense, and Palencia. ”

“ The two men now played the most conspicuous part in the court of Astorga, and strutted about with unbounded pride. Although after their separation fate had again brought them so closely together, that they ate from the same dish—drank from the same goblet, and shared the favour of the lovely Urraca; they yet, according to their agreement, behaved to each other like perfect strangers, and allowed none of their previous acquaintanceship to be observed. Meanwhile neither of them could discover whither the wise Sarron had vanished. ”

“ Rough as is the life of these mountaineers of the north their entire freedom from convention, the contact with real men who know not even what pose and pretense are, the drinking into my lungs of the exhilarating mountain air had made the trip that was just ending by far the most joyful portion of all my Spanish experiences. Not since the morning I climbed into Astorga had I heard the whine of a beggar; not once in all the northwest had I caught the faintest scent of a tourist. The trip had likewise been the most inexpensive, for in the week's tramp I had spent less than twelve pesetas. ”

“ From Astorga to Villa Franca de Bierzo, is about sixty miles. From Salamanca to Astorga may be called the first and easiest part of this tragedy, in which we endured many privations and I much fatigue; from Astorga to Villa{71} Franca, the second, and by far the more severe part. Here we suffered misery without a glimpse of comfort. At Astorga, there were a great many pairs of shoes destroyed. Though a fourth of the army were in want of them, and I among the rest, yet they were consumed alongst with the other stores in the magazines. ”

“ CHAPTER XXIV Departure from Astorga—The Venta—The By-path—Narrow Escape—The Cup of Water—Sun and Shade—Bembibre—Convent of the Rocks—Sunset—Cacabelos—Midnight Adventure—Villafrancs.
It was four o’clock of a beautiful morning when we sallied from Astorga, or rather from its suburbs, in which we had been lodged: we directed our course to the north, in the direction of Galicia. Leaving the mountain Telleno on our left, we passed along the eastern skirts of the land of the Maragatos, over broken uneven ground, enlivened here and there by small green valleys and runnels of water. ”

“ I trembled for fear of its leading to Mansilla, and our encountering Rolando and his comrades. Luckily my apprehensions were unfounded. We got to Astorga by two o'clock in the afternoon. The people looked at us as if they had never seen such a sight before, as a woman riding behind a man. We alighted at the first inn. I immediately ordered a partridge and a young rabbit to the spit. While my orders were in a train of execution, the lady was shown to a room, where we began to scrape acquaintance with one another; which we had not done on the road, on account of the speed we made. ”

“ And the mountain provinces of Galicia and the Asturias, of idyllic hill and dale, yet with seaports fast awakening to commercial life, look with little sympathy on the sluggish province of León that borders them.
Industrial advancement is on its gradual way in Spain, but there is not a hint of its movement in this oldest of the separate kingdoms. Zamora, Astorga, León, Salamanca, the romantic cities of the earlier days of chivalry, lie asleep; the whistle of the railways has failed to rouse them. ”

“ They should not be confounded with gitanos, however, for the Maragatos are honest and industrious; they are the carriers of the countryside, with the privilege of taking precedence on the road. Here and there in Spain one stumbles on a strange, isolated relic of the past such as this. Astorga was still sleeping, in the literal as well as figurative sense, when we left; a walk on top of the walls looking out over the León plain, a regret that we could not sketch the artistic church of San Julián, with its faded green door and crumbling portal, and we turned south. ”

“ The fugitive King, Bermudo, whose usurpation had been attended with a series of misfortunes, and whose dominions had, with the exception of a contracted region of which Astorga was the centre, been divided between his rebellious vassals and the Moors, in defiance of the menaces of Al-Mansur, still continued to afford protection to Abdallah, the only survivor of the principal conspirators. The approach of the Mussulman troops and the seizure and sack of Astorga, convinced the obstinate monarch of the expediency of submission. ”

“ In the adventurous career of the Cid, Christians and Moslems are seen mingled in both contending armies, and it is for the most part impossible to detect in the struggle any interest either of race or religion. [153] This had long been customary. Towards the end of the ninth century, Bermudo, brother of Alfonso III, for seven years held Astorga with the aid of the Moors, to whom he fled for refuge when finally dislodged. ”

“ A saunter round the walls I must own is very disappointing. It is so evident that but little veneration is felt, or respect shown, for any antiquities or historical associations. In many places they have been pulled about for the sake of the building materials they yielded. They are the rubble heaps of Astorga and have fallen into sad decay. ”

“ It was now October, and along the splendid road which joins the little village of San Ildefonso to the Escorial, a sturdy cavalcade of horses and mules took its way—a carriers' convoy this, a muleteers' troop, not by any means a raffle of gay cavaliers.
"Ho, the Maragatos! Out of the way—the Maragatos!" shouted any that met them, over their shoulders. For that strange race from the flat lands of Astorga has the right of the highway—or rather, of the high, the low, and the middle way—wherever these exist in Spain. ”

“ Had we met the archæologist of the province, a canon in the Cathedral? In short, from the questions and suggestions we realized that the average tourist goes through this reserved country half blind. Glad were we for this chance of insight. When in the dusk of evening it came time to descend at Astorga, our stopping-place for the night, and our fellow-traveler stood there shaking hands, with warm friendliness in his blue eyes, we felt there was no more thoroughbred specimen of manhood than a Spanish hidalgo.
SALAMANCA
"L'homme n'est produit que pour l'infini." ”

“ On the last day of December, 1808, Buonaparte was pressing close on the British rear in the vicinity of Astorga, and thus closed the year on the fortunes of the Spaniards and their British Allies. The boastful Spanish armies, too proud to think at first that they needed assistance, too unskilful, when they did see the need of it, to co-operate with it, and who had afforded nothing but indifference and false intelligence to their benefactors, were dispersed like so many clouds, and their Allies were flying from an overwhelming foe. ”

“ Such is modern taste in Spain. Besides its walls, Astorga is celebrated for its mantecadas, small square sponge-cakes, neatly folded in pieces of greased paper, which find their way all over this part of the country; but the farther off you find them the less do they resemble the originals, and these are very good.
ZAMORA TRAVELLING through the great plain of Leon by train is apt to become intensely monotonous, especially when, as in the case of reaching Zamora, fate decreed that I should sit baking for hours in the slowest of all, the undesirable mercantilo. ”

“ But after several hard marches La Romana descended to Ponferrada on March 16. He learnt that the insurrection had compelled the French to concentrate all their small posts, and that there was no enemy nearer than Villafranca on the one hand and Astorga on the other. Thus he found himself able to take possession of the high-road from Astorga to Lugo, and to make use of all the resources of the Vierzo, and of Eastern Galicia. ”

“ In the middle ages the Christian kings of Asturias (Galicia?) grew more and more powerful, and their territory stretched out to the south and to the east.
On the Miño River, Tuy and Orense were frontier towns, to populate which, bishoprics were erected. To the south of Oviedo, and almost on a line with the two Galician towns, Astorga, Leon and Burgos were strongly fortified, and formed an imaginary line to the north of which ruled Christian monarchs, and to the south Arab emirs. ”

“ This monastery is a very notable Leonese monument, a masterpiece of Plateresque, somewhat similar to the Otto Heinrichs Bau at Heidelberg, and formerly the property of the knights of Santiago.
[11] Astorga = Asturica Augusta.
[12] Literally the “House of Purification,” i.e. the Great Mosque of Córdova.
[13] There is something of the same flavour about the inscription on the Gates of the Hospital del Rey at Burgos; “Blessed is the man that provideth for the sick and needy, St James (!) shall deliver him in the time of trouble.” ”

“ Near Astorga there dwells a curious tribe, the Maragatos, sometimes considered to be a remnant of the original Celtiberian inhabitants. As a rule the Maragatos earn their living as muleteers or carriers; they wear a distinctive costume, mix as little as possible with their neighbours and do not marry outside their own tribe. ”

“ When the army arrived at Astorga, Sir John Moore sent me to La Puebla, the capital of Sanabria, a mountainous district in the kingdom of Leon bordering on Portugal. The place is in the direct but worst road from Benavente to Orense, and as it had been determined that a column should take a better though longer road to Vigo, the object of my mission chiefly was to give immediate intelligence to Sir John Moore should the enemy show any disposition (by taking the shorter route from Benavente or elsewhere to Orense) to cut off the retreat of the column marching on Vigo. ”

“ The road was encumbered with stragglers, as well as with numbers of women and children, who suffered from the inevitable hardships of a march through wild country in mid-winter. The confusion and disorder were only increased when the troops reached Astorga. There they met the ragged Spanish regiments of the Marquis of La Romana, who, in spite of Moore's repeated requests that he would retreat northwards into the Asturias, had marched westward into Galicia, giving as his reason that the only available pass into the former province was blocked with snow. ”

“ The height and width of the aisles are also remarkable—a circumstance that does not lend either beauty or effect to the building. There is no ambulatory behind the high altar, which stands in the lady-chapel; the apse is rounded. This peculiarity reminds one dimly of what the primitive plan of the Oviedo cathedral must have resembled.
By far the most meritorious piece of work in the cathedral is the sixteenth-century retablo of the high altar, which alone is worth a visit to Astorga. ”

“ A very pretty and poetical little group they make—if you do not pry too curiously into the details. The younger women have frequently magnificent hair; for they are quite innocent of “transformations,” yet their brows are most copiously crowned. One girl at Salamanca wore a thick black pigtail that was positively tapping her heels; and the beauty of Astorga (who was also of pigtail age) was not many inches inferior.{149}
A SPANISH PATIO
The majority of the houses in the town are probably not more than a couple of centuries old ”

“ The men’s voices in Spain are frequently powerful and impressive; but here they were relying entirely on their trebles, who are always terribly shrill and grating, even to the least musical ear.
The great road which passes through Ponferrada on its way across the Vierzo has been the track followed by numberless armies from the days of Rome to our own; and to Englishmen it has a special interest as being the path of the ill-fated Moore. The second and more arduous stage of{75} the famous retreat began at Astorga, where Napoleon abandoned the command of the French armies to Soult. ”

“ Many rulers and statesmen have retired into convents when they have been wearied or disgusted with the vanities and vexations of the world; few have been called upon, like Florida Blanca, in extreme old age, to forsake their retirement, their tranquillity, and their habits of religious life, for the higher duty of serving their country in its hour of danger. The Central Junta manifested their sense of his worth by conferring a grandee-ship upon his heir, and all his legitimate descendants who should succeed him in ♦Marques de Astorga president of the Junta.♦ the title. ”

“ Perhaps there is no plant in the world which could not be induced to grow here with a little attention; for the range from palms to heather is a wide one, but they flourish as if to the country born. “It is the Paradise of Spain,” exclaimed an enthusiastic Astorgan. And one can well imagine how such a picture would appeal to a native of the arid plateaus of Leon.
Yet Galicia has a plague of its own lest the angels should prefer it to heaven ”