Castiles

“ FROM Burgos to Valladolid the monotonous Castile plain continued, unbroken by any hill and hardly a tree. Yet evening on the level steppes has a charm of its own. Like sunset at sea, nature has a free sweep of canvas on which to paint her pageant; details eliminated, the essential remains. One carries away many such memories from the silent plateau, till little by little the affection of the grave Castilian for his home is understood. ”

“ As we came nearer to Old Castile, the ancient land of many castles, I felt as a man must when at last he comes to a house which is his, though never until now has he held the key and been free to enter.
The northern provinces, peopled by mysterious Basques alien to us in blood and language, I could scarcely look upon as Spain. But in Castile I saw the heart and citadel of my native country. My father was Andaluz; my mother Castiliana, and she used to say that in my nature were united the qualities of the two provinces—Castilian pride and stubbornness ”

“ Ye timerous herd, are ye the genuine line Of those illustrious shades, whose rage divine, Beneath great Henry's standards awed the foe, For whom ye tremble, and would stoop so low! That foe, who, boastful now, then basely fled, When your undaunted sires the hero led, When seven bold earls in chains the spoil adorn'd, And proud Castile through all her kindreds mourn'd, Castile, your awful dread—yet, conscious, say, When Dinez reign'd, when his bold son bore sway, By whom were trodden down the bravest bands
That ever march'd from proud Castilia's lands? ”

“ France, Holland, Germany, convulsed and desolated by civil wars and religious dissensions; the Ottoman power rolled away on the waters of Lepanto; Portugal falling in Africa, to be then united to Castile; the Spanish sword agitating the whole world with the spirit of heroism, of religion, of ambition, and of avarice;—when was there ever a time more full of astonishing events, or more suited to sublime the fancy? Yet the Castilian muses, deaf and indifferent to this universal agitation, could scarcely inspire their favourites with aught but moralities, rural images, gallantry, and love. ”

“ At which the tears stream down Doña Ava’s face, and she clasps her arm tighter around him.
“Now, by the heaven above us,” exclaims the Conde, “what miracle is this? It is my own dear standard—the banner of Castile! There is ‘the castle’ as large as life on its gold ground. Long may it flourish, the blessed sign. Draw near, draw near, my merry men! Behold, my sweet Infanta,”—stealing a hidden kiss—“these are my own true subjects! Castile, Castile to the rescue! Look, how bright are their lances! How the sun shines on the blades! Every sword is for my Ava; every sword gleams for her! ”

“ Around it, on each anniversary of his death, a detachment of Granadan Moors, with lighted tapers in their hands, once stood motionless and in silence. To-day, three times in every year, the body of Castile’s most famous sovereign is exposed to public view adorned with all the pomp of royalty,—with the crown, the sceptre, the robes; mass is said, and a regiment of soldiers salute the mouldering remains of one of the most eminent and successful commanders of his time. ”

“ For she was no inheritance from Celts or Romans, but was born in the Dark Ages, waxed prosperous within them, and declined with the Renaissance and the dawn of the modern era. There is nothing that is classical, little that is modern, about this old capital of Castile. All her memories are of Gothic, mediæval, romantic Spain. To her belong knights and barons, shield and helm and lance, tournaments and jousts, soaring Gothic spires, and the quiet of the cloister—all the pageant and panorama of mediævalism. ”

“ He was the first magistrate in the kingdom.
In Castile, as early as 1169 the deputies of the cities were admitted into the Cortes. We find the cities, at the end of the thirteenth century, forming a confederation, called a "fraternity," against the nobles. Their deputies at that time had more power in the assemblies than the nobles and clergy. But the power of the nobles increased, especially from the accession of Henry of Transtamare. In the overthrow of Alvaro de Luna, their triumph was complete: they proved themselves to be stronger than the king. ”

“ She was struck with admiration at the graceful and dignified bearing of the Castilian, which, while it showed all the deference and respect due to her sex and her rank, had nothing in it, of that abject servility, which placed an impassable barrier between the Aztec noble and his monarch, and made them appear to belong to distinct races of being. To the chivalrous, impassioned Castilian, accustomed to worship woman, and pay an almost divine homage to beauty, in the courtly halls and sunny bowers of Spain, the scene presented a perfect constellation of grace and loveliness. ”

“ Castile is a kingdom which the most powerful monarchs envy, its people are as loyal as they are brave and warlike; the Castilians love you, and a courageous soul beats in your [Pg 307] breast. Leave your brothers and sisters in peaceful possession of their states, and enlarge your own by conquering, with the sword, and by the aid of the good cavaliers who surround you, infidel territories, with the possession of which Castile will become so great and redoubtable that powerful rulers will come to offer vassalage to you. ”

“ The rivalries between Castile and Aragon were of old standing, and no sharper contrast is to be found in Europe than that which existed between the primitive and poverty-stricken population of the Asturias, the proud Castilian noble, and the busy trader of Barcelona, the democratic capital of Catalonia. Nor was there more unity within the separate kingdoms themselves. The social divisions were deepest in Castile. There the nobles enjoyed numerous exclusive privileges, notably that of freedom from taxation. ”

“ To King Alfonso of Castile those tidings shall they take.
CXXXIII.
"Where art thou, Muño Gustióz, vassal of fair report
In a good time I cherished and reared thee in my court.
To King Alfonso in Castile these tidings do thou take.
His hands with heart and spirit do thou kiss them for my sake--
I am known for his vassal, he for my lord is known--
At the dishonor done me by the heirs of Carrión
Shall the good King be troubled in his soul and in his heart.
He gave to wed my daughters, therein I had no part. ”

“ Do we not find it in her paintings, on her stone and metal rilievi, or carved in wood upon the stalls of her cathedrals? Therefore the key, just like the sword, seemed, in the warm imagination of the Spaniards, to be something almost sacred. The legislative codes of Old Castile are most minute in their relation of its venerated attributes. Nor were the Spanish Muslims less alive to its importance than their foe, taking it also for an emblem of their own, and planting it in lordly eminence upon their gates and towers of Cordova, and Seville, and Granada. ”

“ Young Isabel, sister of the king, sits in her castle tower at Medina, and looks beyond Castile: looks south to the Moorish realm, Granada; looks east and north to the kingdoms of Aragon and Navarre; looks west to Portugal. “Let there be Spain,” says Isabel of Castile.
Her own land is riven in chaos. Ferdinand the Saint who won Córdoba and Seville from the Moslem was a strong monarch. But Alfonso the Learnèd was not wise in ruling. There have been two hundred years of banditry, of baronial insolence, of royal wavering. Castile is a quicksand upon which no will can march. ”

“ Spain from the first period of her greatness bore the Castilian flag, quartering Castile and Leon. In an old illumination representing the coronation of Henry, son of John, King of Castile, there are on the king's left hand two men, unarmed, the one holding a banner of Castile and Leon quarterly, the other a blue pennon charged with three kings' heads-the banner of the three kings of Cologne. On his majesty's right hand a man, also unarmed, holds a shield with the arms of Castile and Leon. ”

“ The houses and the streets of the great towns and villages were thronged with spectators, eager to look on the hero, who, with his single arm, as it were, had won an empire for Castile, and who, to borrow the language of an old historian, "came in the pomp and glory, not so much of a great vassal, as of an independent monarch." ”

“ It has been said with truth that it was almost impossible to persuade the mediæval Castilian noble to act with his fellows. Pride, ambition, the courage that vaunts itself in duels, the revenge that lurks, dagger-drawn, in back streets or lonely roads: these were the source of constant feuds and internecine warfare, incapable of a final settlement save by the pressure of some outside force.
Nor could the noble, who distrusted the members of his own class, rely in times of danger on the co-operation of his humbler neighbours. ”

“ Nay, his pious extravagance went so far that it became requisite to curb by laws the rapacity of his clergy. In both people loyalty to their rulers is equally innate, with this difference, that the Belgian places the law above kings. Of all the Spaniards the Castilians require to be, governed with the most caution; but the liberties which they arrogate for themselves they do not willingly accord to others. ”

“ Such was Castilian faith in the olden time, which kept its word, even beyond the grave.
If any one should doubt of the miraculous apparition of these phantom knights, let him consult the History of the Kings of Castile and Leon, by the learned and pious Fray Prudencio de Sandoval, bishop of Pamplona, where he will find it recorded in the History of King Don Alonzo VI., on the hundred and second page. It is too precious a legend to be lightly abandoned to the doubter. ”

“ With the Castilian occupation of every city, a crowd of industrious exiles, bearing their household goods, was added to the already numerous population of Granada; accessions which brought with them no inconsiderable wealth and many qualities more valuable than wealth to a declining empire,—habits of industry and thrift, a capacity to adapt themselves to new conditions, the memory of former injuries, the melancholy experiences of persecution, the hope of retribution, and an unconquerable hatred of the Christian name. ”

“ Thus patriotism, religious loyalty, and a proud sense of independence, founded on the consciousness of owing their possessions to their personal valor, became characteristic traits of the Castilians previously to the sixteenth century, when the oppressive policy and fanaticism of the Austrian dynasty contrived to throw into the shade these generous virtues. Glimpses of them, however, might long be discerned in the haughty bearing of the Castilian noble, and in that erect, high-minded peasantry, whom oppression has not yet been able wholly to subdue. ”

“ The Castilian is submissive to his king and his priest, haughty and inflexible with his equals. But his own house is a refuge from the contests of out of doors. The reflex of absolute authority is here observed, it is true. The Spanish father is absolute king and lord by his own hearthstone, but his sway is so mild and so readily acquiesced in that it is hardly felt. The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it, and the Spanish family seldom calls for the harsh exercise of parental authority. ”

“ I believe, most invincible prince, that such trouble and harassing proceeds from the fact that those kings and their subjects are so affectioned to the Castilian name; for I, as an eyewitness, assure your sacred Majesty that the Castilians who sailed in the fleet of Villalobos were as well received and as kindly treated by the kings of Tidore and Geilolo and by their vassals, and that they always showed us as much love and goodwill, and offered their persons and property, to relieve our necessities, as if they had really been your Majesty’s natural vassals for many years. ”

“ Castile is, above all others, the land of chivalry, of honour, and of glory. If Andalucia has an advantage over Castile in its soil, it has not such with regard to its inhabitants; here we let our souls be seen as naked as our fields; there [Pg 338] they show their souls concealed with foliage and flowers, like the fields of that land; as in our land we have permitted scarcely any infidels to dwell, we have preserved pure the blood of the cavaliers of Covadonga and Roncesvalles. ”

“ But, though such a dissolution had no terrors for the Catalonian or the Fleming, for the Lombard or the Calabrian, for the Mexican or the Peruvian, the thought of it was torture and madness to the Castilian. Castile enjoyed the supremacy in that great assemblage of races and languages. Castile sent out governors to Brussels, Milan, Naples, Mexico, Lima. To Castile came the annual galleons laden with the treasures of America. In Castile was ostentatiously displayed and lavishly spent great fortunes made in remote provinces by oppression and corruption. In Castile were the King and his Court. ”

“ We have seen already that one of the forces in Spain ever acting against united effort for the expulsion of the Moors was the independence of the nobility. Castile itself derived its name from the number of its castles, mainly belonging to independent nobles, rich and warlike, possessed of vast estates, not subject to taxation or imprisonment—in fact little kings, some of them at the outset almost as powerful as their sovereigns themselves. ”