Isidore of Seville

“ No one seems to know when the belief that Mary as well as her Son was born without human agency first began to gain ground in Seville, but Don Manuel Serrano, who has spent most of his life in the study of Sevillian Church history and art, believes he has evidence that her “sinless birth” was venerated from the fourth century onwards, and that St. Isidore, the “learned doctor” of Seville, found it in the primitive rite and transferred it to his own liturgy not very long before the Moslem invasion. ”

“ Bks. Sententiarum, a well-arranged system of doctrine and morals from patristic passages, especially from Augustine and Gregory the Great, and the Lb. II. de ecclest. officiis. The two last-named works were highly prized as text-books throughout the Middle Ages. The two books Contra Judæos belong to the department of apologetics. He also composed a monastic rule (comp. further § 87, 1 and 88, 1) .―Isidore’s elder brother Leander of Seville, who died in A.D. 590, had a good reputation as a church leader (§ 76, 2; 88, 1) , and had no insignificant rank as a theological writer. ”

“ By far more important, one of the greatest writers in the history of Hispanic literature in fact, was Saint Isidore, archbishop of Seville in the early part of the seventh century. Among his numerous works were the following: a brief universal history; a history of the Visigoths, Vandals, and Suevians; lives of illustrious men; an encyclopedia of Greco-Roman knowledge; and books of thoughts, of a philosophical and juridical character. He represented very largely the ideas of the Spanish clergy, and many of the principles enunciated by him were later embodied in the Fuero Juzgo. ”

“ A few miles from Seville is the monastery of San Isidore—the cradle of the Spanish Reformation—and I visited the building p. 326with deep interest. The chapel remains in tolerable repair, and is used as a parish church. The chapter-house, sacristy and cloisters are preserved. Ancient pictures hang on the walls, and old embroidered vestments are shown to visitors. Bibles and Protestant books were of old secretly brought within the walls, and monks began to read them. ”

“ Chaffering with an itinerant vendor of fish stood an old woman, wrinkled and bent. From her coarse dress, arms bare to the elbow, and the strong scent of garlic which hung about her, the dame might rather have been deemed a denizen of one of the [Pg 28] low purlieus of Seville, than the servant of an aristocrat. The old crone, who used much gesticulation in speaking, was so eager about her bargaining that she did not notice the approach of Lucius Lepine. The colloquy between her and the hawker had probably lasted for some time, as both parties looked heated and angry. ”

“ There is not an object on which the eye rests in which an artist would not find a subject for a sketch. What a picture might be made of yonder donnas, with their mantillas and graceful lace veils, as, accompanied by their duenna, they ascend the steps of that magnificent church! No women are lovelier than those of Seville,—long may they keep their graceful costume! How picturesque is yon group of gipsies by the fountain—the man in his striped mantle of many hues leaning over the back of his ass, as he talks to the dark-eyed girl with scarlet blossoms wreathed in her raven-black hair! ”

“ No shade anywhere, on plaza, patio, or river bank; nothing but a blazing sun, making golden motes; the thinly leaved palms scarcely leaving a reflection on the hot earth.
It is the Fiesta of the Corpus Domini. The whole city of Seville is astir, the procession is passing, Don Pedro following bareheaded, attended by Don Juan de Mañara, Ferran de Castro, Don Garcia Padilla, and many others, under a gorgeous canopy, and so delicately fair and flaxen-haired does he look, he is more like a young saint than a king. ”

“ Here am I, proud of the name of Englishman, thankful for having been brought up in the clearness of gospel light. I have been for a year in Seville, and I have never so much as shown to a Spaniard the New Testament in his own language, which I carry now on my person. Nay, the only man in this country for whom I have a feeling of friendship—the man whom I meet almost every day of my life—he knows nothing of the faith which I hold, save that he probably deems me a heretic, simply because I was reared in England. ”

“ The fall of Ishbiliyah was attended by no outburst of iconoclastic fury. The conquerors were delighted with the beauty and richness of their prize, and had no desire to impair the handiwork of their predecessors.
The transition from the pure Arabic and Almohade styles of architecture to what is called the Mudejar style was therefore almost imperceptible. The physiognomy of the city altered but slowly.{36} But the alteration was from the first inevitable. Houses and lands were bestowed on knights from all parts of Spain on the condition of their residing permanently in Seville. ”

“ The successors of the sainted king made their home in the Alcazar, and adapted themselves to an environment created by their traditional foes. The personality which looms largest in the history of the city is that of Don Pedro I., surnamed the Cruel, or, by his few admirers, ‘the Justiciary.’ What Harun-al-Rashid is in the story of Bagdad is this ferocious monarch in the annals of Seville. Countless are the tales, the ballads, and traditions of which he is the subject. ”

“ Inez had herself but slight personal acquaintance with Donna Antonia; they had met at the house of Donna Maria, and had there exchanged a few words. This slight acquaintance had by no means inclined Inez to wish for closer intimacy with the governor's daughter. Don Lopez de Rivadeo was himself a proud insolent upstart, who owed his place to his relationship to Claret, the confessor of Queen Isabella. No man in Seville was more unpopular than Don Lopez. The governor only used his power to fill his coffers. ”

“ Murillo had neither the power nor the desire to idealise his models. His Saints—St Francis of Assisi, St Felix of Cantalicio, St Anthony, St Thomas of Villanueva—and how many more? are men such as may be seen to-day in the streets of Seville ”

“ It is something of this that we realise as we see the thirty or forty of his pictures that are in Seville, gathered together for the most part in the Museo de la Merced, where the light is so much better than it is in the Cathedral and in the churches, though there certainly his pictures seem to be more fittingly at home. Each picture is so true to life, and yet without life.{129} Look at his Saints, all are portraits, faces caught in a mirror that seems to sum up the old world of Spain. Contrast these Saints with the Saints of Murillo. ”

“ Groups of people were passing to the different churches, but these groups consisted almost entirely of priests or women; by far the larger portion of the male population of Seville were drawn [Pg 63] towards a centre of stronger attraction,—that centre was, as Lucius well knew, the Plaza de Toros. Thither, in an hour or two, gay carriages would be bearing their smiling occupants to gaze on scenes at which the bravest Briton might shudder. Already little streams of people were flowing forth from winding street and narrow lane, clad in holiday attire, eager to secure good places. ”

“ SEVILLE Seville is the most Spanish of the cities of Spain. On her white walls the sunlight plays perpetually, the air is laden with the scent of the orange, the sound of the guitar and castanets is heard continually in the narrow streets. This is the South of romance, the South of which northerners dream and towards which so many of them are drawn by an irresistible fascination. The cities of Leon and Castile are grim and Gothic. Cordova is Moorish ”

“ Go to the suburb of Triana, and in the Church of Santa Ana there is the sweetest Madonna and Child, in which we find a new suggestion in the joy of the Mother in her Babe, a human attitude, making the picture something more than mere illustration. And we notice a delicate care for beauty found very rarely in Seville, perhaps never as perfectly as in the work of this painter. ”

“ The Dominicans opened their first tribunal at Seville, and it is curious that the first individuals they summoned before them were the Duke of Medina Sidonia, the Marquess of Cadiz, and the Count of Arcos; three of the most considerable personages in Spain. How many were burned alive at Seville during the first year, how many imprisoned for life, what countless thousands were visited with severe though lighter punishments, need not be recorded here. In nothing was the Holy Office more happy than in multiform and subtle means by which they tested the sincerity of the New Christians. ”

“ All Spain is divided by civil war. Seville, his own Seville, is full of conspirators, awaiting the arrival of Don Enrique to declare for him; and the Black Prince, on whom he so confidently reckoned, remains absolutely deaf to his appeals.
Even were he willing to repent, he is for ever shut out from salvation in this world and the next. No church is open to him; no priest, however base, dare shrive him for his sins. He is as one accursed.
What those words were, traced by the dying hand of Blanche, no man yet knows—not his closest friends, and they are few ”

“ Donna Antonia de Rivadeo, the wealthiest as well as the most beautiful heiress in Seville, was to be present at the gran foncion in the Coliseo. The lady would look on Alcala no longer as the drudging clerk, serving a foreign heretic, but as the chivalrous caballero of Andalusia, valiant as ever was knight who couched lance against the Moors in the time of Queen Isabella. The days of pinching poverty and humiliation would be ended at last; Alcala would spear his bull, and win his beautiful bride, and Teresa would receive at last the reward of her long faithful service. ”

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"Are these bulls bound for the circus?" inquired the Englishman with interest.
The driver nodded his head. "Ay, not one of them will be alive this evening," observed the peasant. "The poor brutes would not go on so proudly towards Seville if they knew what is before them."
"Danger awaits others besides them," muttered Lucius Lepine.
"Ay, señor," observed the herdsman, misunderstanding the drift of the words; "other folk may go as blindfold as these bulls to their death, strong and gay in the morning, dragged in the dust before night. ”

“ Seville's feast, rich with old traditions, is appropriate in this southern city. To linger each evening in the vast church lighted only by solitary candles against each pier, to wander behind the kneeling groups listening to the soaring voices of man and violin, to pause beside a certain tomb in the south transept where four mammoth figures of bronze, ungainly on close view but in a half light majestic, bear on their shoulders a bier which holds the remains of Cristóbal Colón,—such hours of loitering quicken the imagination and leave behind them memories of beauty. ”

“ I tell you what it is, friend, he has a devil within him, that same conde de Puñonrostro. Seville, and the whole country round it for ten leagues, is swept clear of swash-bucklers; not a thief ventures within his limits; they all fear him like fire. ”

“ Still—beggars, gipsies, heat, and laziness to the contrary notwithstanding—Seville is delectable, and a marvel in its gardens and groves, its flowers and fruit, its fountains and fish-pools, its soft climate and soft people, its languorous repose and silvery tinkles to prayer. Seville is romance. Shall it ever be mine again to lie beneath the shade of its secular orange-trees, and blink at clustering shafts of marble tipped with silver sun-rays, and dream dreams? ”

“ His worship of himself in the white bodies of women is true Seville. The constant shift of his deeds, like facets in the crystal of desire, is true Seville. His orgiastic use of blood, of mysticisms, his encounters with statues, necrophiles and ghosts—are Seville of the Semana Santa. His ultimate sinking into the peace of self-absorption is Seville. But the town is ampler, deeper. Don Juan conquers only women. Seville conquers Spain.
This is her ultimate secret. She too—like Córdoba, Toledo, Greco, Cervantes—is a living whole fused from the hostile elements of Spain. ”

“ These are the common-places of Holy Week in Seville. They catch the eye of every visitor who has the slightest knowledge of or feeling for art; but long before the week is out, those who come merely to see something new are sick to death of the eternal repetition of the same thing—the “Brothers” or the “Nazarenes” in their voluminous robes and tall peaked hoods, the brass bands, the Civil Guard, the first paso draped with velvet or satin, and surrounded with silver candelabra and vases of flowers, with an image of Our Lord in the centre ”

“ In the autumn of 1557, however, Agustin Cazalla and Carlos de Seso won him over to heresy and he, in his turn, brought in his brother, Don Pedro Sarmiento and his nephew Don Luis de Rojas, heir to the marquisate of Pozo. As in Seville, the reformers thus included men of the highest consideration, socially and ecclesiastically, as well as those of the lower classes. ”

“ Never was there seen a convent more closely barred and bolted; never were nuns kept more recluse, or golden apples better guarded; and yet for all his precautions poor Felipe could not help falling into the pit he dreaded,—or at least believing that he had so fallen.
There is in Seville an idle pleasure-seeking class of people who are commonly called men on town, [80] a sauntering, sprucely dressed, mellifluous race, always finding means to make, themselves welcome at rich men's feasts. ”