Ávila

“ In the disputed succession that ensued Avila sided with Queen Isabel. Possibly as an expression of royal gratitude, the convent of Santo Tomás was chosen for the first seat of the Tribunal of the Inquisition; and in 1491 three Jews, professing the faith of their fathers to the last, were roasted to death in the Mercado Grande.
Avila was the seat of the Supreme Junta of the Comunidad from July to September 1520. The rebellious temper of her citizens found expression in Philip II.’s reign in some anonymous placards, posted in the streets, reflecting on the king’s policy. ”

“ Our inn, the Fonda Ingles, looked out on the square before the Cathedral, a windy spot, where the gusts from the mountains seized and tossed the men's long capes. Like Burgos and Salamanca, Avila is on the truncated mountain of central Spain, and one is reminded of its 3,500 feet of altitude by the bitter cold. Nothing can pierce so sharply as the wind of the Castile plains. Each day we crossed the gusty plaza to the church and so grew to know it with the heart-affection Spanish cathedrals win. ”

“ In the quarrels between royal brothers and cousins, Avila played a very prominent part. The nurse and protectress of their tender years, and the guardian of their childhood through successive reigns of Castilian kings, she became a very vital factor in the fortunes of kings, prelates, and nobles. In feuds like those of Don Pedro and his brother Enrique II, she was a turbulent centre. Great figures in Spanish history ruled from her episcopal throne, especially during the thirteenth century. ”

“ And, happily, the woman’s fame has far outshone the man’s.
We may assume that no one who visits Avila is ignorant of the leading events in her career, or needs to be told what manner of woman she was. What we have to do is to follow her footsteps through her native city. The house in which she was born on March 28, 1515, has been converted into an ugly church (Nuestra Seráfica{132} Madre Santa Teresa de Jesus) . The exterior is in the baroque style. The room in which she first saw the light is now a chapel in the worst taste, and contains her rosary, sandals, and even one of her fingers. ”

“ Although it has points in common with Segovia, Cuenca, and all these ancient cities of Castile, Avila, the home of the saint-like Teresa, Spain’s lady patroness, with its granite approach and its massive granite walls, its memories, its fortified cathedral, and its severe menacing air, is as well worthy a visit as any city in Spain. ”

“ Oviedo—that little city between the mountains and the sea, so far off the beaten track—was the cradle of the monarchy, the residence and burial-place of its patriot kings. For all men of Spanish blood it is holy ground. In Zamora we have the typical city of the heroic age of Spain, the era of half-fabulous heroes, whose personalities are made known to us only by folklore and ballads.
Segovia and Avila are towns of the Reconquest, wardens, one might say, against the redoubtable Moor. ”

“ Avila (ä'vē-la ̇) , a town of Spain, capital of province of Avila, a modern division of Old Castile. It is the see of the Bishop suffragan of Santiago, with fine cathedral. Once one of the richest towns of Spain. Principal employment in the town, spinning; in the province, breeding sheep and cattle. Pop., town, 12,060; province, 214,008.
Avila, Gil Gonzalez d', a Spanish antiquary and biographer, 1577-1658; made historiographer of Castile in 1612, and of the Indies in 1641. Most valuable works: Teatro de las Grandezas de Madrid, 1623, and Teatro Ecclesiastico, 1645-53. ”

“ The town of Buena Vista, which Avila had founded in this neighbourhood, lay about eight miles from the broad river of the Golfo Dulce, near to the sea shore, whither Cortes immediately repaired with his small body of men, after crossing the river. When he entered the town, the arrival of strangers on horseback and others on foot, in the first moments, spread a great consternation among the inhabitants, but as soon as they learnt that it was the man whose fame was spread through the whole of these provinces and New Spain, they were almost overcome with joy. ”

“ Perhaps the most notable of the many monasteries and churches of Ávila is the Convent of San Tomas at the foot of the hill to the south. As in many important Spanish churches, the choir is placed in a great stone gallery at the west end, and in this instance the arrangement is balanced by a similar gallery for the High Altar at the east. The floor is occupied by the beautiful marble monument of Prince Juan, the only son of Ferdinand and Isabella. The Catholic kings, fortunate in all else, desired in vain that greatest blessing of all, the happiness of their children. ”

“ Perhaps more than any other town, Avila is characteristic of the middle ages, of the continual strife between the noblemen, the Church, and the common people. The houses of the aristocrats are castles rather than palaces, with no artistic decoration to hide their bare nakedness; the cathedral is really a fortress, and not only apparently so, as in Salamanca and Toro, for its very apse is embedded in the city walls, of which it forms a part, a battlemented, turreted, and warlike projection, sure of having to bear the brunt of an attack in case of a siege. ”

“ Out they toddled from rugged Avila, wide-eyed and helpless-looking as two fawns, but with human hearts, already beating to a national idea; until domestic reality met them in the shape of uncles, and turned them back from their great resolve. ”

“ It will be felt, I think, that Avila is a city which ought on no account to be left unseen in an architectural tour in Spain. Fortunately it is now as easy of access as it was once difficult, for the railway from Valladolid to Madrid, in order to cross the Sierra de Guadarrama, makes a great détour by Avila, and thence on to the Escorial is carried on through the mountain ranges with considerable exhibition of engineering skill, and with great advantage to the traveller, as the views throughout the whole distance are almost always extremely beautiful. ”

“ Avila is connected with Salamanca by rail, but the route forms a sharp angle with its apex many miles to the north. I had decided, therefore, to walk. Swinging down through the western city gate and across the babbling Adaja by the aged stone bridge, I clambered again upward to where a huge stone cross invites to a rest in its shade and a final retrospect of crumbling Avila and her many-turreted, constraining wall. ”

“ Could we be emperors, too, sister, if we were martyrs, and had each a crown? But we must be crusaders first, I suppose. Come, let us go at once."
The road from granite-walled Avila to the south is across a wild and desolate waste, frowned down upon on either hand by the savage crests of the grim sierras of the Guadarrama. It winds along gorges and ravines and rocky river-beds, and has always been, even in the days of Spanish power and glory, about as untamed and savagely picturesque a road as one could well imagine. ”

“ The walls top the hill-side and one sees nothing of the modern Avila which has spread beyond those great frowning gateways facing the plaza, but even the modern part of Avila which has oozed out beyond the walls is not overwhelmingly modern. There are none of the exquisite specimens of Spanish bad taste like that we found in Irun. The plaza is surrounded by coloured houses and arcades much as is that of Medina; the sun-blinds of the two large cafés are tattered and weather-beaten; the peasants stare at strangers with an unspoilt curiosity. ”

“ In the transept are the tombs of the rival families of Blasco Jimeno and Esteban Domingo, distinguished by shields of six and thirteen bezants respectively. The church is in every respect a noble edifice, but loses interest after you have visited the almost identical{127} basilica of San Vicente. Nor will your attention be long engaged by the modern monument to the illustrious natives of Avila in the centre of the market-place, crowned by the statue of Santa Teresa. ”

“ There are beggars, of course, in all countries; but such degraded, miserable beings as we meet in beautiful Italy and brilliant Spain, are to be seen in no other part of the world.
After this purposeless stoppage, our express train [Pg 111] moves on again at a good six miles per hour, and there is no further halt till we reach the ancient city of Avila, founded by Hercules, and the birth-place of St. Theresa. Its decaying old streets, its high mouldering castle, its Gothic houses, and its large churches, have all a very forsaken aspect. ”

“ On May 2nd we left Segovia and went for one night to the Escurial—such a gigantic place, no beauty, but very curious, and the relics of the truly religious though cruelly bigoted Philip II. very interesting. Then we were a day at Avila, at an English inn kept by Mr. John Smith and his daughter—kindly, hearty people. Avila is a paradise for artists, and has remains in plenty of Ferdinand and Isabella, in whose intimate companionship one seems to live during one’s whole tour in Spain. ”

“ Everything speaks of a bygone age, an age of conflict and chivalrous deeds, when the city must have been far more wealthy and powerful than now, to have erected such solid edifices. We are not in the least surprised to hear it was originally founded by Hercules himself, or one of the forty of that name to whom so many of the cities of Spain are attributed. Avila is worthy of being counted among his labors. ”

“ It was for the advantage of all to gain the troops of Narvaez by fair words, presents, and promises; their numbers were too great in comparison to ours; and if they were once to rise up in anger, they might easily put us all to the sword.
To this Avila replied in a very haughty manner, which obliged Cortes to exclaim, "Those who do not feel inclined to obey are at liberty to leave my standard; Spanish women bring forth sufficient children into the world, and every son is a soldier in Spain!" ”

“ His preaching gifts were developed by the orator Juan de Avila, and he became one of the most famous of Spanish preachers. He was invited to Portugal in 1555 and became provincial of his order, declining the offer of the archbishopric of Braga but accepting the position of confessor and counsellor to Catherine, the queen regent. At the expiration of his tenure of the provincialship, he retired to the Dominican convent at Lisbon, where he lived till his death on the last day of 1588. ”

“ Be that as it may, the fact is that the cathedral of Avila, seen from the east, west, or north, is a fortress building, a huge, unwieldy and anti-artistic composition of Romanesque, Gothic, and other elements. The western front, with its heavy tower to the north, and the lack of such to the south, appears more gloomy than ever on account of the obscure colour of the stone; the façade above the portal is of one of the most peculiar of artistic conceptions ever imagined ”

“ The queen’s splendors are reserved for display that shall bespeak her greatness to the world. When she enters Avila or Seville, it is upon a tide of gold and rubies. But when the doors shut upon her castle and the drawbridge rises, when she is alone with her family or her confessor, the jewels and the cloth of gold are gone: a woman, resolute and stark like the Castilian mountains, looks within herself for God’s next message.
She is the spirit of Spain. Her husband, often unruly, often rebellious, is muscle, skill, craft—he is not the spirit of Spain. ”

“ But the centuries of warfare that had made the Spaniards a fierce and warlike race, had also filled Spain with frowning castles and embattled towns. And such an embattled town was this same city of Avila, in which, in 1525, lived the stern and pious old grandee, Don Alphonso Sanchez de Cepeda, his sentimental and romance-loving wife, the Donna Beatrix, and their twelve sturdy and healthy children.
Religious warfare, as it is the most bitter and relentless of strifes, is also the most brutal. ”

“ He has never had service so arduous as here, for the grand prior, Don Luis de Avila, is nothing to his Majesty except a dear old brother in arms, with whom he is fond of talking about the past. Everything rests on my poor husband. He said, a short time ago, that he would no longer endure playing the host to everybody who comes to San Yuste, being agent for everybody in Spain who desires anything from the Emperor Charles, and at the same time constantly caring for the person of the sick sovereign. ”

“ It will be seen that Zamora, like almost every other Spanish town, is entitled ‘most noble and loyal’ (muy noble y leal) . It is a sombre, fascinating place, where the past is more easily recoverable by the fancy than in many cities more richly endowed with ancient monuments.{103}
V
AVILA Like Stratford-on-Avon, like Assisi, this sombre city in the mountains of Castile is the shrine of a single pre-eminent personality. To the Spaniard Avila is essentially the city of the great saint—of Santa Teresa, the greatest, perhaps, of Spain’s many great women. ”

“ Work and books would be dropped for long minutes to look out on those astonishingly noble mountains. If only the city below were well-ordered and clean like Avila or Segovia or Seville, this would be the spot of all Spain for a long stay. ”

“ Ávila kept open house and encouraged games of ball, dice, and cards; by this means the conspirators could meet freely without attracting attention, and fresh adherents were thus won to the cause. Neither Cortés nor his brothers attended the games, although they were sometimes at the secret conferences; the mind of the marquis vacillated, and notwithstanding Ávila's efforts Cortés deemed it expedient to await the arrival of a new viceroy, and if he attempted to enforce the last cédula on encomiendas, then strike the blow and the people would support them. ”