Note 1258 — Chapter VIII

‘Entre tanto crecia por instantes y se aumentaba prodigiosamente el poder y la autoridad de la Iglesia. Sus pingües riquezas desmembraban de una manera considerable las rentas de la corona; y el estado eclesiástico, que muchos abrazaron en un principio á consecuencia de las desgracias y calamidades de la época, fué despues el mas solicitado por las inmensas ventajas que ofrecia su condicion comparada con la de las clases restantes.’ Antequera, Historia de la Legislacion, pp. 223, 224. See also in Campomanes, Apendice á la Educacion, Madrid, 1775–1777, vol. i. p. 465, and vol. iv. p. 219, a statement made by the University of Toledo in 1619, or 1620, that ‘hay doblados religiosos, clerigos y estudiantes; porque ya no hallan otro modo de vivir, ni de poder sustentarse.’ If the eye of M. Lafuente had lighted upon this and other passages, which I shall shortly quote from contemporary observers, he would, I think, have expressed himself much more strongly than he has done respecting this period, in his recent brilliant, but unsatisfactory, History of Spain. On the great wealth of the convents in 1679, when the rest of the country was steeped in poverty, see a letter dated Madrid, July 25, 1679, in D'Aulnoy, Relation du Voyage d'Espagne, Lyon, 1693, vol. ii. p. 251. But the earliest evidence I have met with is in a letter, written in 1609, to Prince Henry of England, by Sir Charles Cornwallis, the English ambassador at Madrid. ‘The furniture of their churches here, and the riches and lustre of their sepulchres made in every monasterie (the general povertye of this kingdome considered), are almost incredible. The laity of this nation may say with Davyde (though in another sense), “Zelus domus tuæ comedit me:” for, assuredly, the riches of the Temporall hath in a manner all fallen into the mouthes and devouring throates of the Spiritual.’ Winwood's Memorials of Affairs of State, vol. iii. p. 10, London, 1725, folio.