Note 222 — Chapter XXXVIII

From the times of Charles V. and Philip II., when, in Aragon and Castile, chroniclers were multiplied as a part of the pageantry of the court, the rest of the kingdoms that entered into the united Spanish monarchy began to desire to have their own separate histories, as we can see in Valencia, where those of Beuter, Escolano, and Diago were written. Besides this, a great number of the individual cities obtained their own separate annals from the hand of at least one author,—sometimes works of authority, like that on Segovia by Colmenares, and that on Seville by Avila y Zuñiga. But though more of such local histories were written in Spain between the middle of the sixteenth and the end of the seventeenth centuries, than were written during the same period, I believe, in any other country in Europe, none of them, so far as I know, has such peculiar merit as to be noticeable in the literary history of the country. Still, the spirit that produced them in such great numbers, and especially the spirit which, during the reign of Philip II., made, with so much care and cost, the vast collections of documents yet to be found in the Castle of Simancas and the convent of the Escurial, should not be overlooked.

When the chapter on the Chronicles of the fifteenth century (First Period, Chap. IX.) was printed, I had not seen the Chronicle by the Prince of Viana, “Crónica de los Reyes de Navarra,”—of which there is only one edition, that of Pamplona, 1843, 4to, by Don José Yanguas y Miranda. It was written in 1454 by the Prince Don Carlos, to whom I have already alluded, (Vol. I. p. 332, note,) who died, forty years old, in 1461, and whose translation of Aristotle’s Ethics was printed at Saragossa in 1509. (Mendez, Typographia, 1796, p. 193.) The Chronicle was carefully prepared for publication from four manuscripts, and it embraces the history of Navarre from the earliest times to the accession of Charles III. in 1390, noticing a few events in the beginning of the next century. Besides the life of the author, it makes about 200 pages, written in a modest, simple style, but not so good as that of some of the contemporary Castilian chronicles. A few of the old traditions concerning the little mountain kingdom, whose early annals it records, are, however, well preserved; some of them being told as they are found in the General Chronicle of Spain, and some with additions or changes. The portions where I have observed most traces of connection between the two are in the Chronicle of the Prince of Viana, Book I. chapters 9-14, as compared with the latter portion of the General Chronicle, Part III. Sometimes the Prince deviates from all received accounts, as when he calls Cava the wife of Count Julian, instead of calling her his daughter; but, on the whole, his Chronicle agrees with the common traditions and histories of the period to which it relates.