Note Footnotes — Front matter
Reading edition
[1] “Infernal anis,” says the advertisement, “made from the worst wines of the Priorato, is neither tonic, digestive, nor restorative, and has never been commended at any exhibition.”
[2] Literally “Tubs”, the solid semicircular bastions of Spanish town walls.
[3] A collegiate church, intermediate in dignity between a parish church and a cathedral.
[4] A public promenade, thickly planted with trees.
[5] A Spanish league is about an hour’s march, say 3¾ miles.
[6] At one place it consisted of a huge earthenware bowl, 3 feet high and 4 feet in diameter, filled up solid with earth to within 4 inches of the rim.
[7] Here died ——.
[8] See p. 140.
[9] See p. 140.
[10] This monastery is a very notable Leonese monument, a masterpiece of Plateresque, somewhat similar to the Otto Heinrichs Bau at Heidelberg, and formerly the property of the knights of Santiago.
[11] Astorga = Asturica Augusta.
[12] Literally the “House of Purification,” i.e. the Great Mosque of Córdova.
[13] There is something of the same flavour about the inscription on the Gates of the Hospital del Rey at Burgos; “Blessed is the man that provideth for the sick and needy, St James (!) shall deliver him in the time of trouble.”
[14] The fate most dreaded by the Spanish prisoners in the Moorish wars.
[15] Borrow stigmatises Betánzos as a filthy and evil-smelling pest-house. But then his horse broke down there. So much depends upon the point of view!
[16] See page 142.
[17]
“Who would not give a foot of ground For all the Devils in Hell.” —Ballad of Lord Willoughby.
[18] A cant term for knifing. The Neapolitan had a standing feud with Spain.
[19] The proverb is still quite current. A carrier of whom we inquired the distance to Zamora oracularly answered that “It could never be gained in an hour.”
[20] See p. 60.
[21] The recognised Spanish title for the Host.
[22] Presbytery.
[23] “Here’s to the glorious, pious and immortal memory of the great and good King William, who delivered us from Popery, brass money, and wooden shoes!”
[24] Arriero, from arré! gee-up!
[25] As in Italian, the diminutive is a sort of endearing form of superlative.
[26] They were built at the end of the eleventh century. A singularly fine bit of work for so early a date.
[27] Moore was at Salamanca and his artillery at Talavera when Napoleon reached Madrid.
[28] The burial-place of the Kings of Aragon.
[29] See p. 261.
[30] Such is the meaning of the word, but I would not like to vouch for the etymology. The derivation is possibly the other way.
[31] The tiny mosque of San Cristo de la Luz is the only genuine Moorish fragment. The Puerta del Sol, the church of Sta Maria la Blanca, etc., are Mudéjar work. Cp. note on p. 208.
[32] I.e. “Citadel,” Cæsareum.
[33] James Howell in 1620 estimates the annual income of Toledo at £100,000, a sum equivalent to nearly half a million to-day.
[34] Metal screens and reliquaries.
[35] He has only a statue at Toledo; but his actual grave has a scarcely less honourable site in las Huelgas at Búrgos.
[36] The Mozárabes were Christians under the dominion of the Moors, as Mudéjares were Moors under the dominion of the Christians.
[37] Several such herds were seized by the hungry regiments in the course of the retreat.
[38] Heywood, Fair Maid of the West.
[39] The country people invariably reckon in reals—the old coinage. The piece is no longer struck, but its value is one-fourth of a peseta.
[40] Some call it eighty-one. But this includes some arches of construction in the spandrils, and is not fair counting.
[41] Cp. p. 55.
[42] The province derives its name from the conquests “beyond the Duero” won in the earlier stages of the struggle with the Moors.
[43] Noche Toledana is proverbial in Spanish as equivalent to a sleepless night.
[44] The Octroi office, to receive the city tolls.
[45] Trajan was a Spaniard born, and his reign an extremely prosperous period for Spain.
[46] “The Vineyard,” a lovely dismantled monastery planted beside the Eresma, just underneath the town.
[47] Montaigne.
[48] E.g. Talavera, first Archbishop of Grenada, and Peter Martyr, the Confessor and Biographer of Isabella.
[49] The beautiful Huerta of Liria is the only district actually praised.
[50] Cp. p. 207.
[51] Cp. p. 151.
[52] The place of execution at Seville.
[53] Cp. p. 132.
[54] The ambiguity would not be apparent to a Spaniard. To him Invierno, “Winter,” is the assonym to Infierno, “Hell.”
[55] The “Silversmith style,” or early Spanish Renaissance. So called from the Cellini-like carving which is its leading characteristic.
[56] The Emperor of Morocco; at this time the martial Yakub aben Yussef.
[57] Cp. note on p. 265.
[58] See p. 281.
[59] See p. 161.
[60] “A ha’penny for bread.” The perrita or “little dog” = a halfpenny, and the perro gordo or fat dog = a penny. Thus “Two reals minus a little dog” is 45 centimos. The animal irrelevantly called a “dog” is the lion on the reverse of the coin.
[61] Certosa. Charterhouse.
[62] This incident has been utilised by Conan Doyle in his White Company. But that story rather exaggerates the height and steepness of the hill.
[63] During the sitting of the Congress of Dresden.
[64] A highly developed form of Fives.