Volume 3 — CHAPTER XXVI. (continued 2)

[68]—"Balucis malleator Hispanae," says Martial, noticing the noise made by the gold-beaters, hammering out the Spanish ore, as one of the chief annoyances which drove him from the capital, (lib. 12, ep. 57.) See also the precise statement of Pliny, cited Part I., Chapter 8, of this History.

[69] "Porque haciéndose ansí al modo é costumbre de los dichos senores Reyes pasados, cesarán los inmensos gastos y sin provecho que la mesa é casa de S. M. se hacen; pues el daño desto notoriamente paresce porque se halla en el plato real y en los platos que se hacen á los privados é criados de su casa gastarse cada mio dia ciento y cincuenta mil maravedís; y los Católicos Reyes D. Hernando é Dona Isabel, seyendo tan excelentes y tan poderosos, en su plato y en el plato del principe D. Joan que haya glória, é de las señoras infantas con gran número y multitud de damas no se gastar cada un dia, seyetido mui abastados como de tales Reyes, mas de doce á quince mil maravedís." Peticion de la Junta de Tordesillas, October 20, 1520, apud Sandoval, Hist. del Emp. Carlos V., tom. i. p. 230.

[70] In 1493; repeated in 1501. Recop. de las Leyes, tom. ii. fol. 3.—In 1502. Pragmáticas del Reyno, fol. 139.

[71] At Segovia, September 2d; also in 1496 and 1498. Pragmáticas del Reyno, fol. 123, 125, 126.

[72] At Granada, in 1499.—This on petition of cortes, in the year preceding. Sempere, in his sensible "Historia del Luxo," has exhibited the series of the manifold sumptuary laws in Castile. It is a history of the impotent struggle of authority, against the indulgence of the innocent propensities implanted in our nature, and naturally increasing with increasing wealth and civilization.

[73] En la nombrada y gran ciudad de Granada, Agosto 20. Pragmáticas del Reyno, fol. 135.

[74] Pragmáticas del Reyno, passim.—Diccionario Geográfico-Hist. de España, tom. i. p. 333—Capmany, Mem. de Barcelona, tom. iii. part 3, cap. 2.—Mines of lead, copper, and silver were wrought extensively in Guipuzcoa and Biscay.—Col. de Céd., tom. i. no. 25.

[75] Pragmáticas del Reyno, fol. 127, 128.—Ante, Part II., Chapter 3, note 12.—The cortes of Toledo, in 1525, complained, "que habia tantos caballos Españoles en Francia como en Castilla." (Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. p. 285.) The trade, however, was contraband; the laws against the exportation of horses being as ancient as the time of Alfonso XI. (See also Ordenanças Reales, fol. 85, 86.)

Laws can never permanently avail against national prejudices. Those in favor of mules have been so strong in the Peninsula, and such the consequent decay of the fine breed of horses, that the Spaniards have been compelled to supply themselves with the latter from abroad. Bourgoanne reckons that 20,000 were annually imported into the country from France, at the close of the last century. Travels in Spain, tom. i. chap. 4.

[76] Hist. del Luxo, tom. i. p. 170.—"Tiene muchas ouejas," says Marineo, "cuya lana estan singular, que no solamente se aprouechan della en España, mas tambien se lleua en abundancia a otras partes." (Cosas Memorables, fol. 3.) He notices especially the fine wool of Molina, in whose territory 400,000 sheep pastured, fol. 19.

[77] Mem. de Barcelona, tom. iii. pp. 338, 339.—"Or if ever exported," he adds, "it was at some period long posterior to the discovery of America."

[78] Pragmáticas del Reyno, passim.—Many of them were designed to check impositions, too often practised in the manufacture and sale of goods, and to keep them up to a fair standard.

[79] L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, fol. 11.

[80] Ibid., fol. 19.—Navagiero, Viaggio, fol. 26.—The Venetian minister, however, pronounces them inferior to the silks of his own country.

[81] "Proueyda," says Marineo, "de todos officios, y artes mecánicas que en ella se exercitan mucho: y principalmente en lanor, y exercicio de lanas, y sedas. Por las quales dos cosas biuen en esta ciudad mas de diez mil personas. Es de mas desto la ciudad muy rica, por los grandes tratos de mercadurias." Cosas Memorables, fol. 12.

[82] Ibid., fol. 15.—Navagiero, a more parsimonious eulogist, remarks, nevertheless, "Sono in Valladolid assai artefici di ogni sorte, e se vi lavora benessimo de tutte le arti, e sopra tutto d'Argenti, e vi son tanti argenteri quanti non sono in due altre terre." Viaggio, fol. 35.

[83] Geron. Paulo, a writer at the close of the fifteenth century, cited by Capmany, Mem. de Barcelona, tom. i. part. 3, p. 23.

[84] The twentieth Ilustracion of Señor Clemencin's invaluable compilation contains a table of prices of grain, in different parts of the kingdom, under Ferdinand and Isabella. Take, for example, those of Andalusia. In 1488, a. year of great abundance, the fanega of wheat sold in Andalusia for 50 maravedies; in 1489 it rose to 100; in 1505, a season of great scarcity, to 375, and even 600; in 1508, it was at 306; and in 1509, it had fallen to 85 maravedies. Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. pp. 551, 552.

[85] Compare, for example, the accounts of the environs of Toledo and Madrid, the two most considerable cities in Castile, by ancient and modern travellers. One of the most intelligent and recent of the latter, in his journey between these two capitals, remarks, "There is sometimes a visible track, and sometimes none; most commonly we passed over wide sands. The country between Madrid and Toledo, I need scarcely say, is ill peopled and ill cultivated; for it is all a part of the same arid plain, that stretches on every side around the capital; and which is bounded on this side by the Tagus. The whole of the way to Toledo, I passed through only four inconsiderable villages; and saw two others at a distance. A great part of the land is uncultivated, covered with furze and aromatic plants; but here and there some corn land is to be seen." (Inglis, Spain in 1830, vol. i. p. 366.) What a contrast does all this present to the language of the Italians, Navagiero and Marineo, in whose time the country around Toledo "surpassed all other districts of Spain, in the excellence and fruitfulness of the soil;" which, "skilfully irrigated by the waters of the Tagus, and minutely cultivated, furnished every variety of fruit and vegetable produce to the neighboring city." While, instead of the sunburnt plains around Madrid, it is described as situated "in the bosom of a fair country, with an ample territory, yielding rich harvests of corn and wine, and all the other aliments of life." Cosas Memorables, fol. 12, 13.— Viaggio, fol. 7, 8.

[86] Capmany has well exposed some of these extravagances. (Mem. de Barcelona, tom. in. part. 3, cap. 2.) The boldest of them, however, may find a warrant in the declarations of the legislature itself. "En los lugares de obrages de lanas," asserts the cortes of 1594, "donde se solian labrar veinte y treinta mil arrobas, no se labran hoi seis, y donde habia señores de ganado de grandísima cantidad, han disminuido en la misma y mayor proporcion, acaeciendo lo mismo en todas las otras cosas del comercio universal y particular. Lo cual hace que no haya ciudad de las principales destos réinos ni lugar ninguno, de donde no falte notable vecindad, como se echa bien de ver en la muchedumbre de casas que estan cerradas y despobladas, y en la baja que han dado los arrendamientos de las pocas que se arriendan y habitan." Apud Mem. de la Acad. de Hist, tom. vi. p. 304.

[87] A point which most writers would probably agree in fixing at 1700, the year of Charles II.'s death, the last and most imbecile of the Austrian dynasty. The population of the kingdom at this time, had dwindled to 6,000,000. See Laborde, (Itinéraire, tom. vi. pp. 125, 143, ed. 1830), who seems to have better foundation for this census than for most of those in his table.

[88] See the unequivocal language of cortes, under Philip II. (supra.) With every allowance, it infers an alarming decline in the prosperity of the nation.

[89] One has only to read, for an evidence of this, the lib. 6, tit. 18, of the "Nueva Recopilacion," on "cosas prohibidas;" the laws on gilding and plating, lib. 5, tit. 24; on apparel and luxury, lib. 7, tit. 12; on woollen manufactures, lib. 7, tit. 14-17, et legas al. Perhaps no stronger proof of the degeneracy of the subsequent legislation can be given, than by contrasting it with that of Ferdinand and Isabella in two important laws. 1. The sovereigns, in 1492, required foreign traders to take their returns in the products and manufactures of the country. By a law of Charles V., 1552, the exportation of numerous domestic manufactures was prohibited, and the foreign trader, in exchange for domestic wool, was required to import into the country a certain amount of linen and woollen fabrics. 2. By an ordinance, in 1500, Ferdinand and Isabella prohibited the importation of silk thread from Naples, to encourage its production at home. This appears from the tenor of subsequent laws to have perfectly succeeded. In 1552, however, a law was passed, interdicting the export of manufactured silk, and admitting the importation of the raw material. By this sagacious provision, both the culture of silk, and the manufacture were speedily crushed in Castile.

[90] See examples of these, in the reigns of Henry III., and John II, (Recop. de las Leyes, tom. ii. fol. 180, 181.) Such also were the numerous tariffs fixing the prices of grain, the vexatious class of sumptuary laws, those for the regulation of the various crafts, and, above, all, on the exportation of the precious metals.

[91] The English Statute Book alone will furnish abundant proof of this, in the exclusive regulations of trade and navigation existing at the close of the fifteenth century. Mr. Sharon Turner has enumerated many, under Henry VIII., of similar import with, and, indeed, more partial in their operation than, those of Ferdinand and Isabella. History of England, vol. iv. pp. 170 et seq.

[92] Ordenanças Reales, lib. 6, tit. 4, ley 6.

[93] Archivo de Simancas; in which most of these ordinances appear to be registered. Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. Ilust. 11.

[94] "Ennoblescense los cibdades é villas en tener casas grandes é bien fechas en que fragan sus ayuntamientos é concejos," etc. (Ordenanças Reales, lib. 7, tit. 1, ley 1.) Señor Clemencin has specified the nature and great variety of these improvements, as collected from the archives of the different cities of the kingdom. Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. Ilustracion ll.—Col. de Cédulas, tom. iv. no. 9.

[95] Pragmáticas del Reyno, fol. 63. 91, 93.—Recop. de las Leyes, lib. 5, tit. 11, ley 12.—Among the acts for restricting monopolies may be mentioned one, which prohibited the nobility and great landholders from preventing their tenants' opening inns and houses of entertainment without their especial license. (Pragmáticas del Reyno, 1492, fol. 96.) The same abuse, however, is noticed by Mad. d'Aulnoy, in her "Voyage d'Espagne," as still existing, to the great prejudice of travellers, in the seventeenth century. Dunlop, Memoirs of Philip IV. and Charles II., vol. ii. chap. 11.

[96] Pragmáticas del Reyno, fol. 93-112.—Recop. de las Leyes, lib. 5, tit. 21, 22.

[97] "Ut nulla unquam per se tuta regio, tutiorem se fuisse jactare possit." Opus Epist., epist. 31.

[98] For various laws tending to secure this, and prevent frauds in trade, see Ordenanças Reales, lib. 3, tit. 8, ley 5.—Pragmáticas del Reyno, fol. 45, 66, 67, et alibi.—Col. de Cédulas, tom. i. no. 63.

[99] The fullest, though a sufficiently meagre, account of the Navarrese constitution, is to be found in Capmany's collection, "Práctica y Estilo," (pp. 250-258,) and in the "Diccionario Geográfico Hist, de España," (tom. ii. pp. 140-143.) The historical and economical details in the latter are more copious.

[100] "Queste furono," says Giannone, "le prime leggi che ci diedero gli Spagnuoli: leggi tutte provvide e savie, nello stabilir delle quali furono veramente gli Spagnuoli più d' ogni altra nazione avveduti, e più esatti imitatori de' Romani." Istoria di Napoli, lib. 30, cap. 5.

[101] Giannone, Istoria di Napoli, lib. 29, cap. 4; lib. 30, cap. 1, 2, 5.—Signorelli, Coltura nelle Sicilie, tom. iv. p. 84.—Every one knows the persecutions, the exile, and long imprisonment, which Giannone suffered for the freedom with which he treated the clergy, in his philosophical history. The generous conduct of Charles of Bourbon to his heirs is not so well known. Soon after his accession to the throne of Naples, that prince settled a liberal pension on the son of the historian, declaring, that "it did not comport with the honor and dignity of the government, to permit an individual to languish in indigence, whose parent had been the greatest man, the most useful to the state, and the most unjustly persecuted, that the age had produced." Noble sentiments, giving additional grace to the act which they accompanied. See the decree, cited by Corniani, Secoli della Letteratura Italiana, (Brescia, 1804-1813,) tom. ix. art. 15.

[102] Herrera, Indias Occidentales, dec. 1, lib. 6, cap. 18.—According to Martyr, the two mints of Hispaniola yielded 300,000 lbs. of gold annually. De Rebus Oceanicis, dec. 1, lib. 10.

[103] The pearl fisheries of Cuhagua were worth 75,000 ducats a year. Herrera, Indian Occidentales, dec 1, lib 7, cap. 9.

[104] Oviedo, Historia Natural de las Indias, lib. 4, cap. 8.—Gomez, De Rebus Gestis, fol. 165.

[105] Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. iii. documentos 1-13.—Herrera, Indias Occidentales, dec. 1. lib. 7, cap. 1.

[106] Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. iii. pp. 48, 134.

[107] Bernardin de Santa Clara, treasurer of Hispaniola, amassed, during a few years' residence there, 96,000 ounces of gold. This same nouveau riche used to serve gold dust, says Herrera, instead of salt, at his entertainments. (Indias Occidentales, dec. 1, lib. 7, cap. 3.) Many believed, according to the same author, that gold was so abundant, as to be dragged up in nets from the beds of the rivers! Lib. 10, cap. 14.

[108] Ante, Part II., Chapter 24.—Herrera, Indias Occidentales, dec. 1, lib. 10, cap. 6, 7.

[109] "Per esser Sevilla nel loco che è, vi vanno tanti di loro alle Indie, che la città resta mal popolata, e quasi in man di donne." (Navagiero, Viaggio, fol. 15.) Horace said, fifteen centuries before,

"Impiger extremes curris mercator ad Indos, Per mare pauperiem fugieus, per saxa, per ignes." Epist. i. 1.

[110] Herrera, Indias Occidentales, dec. 1, lib. 9, cap. 10.—Almost all the Spanish expeditions in the New World, whether on the northern or southern continent, have a tinge of romance, beyond what is found in those of other European nations. One of the most striking and least familiar of them is that of Ferdinand de Soto, the ill-fated discoverer of the Mississippi, whose bones bleach beneath its waters. His adventures are told with uncommon spirit by Mr. Bancroft, vol. i. chap. 2, of his History of the United States.

[111] Herrera, Indias Occidentales, dec. 2, lib. 1, cap. 7.

[112] The life of this daring cavalier forms one in the elegant series of national biographies by Quintana, "Vidas de Espanoles Celebres," (tom. ii. pp. 1-82), and is familiar to the English reader in Irving's "Companions of Columbus." The third volume of Navarrete's laborious compilation is devoted to the illustration of the minor Spanish voyagers, who followed up the bold track of discovery, between Columbus and Cortes. Coleccion de Viages.

[113] Las Casas, Mémoires, Oeuvres, ed. de Llorente, tom. i. p. 189.

[114] "Y crean (Vuestras Altezas) questa isla y todas las otras son asi suyas corao Castilla, que aqui no falta salvo asiento y mandarles hacer lo que quisieren." Primera Carta de Colon, apud Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. i. p. 93.

[115] Herrera, Indias Occidentales, dec. 1, lib. 8, cap. 9.—Las Casas, Oeuvres, ed. de Llorente, tom. i. pp. 228, 229.

[116] See the various Memorials of Las Casas, some of them expressly prepared for the council of the Indies. He affirms, that more than 12,000,000 lives were wantonly destroyed in the New World, within thirty- eight years after the discovery, and this in addition to those exterminated in the conquest of the country. (Oeuvres, ed. de Llorente, tom. i. p. 187.) Herrera admits that Hispaniola was reduced, in less than twenty-five years, from 1,000,000 to 14,000 souls. (Indias Occidentales, dec. 1. lib. 10, cap. 12.) The numerical estimates of a large savage population, must, of course, be in a great degree hypothetical. That it was large, however, in these fair regions, may readily be inferred from the facilities of subsistence, and the temperate habits of the natives. The minimum sum in the calculation, when the number had dwindled to a few thousand, might be more easily ascertained.

[117] Oeuvres, ed. de Llorente, tom. i. p. 228.

[118] One resident at the court, says the bishop of Chiapa, was proprietor of 800, and another of 1100 Indians. (Oeuvres, ed. de Llorente, tom. i. p. 238.) We learn their names from Herrera. The first was Bishop Fonseca, the latter the comendador Conchillos, both prominent men in the Indian department. (Indias Occidentales, dec. 1, lib. 9, cap. 14.) The last-named person was the same individual sent by Ferdinand to his daughter in Flanders, and imprisoned there by the archduke Philip. After that prince's death, he experienced signal favors from the Catholic king, and amassed great wealth as secretary of the Indian board. Oviedo has devoted one of his dialogues to him. Quincuagenas, MS., bat. 1, quinc. 3, dial. 9.

[119]The Dominican and other missionaries, to their credit be it told, labored with unwearied zeal and courage for the conversion of the natives, and the vindication of their natural rights. Yet these were the men, who lighted the fires of the Inquisition in their own land. To such opposite results may the same principle lead, under different circumstances!

[120] Las Casas concludes an elaborate memorial, prepared for the government, in 1542, on the best means of arresting the destruction of the aborigines, with two propositions. 1. That the Spaniards would still continue to settle in America, though slavery were abolished, from the superior advantages for acquiring riches it offered over the Old World. 2. That if they would not, this would not justify slavery, since "God forbids us to do evil that good may come of it." Rare maxim, from a Spanish churchman of the sixteenth century! The whole argument, which comprehends the sum of what has been since said more diffusely in defence of abolition, is singularly acute and cogent. In its abstract principles it is unanswerable, while it exposes and denounces the misconduct of his countrymen, with a freedom which shows the good bishop knew no other fear than that of his Maker.

[121] Recop. de Leyes de las Indias, August 14th, 1509, lib. 6, tit. 8, ley l.—Herrera, Indias Occidentales, dec. 1, lib. 9, cap. 14.

[122] The text expresses nearly enough the subsequent condition of things in Spanish America. "No government," says Heeren, "has done so much for the aborigines as the Spanish." (Modern History, Bancroft's trans., vol. i. p. 77.) Whoever peruses its colonial codes, may find much ground for the eulogium. But are not the very number and repetition of these humane provisions sufficient proof of their inefficacy?

[123] Herrera, Indias Occidentales, dec. 2, lib. 2, cap. 3.—Las Casas, Mémoire, apud Oeuvres, ed. de Llorente, tom. i. p. 239.

[124] In the remarkable discussion between the doctor Sepulveda and Las Casas, before a commission named by Charles V., in 1550, the former vindicated the persecution of the aborigines by the conduct of the Israelites towards their idolatrous neighbors. But the Spanish Fenelon replied, that "the behavior of the Jews was no precedent for Christians; that the law of Moses was a law of rigor; but that of Jesus Christ, one of grace, mercy, peace, good-will, and charity." (Oeuvres, ed. de Llorente, tom. i. p. 374.) The Spaniard first persecuted the Jews, and then quoted them as an authority for persecuting all other infidels.

[125] It is only necessary to notice the contemptuous language of Philip II.'s laws, which designate the most useful mechanic arts, as those of blacksmiths, shoemakers, leather-dressers, and the like, as "oficios viles y baxos."

A whimsical distinction prevails in Castile, in reference to the more humble occupations. A man of gentle blood may be a coachman, lacquey, scullion, or any other menial, without disparaging his nobility, which is said to sleep in the mean while. But he fixes on it an indelible stain, if he exercises any mechanical vocation. "Hence," says Capmany, "I have often seen a village in this province, in which the vagabonds, smugglers, and hangmen even, were natives, while the farrier, shoemaker, etc., was a foreigner." (Mem. de Barcelona, tom. i. part. 3, p. 40; tom. iii. part. 2, pp. 317, 318.) See also some sensible remarks on the subject, by Blanco White, the ingenious author of Doblado's Letters from Spain, p. 44.

[126] "The interval between the acquisition of money, and the rise of prices," Hume observes," is the only time when increasing gold and silver are favorable to industry." (Essays, part 2, essay 3.) An ordinance of June 13th, 1497, complains of the scarcity of the precious metals, and their insufficiency to the demands of trade. (Pragmáticas del Reyno, fol. 93.) It appears, however, from Zuñiga, that the importation of gold from the New World began to have a sensible effect on the prices of commodities, from that very year. Annales de Sevilla, p. 415.

[127] Mr. Turner has made several extracts from the Harleian MSS., showing that the trade of Castile with England was very considerable in Isabella's time. (History of England, vol. iv. p. 90.) A pragmatic of July 21st, 1494, for the erection of a consulate at Burgos, notices the commercial establishments in England, France, Italy, and the Low Countries. This tribunal, with other extensive privileges, was empowered to hear and determine suits between merchants; "which," says the plain spoken ordinance, "in the hands of lawyers are never brought to a close; porque se presentauan escritos y libelos de letrados de manera que por mal pleyto que fuesse le sostenian los letrados de manera que los hazian immortales." (Pragmáticas del Reyno, fol. 146-148.) This institution rose soon to be of the greatest importance in Castile.

[128] The sixth volume of the Memoirs of the Academy of History contains a schedule of the respective revenues afforded by the cities of Castile, in the years 1477, 1482, and 1504; embracing, of course, the commencement and close of Isabella's reign. The original document exists in the archives of Simancas. We may notice the large amount and great increase of taxes in Toledo, particularly, and in Seville; the former thriving from its manufactories, and the latter from the Indian trade. Seville, in 1504, furnished near a tenth of the whole revenue. Ilustracion 5.

[129] "No ay en ella," says Marineo of the latter city, "gente ociosa, ni baldia, sino que todos trabajan, ansi mugeres como hombres, y los chicos como los grandes, buscando la vida con sus manos, y con sudores de sus carnes. Unos exercitan las artes mecánicas: y otros las liberales. Los que tratan las mercaderias, y hazen rica la ciudad, son muy fieles, y liberales." (Cosas Memorables, fol. 16.) It will not be easy to meet, in prose or verse, with a finer colored picture of departed glory, than Mr. Slidell has given of the former city, the venerable Gothic capital, in his "Year in Spain," chap. 12.

[130] Sandoval, Hist. del Emp. Carlos V., tom. i. p. 60.

[131] It was a common saying in Navagiero's time, "Barcelona la ricca, Saragossa la barta, Valentia la hermosa." (Viaggio, fol. 5.) The grandeur and commercial splendor of the first-named city, which forms the subject of Capmany's elaborate work, have been sufficiently displayed in Part I., Chapter 2, of this History.

[132] "Algunos suponen," says Capmany, "que estas ferias eran ya famosas en tiempo de los Reyes Católicos," etc. (Mem. de Barcelona, tom. iii. p. 356.) A very cursory glance at the laws of this time, will show the reasonableness of the supposition. See the Pragmáticas, fol. 146, and the ordinances from the archives of Simancas, apud Mem. de Acad., tom. vi. pp. 249, 252, providing for the erection of buildings and other accommodations for the "great resort of traders." In 1520, four years after Ferdinand's death, the city, in a petition to the regent, represented the losses sustained by its merchants in the recent fire, as more than the revenues of the crown would probably be able to meet for several years. (Ibid., p. 264.) Navagiero, who visited Medina some six years later, when it was rebuilt, bears unequivocal testimony to its commercial importance. "Medina è buona terra, e piena di buone case, abondante assai se non che le tante ferie che se vi fanno ogn' anno, e il concorso grande che vi è di tutta Spagna, fanno pur che il tutto si paga più di quel che si faria…. La feria è abondante certo di molte cose, ma sopra tutto di speciarie assai, che vengono di Portogallo; ma le maggior faccende che se vi facciano sono cambij." Viaggio, fol. 36.

[133]

"Quien no vió á Sevilla No vió maravilla."

The proverb, according to Zuñiga, is as old as the time of Alonso XI. Annales de Sevilla, p. 183.

[134] The most eminent sculptors were, for the most part, foreigners;—as Miguel Florentin, Pedro Torregiano, Felipe de Borgoña,—chiefly from Italy, where the art was advancing rapidly to perfection in the school of Michael Angelo. The most successful architectural achievement was the cathedral of Granada, by Diego de Siloe. Pedraza, Antiguedad de Granada, fol. 82.—Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. Ilust. 16.

[135] At least so says Clemencin, a competent judge. "Desde los mismos principios de su establecimiento fue mas comun la imprenta en España que lo es al cabo de trescientos años dentro ya del siglo décimonono." Elogio de Doña Isabel, Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi.

[136] Ante, Introduction, Sect. 2; Part 1., Chapter 19; Part II., Chapter 21.—The "Pragmáticas del Reyno" comprises various ordinances, defining the privileges of Salamanca and Valladolid, the manner of conferring degrees, and of election to the chairs of the universities, so as to obviate any undue influence or corruption. (Fol. 14-21.) "Porque," says the liberal language of the last law, "los estudios generales donde las ciencias se leen y aprenden effuerçan las leyes y fazen a los nuestros subditos y naturales sabidores y honrrados y acrecientan virtudes: y porque en el dar y assignar de las cátedras salariadas deue auer toda libertad porque sean dadas á personas sabidores y cientes." (Taraçona, October 5th, 1495.) If one would see the totally different principles on which such elections have been conducted in modern times, let him read Doblado's Letters from Spain, pp. 103-107. The university of Barcelona was suppressed in the beginning of the last century. Laborde has taken a brief survey of the present dilapidated condition of the others, at least as it was in 1830, since which it can scarcely have mended. Itinéraire, tom. vi. p. 144, et seq.

[137] See the concluding note to this chapter.

Erasmus, in a lively and elegant epistle to his friend, Francis Vergara, Greek professor at Alcalá, in 1527, lavishes unbounded panegyric on the science and literature of Spain, whose palmy state he attributes to Isabella's patronage, and the co-operation of some of her enlightened subjects. "——Hispaniae vestrae, tanto successu, priscam eruditionis gloriam sibi postliminiò vindicanti. Quae quum semper et regionis amoenitate fertilitaléque, semper ingeniorum eminentium ubere proventu, semper bellicâ laude floruerit, quid desiderari poterat ad summam felicitatem, nisi ut studiorum et religionis adjungeret ornamenta, quibus aspirante Deo sic paucis annis effloruit ut caeteris regionibus quamlibet hoc decorum genere praecellentibus vel invidiae queat esse vel exemplo…. Vos istam felicitatem secundum Deum debetis laudatissimae Reginarum Elisabetae, Francisco Cardinali quondam, Alonso Fonsecae nunc Archiepiscopo Toletano, et si qui sunt horum similes, quorum autoritas tuetur, benignitas alit fovetque bonas artes." Epistolae, p. 978.

[138] The sums in the text express the real de vellon; to which they have been reduced by Señor Clemencin, from the original amount in maravedis, which varied very materially in value in different years. Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. Ilust. 5.

[139] The kingdom of Granada appears to have contributed rather less than one-eighth of the whole tax.

[140] In addition to the last-mentioned sum, the extraordinary service voted by cortes, for the dowry of the infantas, and other matters, in 1504, amounted to 16,113,014 reals de vellon; making a sum total for that year, of 42,396,348 reals. The bulk of the crown revenues was derived from the alcavalas, and the tercias, or two-ninths of the ecclesiastical tithes. These important statements were transcribed from the books of the escribanía mayor de rentas, in the archives of Simancas. Ibid., ubi supra.

[141] The pretended amount of population has been generally in the ratio of the distance of the period taken, and, of course, of the difficulty of refutation. A few random remarks of ancient writers have proved the basis for the wildest hypotheses, raising the estimates to the total of what the soil, under the highest possible cultivation, would be capable of supporting. Even for so recent a period as Isabella's time, the estimate commonly received does not fall below eighteen or twenty millions. The official returns, cited in the text, of the most populous portion, of the kingdom, fully expose the extravagance of preceding estimates.

[142] These interesting particulars are obtained from a memorial, prepared by order of Ferdinand and Isabella, by their contador, Alonso de Quintanilla, on the mode of enrolling and arming the militia, in 1492; as a preliminary step to which, he procured a census of the actual population of the kingdom. It is preserved in a volume entitled Relaciones tocantes a la junta de la Hernandad, in that rich national repository, the archives of Simancas. See a copious extract apud Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. Apend. 12.

[143] I am acquainted with no sufficient and authentic data for computing the population, at this time, of the crown of Aragon, always greatly below that of the sister kingdom. I find as little to be relied on, notwithstanding the numerous estimates, in one form or another, vouchsafed by historians and travelers, of the population of Granada. Marineo enumerates fourteen cities and ninety-seven towns (omitting, as he says, many places of less note,) at the time of the conquest; a statement obviously too vague for statistical purposes. (Cosas Memorables, fol. 179.) The capital, swelled by the influx from the country, contained, according to him, 200,000 souls at the same period. (Fol. 177.) In 1506, at the time of the forced conversions, we find the numbers in the city dwindled to fifty, or at most, seventy thousand. (Comp. Bleda, Corónica, lib. 5, cap. 23, and Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 159.) Loose as these estimates necessarily are, we have no better to guide us in calculating the total amount of the population of the Moorish kingdom, or of the losses sustained by the copious emigrations, during the first fifteen years after the conquest; although there has been no lack of confident assertion, as to both, in later writers. The desideratum, in regard to Granada, will now probably not be supplied; the public offices in the kingdom of Aragon, if searched with the same industry as those in Castile, would doubtless afford the means for correcting the crude estimates, so current respecting that country.

[144] Hallam, in his "Constitutional History of England," estimates the population of the realm, in 1485, at 3,000,000, (vol. i. p. 10.) The discrepancies, however, of the best historians on this subject, prove the difficulty of arriving at even a probable result. Hume, on the authority of Sir Edward Coke, puts the population of England (including people of all sorts) a century later, in 1588, at only 900,000. The historian cites Lodovico Guicciardini, however, for another estimate, as high as 2,000,000, for the same reign of Queen Elizabeth. History of England, vol. vi. Append. 3.

[145] Philip II. claimed the Portuguese crown in right of his mother and his wife, both descended from Maria, third daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, who, as the reader may remember, married King Emanuel.

[146] Old Caxton mourns over the little honor paid to the usages of chivalry in his time; and it is sufficient evidence of its decay in England, that Richard III. thought it necessary to issue an ordinance requiring those possessed of the requisite £40 a year, to receive knighthood. (Turner, History of England, vol. iii. pp. 391, 392.) The use of artillery was fatal to chivalry; a consequence well understood, even at the early period of our History. At least, so we may infer from the verses of Ariosto, where Orlando throws Cimosco's gun into the sea.

"Lo tolse e disse: Acciò più non istea Mai cavalier per te d'essere ardito; Nè quanto il buono val, mai più si vanti Il rio per te valer, qui giu rimanti." Orlando Furioso, canto 9, st. 90.

[147] "Quien podrá, contar," exclaims the old Curate of Los Palacios, "la grandeza, el concierto de su corte, la cavallería de los Nobles de toda España, Duques, Maestres, Marqueses é Ricos homes; los Galanes, las Damas, las Fiestas, los Torneos, la Moltitud de Poetas é trovadores," etc. Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 201.

[148] Oviedo notices the existence of a lady-love, even with cavaliers who had passed their prime, as a thing of quite as imperative necessity in his day, as it was afterwards regarded by the gallant knight of La Mancha. "Costumbre es en España entre log señores de estado que venidos á la corte, aunque nó estén enamorados ó que pasen de la mitad de la edad fingir que aman por servir y favorescer á alguna dama, y gastar como quien son en fiestas y otras cosas que se ofrescen de tales pasatiempos y amores, sin que les dé pena Cupido." Quincuagenas, MS., bat. 1, quinc. 1, dial. 28.

[149] Viaggio, fol. 27.

Andrea Navagiero, whose itinerary has been of such frequent reference in these pages, was a noble Venetian, born in 1483. He became very early distinguished, in his cultivated capital, for his scholarship, poetical talents, and eloquence, of which he has left specimens, especially in Latin verse, in the highest repute to this day with his countrymen. He was not, however, exclusively devoted to letters, but was employed in several foreign missions by the republic. It was on his visit to Spain, as minister to Charles V., soon after that monarch's accession, that he wrote his Travels; and he filled the same office at the court of Francis I., when he died, at the premature age of forty-six, in 1529. (Tiraboschi, Letteratura Italiana, tom. vii. part. 3, p. 228, ed. 1785.) His death was universally lamented by the good and the learned of his time, and is commemorated by his friend, Cardinal Bembo, in two sonnets, breathing all the sensibility of that tender and elegant poet. (Rime, Son. 109, 110.) Navagiero becomes connected with Castilian literature by the circumstance of Boscan's referring to his suggestion the innovation he so successfully made in the forms of the national verse. Obras, fol. 20, ed. 1543.

[150] Fernando de Pulgar, after enumerating various cavaliers of his acquaintance, who had journeyed to distant climes in quest of adventures and honorable feats of arms, continues, "E oí decir de otros Castellanos que con ánimo de Caballeros fueron por los Reynos estrafios á facer armas con qualquier Caballero que quisiere facerlas con ellos, é por ellas ganaron honra para sí, é fama de valientes y esforzados Caballeros para los Fijosdalgos de Castilla." Claros Varones, tit. 17.

[151] "Son todos," says the Admiral, "de ningun ingenio en las armas, y muy cobardes, que mil no aguadarian tres!" (Primer Viage de Colon.) What could the bard of chivalry say more?

"Ma quel ch'al timor non diede albergo, Estima la vil turba e l'arme tante Quel che dentro alla mandra all' aer cupo, Il numer dell' agnelle estimi il lupo." Orlando Furioso, canto 12.

[152] L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, fol. 30.

[153] "I Spagnoli," says the Venetian minister, "non solo in questo paese di Granata, ma in tutto 'l resto della Spagna medesimamente, non sono molto industriosi, ne piantano, ne lavorano volontieri la terra; ma se danno ad altro, e più volontieri vanno alia guerra, o alle Indie ad acquistarsi facultà, che per tal vie." (Viaggio, fol. 25.) Testimonies to the same purport thicken, as the stream of history descends. See several collected by Capmany (Mem. de Barcelona, tom. iii. pp. 358, et seq.), who certainly cannot be charged with ministering to the vanity of his countrymen.

[154] One may trace its immediate influence in the writings of a man like the Curate of Los Palacios, naturally, as it would seem, of an amiable, humane disposition; but who complacently remarks, "They (Ferdinand and Isabella) lighted up the fires for the heretics, in which, with good reason, they have burnt, and shall continue to burn, so long as a soul of them remains"! (Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 7.) It becomes more perceptible in the literature of later times, and, what is singular, most of all in the lighter departments of poetry and fiction, which seem naturally devoted to purposes of pleasure. No one can estimate the full influence of the Inquisition in perverting moral sense, and infusing the deadly venom of misanthropy into the heart, who has not perused the works of the great Castilian poets, of Lope de Vega, Ercilla, above all Calderon, whose lips seem to have been touched with fire from the very altars of this accursed tribunal.

[155] The late secretary of the Inquisition has made an elaborate computation of the number of its victims. According to him, 13,000 were publicly burned by the several tribunals of Castile and Aragon, and 191,413 suffered other punishments, between 1481, the date of the commencement of the modern institution, and 1518. (Hist. de l'Inquisition, tom. iv. chap. 46.) Llorente appears to have come to these appalling results by a very plausible process of calculation, and without any design to exaggerate. Nevertheless, his data are exceedingly imperfect, and he has himself, on a revision, considerably reduced, in his fourth volume, the original estimates in the first. I find good grounds for reducing them still further. 1. He quotes Mariana, for the fact, that 2000 suffered martyrdom at Seville, in 1481, and makes this the basis of his calculations for the other tribunals of the kingdom. Marineo, a contemporary, on the other hand, states, that "in the course of a few years they burned nearly 2000 heretics;" thus not only diffusing this amount over a greater period of time, but embracing all the tribunals then existing in the country. (Cosas Memorables, fol. 164.) 2. Bernaldez states, that five-sixths of the Jews resided in the kingdom of Castile. (Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 110.) Llorente, however, has assigned an equal amount of victims to each of the five tribunals of Aragon, with those of the sister kingdom, excepting only Seville.

One might reasonably distrust Llorente's tables, from the facility with which he receives the most improbable estimates in other matters, as, for example, the number of banished Jews, which he puts at 800,000. (Hist. de l'Inquisition, tom. i. p. 261.) I have shown, from contemporary sources, that this number did not probably exceed 160,000, or, at most, 170,000. (Part I., Chapter 17.) Indeed, the cautious Zurita, borrowing, probably, from the same authorities, cites the latter number. (Anales, tom. v. fol. 9.) Mariana, who owes so much of his narrative to the Aragonese historian, converting, as it would appear, these 170,000 individuals into families, states the whole in round numbers, at 800,000 souls. (Hist. de España, tom. ii. lib. 26, cap. 1.) Llorente, not content with this, swells the amount still further, by that of the Moorish exiles, and by emigrants to the New World, (on what authority?) to 2,000,000; and, going on with the process, computes that this loss may fairly infer one of 8,000,000 inhabitants to Spain, at the present day! (Ibid., ubi supra.) Thus the mischief imputed to the Catholic sovereigns goes on increasing in a sort of arithmetical progression, with the duration of the monarchy.

Nothing is so striking to the imagination as numerical estimates; they speak a volume in themselves, saving a world of periphrasis and argument; nothing is so difficult to form with exactness, or even probability, when they relate to an early period; and nothing more carelessly received, and confidently circulated. The enormous statements of the Jewish exiles, and the baseless ones of the Moorish, are not peculiar to Llorente, but have been repeated, without the slightest qualification or distrust, by most modern historians and travellers.

[156] In the two closing Chapters of Part I. of this History, I have noticed the progress of letters in this reign; the last which displayed the antique coloring and truly national characteristics of Castilian poetry. There were many circumstances, which operated, at this period, to work an important revolution, and subject the poetry of the Peninsula to a foreign influence. The Italian Muse, after her long silence, since the age of the tricentisti, had again revived, and poured forth such ravishing strains, as made themselves heard and felt in every corner of Europe. Spain, in particular, was open to their influence. Her language had an intimate affinity with the Italian. The improved taste and culture of the period led to a diligent study of foreign models. Many Spaniards, as we have seen, went abroad to perfect themselves in the schools of Italy; while Italian teachers filled some of the principal chairs in the Spanish universities. Lastly, the acquisition of Naples, the land of Sannazaro and of a host of kindred spirits, opened an obvious communication with the literature of that country. With the nation thus prepared, it was not difficult for a genius like that of Boscan, supported by the tender and polished Garcilasso, and by Mendoza, whose stern spirit found relief in images of pastoral tranquillity and ease, to recommend the more finished forms of Italian versification to their countrymen. These poets were all born in Isabella's reign. The first of them, the principal means of effecting this literary revolution, singularly enough, was a Catalan, whose compositions in the Castilian proved the ascendency which this dialect had already obtained. The second, Garcilasso de la Vega, was son of the distinguished statesman and diplomatist of that name, so often noticed in our History; and Mendoza was a younger son of the amiable count of Tendilla, the governor of Granada, whom he resembled in nothing but his genius. Both the elder Garcilasso and Tendilla had represented their sovereigns at the papal court, where they doubtless became tinctured with that relish for the Italian, which produced such results in the education of their children.

The new revolution penetrated far below the superficial forms of versification; and the Castilian poet relinquished, with his redondillas and artless asonantes, the homely, but heartful themes of the olden time; or, if he dwelt on them, it was with an air of studied elegance and precision, very remote from the Doric simplicity and freshness of the romantic minstrelsy. If he aspired to some bolder theme, it was rarely suggested by the stirring and patriotic recollections of his nation's history. Thus, nature and the rude graces of a primitive age gave way to superior refinement and lettered elegance; many popular blemishes were softened down, a purer and nobler standard was attained, but the national characteristics were effaced; beauty was everywhere, but it was the beauty of art, not of nature. The change itself was perfectly natural. It corresponded with the external circumstances of the nation, and its transition from an insulated position to a component part of the great European commonwealth, which subjected it to other influences and principles of taste, and obliterated, to a certain extent, the peculiar features of the national physiognomy.

How far the poetic literature of Castile was benefited by the change, has been matter of long and hot debate between the critics of the country, in which I shall not involve the reader. The revolution, however, was the growth of circumstances, and was immediately effected by individuals, belonging to the age of Ferdinand and Isabella. As such, I had originally proposed to devote a separate chapter to its illustration. But I have been deterred from it by the unexpected length, to which the work has already extended, as well as by the consideration, on a nearer view, that these results, though prepared under a preceding reign, properly fall under the domestic history of Charles V.; a history which still remains to be written. But who will attempt a pendant to the delineations of Robertson?