Roman Catholicism in Spain
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Title: Roman Catholicism in Spain
Author: Anonymous
Release date: June 3, 2009 [eBook #29025]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29025
Credits: Transcribed from the 1855 Johnstone and Hunter edition by David Price
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROMAN CATHOLICISM IN SPAIN ***
Transcribed from the 1855 Johnstone and Hunter edition by David Price,
email ccx074@pglaf.org
ROMAN CATHOLICISM
IN SPAIN.
* * * * *
BY
AN OLD RESIDENT.
* * * * *
EDINBURGH:
JOHNSTONE & HUNTER.
LONDON: R. GROOMBRIDGE & SONS.
* * * * *
M.DCCC.LV.
* * * * *
EDINBURGH:
PRINTED BY JOHNSTONE AND HUNTER,
HIGH STREET.
CONTENTS.
Page
INTRODUCTION--Variableness of outward practice of 7
Christianity--The like as to that of Mahometanism--Roman
Catholicism most subject to that modification--Excesses of
Roman Catholicism in Spain accounted for by Spanish
history--The Goths and Moors of Africa--Their conversion
to Christianity--The aborigines of America--Traditional
coincidences with scriptural truth--National character of
the religion of Spaniards--Religion of the
affections--Santa Teresa--Amatory propensities in
connection with religion--Knight-errantry--Motto of
Spanish nobility--The four primitive
orders--Loyola--Religion the pretext for wars of
Spain--Three distinct features of the national character
of Spaniards, illustrated by Isabella the Catholic,
Charles V., and Philip II.
CHAPTER I.
THE SPANISH CLERGY--Their primitive state--Their 31
subsequent organization--_Barraganas_--Immoral practices
of the clergy--Their wealth, and its sources--Their
territorial possessions--Their influence and
incomes--Their opposition to the sciences--Their
ultramontane principles--The "pass" of the Spanish
sovereign necessary to the validity of the Pope's
bulls--Doctrine of the Jansenists favoured by the
ministers of Charles III.--Port-Royal and San
Isidro--Parish priests--Sources of their income--Many of
them good men, but deficient in scriptural knowledge and
teaching--Their preaching--Abolition of tithes by the
minister, Mendizabal--Effects of that measure--Poverty and
present state of the clergy--Their degraded character and
unpopularity--Their timidity in recent times of
tumult--Ecclesiastical writers of the Peninsula--Power of
the Inquisition curtailed by Charles III.
CHAPTER II.
MONACHISM--The superiority of the monastic over the 47
secular clergy--Reasons for it--Orders of Monks--The
Carthusians--Their advancement in agriculture, and love of
the fine arts--Their seclusion and mode of living--Only
learned men admitted to their order--Their form of
salutation--Curious adventure of a lady found in the cell
of a Carthusian--The Hieronimites--The Mendicant
orders--"Pious works"--The _Questacion_--Decline of Spain
accounted for--Vows of chastity, poverty, and
obedience--How vow of poverty eluded--_La
honesta_--Vicar-general of the Franciscan orders--His
immense income--Religious orders have produced many great
and good men--Cardinal Ximenez de Cisneros--His celebrated
Bible--Corruption of monastic orders--Insubordination of
friars to the bishops--The Jesuits--Deplorable reputation
of their literature--Pascal, Escobar, Sanchez, and
Mariana--Suppression of the Jesuits by Charles III.--Their
subsequent expulsion by Espartero under Isabella
II.--Nunneries, though spared on suppression of religious
houses, utterly useless--The Pope's attempt to perpetuate
them by _concordat_--The lives of the nuns
described--Their means of subsistence is now
precarious--Convent de las Huelgas.
CHAPTER III.
CELIBACY AND MORALS--Illicit relations formed by the 73
clergy--Shameless avowal of their fruits--Ferocious
character of love in the cloisters--Three flagrant
cases--Murder of a young lady by her confessor, the
Carmelite of San Lucar--His trial and sentence--Murder by
a wife of her husband under the direction of her
confessor, the Capuchine of Cuenca--His trial,
imprisonment, and escape--Murder of a lady by the
Agonizante of Madrid--His trial and execution--Scandalous
occurrences in the Convent of the Basilios of
Madrid--Forcible entry of the civil power--Murder of the
abbot--Suppression of inquiry--Shameful profligacy of the
Capuchines of Cascante and the nuns of a neighbouring
convent--Mode of its discovery--Imprisonment of inmates of
both convents--Removal of prisoners--Their mysterious
escape--Exemplary performance of vows in some
cases--Dangers of celibacy--Spanish women and their
influence on society
CHAPTER IV.
THE MASS--Its introduction but modern--The Spaniard Lainez 87
opposed it--On what grounds--Description of the
ceremony--Its religious and secular
peculiarities--Sacerdotal vestments worn while celebrating
it--High and Low Mass--Both performed in an unknown
tongue--Consequent indifference of the
congregation--Mercenary character of the mass--"_Masses
for the intention_"--Masses for the dead--The solemn mass
on Christmas eve, or _Noche buena_--Its profane
accompaniments--Passion week--Thursday--Good
Friday--Adoration of the Cross--Processions--Anecdotes of
Isabella II.--Brilliant rites and ceremonies on the day
after Good Friday--Uproarious conduct of the faithful on
that occasion--The mass as celebrated at Toledo--Judicial
combat, or judgment of God
CHAPTER V.
DEVOTION of Protestants scriptural and reasonable--That of 102
Roman Catholics poetical and affectionate--Religious
enthusiasm leads to insanity--Mental devotion as
distinguished from physical--Nature of Roman Catholic
devotion accounted for by the worship of
images--Intercession of saints--Saint Anthony--The
illiterate guided by bodily vision rather than spiritual
discernment--Horace confirms this--Illustrated by popular
errors--Sensual and poetical elements were introduced to
devotion by the Greeks--Destruction of images by the
Emperor Leo the Iconoclast--Opinion of Pope Leo the
Great--Images adorned like human beings perplex the mind
between truth and fiction--Familiar
examples--Money-contributions for adornment of
images--Belief that saints can cure certain
complaints--List of those--Saint Anthony of Padua's
miracles--The fete of _San Anton Abad_--Virgin Mary, and
her innumerable advocations--A list of several--The
Rosary--Statues of the Virgin--Immense value of their
wardrobes and trinkets--The most ugly of those statues
excite most devotion--Virgin of Zaragoza--The heart of
Mary--Month of Mary (May)--Kissing images--Anecdote of the
Duke of A--- and his courtezan--Habits and
promises--Penance
CHAPTER VI.
FEAST-DAYS--Processions and Novenas--Corpus Christi--How 122
performed in Seville, and the sacred dances of _los
seises_--How in Madrid--Procession of Holy Week--The
_Santo Entierro_--Clerical processions--Procession of the
Rosary--Rites of Roman Catholicism--Jubilee of forty
hours--_Romerias_ or pilgrimages
CHAPTER VII.
PURGATORY--Deliverance from by devotions of 142
survivors--Those devotions described--Difference between
dogma of purgatory and other dogmas--Modes of drawing out
souls--Masses for the dead--Legacies to pay for
them--External representations of images and pictures--Day
of All Souls and its practices--The Andalusian
Confraternity of Souls--_Mandas piadosas_--Debtor and
creditor account between the church and purgatory--How
balanced--Bull of
Composition--Soul-days--_Responses_--_Cepillo_, or
alms-box--Financial operation--Origin of bills of exchange
and clearing house--Wax Candles--Their
efficacy--Cenotaphs--Summary of funds, and reflections on
their misapplication
CHAPTER VIII.
AURICULAR CONFESSION--A sacrament inseparable from that of 152
communion--Obligatory on all once a year--Plan of
discovering defaulters--How punished--Evils of
confession--Power of the priest--Four evils pointed
out--Discoveries in the Inquisition in 1820--Facility of
obtaining absolution--Louis XIV.--Robbers and
assassins--The confessional--Practice, how
conducted--Expiatory acts--Refusal of absolution--A
husband disguised as his wife's confessor--The injunction
of secrecy on part of confessor--Advantages of the
knowledge he gains--Jesuits advocate the confessional--No
fees for confession, but gratuities are generally given
CHAPTER IX.
FASTS AND PENANCES--How observed--Indulgences--Spain is 170
privileged by the Bull of the Holy Crusade--Description of
that bull--Prices of copies--Commissary-General of
Crusades--His revenues--Their shameful application--Copy
of that bull--Other acts of penance--The _Disciplina_ or
whipping--_Cilicios_
CHAPTER X.
FALSE MIRACLES, RELICS, AND RELIGIOUS 187
IMPOSITIONS--Veneration of crucifixes and statues or
images--Their power of healing--Picture at Cadiz--_Lignum
Crucis_--Veronica--Bodies of saints--How
procured--Inscriptions--Lives of saints--Maria de
Agreda--St Francis--Scandalous representation of the
appearance of the Virgin to a saint--Fray Diego de
Cadiz--_Beata_ Clara--Her fame and downfall--The nun,
Sister Patrocinio--Her success, detection, confession, and
expulsion--She returns, and is protected by a high
personage--She is again expelled, but again returns and
founds a convent--Its disgraceful character and
suppression--Her flight towards Rome--Occurrences on the
road--Her return to Spain
CONCLUSION 201
Introduction
Variableness of outward practice of Christianity--The like as to that of
Mahometanism--Roman Catholicism most subject to that
modification--Excesses of Roman Catholicism in Spain accounted for by
Spanish history--The Goths and Moors of Africa--Their conversion to
Christianity--The aborigines of America--Traditional coincidences with
scriptural truth--National character of the religion of
Spaniards--Religion of the affections--Santa Teresa--Amatory propensities
in connection with religion--Knight-errantry--Motto of Spanish
nobility--The four primitive orders--Loyola--Religion the pretext for
wars of Spain--Three distinct features of the national character of
Spaniards, illustrated by Isabella the Catholic, Charles V., and Philip
II.
Christianity, although of divine origin, and, consequently, like all that
participates in the essence of Divinity, immutable in its doctrines and
creeds, submits itself nevertheless, in outward practice, to the
incidents common to all human institutions, and receives an impression
from the particular character of the people who observe its rites, and
subject their conduct to its precepts. Every religious idea lays hold on
the heart and understanding: consequently the state of the affections and
the intellectual bias of each nation must communicate to the worship it
professes a particular influence, which is seen, not only in the way in
which ceremonies are practised, or in the organization of the hierarchy,
or in the style and language which man uses in addressing the Deity, but
in the entire system of actions, relations, and thoughts, which
constitutes what is called worship.
Worship participates in the impulse which a nation has received at its
origin,--from its historical antecedents,--from its political
system,--and from the peculiarities which predominate in the formation of
its intelligence. The Greek polytheism did not distinguish itself from
the Roman either in its theogony or its rites; but there is no doubt that
the former was more poetical, more artistic, and more scrupulous than the
latter. The Romans, being brought into close contact with all the
nations of the earth, and having become subjugated by the insolent
despotism of the Caesars, opened the doors of their Pantheon, not only to
the Goths of Egypt and of Gaul, but to monsters of cruelty, and to men
sunk in every class of those vices which had stained the throne of
Augustus. The Greeks, lovers of science, had placed their city of Athens
under the protection of Minerva; but Rome was too proud to humble herself
by playing the inferior part of the protected. In order to provide for
her own security, she declared herself a goddess, and erected her own
temples and altars. The Roman priests were warriors and magistrates;
those of Athens were philosophers and poets. The same observations apply
to Mahometanism. In India it has always shown itself more contemplative,
more tolerant, than in Arabia, Turkey, or on the northern coast of
Africa, and when it propagated itself in the southern regions of Europe,
its stern inflexibility was not able to resist even the influence of
clime; the perfumed breezes of the Betis and the Xenil despoiled it, in
part, of the austere physiognomy which had been impressed on its whole
structure by the sands of Arabia. Even the severe laws of the harem were
relaxed in the courts of Boabdil and of Almanzor, for the wives of those
two monarchs, openly, and without shame, took part in the pompous fetes
of the Alhambra and of the _serrania_ of Cordova.
Of all the religious systems hitherto known, none allows itself, with so
much docility, to be modified by external circumstances which constitute
the national character as does Roman Catholicism; and there are many
causes for this: Roman Catholicism exercises an infinitely greater
dominion over the senses than over the reason and intelligence; the
objects of its veneration, of its meditations, and of its devotional
practices, are infinitely more various and numerous than those of any
other sect of Christians; it introduces itself, so to speak, to all the
occupations of life, in all hours of the day, in the trades, professions,
amusements, and even gallantries of individuals; it fetters their reason,
and deprives it of all liberty and independence; and, above all, it
raises up in the midst of society, a privileged and isolated class,
superior to the power of the law and the government; into the hands of
that class it puts an absolute and irresistible authority, which is
exercised by invisible means, but means far more efficacious and terrible
in their effects than those of the civil power. From this universal and
irresistible predominance it results that the entire existence of the
Roman Catholic is a continual observance of the worship which he
professes, and consequently, that Roman Catholicism, at the same time
that it entirely modifies man, must of necessity, in its turn, receive,
in some degree, the impress of that temper which nature has bestowed upon
him. Thus we see that Roman Catholicism is more zealous, more
enthusiastic, more turbulent, in Ireland, more artistic in Italy, more
philosophic in Germany, more literary and discursive in France, more
idolatrous in the States of South America, more reserved and modest, more
decent and tolerant, less ambitious in its aspirations, and less
audacious in its polemics, in England than in any other part of the
world.
As to Roman Catholicism in Spain: we see thrown in its face its cruel
intolerance, its puerile practices, its profane language, its blind
submission, or rather the absolute slavery in which it places the
believer with respect to the priest. There is much truth in these
charges; but all of them are accounted for by an observance of history,
and by a knowledge of the natural character and circumstances which have
contributed to foster and strengthen religious sentiments in Spain.
The intolerance of Roman Catholicism in the Peninsula, carried to
tyranny, and, frequently, even to ferocity, has been a consequence of the
religious wars of six centuries,--wars which the Goths sustained with
unwearied perseverance against the Moors of Africa. The Goths had
embraced the Christian religion with all the ardour and sincerity
peculiar to a nation but recently delivered from a violent and savage
state; for, although a generous race, they were ignorant and coarse in
their habits. Their conversion to Christianity not only entirely
modified their moral and religious notions, and introduced among them a
greater elevation of feeling and an amplitude of ideas, but associated,
intimately, the religious with the poetical sentiment, in such a manner
that, in their eyes, every enemy of Christ was the enemy of the whole
nation; difference of creed, therefore, according to their rude code of
international laws, was a legitimate cause of war. In their eyes the
unbeliever was a political enemy. Mere contact with an unbaptized person
was considered a pollution. They believed that all who did not worship
Christ were worshippers of the devil, and that Mahomet and the Moses of
the Jews were nothing more than the representatives and agents of the
fallen angel. Whilst those ideas were gaining ascendancy, the clergy,
the only depositaries of letters and of knowledge, were rapidly
possessing themselves of power, riches, and influence, and endeavouring
to conserve and confirm those advantages by all possible means. Of those
means none was so convenient, in times of continual violence and warfare,
to the habits of a nation just emerging from a savage state, and which
recognised no other merit than physical force and warlike valour, as that
of encouraging those sanguinary and ruthless propensities, sanctifying
them in some way or other by religious sentiment, and stirring up and
inflaming the passions of the nation, with a view of exterminating all
persons who did not acknowledge the jurisdiction of the church and the
power of its ministers. Thus it happened that Christianity, from a very
early period after its introduction to Spain, was deprived of that spirit
of meekness, suavity, and tolerance, impressed upon it by its Divine
Founder, and became possessed of a spirit of the most implacable
resentment against every person who had not gone through the baptismal
ceremony; and thus, also, it was that the religion of the country
degenerated into a violent and revengeful sentiment, and took part in all
the excesses and all the aberrations of the human passions; thus it was,
in fine, that the national spirit became predisposed to the persecution
of the Jews, Mahometans, and Protestants, by means of that execrable
tribunal, the Inquisition.
Immediately after the conquest of Granada, in which these cruel and
destructive habits were openly displayed, an occasion presented itself
for giving still greater scope to their exercise. The subjugation of the
Continent discovered by Columbus was a war of religion no less than of
ambition and of conquest. The mere circumstance that the aborigines of
America had not received the light of the gospel was sufficient to induce
Spaniards to regard them as so many enemies of God, and as slaves and
worshippers of the devil. In the various forms of religious worship
which prevailed in those vast territories were embodied certain
principles which might, if carried out, have been of great service to the
conquered nation. In nearly all of those forms, the unity of God was
acknowledged, and also, in many of them, the necessity of a spiritual
regeneration. In Mexico, and that part of the country now called Central
America, was preserved a traditional remembrance of a severe chastisement
inflicted by the Supreme Creator on rebellious humanity, but accompanied
with a promise that the species should not be annihilated. That
tradition taught that God had sent into the world his Son, called
_Teot-belche_, in order to repeople the earth;--that this personage had
been shut up in a floating house during the time of the great flood, and
was afraid to venture out, until he had seen an eagle bringing in its
mouth a branch from a tree--a sign that the waters had abated, and that
vegetation had re-appeared. Other great coincidences with revealed truth
discovered themselves in the religious creeds of the people of Mechoacan,
Guatemala, and in those also of the inhabitants of Peru, where the dogma
had acquired a certain degree of elevation and purity, very different
from the sensual ideas so common among the ancient Asiatics. The
conquerors, therefore, whilst attempting to make proselytes to the true
faith might have availed themselves of those antecedents, and could
easily have corrected such notions, although founded on a tradition
having the weight of ancestral authority. The right moral ideas found
already impressed on the minds of these aborigines, especially those of
Peru, might have been encouraged and amplified. Instead of embracing the
system indicated by the mild and conciliatory spirit of Christianity, the
Americans, _en masse_, were considered, from that moment, as enemies of
God, and compelled, sometimes by force, to receive baptism, without any
previous explanation of the origin and design of that rite; at other
times they were tortured with the greatest cruelty, under a notion that
in the extremity of their agony they might be induced to renounce the
only creed which had come to their conviction. Many thousands of that
unhappy people were exterminated, for they did not even understand the
language in which doctrines the most sublime and marvellous in history
were attempted to be enforced.
It has already been observed that this rancorous extravagance of the
religious spirit in Spain had its origin in a political and patriotic
struggle; but long and sanguinary as that was, it could not eradicate the
primitive type of the nation, nor prevent its characteristic qualities
from reflecting themselves in worship, devotion, and every thing else
that constitutes a national religion. Thus it was, that, with those
intolerant and persecuting propensities, were also associated, in Spanish
Catholicism, the gorgeous, romantic, and poetic, which are still
preserved among that semi-oriental race. The Spaniard, endowed with a
lively imagination, appears to identify himself with the objects of his
endearment; his soul is transported by them, and he dresses them up in
his imagination till he fancies they reciprocate his own affections.
This vehement expansion of sentiments frequently opposes his reason, and
transforms his real existence into a perpetual vision. Hence also we
find that his devotion is not only tender and sympathetic, but passionate
and warm. His fervour in prayer arrives at such a pitch as to produce
copious tears. The language of Spain's mystical writers, especially that
of the elegant Santa Teresa de Jesus, contains the same expressions as
those which are used in addressing profane objects of the affections.
One of her most celebrated spiritual songs differs in nothing from those
which might have been written by Ovid or Tibullus. Its burden is this:--
Cubridme de flores,
Que muero de amores. {15}
The word _amores_, in the plural, does not signify merely the abstract
feeling of love, the application of which is as various as are the
objects which inspire it; for example, the divine love, the parental, the
filial, and the sexual. _Amores_ signifies courtship, flirtation,
interchange of sentiments between two lovers; and yet we find this word,
at every turn, in the prayers and ejaculations of devout Spaniards.
The distinguished woman to whom we have alluded carried, even to an
incredible excess, this mixture of the sacred affections with the
profane. In her voluminous writings, unrivalled in purity of language
and elegance of style, she considers herself, always, as the bride of
Jesus Christ, to whom she addresses herself with the same transports of
love, and with the same demonstrations of tender submission and endearing
respect, that might be used by an affectionate and dutiful wife to her
husband. It requires but little knowledge of the human heart to see, at
once, that in this mixture of two sentiments so opposed to each other as
are that of the love profane and that of the love divine, the latter is
liable to succumb to the former; and, in truth, this danger can only be
averted by minds as favoured and as pure as was, without a doubt, the
mind of that extraordinary woman. It is generally the case, and commonly
observed in Spain, that the sensual element dominates over the mystical,
and corrupts it. The common mass of mankind employs devotion as an
instrument favourable to worldly views and to the material interests of
life. In Andalucia, enamoured girls confide to the Virgin their ardent
sorrows and desires, as the following couplet will show, and which is
sung with frequency and is very popular in that province of the
Peninsula:--
La Virgen de las Angustias,
Es la que sabe mi mal,
Pues me meto en su capilla,
Y no me harto de llorar. {16}
With these amatory propensities was naturally bound up that spirit of
knight-errantry which so much distinguished the national character of
Spaniards among all the other nations of Europe; a spirit which neither
the course of centuries, nor intestine nor foreign war, nor even
revolution itself, although it has transformed in a few ages the temper
of modern nations, has been able to blot out. The Spaniard was
completely carried away in a transport by his religious practices, his
gallantry, loyalty, bravery, exalted notions of honour, and other
qualities of the mind, impregnated as they were with that poesy and wild
romance which are delineated with so much propriety and skill by the
immortal Cervantes.
The motto of the Spanish nobility has always been, "My God, my king, and
my lady,"--a very significant one, and one which described in a lively
manner the predominating sentiments of the nation and the equal degree of
veneration and enthusiasm which those three objects excited in the minds
of the people. The Spaniard is always as disposed to brandish the sword
in defence of the religion which he professes, as in that of the king
whom he serves or of the lady whom he loves. The processions and all the
feasts of the church are invariably accompanied by a military show. The
four primitive orders of the nation, viz., Santiago, Alcantara,
Calatrava, and Montesa, were, in their origin, institutions as religious
in their character as the order of the Templars and as that of St John of
Jerusalem. Even in the present day, though they have degenerated, they
preserve still much of their primitive character. The knights, it is
true, do not observe celibacy, as in ancient times; but they still have
churches in which they celebrate sumptuous festivities; they take an oath
to defend the Catholic religion and the doctrine of the immaculate
conception of the Virgin, and to each of these orders there still
pertains a certain number of convents of nuns, who wear the habit and
carry the cross of their respective orders. These nuns are called
_Commendadoras_, and none can be admitted into their numbers but ladies
who are descended from an ancient nobility, preserved for many
generations from any mixture of plebeian blood.
The celebrated Ignatius de Loyola, founder of the order of the Jesuits,
carried this singular amalgamation of piety and of a belligerent spirit
to such an extreme as, in our times, cannot but appear ridiculous. On
the day on which he was made a knight, it being then the custom that a
candidate for such an honour should choose for himself a lady to whose
service he might consecrate his arms, and whose image should be
constantly before him, his election fell upon the Virgin, as in the same
manner did that of Durandarte on Belerma, and that of the celebrated hero
of La Mancha on Dulcinea.
In all wars which have been waged by Spaniards, from the times of Pelayo
down to those of Espartero, religion has been one of the motives which
have impelled them to arms. In the war of succession of 1770, which gave
the throne of Castille to the grandson of Louis XIV., the dispute was
between two nations equally Roman Catholic--Austria and France.
Nevertheless, the circumstance that Great Britain had embraced the cause
of the archduke was sufficient for considering the war as a religious
one; and those who fought for Philip V. regarded the extirpation of the
heretical subjects of the House of Orange as the consolidation of the
Bourbon dynasty. In our own times we have seen these same sentiments
predominating in the civil war of Don Carlos, whose partisans considered
their enemies as impious and as atheists, words which in their dictionary
were synonymous with "constitutional and liberal." Most of the
proclamations emanating from the press of Onate spoke of the dangers
which threatened Roman Catholicism, in case the Christine party should
triumph.
Thus far we have spoken of the influence exercised by the national
character on the religion of Spaniards. That influence has not been
lessened by the circumstance that some of their monarchs have exercised
it, and, among others deserving particular mention, the three gigantic
models, viz., Isabella the Catholic, Charles V., and Philip II. Each one
of the distinctive features which we have hitherto noted in the religion
of Spaniards is represented in history by one or another of those three
sovereigns: Isabella represented the tender, affectionate, and
correlative; Charles, the knight of chivalry and the warrior; Philip, the
cruel and sanguinary persecutor.
Isabella united to her eminent qualities, to her profound policy, to her
unrivalled valour, to her constancy in the prosecution of her designs,
and to the elevation and grandeur of her views, a heart full of
tenderness and benevolence, and an ardent disposition to contribute, by
all possible means, toward the good of her fellow-creatures. Persuaded
that religion was the greatest good which it was possible for man to
enjoy, all her anxiety was concentrated in extending that benefit to the
greatest number of human beings. It was this which induced her to show
herself benevolent and compassionate toward the Moors of Granada after
the conquest of that city; it was this, also, which induced her to lavish
her gifts upon, and afterwards to take under her protection, such of
those Moors as submitted to baptism. All the incidents of her private
life, all her letters, many of which are still extant, show that she was
actuated by the most ardent spirit of Christian charity.
History accuses Isabella of having established the Inquisition in Spain.
This great blot in her character, the origin of many of the misfortunes
and of all the intellectual drawbacks which that nation has experienced,
explains, if it cannot justify, itself, by the circumstances in which, at
that time, the people of the Peninsula were placed. After the surrender
of Granada, there remained in the kingdom a great part of the Mussulman
population. The queen fostered the hope of their conversion to
Christianity and omitted no means to realise it. But the Moors, with
very few exceptions at the beginning, resisted every effort whether by
persuasion or by promises; they became but the more firmly addicted to
their own faith, and being prohibited the public celebration of its
rites, they practised them in secret, with all the zeal and enthusiasm
which the rigours of intolerance invariably produce in the persecuted.
The clergy, who imagined they saw in the religion of Mahomet the worship
of Satan, nay even warriors themselves who had wrought prodigies of
valour and shed their blood in order to exterminate that religion, could
not regard its prevalence with indifference, nor endure the thought that
it should survive the ruin of the capital of the Saracenic empire.
Bitter complaints were made to the queen on account of the impunity with
which such excesses against her authority were committed. To her
indulgence the principal persons of the state attributed the obstinacy of
the Moors who persisted in their errors, and the perfidy of the converted
who were accused of continuing in them after having submitted to the
ordinance of baptism. Religious phrenzy had arrived at its climax; men's
only occupation seemed to be that of building churches, destroying
mosques, and ostentatiously displaying the triumphs of the new creed over
that which for many centuries had polluted the soil. It was impossible
that Isabella could long resist these continuous remonstrances. The
institution of the Inquisition was proposed to her as a last resource to
maintain the purity of the faith, and that woman, superior to the age in
which she lived, and naturally affectionate and charitable, had the
unpardonable weakness of ceding to the councils of the implacable
Torquemada.
Among the qualities for which Isabella was remarkable none were more
admired by contemporary writers than her humility. In proof of this we
have but to follow the line of conduct pursued by her during the whole
course of her existence. She humbled herself before the church, whose
voice she believed she heard through the lips of her confessor.
We have referred to the cruel character of Roman Catholicism in Spain: is
not the Inquisition a proof of it? Experience shows how easily habit
familiarises us with spectacles most revolting to those feelings of pity
and compassion which Nature has bestowed upon us. Habit always destroys
the essential qualities of our moral constitution, sometimes associating
ideas of pleasure and enjoyment with those of blood and destruction; as,
for example, it happened in the games of the circus under the Roman
emperors; nay, some have even looked upon homicide and torture as
religious duties, and a part of the worship due to the Divine Being!
Fanaticism naturally engenders that sacrilegious alliance, and man, under
its irresistible influence, becomes more frightful in his hatred, more
cruel in his hostilities, than the beasts of the forest.
The Inquisition inaugurated, in Spain, a sanguinary fanaticism which
consecrated, as religious virtues, the blackest crimes that man can
commit against his fellow-creatures; and although it must be admitted
that many thousands of human beings perished in the flames for their
religious opinions under the reign of Isabella, yet the natural suavity
of her mind, influenced as it was by the tender and passionate,
repressed, to a considerable degree, those intolerant impulses with which
Torquemada was wont to impose upon the good sense of Spaniards. Isabella
was liberal, even in the sense which that word conveys according to the
language of modern politics. {22} She, doubtless, consented to the
formation of the bloody tribunal; and hence the annals of even her reign
are stained with some of those hecatombs which were more frequent in a
subsequent era, and banished from the Spanish peninsula those mental
energies which, at that time, were enabling human reason to recover her
rights, and Spain once more to occupy that eminent position assigned her,
by Providence, in the scale of creation.
History cannot accuse the Emperor Charles V. with having lent himself, as
a docile instrument, to the intolerant devices of the clergy. Charles
was never the sincere friend of the court of Rome. On the contrary, no
Christian monarch ever treated that court with greater contumely, or in a
manner more hostile and effectively prejudicial to its prosperity and
influence. The war which he made against the Pope, and which terminated
by the invasion of Rome itself, involved that court in all the ills of a
destructive conquest. The pillage and burning of the public temples and
of private houses, the violation of the nuns, the massacre of the
citizens, were not enough to satisfy the fury of his soldiers. Released
suddenly from that respect which, from childhood, they had been
accustomed to show towards the practices and ministers of religion, they
now openly ridiculed them in the streets of Rome, representing mock
processions, dressing themselves up in the splendid and ornamental attire
of cardinals and bishops. Their spirit of profanation and impiety
arrived at the extreme pitch. They composed satirical and other songs
against the Pope--one of these in the form of a parody on our Lord's
prayer--and sung them in the public streets, and even under the windows
of the pontifical palace.
To those deeds, which proved how little the heart of the emperor was
disposed to favour the doctrines of Roman Catholicism, we could add many
others which the patient investigation of German writers have discovered
in the archives of Italy. A tolerable knowledge, however, of the
occurrences of that reign will be sufficient to convince us that Charles
V. was not sincerely religious until age, infirmities, and misanthropy,
had brought upon him the misfortunes which attended the last years of his
life, and induced him to abdicate the crown, and retire to the solitudes
of Yuste. It is already known that, at the beginning of Luther's
rebellion against the Roman church, Charles resolved to avail himself of
the terror which the name of that celebrated reformer inspired in the
hearts of Roman Catholics, in order to intimidate the court of Rome and
humiliate its pride. It is not therefore to be wondered at, that, with
this vacillation of principles and declared antipathy to Rome, Charles
should have regarded, in his dominions, if not with manifest favour, at
least with cold indifference, the propagation of what were then called,
by Spaniards, the new doctrines.
Under his reign, notwithstanding the austere character of his minister,
the Cardinal Ximenes de Cisneros, the Inquisition dared not, in Spain,
commence a system of intolerance.
One proof of this assertion is to be found in the progress which, at that
time, Lutheranism made in the Peninsula. To those days belonged, in
truth, the illustrious victims who were subsequently sacrificed on the
altar of fanaticism, and whose names may be found by the reader in the
celebrated work of M'Crie, or in that of De Castro. {25}
Philip II. ascended the throne, and the whole aspect of the unhappy
nation, delivered over by Providence to the hands of that implacable
enemy of humanity, was entirely changed. Philip's inclination was to
hate and persecute; and religion, in name, afforded him the pretext for
giving vent, with impunity, to those propensities, and covering with a
sacred veil all the excesses of a bloodthirsty and revengeful heart to
which he could abandon himself. Some writers have doubted the sincerity
of his religious sentiments, considering them as mere pretexts, of which
he availed himself in order to suggest false motives for his bitter
spirit in the war which he carried on against Henry IV. of France. And,
in truth, what sincerity could there be in the religion of a man who
lived in perpetual adultery; who seduced the wives of his most faithful
servants; who paid assassins to get rid of men he disliked, and
afterwards relentlessly persecuted these same persons hired by him to
commit such crimes? How could faith, devotion, hope, charity, and
self-consecration to God, exist in combination with vices the most
degrading to human nature, and a system of conduct diametrically opposed
to the letter and spirit of the gospel? But, without discussing those
questions which more properly pertain to the severe tribunal of history
and will be found fully examined in the works cited, it is sufficient,
for the present purpose, to indicate the reign of Philip II. as that
epoch in which an intolerant fanaticism extended its roots wide and deep
in the hearts of Spaniards,--a fanaticism which, until but a few years
previous to our own times, formed one of the most conspicuous elements of
the national character. The frequent repetition of the _autos de fe_, in
which the terrible spectacle of burning human victims alive was
countenanced by the presence of the court,--the furious harangues of the
friars,--the excommunications fulminated from the pulpit against all
those who did not prostrate themselves as slaves before the power of the
church,--and, above all, the example of the monarch, who was always ready
to exalt the clergy above other classes of the community, and whose
domestic and foreign policy was founded, invariably, on the principle of
the identity of the altar and the throne, were circumstances more than
sufficient to mould the genius, the habits, the affections, and even the
literary tastes and domestic intercourse, of any nation in the world.
Hence the entire existence of the nation was, so to speak, exclusively
religious. The mass, confession, processions, and _novenas_, {26} were
the occupations which consumed all the days and all the hours of life.
The priesthood was the grand social supremacy. All the riches of the
nation were in its hands. All consciences ceded to its voice, and were
directed by its influence. The king favoured all its pretensions,
enlarged its privileges, and put into its hands the highest dignities and
employments. The bishops occupied the principal posts in the councils of
Castille, of the finances, and of the Indies; to many of these bishops
embassies and vice-regal appointments were confided; and, in the
provinces, the civil authority was eclipsed before their influence, for
they became usurpers of its most important functions. Those were the
palmy days of the Inquisition, when, secure of the monarch's favour and
co-operation, it gave itself up, without restraint, to that spirit of
hatred which constituted the chief ingredient of its institution, and
covered the Spanish peninsula and its colonies with suffering, with
tears, and with blood.
As those ideas and sentiments entirely absorbed the minds of Spaniards;
so, on the other hand, all public action was concentrated in the king, he
having silenced the voice of the Cortes and abolished the charters
(_fueros_) of the municipalities, to which had pertained all the
political and civil legislation of Spain from the foundation of the
monarchy; in fine, as the severity of the fiscal laws opposed an
insuperable barrier to all sorts of industry and enterprise, it is not
surprising that it should have transformed, as in effect it did, the
national character, or that the whole social and domestic life of
Spaniards should be nothing short of an entire and absolute consecration
to the church and its ministers, to religious ceremonies, and to the
exercises of devotion and penance. In all the hours of his life, in all
professional and lucrative occupations, in all functions incident to
public employments, nay, even in his very amusements, the religious idea
is always present to the eyes of a Spaniard; sometimes, indeed, severe
and gloomy, at others majestic and solemn, but always overwhelming him
with the weight of its preponderance, and assuming the rule and
arbitrament of his thoughts and actions. The following pages will offer
to the reader sufficient proofs of this truth; and in each of the scenes
which they present will be discovered, without difficulty, the features
of the sketch which, in this introduction, we have endeavoured to trace.
We have written them without anger and without partiality, and we propose
to insert in them no facts, or even statements, but those gathered from
personal observation, and which no Spaniard will dare to deny; facts
which many sensible and upright men in that nation worthy a better
condition, do most bitterly lament.
It may be right to add, as an undoubted fact which cannot be too often
referred to or too widely made known, that among all classes of
Spaniards, and even among the clergy themselves, are to be found men
eminently pious; men who, although outwardly submitting to the exigencies
of the worship which they are bound by their present laws to profess, are
not ignorant of the true spirit and doctrines of Christianity, and who,
perhaps, only need a more intimate acquaintance with scriptural truth in
all its purity to be transformed into a visible part of the faithful and
chosen flock of Christ, and enabled to adopt, in all its latitude, the
true gospel as the rule and standard of their faith and conduct.
The publication of this work, at the present juncture, has no other
object than to accelerate that desired transition, the influence of which
may give fecundity to the noble qualities of a nation under all aspects
interesting, worthy, and capable of figuring in the foremost rank of the
polished and regenerate.
CHAPTER I.
THE SPANISH CLERGY--Their primitive state--Their subsequent
organization--_Barraganas_--Immoral practices of the clergy--Their
wealth, and its sources--Their territorial possessions--Their influence
and incomes--Their opposition to the sciences--Their ultramontane
principles--The "pass" of the Spanish sovereign necessary to the validity
of the Pope's bulls--Doctrine of the Jansenists favoured by the ministers
of Charles III.--Port-Royal and San Isidro--Parish priests--Sources of
their income--Many of them good men, but deficient in scriptural
knowledge and teaching--Their preaching--Abolition of tithes by the
minister, Mendizabal--Effects of that measure--Poverty and present state
of the clergy--Their degraded character and unpopularity--Their timidity
in recent times of tumult--Ecclesiastical writers of the Peninsula--Power
of the Inquisition curtailed by Charles III.
Among the northern nations which invaded Europe, on the fall of the Roman
Empire, the Goths were those who most distinguished themselves by the
promptitude with which they embraced Christianity, and by the sincerity
and constancy with which they observed its precepts and adhered to its
dogmas.
When they founded the Spanish monarchy, they were in a complete state of
ignorance and barbarism; and as the clergy were at that time the sole
depositaries of the little that was known of the dead languages, science,
and literature, they were the counsellors of the sovereigns, the
directors and prime movers of the public power, and the oracles of the
court, the nobility, and the people. The Councils of Toledo, which were
true legislative bodies, better and more methodically constituted than
the assemblies of the great barons, not only legislated in religious and
ecclesiastical matters, but in all political branches of the
administration and of the government. To these celebrated assemblies is
owing the _Fuero-Juzgo_, the most ancient of the codes promulgated in the
new monarchies founded on the ruins of the empire. But what gave most
renown to these assemblies was the system which they embraced with
respect to the relations between the court of the Gothic kings and the
pontifical see. In no Catholic nation was the ecclesiastic independence
consolidated with greater vigour than in the Spanish church of those
times. In truth the Pope, as such, exercised no authority whatever,
directly or indirectly, either in the discipline or the administration of
that church. He was acknowledged as the first of its bishops, but only
as equal in power to each of them. Thus it was that the bishops of the
Spanish peninsula had formerly no need of recourse to Rome for the
presentation of candidates, the investiture of ecclesiastical dignities,
or for matrimonial and other dispensations. Spain presented, at that
time, an edifying spectacle of pure and evangelical Christianity,
resembling that which prevailed in the primitive ages of the church, when
neither councils nor traditions, nor the _motu propria_ of popes, had
corrupted the dogma and the ritual. In the fourth Eliberitan council,
celebrated in Granada, not only the worship but even the use of images,
pictures, and sculpture, was prohibited in the temples, a prohibition
before unheard of in the annals of that age,--an age in which the
practice of invoking saints had become familiar, and more importance was
beginning to be attached to the pomp of rites than to true piety and
sincere devotion. The Spanish clergy, it is true, were then powerful,
and could do much; but there is no reason to think that they abused such
power, or that their conduct was regulated, at that early period, with a
view to their temporal interests. That golden age, however, was of short
duration; at least there are strong grounds for believing that, under the
reign of Alfonso the Wise, the manners of the clergy had become greatly
corrupted, and still more so under that of John II. Their ambition had
so far increased as to provoke the rigour of the laws and of the civil
authority. It is proved by the codes of that time, by several
chronicles, and a variety of other documents worthy of credit, that the
greater number of the clergy were living openly in a state of
concubinage. The term _barraganas_ formed part of the ordinary language
of the people, as well as of that used in legislation, and was applied to
designate the paramours of the ecclesiastics: indeed, these _barraganas_
were commanded by certain sovereigns to dress in a peculiar manner, so
that they might be distinguished from virtuous women; while other
sovereigns insisted on their also living in separate buildings, called
_barraganerias_, one of which, according to tradition, was situated in
that spot in Madrid now called Puerta del Sol. In one of the ancient
codes is to be found a regulation, in virtue of which it was ordered that
no clergyman should have more than one _barragana_!
Many of the bishops were accustomed to take these creatures with them on
official visits to their dioceses. This scandal began to disappear under
the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, "the Catholic sovereigns," and from
that time the clergy, by slow degrees, began to give to their body a more
compact organization, and to introduce among their ranks a stricter
discipline. Those amendments, however, did but tend to augment their
influence and their power. But what most contributed to the
aggrandisement of that privileged class was the wealth which rapidly
accumulated in their treasury and in all their establishments.
This wealth flowed from a variety of sources. The church took its tithes
and first-fruits; and this income, slender and precarious as it was
during the wars against the Moors and the lengthened dispute between the
crowns of Castille and Arragon, increased, afterwards, to such an extent
as to produce most incredible amounts so soon as order had once become
consolidated under the firm rule of Isabella; for, then, all kinds of
useful labour began to fructify, especially those of agriculture, which
had to sustain the weight of these onerous burdens.
But besides that source of income, the churches were daily enriched by
the donations which they received from the munificence of kings and
magnates. The most meritorious act of devotion and of religion,
according to the popular notion of those times, was the endowment of a
church with lands, flocks, and plate. These fits of generosity were held
to be sufficient to absolve the donors from all their sins, and at the
hour of death, when the terror of future punishments burdened the soul of
the ambitious politician, of the assassin, of the adulterer, and of the
usurper of others' goods, a very handsome legacy, and sometimes the
abandonment of all he possessed, was considered as a safe passport to the
enjoyment of treasures in heaven. The priest, called to administer the
last consolations to the patient, never lost an opportunity of exacting
these imprudent donations; and so long did this abuse endure, and to such
an extent did it arrive and predominate in the public customs of the age,
that, under the reign of Charles III., the Council of Castille
promulgated a royal order, declaring that all such testamentary
dispositions made at the hour of death, in favour of chapels, churches,
convents, and other religious establishments, should be null and void.
The opulence which the Spanish clergy enjoyed from the conquest of
Granada until the period of invasion by the French, cannot be reduced to
calculation, nor even to any accurate conjectures. It was said of
England that, previous to the Reformation, the clergy possessed a fifth
part of the whole territory within the British Isles; of Spain it may be
said that the proportion amounted to one-third. The lands most
productive, and the estates in the most choice situations, certainly
belonged to the Spanish clergy; and there were cities, such, for example,
as Toledo, Cuenca, Leon, and Santiago, in which nearly the whole
territory belonged to their respective cathedrals.
Several other circumstances tended to strengthen the imperium of the
church. Many young men of noble families took holy orders, with a view
of aspiring to the rich prebends belonging to the cathedrals; in the
universities and in the colleges the best organised and most popular
study was that of theology, in which many Spaniards excelled. At the
same time, by means of the confessional, the clergy got power over the
conscience; they knew all the secrets of families as well as those of the
state, and there was no grave matter, concerning any class of society,
which was not submitted to the decision of some dignitary of the church.
The magnificence of the edifices consecrated to worship, the frequency
and the pomp of religious ceremonies, the alms which the bishops
distributed, the public works which they paid for, and the absolute
direction of all charitable establishments, of which they had taken the
command, were so many other favourable supports to that supremacy which
they had assumed and maintained in society.
During the reigns succeeding that of Philip II., the condescendence of
the government, the submission of the people, and the acquisition of
riches by cathedrals, colleges, and parish churches, were greatly
augmented.
The incomes of the archbishops, bishops, and canons, rose to an
incredible amount. The sees of Toledo, Seville, Santiago, and Valencia,
were endowed with much greater revenues than even some of the states in
Germany. Great as have been the efforts to investigate and ascertain
with exactitude the precise returns of these sees, it has not been found
possible to obtain any data worthy to be relied on: and in truth, all
years were not equally productive; for those revenues depended in a great
measure on the abundance or scarcity of the crops. It is, however,
certain that the archbishop of Toledo, in particular, did not receive
less, annually, than 150,000 pounds. Some prebends, particularly those
called archdeaconries, were estimated at 6000 pounds a-year, and these
were sometimes disposed of, by the crown, in favour of a cardinal or
foreign prince.
Besides the clergy employed in the cathedral and parish churches, there
were many in orders without income or benefice of any kind, and who yet
contrived to get a very decent and comfortable living by means of the
influence which they exercised in rich houses, where their presence was
regarded as a blessing from heaven. There was scarcely a family of
consideration and of wealth in any town in Spain that was not under
submission to some individual of the clergy. In this way, and deeply
interested as they were that the people thus prostrate at their feet
should not have their eyes opened, the clergy made war against the
cultivation of the sciences and the propagation of useful knowledge.
The Spanish church, however, produced many and very eminent writings on
those particular sciences which, at that time, formed part of the general
course of their studies. It also sent forth many distinguished poets,
orators, and learned men, but never was disposed to protect or to
cultivate those sciences which give to man a power over nature: thus it
was that mathematics were most shamefully neglected; in physics the
absurd doctrines of the Peripatetics predominated; and the name of
philosophy was given to a puerile and complicated dialectic which had
neither the merit of ingenious classification, nor that subtlety of
argument which distinguished the school of Aristotle.
It is easy to conceive from this situation in which the clergy was
placed, that, in point of ecclesiastical discipline, Spaniards were
extreme ultramontanes. The clergy acknowledged the Pope, not only as the
vicar of Jesus Christ,--not only as the head of the visible church, but
as superior to all councils and kings, as the possessor of the keys of
heaven and as the absolute legislator in all matters of faith and
conscience. On many occasions the bishops and the cathedral authorities
consulted the court of Rome as to whether they ought to obey or disregard
the authority of the monarch; at other times they disobeyed it openly;
and, in spite of the efforts made by the Chamber of Castille to maintain
the cause of the throne and of the law, the fear of provoking a
revolution on the part of the lower classes, entirely the creatures of
the clergy, paralysed, on more than one occasion, the zeal of the
magistrates and the action of the military chiefs.
The Spanish laws required that, in order to give validity to a pontifical
bull, it should have the approbation, or, as it was called, _the pass_ of
the crown. Sometimes, and by virtue of the representation of the Chamber
of Castille, the government refused that pass, and on such occasions the
clergy became greatly irritated, the bishops energetically insisting upon
its being given, but urging their demands with such vehemence, as even to
threaten the monarch himself with the terrible penalty of
excommunication.
The clergy sustained the excesses of the pontifical authority, and
acknowledged the principle of the universal sovereignty of the Pope. All
notions or opinions that proposed to re-establish the discipline of the
first ages of the church and to defend the rights of the bishops,
considering their authority as equal to that of the Pope in jurisdiction,
and inferior only in dignity in the hierarchy, were considered as
dangerous and as heretical as that heresy most opposed to the articles of
the faith. Yet, at the beginning of the reign of Charles III., the
progress of Jansenism in France had a considerable influence on the
opinions of the Spanish clergy. The ministers, Campomanes, Aranda, and
Floridablanca, embraced with ardour the doctrines of Port-Royal; the
canonries of the collegiate church of San Isidro, in Madrid, which had
belonged to the Jesuits, were all conferred on wise and virtuous
clergymen who were generally known as confirmed Jansenists. Indeed there
were very few of the Spanish clergy who assisted in that establishment
that were not addicted to the same doctrines.
Hitherto no mention has been made of the parish priests. In the ancient
organization of the clergy these ecclesiastics participated, in some
dioceses, in the tithes; but the principal part of their incomes arose
from the surplice-fees, called in Spanish, _de pie de altar_, which were
those payable on baptism, interment, and marriage. The quota from these
sources varied according to the pomp and luxury of the ceremonies
performed. In baptisms, this augmentation of splendour consisted chiefly
in music, flowers, and lighted candles, in the chapel where the rite was
performed. But the extravagance of the rites of interment extended
itself to a wider range; for the idea was deeply rooted in the public
mind, that the greater the expense incurred in a funeral, the greater
would be the efficacy of the service in favour of the soul of the
departed. The sums which were wont to be spent in this ceremony are
incredible; and from their results many families have been entirely
ruined. This subject will, however, be more particularly considered in a
subsequent part of this work.
In the yearly receipts of those parish priests there is an enormous
difference, which depends on the number, the class, and the wealth, of
the parishioners living within the parish. There are some cases in which
those receipts amount to nearly 2000 pounds per annum; whilst in some
others the sum total is hardly sufficient to sustain an existence of
misery and penury. Notwithstanding this deplorable condition, there have
been, it must in candour be said, notable examples of charity, zeal, and
self-denial, among the inferior classes of the parochial clergy. The
poor have frequently found in their priests consolation in their
afflictions and succour in their miseries. In small towns the priest is
the first personage of the place. But still it cannot be concealed that
there is a sad deficiency in the inculcation of the fundamental
principles of scriptural truth in the exercise of his ministry; this same
deficiency is equally observable in other Catholic countries. As a
general rule, the only instruction which children receive from the priest
is the learning to repeat from memory a very incomplete and superficial
catechism. Preaching has rarely any other object than the explanation of
some article of the faith, or a panegyric on the life of some saint.
There are no interpreters of the gospel to be heard from the Spanish
pulpit, except during the period of Lent. The preachers like rather to
refer to and expatiate largely on miracles, than to unfold the morals of
the New Testament; and, in general, it may be taken as a fact that the
immense majority of the Spanish population, and especially those of the
poorer class, have the most incomplete and erroneous ideas of the life
and doctrines of Jesus Christ.
The greatest part of what has been advanced hitherto touching the Spanish
clergy applies to that epoch which preceded the preponderance of liberal
ideas. Since the abolition of tithes, under the minister, Mendizabal,
who replaced them by moderate fixed salaries to the priests, now paid by
the state, like other public functionaries, the situation of the Spanish
clergy has entirely changed its aspect. No man of any respectable family
now enlists himself under the banners of the clergy, whose influence is
only kept up in some of the smallest and obscure towns;--in the cities it
has entirely disappeared: nor does there remain in that body sufficient
energy to make the least attempt to recover it. There have always been
in Spain, in former epochs, some ecclesiastics, eminent for their virtues
and their learning, who have commanded the respect of all classes of
society, and whose word was so powerful that criminals of the most
hardened description have fallen down at their feet; and even their
appearance, in a town of some importance, has been followed by numerous
conversions, and a great amendment of the public manners. Since the
abolition of tithes, however, there is not a name in all the
ecclesiastical state which has the least celebrity. There is now no such
thing ever heard of as an eloquent speaker, a writer notable for his
theological learning, or for works of piety and devotion. The bishops,
whose titles, generally, are owing to their political sympathies, now
live like courtiers and take part in the dissensions of parties; and the
people regard them with an indifference corresponding to the few benefits
received at their hands. There are various honourable exceptions to this
rule, but these exceptions are scarce; and if there has been of late
years a bishop of Cadiz, an admirable model of all Christian virtues,
there are many others, such as that of Barcelona, impregnated with the
maxims of the most absurd ultramontanism, and who are the declared
enemies of all that contributes to make human society moral and
enlightened.
It is very common to see priests begging in the streets. Few of them are
now permitted to visit in respectable families, or even to mix in general
society; and the strangest of all things connected with such a change is,
that the clergy themselves know the state of degradation into which they
have fallen--the total loss of their influence and of their
importance--without making the least effort to raise themselves from that
state of humiliation and abasement.
On two recent occasions have been seen evident proofs of the utter
prostration of that class which once domineered over the entire nation.
When the famous Merino attempted, in the summer of 1851, to assassinate
Isabella II., and also during the political convulsions of July 1854,
from the results of which the liberal party remained triumphant, so
fearful were the clergy of exciting the popular indignation, and so
persuaded were they that public opinion was against them, that their
prelates advised them not only to abstain from appearing in the streets
in their clerical costume, but even to discontinue the use of the
church-bells, with which they had been in the habit of calling their
congregations to the mass and other religious exercises. This advice was
followed with as much eagerness and precipitation by the clergy, as
though they wished to hide themselves from public notice, or as though
they had been guilty of some illicit and scandalous offence.
It is clear that, to some extent, such a transition is the result of that
state of poverty to which the secular clergy have been reduced; and hence
it is that many priests, particularly those in the country, have given
themselves up to a variety of secular pursuits and speculations, which
are expressly prohibited by the canon laws, and which appear incompatible
with the dignity and character of their ministry. Some of them have
become publicans, others coach-proprietors, and not a few of them
smugglers on the coasts and frontiers,--a propensity, however, to which
they have always been addicted, even in the times of their greatest
prosperity.
We have spoken of the ultramontanism of the Spanish clergy. Never had
those doctrines more fanatical defenders, nor sectarians more fiery
partisans, than the ecclesiastical writers of the Peninsula; the dogma of
the infallibility of the Pope, the superiority of his jurisdiction with
respect to the bishops and to the general councils, was propagated not
only in books but in the pulpit and the confessional. Nevertheless the
enlightened ministers of Charles III., Aranda, Campomanes, and
Floridablanca (the first initiated in the school of French philosophers
of the eighteenth century, and the last two in that of the learned and
pious recluses of Port-Royal), after having procured from the king the
abolition and banishment of the Jesuits, desired to foment in Spain the
opinions which those eminent ministers of the crown maintained against
falsifiers of Christian truth; and, to that end, they founded a
collegiate church in the principal convent which those fathers had in
Madrid, conferring its canonries upon ecclesiastics who professed the
same doctrines as themselves, and who were, besides, generally venerated
for the profundity of their scientific knowledge, as well as for the
sanctity of their lives. The canons of San Isidro, to whom allusion has
already been made, were Jansenists; and, consequently, they professed
opinions diametrically opposed to those of the Spanish clergy. According
to them, as has already been intimated, the episcopal dignity was equal
in all those who possessed it, and the pope was no more than the first
among equals--_primus inter pares_; the right to confer dispensations was
not vested exclusively in the court of Rome, but each bishop could
exercise it with equal authority in his diocese; external discipline of
the church belonged of right to the regal authority, as also did that of
presentation to benefices; the bulls and other papal precepts were not to
be obeyed without the indispensable requisite of the monarch's
approbation; and, finally, the Pope, as well as the rest of the bishops,
was inferior in authority to the general council, in which was
concentrated the legislative power of the church, whether with respect to
the dogma or discipline and administration.
The boldness of these tenets excited the displeasure and irritation of
the Inquisition; but the power of that formidable tribunal had already
notably declined. Charles III. had taken two means calculated to
militate against its preponderance, to humble its pride, and deprive it
of the faculty of exercising its sanguinary vengeance. In the first
place, the penalty of death was prohibited, and it could only impose the
punishment of confiscation, imprisonment, and banishment. In the second
place, he ordered that one of the judges of each tribunal of the
Inquisition should be a secular person; and, for the discharge of the
duties of these functionaries, men were selected in whom was reposed all
the confidence of the ministers. The inquisitors knew that, once
committed to those coadjutors, they could not expose themselves to the
beginning of a struggle in which all inferiority was on their side. The
canons of San Isidro were not, ostensibly, persecuted; but no means were
spared to discredit them in public opinion. Thus it was that they lived
isolated, and were regarded with mistrust by all the clergy; and with
them disappeared from the Peninsula the only element of opposition to the
tyranny of Rome, which had been notorious in the Spanish Church from the
times of the Gothic monarchy.
CHAPTER II.
MONACHISM--The superiority of the monastic over the secular
clergy--Reasons for it--Orders of monks--The Carthusians--Their
advancement in agriculture and love of the fine arts--Their seclusion and
mode of living--Only learned men admitted to their order--Their form of
salutation--Curious adventure of a lady found in the cell of a
Carthusian--The Hieronimites--The Mendicant orders--"Pious works"--The
_Questacion_--Decline of Spain accounted for--Vows of chastity, poverty,
and obedience--How vow of poverty eluded--_La honesta_--Vicar-general of
the Franciscan orders--His immense income--Religious orders have produced
many great and good men--Cardinal Ximenez de Cisneros--His celebrated
Bible--Corruption of monastic orders--Insubordination of friars to the
bishops--The Jesuits--Deplorable reputation of their literature--Pascal,
Escobar, Sanchez, and Mariana--Suppression of the Jesuits by Charles
III.--Their subsequent expulsion by Espartero under Isabella
II.--Nunneries, though spared on suppression of religious houses, utterly
useless--The Pope's attempt to perpetuate them by _concordat_--The lives
of the nuns described--Their means of subsistence is now
precarious--Convent de las Huelgas.
All the power, all the influence, and all the riches of the secular
clergy, such as we have described them in the preceding chapter, would
not have been sufficient completely to enslave the Spanish nation under
the baneful dominion of Rome, if its unwearied ambition for command and
power had not found out an instrument, much more efficacious, in the
institution of Monachism, the establishment of which propagated itself on
the Spanish soil with more rapidity and in greater numbers than in any
other Catholic nation.
The superiority of the monastic clergy in comparison with the secular, as
to popularity and numbers, was owing to many causes. In the first place,
to become one of the clergy, two things were necessary, and neither of
these were within the reach of the lower classes of the people, viz.,
theological attainments and a _congrua_, which latter word comprehended
the property, income, or pension, indispensable to ensure to the aspirant
a proper and competent maintenance. In many rich families there was,
besides the entail (_el mayorazgo_) pertaining exclusively to the eldest
son, another inheritable portion--the mortmain (_main-morte_), as
inalienable as the entailed estates themselves, and designed for that
individual of the family who might desire to adopt the ecclesiastic
state. These inheritable provisions were called _capellanias_, and
generally the brother, or cousin, or nephew, to whom this right,
separated from the chief inheritance, belonged, took holy orders, but
might or might not practically follow the vocation, by the exercise of
those functions, the discharge of those duties, and submission to those
privations, imposed on one who takes upon himself so high and responsible
a calling. Although there was much laxity in the observance of those
requirements, there were not wanting bishops who insisted on their most
rigorous execution; so that in many dioceses there was great difficulty
in gaining admission to the ranks of the clergy. But none of those
obstacles presented themselves in seeking admission to the monasteries,
or convents. Their doors were constantly open to the poorest and the
most ignorant. In their interior organization there was a sufficient
variety of employment for every class of human beings; the mason, the
carpenter, the simple journeyman, possessed of no other instruments than
his muscular force, was eligible to become a useful member of the holy
community; and, as in the act of taking upon him the habit of the order,
he had guaranteed to him a subsistence and all the conveniences of life,
and at the same time that the habit itself opened to him the doors of
great houses and palaces and placed him on a level with the most elevated
circles, so also these two powerful allurements attracted innumerable
persons to the cloisters, and multiplied in a most surprising degree the
numerical force of the monastic orders.
These orders divided themselves into two great ramifications, the monks
and the friars, and composed what may be called the aristocracy and the
democracy of monachism. The monks were distinguished from the friars by
their immense wealth, by the possessions of their monasteries, which were
generally situated out of, and at a great distance from, towns, by the
dignity of their manners, and by certain peculiarities in their internal
government, over which there reigned a certain spirit of retirement and
love of seclusion, that separated them from worldly things and the
interests and passions of profane society.
The principal orders of monks established in Spain were the Benedictine,
the Bernardine, the Carthusian, and the Hieronimites. The last two were
superior to all the rest in number, importance, and wealth, and it is
only respecting them that we shall treat in this chapter.
The Carthusians were opulent landowners; they lived in the midst of their
possessions, and, to a considerable extent, cultivated their own lands.
In these operations they rendered great service to agriculture; they
practised the science with great care and knowledge; they brought their
productions to great perfection. The breed of the Carthusian horses of
Xeres was notoriously the best in Europe. In most of the Carthusian
establishments they had schools in which education was given gratuitously
to the children of their tenantry, and to those of the poor of the
neighbouring towns. Under this point of view, it is certain that the
monasteries of the Carthusians contributed greatly to the extension and
improvement of agriculture and education in Spain. They were also
notable for the stimulus which they gave to the fine arts; for their
churches and monasteries were true museums of sculpture, painting, and
architecture. In that of Granada, all travellers admire the beautiful
paintings of its cloisters and refectory, the magnificent marbles of its
chapels and sacristy, and the good taste and richness of the ornaments
which cover all parts of the edifice.
The Carthusians observed, as fundamental rules of their order, silence
and seclusion. They had but few acts which they performed in common, and
these only on holidays. Each Carthusian lived in his cell, but each cell
was a house, full of conveniences, with an extensive garden, in which
they cultivated with the greatest care fruits and vegetables of the most
delicious kinds. They were forbidden to give presents or even alms; but
they allowed visitors to take from their gardens whatever they pleased.
In Granada there was a famous Father Reyes who devoted himself to the
cultivation of flowers, and from his garden all the elegant ladies of the
city were furnished with the choicest descriptions. Their male friends
were sent to gather them, nor was the reverend father altogether ignorant
of the fair uses to which they were about to be applied.
The Carthusian dined alone in his cell, into which his food was conveyed
by means of a _torno_, a kind of revolving cylindrical cupboard with
shelves, into which were put the numerous and abundant dishes composing
the dinner. The _torno_ being then spun round on its axis, the shelves
were unloaded of their sumptuous contents by the Carthusian himself.
As these monks were prohibited the use of meat, they kept up in their
monasteries a great stock of live fish and a number of turtles; these
latter being a delicacy they greatly prized. The place in which they
killed these turtles was called the _Galapagar_. They fed them in a
curious manner: at night there was thrown for them, into a large dry
tank, the carcase of a cow or a calf; and such was the voracity of the
amphibious animals, that, in the morning, nothing remained of these
carcases but the bones.
The dinner of the Carthusian generally consisted of eight or nine
distinct dishes, and their friends were accustomed to pay their visits
about the hour of dinner; for, as invitations were not allowed, they were
dispensed with. The wines they grew were always those of the best
quality, and there were no persons in all Spain who fared so sumptuously
and deliciously as did those devoted recluses.
None but presbyters were admitted to the Carthusian order, and even these
were generally only such as had exercised some dignity in cathedral or
collegiate churches; hence nearly all of them were learned men--men of
good morals and great experience in the affairs of the world. Sometimes
a military man of good attainments, a person high in the ministerial
office, or a member of the higher courts of justice, sought admission
within their walls; and although such acquisition was considered as very
useful and very honourable, they were admitted only after having for some
years belonged to the secular clergy and taken holy orders.
In a kind of life so extraordinary, so distinct, and so marked among all
human associations, they were unable to form relations of friendship,
even among individuals of the same community. They, therefore, seldom
saw and scarcely knew each other. Their salutation, when they met, was
brief but expressive; the senior began with _Morir hemos_, {52a} and the
junior answered, _Ya_, _lo sabemos_. {52b} Beyond this the conversation
did not extend. Once a-year the chapter met together to decide on the
urgent and important matters of business of their society; and once in
three years to elect a prior and a _procurator_, who were the only two
persons authorised to treat with the world without, and direct the
material interests of the establishment.
There is recorded of one of those Carthusian monasteries a narrative of a
circumstance which at first was attempted to be concealed by all possible
means, but at last came to be made known and fully authenticated. The
case is shortly told. There was in that monastery a monk, who, for many
years prior to his entering on a monastic life, had encouraged a vehement
passion for one of the principal ladies of the city. The flame was
mutual; but the lovers finding great obstacles in the way of their union,
agreed to wait, in the hope that time might afford a favourable
opportunity of realising their wishes. The father of the lady offered
her hand to a gentleman very high in the hierarchy. She, not having
sufficient courage to resist the parental authority, obeyed the mandate,
thus sacrificing herself on the altar of filial obedience. The lover
gave himself up a victim of despair, abandoned the world, and retired to
the monastery. A few months after the marriage the husband died. The
lady's affection revived; the flame was kindled anew in her heart; and
she formed the resolution of uniting herself with the object of her first
love, and of overcoming all obstacles which stood in the way of her
determination. In male attire she wandered long in the neighbourhood of
the monastery, informing herself most minutely of its internal position,
and reflecting on the means of introducing herself to the cell of her
beloved Carthusian. The stream of water which served to irrigate the
gardens of the monastery, entered a wall by a large semicircular arch or
opening near the garden itself. The lady, prodigal in the expenditure of
money, and in the employment of faithful and trustworthy agents, procured
a raft to be constructed, by means of which, all other things being
prepared, she ventured through the opening, and was carried down the
stream to the desired spot. The secret was kept. No one had the least
suspicion of this extraordinary voyage, nor was it discovered until many
years afterwards, when the monks observing that this particular one of
their number had not for a length of time been present at any of the
devotional exercises prescribed by the rules of their order, were
desirous of learning the cause of his absence. They entered his cell,
and found to their astonishment, his dead body, a lady, and four
children! The civil power was, at first, about to investigate the
affair, but, in order to avert the scandal that would result from such a
proceeding, all inquiry was suspended, and the fate of that unhappy woman
and her family was never known. The whole account seems romantic. The
facts appear incredible, but they have long been established on
unquestionable authority.
Like the Carthusians, the Hieronimites had their establishments far from
towns and cities. They were very wealthy, but did not cultivate their
own lands; they let them out on hire, and showed great consideration to
their tenants. These fathers devoted themselves, almost entirely, to
teaching, to singing, and to sacred music. From their halls have been
sent forth to the world many vocalists, organists, and composers, of
eminence. When Philip II. built the Escurial, he confided that sumptuous
edifice to the Hieronimites; and so high a position did the prior hold in
the hierarchy and in the state, that he was privileged to enter, at all
times, into the king's apartments without asking leave to do so, and his
coachman and other servants were permitted to wear the royal livery.
General opinion accuses these reverend fathers of too great a propensity
to indulge in gastronomy, and it is related of them that, in prescribing
for themselves, as a rule for their supper rations, one dozen of
mincemeat-balls (_abondigas_), they afterwards, by a supplementary rule,
extended that number to thirteen, from which circumstance the number
thirteen is generally called, in Spain, "_the friars' dozen_."
The inferior section of Monachism, viz., that of the Friars, is composed
of many orders, among which the most important and numerous were the
following: _Mercenarios_, or Friars of Mercy (_de la Merced_), founded
with the exclusive object of ransoming Christian captives who groaned in
the dungeons of the Barbary States; the _Carmelites_,--_calzados_,
wearing shoes and stockings, and _descalzos_, without either; the
_Augustines_, _calzados_ and _descalzos_; the _Preachers_, or
_Dominicans_; the Friars of _St John of God_, whose duty was to serve
sick persons in the hospitals attached to their convents; and above all
the large family of _St Francis_, divided into four great ramifications,
viz., the _Franciscan_ properly speaking; the _Fathers of Observance_;
the _Fathers of St Diego_; and the _Capuchins_. All these orders had
convents in the principal towns of the Peninsula, and its colonies. In
some cities,--as, for example, Madrid, Seville, and Toledo,--there were
as many as twenty or thirty of these establishments, many of which
contained from one hundred to one hundred and fifty inmates; but the
average may be stated, with reason, at thirty for each convent. The
_calzados_ orders were at liberty to hold property; but the _descalzos_,
in whose number are to be reckoned all the family of Franciscans, were
strictly forbidden to do so; and hence they lived, exclusively, on the
alms of the faithful.
These alms were of various kinds. Those called pious works (_obras
pias_), consisted of certain rents, or pensions, granted to a convent on
condition that certain masses should be said therein, during the year,
for the soul of the grantor. Rich men who had acquired a fortune by
unfair means, or through an extortionate usury, were induced to expect
forgiveness of their sins, if they left large sums of money to the
fathers of the convent the saint of which they were accustomed to worship
or venerate, and to whom they usually paid their devotions. Some of
those benefactors, most generously, defrayed the expenses of a religious
festival, from which resulted a considerable profit to the convent in
which that festival was celebrated. Others repaired conventual edifices
at their own expense, or enlarged them by making extensive wings or other
additions, in which there was always a profuse display of marble, bronze,
and other precious materials. But the principal source of the revenue of
the mendicant orders was that called the _questacion_. {57} Every
morning each convent poured out from its gates a certain number of lay
brothers (_legos_), each being furnished with a wallet over his shoulder;
and it was the duty of each to traverse the whole town, begging alms for
his respective convent. These pious beggars visited, one by one, the
shops of the trades-people, and places most frequented, calling at the
houses of the poor as well as at those of the rich. The alms which they
thus received were chiefly in bread, meat, eggs, and every description of
eatables, besides small copper coins generally contributed by the poor,
and which were not the least important parts of these gatherings. In
this way thousands of robust, able-bodied men, not only maintained
themselves, but were enabled to live in the lap of luxury, for many
years, without contributing, on their part, one farthing to the public
treasury, but on the contrary diminishing, immensely, the population and
the number of those engaged in cultivating the soil and in other useful
labour. Was not this alone sufficient to explain the deplorable state of
the economy of the Spanish Peninsula, the paucity of its inhabitants, the
backwardness of its agriculture, its want of capital, and the nakedness
and poverty of its fields and its towns? Indolence being, so to speak,
thus sanctified, what stimulus could there be for productive labour? Why
should men have fatigued themselves by arduous employments, when the
convent offered them not only food, raiment, and lodging, but even a
respectable position in society, without further trouble than that of
passing a few hours in the choir of the church, to confess penitents,
assist now and then at the bedside of a dying person, and to preach an
occasional sermon, for which they always received a decent payment?
In all the religious orders three vows were exacted, namely, those of
chastity, poverty, and obedience. Of the first we shall have some
remarks to make when we come to speak of celibacy in the ecclesiastical
state. That of poverty was eluded in a very simple manner; individuals
were held bound by that vow, but communities were entirely free to accept
and acquire property; and thus it was that the greater number of the
convents lived in opulence, and the friars enjoyed all the conveniences
of life. The friar delivered to the chief of his community all that came
to his hands, either as alms or by way of salary for the masses he had to
say and the sermons he preached.
Each order had, at its head, a superior chief, called the Vicar-general;
the chief functionary of each province was called the Provincial, and
that of each convent the Guardian in the Franciscan orders, and the Prior
in all the rest. These personages were exempt from the vow of poverty;
they had, tacitly, a dispensation for the use of money, under the
supposition that all they received or possessed would be by them laid out
for the good of their community. Every three years the provincial
visited all the convents in his jurisdiction, and it was the universal
custom, that in the act of finishing his visit, the prior of the visited
convent put into his hands a purse of gold. This contribution was called
_la honesta_. The vicar-general of the Franciscan orders, generally a
Spaniard, received another species of tribute, which put him on a level
with the most opulent men in Europe. Each convent of the three Orders in
all parts of the globe sent to him, weekly, the largest amount it had
received for any one mass said during that week. These orders had no
less than two hundred and seventy provinces, and in them twelve thousand
convents, {59a} from which may be conceived the immense sums of money
that came into his power. This personage enjoyed the honours of a
grandee of Spain, and was always in great favour with its sovereigns, on
whom he lavished money. Father Campany, who occupied this post during
the reign of Charles IV., was accustomed to send to the queen, Mary
Louisa, yearly, large quantities of bricks made of fine chocolate, and
studded all over, within and without, with solid gold doubloons.
The last vicar-general of the order was the celebrated Father Fray Cirilo
de Alameda, now Archbishop of Burgos, well known for his attachment to
the cause of Don Carlos, during the civil war between that prince and
Queen Christina.
The vow of obedience was observed with the most rigorous exactness. The
chief of each convent was a despot to whose mandates it was not possible
to offer the least resistance. All his inferiors, except those ordained
to the priesthood, spoke to him only on their knees. The most tyrannical
precepts were obeyed with the greatest docility. It would often occur
that the guardian, or the prior, wishing to exercise influence in some
powerful family, commanded one of his friars to use all possible means of
gaining an introduction, so that the end might be accomplished. In this
way they became possessed of great power over the most important families
in the chief cities and towns of the kingdom; and from these families
they received large donations and handsome legacies.
The penal code of the convents provided for certain offences the
punishment of flagellation, imprisonment in a dungeon for indeterminate
periods, living on bread and water, and public confession of sins. The
mildest punishment consisted in being compelled to eat off the ground,
kneeling, at the hour of the refectory. The friar who by his conduct had
become incorrigible, and worthy of the severest punishment, was sent
away, for the remainder of his life, to one of the convents situated in
desert places.
All the religious orders of Spain have produced many men eminent for
science and virtue, and among these may be reckoned one of the greatest
and most distinguished statesmen that ever governed in that
country,--such was the Cardinal Ximenez de Cisneros, minister of
Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic sovereigns, and of Charles V. This
cardinal was the founder of the proud university of Alcala; he was the
conqueror of Oran, and the great reformer in all branches of the
administration and of the government.
The sacred sciences owe to him inexpressible benefits for his famous
Complutense Polyglot Bible, one of the most correct and splendid editions
of the sacred writings hitherto published. One of the few copies now
extant of that monument of piety and wisdom is to be found in the British
Museum. Such men, however, were, it must be admitted, extremely rare
exceptions, which do not weaken the force of our objections to the whole
system of monastic institutions.
The corruption of the monastic orders began during the earliest times of
the monarchy. In the time of Isabella the Catholic, the immorality of
the friars had arrived at such a height as to induce that eminent woman,
led by the counsels of the Cardinal Cisneros, to demand of Pope Alexander
VI. a bull permitting her to introduce a radical reform among the
religious orders in Spain. The Pope resisted, but, ultimately, was
obliged to cede to the Spanish court; and Isabella checked, for some
years, the disorders which brought so much scandal on the nation. The
fact is, that the friars formed a separate state, independent of the
government, and even of the bishops; they acknowledged no authority but
that of the Pope, and their communications with the court of Rome were as
frequent as they were private and mysterious. The bishops often claimed
the right to exercise their own authority over this part of the
ecclesiastical state, but always in vain; and although the Chamber of
Castille, which was the supreme tribunal, lent its support to those just
pretensions, that support was always disregarded by the pontifical court.
The friars never would submit themselves to the bishops, except to
receive holy orders from them; and whenever these were refused, although
it might be on strong and just grounds, the friar had recourse at once to
Rome, and returned from thence ordained.
We have not entered, in our list of religious orders, that of the
Jesuits, because these formed an entirely separate class, and the
greatest insult that could be committed against a Jesuit was to call him
a friar. The Spanish Jesuits, like those throughout all Europe, were, in
their exterior conduct, modest and decorous. They mixed but little with
the lower classes of society, and their chief occupation was to direct
the consciences of eminent persons, and particularly those of kings,
bishops, and ministers. In Spain, as in all other places, they took a
large share in politics, they patronised good studies, and accumulated
great wealth. If jesuitical casuistry had not its birth in Spain, at
least the greater part of its ecclesiastical writers, who propagated and
defended that absurd and immoral conceit, were Spaniards, as may be seen
on reference to the catalogue of them published by Pascal, in his
_Lettres d'un Provincial_. The names of Escobar and of Sanchez have left
a deplorable reputation for them in this branch of ecclesiastic
literature. The treatise _De Matrimonio_ of the latter contains such
profound immorality, and such dangerous and obscene queries and
doctrines, that the Inquisition included the publication in its index of
prohibited books. But far greater scandal was produced throughout Europe
by the book entitled _De Rege et Regis Institutione_, written by the
celebrated Jesuit, Juan de Mariana. This man, truly great, and whom
Gibbon places in the number of the most distinguished historians of
ancient and modern times, wrote that work, apparently with the view of
assisting in the education of Philip IV., but in reality to justify the
assassination committed in France on the person of Henry III., and
probably to prepare for that of his successor. Mariana sustains, with
warmth, with eloquence, and with erudition, the dogma of regicide;
determines the cases in which the commission of that crime is not only
lawful but necessary and praiseworthy; lays down rules by which the deed
should be executed, under certain and determinate circumstances; and even
goes the length of excusing the use of poison, if other means fail, to
get rid of a tyrant! The book was prohibited by all the governments of
Europe, and burnt publicly in Paris by the hands of the common hangman.
That culpable and highly dangerous doctrine was not the only one of the
same character with which the Jesuits poisoned the public morals in
Europe. The system of ethics which they taught in their classes, and
propounded from the pulpit and confessional, had for its basis the famous
doctrine of probablism, by means of which all crimes found a powerful
subterfuge through which their perpetrators were enabled to avert
responsibility and punishment. For all kinds of excess, that doctrine
afforded excuses; and hence falsehood, perjury, robbery, and even murder
and adultery, might be converted by it into innocent actions, by means of
the sophisms and frauds with which that absurd theory was interwoven. To
this was united, in order to exasperate opinion against such men, the
irresistible influence which these Jesuits exercised in all the courts.
Meanwhile the immense wealth which they were accumulating, by means of
commerce with the West Indies and in South America, betrayed, in the
so-called Company of Jesus, a mundane and ambitious spirit totally
incompatible with that which ought to prevail in every religious and
cloistral establishment. About the middle of the eighteenth century, all
the enlightened men of Europe exclaimed against that company, and
ardently desired its extermination; and, although many works were
published against it, and the voices of many religious orders were raised
in denouncing it to the pontifical throne and to the public, such was the
power and dexterity with which it neutralised these hostile dispositions,
that nobody dared to attack its front, until a king of Spain, the
illustrious Charles III., undertook that great work, and carried it on to
its consummation with as much resolution as ability.
We have already described the characters of those good and able ministers
who surrounded that monarch, and we have alluded to their Jansenistic
doctrines, which were diametrically opposed to those professed by the
Jesuits. But neither the upright principles nor enlarged ideas of the
monarch, nor yet the influence exercised by Aranda, Campomanes,
Floridablanca, and Roda, would have been sufficient to induce him to take
a measure so violent, if there had not intervened a circumstance which
necessarily appeared, in his eyes, an outrage on his dignity, a wound on
his self-respect, and a threat against the legitimacy of his rights.
The king was as much a Jansenist as his ministers. The Jesuits knew it,
and resolved to make a secret war against him, which should terminate in
his dethronement. Father Rizzio, General of the Jesuits established in
Rome, gave orders to all the chiefs of the convents belonging to their
institution to propagate, by means of their subalterns, as well by
private conversations as through the confessional, the important secret
that Charles III. was the illegitimate son of Ferdinand VI., and that,
consequently, he ought to be considered as a usurper of the throne of his
reputed father. The minister, Roda, intercepted a correspondence
containing irrefragable proofs of that abominable intrigue; and this was
sufficient to make the king resolve upon a course of action which he had
refrained from for some time, at the instance of his ministers, through
fear of offending the court of Rome and of bringing a scandal on the
Christian world. The king had no power to suppress a religious order;
but he could, as chief of the state, expel from his territory any persons
whomsoever, and this was the part which he took with respect to the
individuals of the Company of Jesuits. The execution of this grand
design was a master-work of foresight and prudence. The civil
authorities of all the towns having Jesuitical establishments, as well in
Spain as in the colonies, received a sealed packet from the government.
On opening the outer cover was found an order that the interior packet
was not to be opened till a certain day and at a certain hour, and in the
presence of the subaltern authorities, and a most severe injunction to
keep even that operation secret till the moment of its execution. On the
arrival of the day and hour appointed the packets were opened, as had
been previously arranged, simultaneously; and then was found, in each, an
order to take immediate possession of the houses of the Jesuits, to
sequester their goods, and transmit, without delay of time, their persons
to the nearest port, in which would be found vessels already waiting to
receive them on board, and convey them into Italy. This was done, at the
same instant, in all places for hundreds of leagues in extent, without
the Jesuits, with all their cunning, having received a breath of
information, or entertained a suspicion, as to the stroke impending over
them; and, what is still more strange, without having given rise to the
least symptom of complaint or disapprobation. On the contrary, the other
religious orders, who had been offended by the haughty bearing of the
Jesuits, and who beheld their opulence and preponderance with envy,
celebrated their fall without restraint, and considered it as a triumph
of the true religion over the dangerous novelties which these men had
introduced.
From that period nobody cared for the Jesuits nor thought of them, and
the rest of the reigns of Charles III. and Charles IV. passed without a
single voice being raised in their favour.
In 1817, Ferdinand VII., released from his captivity in France, and ruled
entirely by the persecuting and fanatical party, not satisfied with
having re-established the Inquisition, wished also to recall the Jesuits.
The Council of Castille, which he consulted, _pro forma_, on that
business, showed itself favourable, moved by the able report of his
fiscal, Gutierez de la Huerta, a man known for his Voltairean opinions,
who was suspected of having received a large sum of money to defend, with
energy, the cause of fanaticism and of intolerance. The few Jesuits who
have outlived their expulsion, and who are scattered over some of the
towns of Italy, are returning to the Peninsula in such small numbers,
that they are scarcely enough to occupy the ancient establishment of San
Isidro in Madrid. Their installation, which was announced as an epoch of
triumph, disappointed the expectation of the court, and of their friends.
Those extraordinary beings, whose dress, customs, and even affected
Italian accent, were opposed to the national habits and the ideas of the
new generation, were beheld by the public with the most perfect
indifference. It was said publicly that they were strangers, and that
they despised their country; that they ate _maccaroni_ instead of
_garbanzos_; {67} and people spread about innumerable other epigrams and
satires against them, regardless of the government police, and even
without fear of the inquisitors. But what most tended to destroy their
reputation was the circumstance that none of them were in a condition to
instruct youth, and that, in order to fill the professorships of their
college, they were obliged to take their professors from the secular
ranks, some of them notorious for their independent and
anti-Roman-Catholic opinions. When they began to recruit novices, they
were unable to find any decent men, or known family, who would submit
their children to their rule; and their noviciate was consequently
composed of only ninety young persons, and these drawn from the lowest
classes of society.
For the space of seventeen years they maintained themselves in this
precarious condition, without advancing one step in their popularity, and
even without exhibiting any of the qualities which had given confidence
to their rule in former times. Far from captivating the will of the
people, they exasperated it to such a degree, that in 1834, after the
death of the king, the people of Madrid, in one of those moments of
madness and irritation so frequent after the scourge of the cholera,
penetrated the establishment of those holy fathers, and inhumanly
sacrificed them to their fury. Even to this day the mystery which
covered that sanguinary catastrophe has never entirely been revealed.
One thing is certain, that in spite of the religious ideas of Spaniards,
and of the superstitious veneration with which they beheld a religious
habit, the Jesuits were immolated without causing one murmur of
fanaticism or one tear of compassion.
It is but a few years ago that the Spanish government had the
inexpressible condescendence to allow a community of Jesuits to establish
itself in the magnificent convent of Loyola, the country of their
founder. The last revolution which happened in that country offered them
an opportunity of putting in practice those absolute principles which
have always governed their conduct. The government of Espartero,
informed of their secret intrigues, by which they contrived to agitate
the public mind in the Basque provinces in favour of Don Carlos, ordered
them to be expelled to the Balearic Islands; but they, fearful perhaps of
severer measures being adopted against them, and convinced of the general
hatred in which they were held by the people, fled to France, from whence
it is probable they will not attempt to recross the frontier.
Monachism, then, has entirely disappeared from Spain, where only two
convents remain for the instruction of those who are destined for the
priesthood in the Philippine Islands. These men live within the
cloisters according to the ancient regime; but they are forbidden to
appear in public in the costumes of their respective orders. The
preservation of those two establishments was considered indispensable for
the preparation of materials for the government of those remote
possessions, where the Indians are accustomed to obey the priest, and
look upon him with more respect than that shown to the civil authority,
and where their influence is sufficient, according to general opinion, to
put down that revolutionary spirit which has despoiled Spain of her
splendid dominions in South America. All this, however plausible, may
arise out of a mistaken policy. New political ideas and legislation,
under constitutional rule, have respected the convents of the nuns. One
can scarcely conceive of this inconsistency on the part of governments
which, under the name of liberty, have ruled Spain in these latter times.
If the abolition of the convents of friars had for its chief ground the
uselessness of those who inhabited them, it must be admitted that
infinitely more useless is the life of a nun, consecrated to perpetual
idleness, and without further occupation than that of assisting in the
choir and in devotional practices, to which duties she could equally
resign herself in the bosom of her own family.
The religious communities of women have the same denominations as the
convents of friars, and they call themselves Augustines, Franciscans,
Benedictines, &c. The respective rules of their organization do not
exact from them, in any case, more duties than those of a contemplative
life; and, in reality, there are now but few of those convents of nuns
whose inmates dedicate themselves to the task of giving to persons of
their own sex even the imperfect and limited education which, after all,
forms no part of that useful knowledge required by modern civilization.
The Spanish nuns are, absolutely, some of the most insignificant of
beings. There is nothing recorded of them either good or bad, and for
many centuries we have no account of any Spanish nun distinguished for
her talents, her writings, or even for her eminent virtues. In their
conversation, they display a childish simplicity and an unwearied
curiosity, together with an extraordinary deficiency of knowledge as it
respects the fundamental truths of the Christian faith. The amusements
with which they while away their secluded lives are reduced to those of
making sweets (_dulces_), dressing images of saints, embroidering
scapularies, {71a} and other such-like frivolities. A celebrated living
poet has characterised them with great propriety and truth in the
following epitaph:--
"Aqui yace Sor Belen,
Que hizo almibares mui bien,
Y paso la vida entera
Vistiendo ninos de cera." {71b}
Except the convents of nuns of the mendicant orders, the greater part of
them, in Spain, possessed, prior to the constitutional regime,
considerable inheritances. These, however, having been, by a decree of
the Cortes, converted and sold as national property, all their means are
reduced to a bare subsistence on a small pension which _ought_ now to be
paid from the public treasury; but as that obligation has frequently been
neglected in consequence of the repeated disturbances which have
interrupted the peace of the monarchy, those unhappy women have often
been overwhelmed with the greatest privations and misery. In such cases
Christian charity has lent its succour, and all classes of the state have
contributed to their relief. The government, on different occasions, has
prohibited the admission of novices to these convents of nuns, in order
that death itself might, without violence, extinguish those institutions,
which are contrary to the ideas of the age. But this salutary provision
has been imprudently eluded by the bishops, and recently modified by an
article of the _concordat_ effected with the court of Rome a few years
ago, and which is everywhere unpopular.
One of the great evils resulting from the continuance of these nuns in
Spain is, that they occupy numerous edifices worthy of a better purpose,
and generally in the best situations in populous cities. Only one
convent of this class deserves particular mention, on account of the
great historical recollections connected with its existence, for the
singularity of its organization, and for the pious object of its
institution. It is called the Convent _de las Huelgas_, and is situated
at a short distance from Burgos.
This magnificent establishment, founded and enriched by ancient monarchs,
maintained an hospital in which a great number of invalids were attended
to with the greatest care. The abbess wore the mitre and _baculo_ like
the bishops, and exercised both civil and criminal jurisdiction in the
vast dominions belonging to the convent; she was called Senora de _horca
y cuchillo_, {72} and was the chief of several ecclesiastical and secular
officers. The sumptuous church of this convent contained within its
walls the ashes of many of the kings and princes of ancient Spanish
dynasties.
CHAPTER III.
CELIBACY AND MORALS.--Illicit relations formed by the clergy--Shameless
avowal of their fruits--Ferocious character of love in the
cloisters--Three flagrant cases--Murder of a young lady by her confessor,
the Carmelite of San Lucar--His trial and sentence--Murder by a wife of
her husband under the direction of her confessor, the Capuchine of
Cuenca--His trial, imprisonment, and escape--Murder of a lady by the
Agonizante of Madrid--His trial and execution--Scandalous occurrences in
the Convent of the Basilios of Madrid--Forcible entry of the civil
power--Murder of the abbot--Suppression of inquiry--Shameful profligacy
of the Capuchines of Cascante and the nuns of a neighbouring
convent--Mode of its discovery--Imprisonment of inmates of both
convents--Removal of prisoners--Their mysterious escape--Exemplary
performance of vows in some cases--Dangers of celibacy--Spanish women and
their influence on society.
Religious celibacy has been justly censured, by true Christians, as
opposed to the ends of creation, to the spirit of the gospel, and the
good order of human society. If so severe a prohibition can scarcely be
observed without great mortification and inconvenience by a few,--a very
small number of men, endued with an aptitude which places them above the
ordinary laws of humanity,--what shall we say to the possibility of its
exercise by men with no such fitness for the task,--men of a nation whose
very climate is incessantly soliciting the expansion of the sensual
faculties,--a nation of whose social organization frequent intercourse in
all the affairs of life between the two sexes is one of the most
essential and necessary elements? We have already alluded to the state
of concubinage in which the Spanish clergy were living prior to the reign
of Isabella the Catholic. But we shall not be guilty of an injustice in
admitting, that from that period until our own times a great number of
the Spanish clergy, as well regular as secular, have borne the yoke with
singular patience, and have, with exemplary self-denial, resigned
themselves to the severe privation imposed upon them by that ordinance of
their church. On the other hand, however, we cannot dissimulate the
violent struggle between inclination and duty which they have had to
sustain, and the immense difficulty of resisting a temptation which the
frequent intercourse with the female portion of their charge has always
offered to the clergy and friars in the discharge of their functions,
especially when it is considered how prodigal nature has been to the
women of the Peninsula in the bestowment of her richest personal
attractions, and that great facilities have been given to the spiritual
guides for the abuse of that _prestige_ conferred upon them by the habit
of their order.
In large towns, the presence of the bishops, and the respect which a
polished and select society inspired, were, for the most part, a check on
the impure inclinations of the clergy, even when their own sense of
virtue and religion was insufficient to lead them to a spontaneous
compliance with their arduous but sacred duty. But in small towns where
these barriers did not exist, the clergy and friars, it must be admitted,
infringed, and continued grossly to infringe, frequently in a scandalous
manner, the vow of celibacy which they had solemnly sworn to observe.
The priest of a rural parish, who was generally the most important
personage of the whole population, had so frequent and such dangerous
opportunities of forming relations of an illicit character with the
weaker sex, that he required a proportionate degree of sanctity, virtue,
and prudence, to resist them. These relations, however, be it said to
the shame of Spain, once formed, are not concealed, but are generally
openly and unblushingly made known to the public. All the towns-people
know very well the person who is the priest's _querida_; {75} nay more,
on many occasions they have recourse to her influence over the mind of
their pastor; and even the fruits of these illicit relations are commonly
known throughout the parish by the name of "the children of the priest!"
(_los hijos del cura_.)
Not many years ago, in a small town in Valencia, and on a Sunday, the
parishioners assembled in the square according to custom, waiting till
the bell should announce to them the hour of entering the church to hear
mass; hour after hour passed--no bell sounded--the people directed their
steps towards the house of the priest's _querida_, where they found that
he had passed the night in orgies of drunkenness and dissipation, and
was, even then, in a state of intoxication.
It is worthy of note, as a remarkable circumstance, borne out by
experience and by facts well authenticated, that the softer passion of
the mind is, generally, in the cloisters, one of a cruel and ferocious
character, quite incompatible with its natural essence. The archives of
the Spanish tribunals abound with criminal proceedings against friars,
for murders committed on the persons of their unhappy victims or
paramours. There are three celebrated instances of this kind,--one
against the Carmelite of San Lucar, another against the Capuchine of
Cuenca, and the third against the Agonizante of Madrid.
The first of these notorious delinquents was a man of middle age, robust,
strong, and who, until the event now referred to, had not given occasion
for the least suspicion as to his morality. A young lady, of
extraordinary beauty, and held in great esteem by all the towns-people
for the purity of her conduct and the sanctity of her life, used
frequently to attend the confessional of this Carmelite friar. He
conceived for her, secretly, a violent passion, which he kept up and
fostered through the constant interviews which his vocation afforded him
in gaining the unlimited confidence of his penitent. But he contrived,
with incredible command over himself, to suppress his feelings. He never
uttered one word to the young creature which could indicate to her the
risks she was incurring in seeking for his guidance and blessing. One
day, however, she appeared before him on her knees at his confessional,
and, with a simplicity and sweetness, such as innocence alone can
command, informed him that, with the advice and consent of her parents,
she was about to enter into the married state, and now came before him,
as her spiritual father, to prepare herself for so important an ordinance
by the previous sacraments of confession, absolution, and the holy
communion. The friar heard this simple statement, received the child's
confession, little as that amounted to, pronounced upon her the
absolution, and administered to her the eucharist, without betraying the
least perturbation or confusion in his countenance. On rising from her
knees, as pure, as holy, and as fully and freely pardoned from sin as her
fond and simple mind imagined it was in the power of her church and its
minister to make her, the friar said he wished her to go to the vestibule
(_porteria_ {77}), where he would give her some counsel relative to the
new state into which she was about to enter. The unsuspecting girl
blindly obeyed the voice which had often before directed her in the ways
of virtue; she rose, went to the indicated spot, where already stood the
friar, who, without uttering one word, drew from his bosom a poniard, and
thrust it into the heart of his ill-fated victim, who fell mortally
wounded at his feet. With the utmost coolness, the assassin retired to
his cell, wiping the gory blade on the sleeve of his habit, as if he had
been performing a most innocent deed. The alarm was immediately given.
The friar was arrested and thrown into prison. Proceedings were
commenced, and supported by evidence which left no doubt as to the author
of the crime, and the circumstances under which it was committed. The
public prosecutor (fiscal) moved the court for the extreme penalty of
death; but against this sentence arose a strenuous opposition on the part
of the bishops, who pretended, in the first place, that the crime was one
which ought only to be judged by the ecclesiastical authority, and in the
second, that in no case could the penalty of death be inflicted on a
priest. The contest was carried to the government for its decision, and
the minister, Campomanes, a zealous defender of the sovereign's rights,
as well as a constant enemy to the usurpations of the clergy, confirmed
the jurisdiction of the civil power which had heard the cause, and
declared that the Spanish legislature offered no impediment to the
execution of the last penalty of the law, if the judges found sufficient
grounds to warrant them in awarding it. The judges did so find, and
pronounced sentence accordingly; but the king, Charles III., commuted the
sentence to perpetual banishment and imprisonment. The assassin was
conducted to Puerto Rico, where he ended his life, weighed down by
remorse, though his hours were consecrated to penitence and prayer.
The history of the second case, viz., that of the Capuchine of Cuenca,
bears a still more scandalous and atrocious character. The unhallowed
passions of this great criminal had their origin also in the
confessional. The accomplice of his wickedness was, too, his "daughter
of confession," (_hija de confesion_. {78}) She was the wife of a
carpenter of respectable character, who, not content with the influence
which the friar exercised over the conscience of his wife, wished that
influence might also be brought to bear over the concerns of his own
modest household, and therefore frequently invited the friar to his
table. The latter and his _querida_, unknown to the confiding carpenter,
passed some years in a total abandonment of themselves to vicious
courses. The friar began, subsequently, to imagine he observed a certain
coldness or indifference on the part of his companion in guilt, and,
attributing that change to a feeling of the woman's self-disgust and
reproach, he had recourse to the most diabolical means of searing her
conscience, and making her still more the associate of his depravity:
indeed, it is not possible even to read without horror of the abominable
artifices to which this monster of iniquity had recourse, although these
were all minutely detailed in the written charges brought against him at
his trial, and were deposed to by the woman herself, she being fully
corroborated by the testimony of other witnesses secreted in a part of
the house from whence his revolting conduct was both seen and heard. One
step in the path of immorality and crime too often leads on to another.
The friar at length imagined that the woman's indifference arose from
some latent spark of affection which she still bore to her husband, and
he resolved on sacrificing the life of the unfortunate man whose
connubial rights seemed to stand in his way. Full of impatience for the
consummation of the diabolical project when once he had determined on its
execution, and having given to his victim a strong soporific, which threw
him into a heavy sleep, he proceeds to urge on the faithless wife to the
act of stabbing her unconscious husband. This tragedy she performed with
one of the unhappy man's own instruments of trade, under the guidance of
the friar, who first ascertained and indicated to her, by the pulsations
of the doomed man's heart, the exact spot into which she was to give the
instrument its fatal plunge.
The extreme docility of the woman in the hands of the friar, as disclosed
in the evidence, can only be explained by the absolute control which he
held over her conscience and her will; and, doubtless, even that control
arrived at such a pitch, that, at last, the yoke became insupportable, if
we may judge from the declarations which she made during the trial, for
she appeared to take credit to herself for the revelations which she then
made of all the disgusting particulars connected with the crimes of that
detestable culprit.
Immediately after the perpetration of the crime, the civil power seized
the persons of both the guilty parties, and began to prosecute judicial
inquiries, with the greatest secrecy, under the clandestine supervision
of the bishop. The proceedings were prolonged to an indefinite period,
until the friar had been six years in prison, within which interval the
woman died. In a popular commotion which occurred in Cuenca in
consequence of an invasion by the French, all prisoners were set at
liberty, and this execrable miscreant disappeared.
The _Agonizante_ of Madrid {81} (which is the third case) also murdered
the companion of his vices, on her own bed too, in which they had passed
the preceding night. The true motive of this murder could never be
satisfactorily ascertained. But the friar having been taken _in
flagrante_, the judges could not hesitate for a moment in passing
sentence of death upon him. All the Spanish clergy had recourse to
Ferdinand VII., and used their utmost influence to obtain a pardon, or at
least a commutation of the sentence; but the king was inflexible, and the
criminal died at the hands of the executioner, by the _garrote_, in the
Plazuela de la Cebada, in Madrid.
Under the same reign of Ferdinand VII., the Convent of the Basilios of
Madrid was the theatre of most scandalous and sanguinary atrocities,
which had their origin in the relaxed manners of the inhabitants of that
establishment. The friars were accustomed to introduce by night into the
cloisters women of ill fame, and this custom had grown into something
like a right or privilege, which the friars were resolved to maintain at
all hazards, as it was afterwards proved; for the abbot, who until then
had connived at these irregularities, wished all of a sudden to adopt a
system of the utmost rigour and discipline, and to reduce the friars to
the severe observances of their order. The convent was situated in the
most populous part of Madrid. One night in the year 1832, loud screams
were heard by the inhabitants of the opposite houses, and by people who
were passing in the streets. The civil authorities were called to the
spot, and informed of the circumstances. They demanded entrance at the
doors of the convent, but the friars refused to comply. Force became
necessary. The gates were broken open, and the officers rushed in. All,
however, that the public could ever learn of that nocturnal invasion was
simply that the head of the unfortunate abbot was found in one cell, and
his trunk in another. Ferdinand VII. did not on that occasion display
the same degree of indignation and severity as he had done towards the
Agonizante. He was at that moment in all the plenitude of his despotic
power, and this mysterious affair of the convent of the Basilios was
buried in the most profound oblivion.
These terms of harmony have always existed between the Spanish monarchs
and the clergy, who have been accustomed to lend themselves,
reciprocally, to the interests and persecutions of each other; and hence
it is that a great number of crimes similar to that just referred to has
never before been brought to light. Some of these, however, have been of
such a nature and magnitude, and accompanied with such extraordinary
circumstances, that, in spite of the efforts made by the clergy to
conceal them, they have not altogether eluded the public curiosity. To
this class belongs the celebrated case of the Capuchines of Cascante, the
recollection of which is traditionally preserved, and is still the
subject of many a conversation, although to the present day we are not
aware of any account that has been published on the subject of that
shameful transaction. There still exist those who either were children
in the time of Charles III., or who heard, from the lips of their fathers
or grandfathers, all the particulars of that flagrant case, as well as of
the extraordinary sensation which the discoveries then made produced on
the public mind. The facts, which appear indisputable, are
these:--Towards the middle of the reign of that sovereign, a prelate of
one of the districts of the province of Arragon had good reason to
believe that there existed intimate and criminal relations between the
nuns and the friars of two convents situated in the same town. It had
been observed that the number of foundlings had been for some time
considerably on the increase, many of which were left, by persons
unknown, in the houses of poor women, who received with them very
considerable sums of money. At first, no suspicion whatever fell on the
friars, who continued their offices of preaching, saying mass, confessing
penitents, and giving ostentatious indications of their leading humble
and ascetic lives. A diligent watch was instituted by the authorities,
but as far as exterior observances went, there was no reason to believe
that any suspicious persons from without ever entered the convent of the
nuns; it was therefore thought right to have an internal examination of
that convent, a measure never had recourse to by the authorities but on
occasions of the gravest kind.
The result of this step was, that in the interior of the edifice was
discovered a door leading to a subterranean passage or tunnel which
crossed underneath the principal street of the town, and led direct to
the convent of the Capuchines. All the inmates of both establishments
were immediately taken prisoners; a judicial examination followed, when
it was found that for many years the societies of these two convents had
been living in a state of concubinage,--that even the outward doors of
the two houses were seldom shut at night,--that the friars had free
ingress to the convent of the nuns, where both sexes gave themselves up
to the most dissolute abandonment in drunkenness, gluttony, debauchery,
and all sorts of carnal excesses. The authorities found more than they
had expected, and began to repent the course they had taken. The trials,
however, were pushed forward apparently with all usual formalities, but
the judges were exclusively ecclesiastics, and everything was conducted
with profound caution and secrecy. The prisoners were removed to several
towns in Arragon, and kept apart from each other, in different cells; but
in one single night they all disappeared, and were never afterwards heard
of. The only part which the civil authority took in this mysterious
affair was to command the two convents to be pulled down, and salt to be
sown on their foundations,--a ceremony which was accordingly performed,
and one which the laws of Spain then required as to all houses which had
been the scene of any atrocious offence.
It may hardly be necessary to reiterate what we have already more than
once insisted on, as a well authenticated fact, that in the midst of all
such irregularities and crimes as those detailed to show the unnatural
and violent character of celibacy in the clergy, there always have been,
in Spain, a large number of persons of both sexes, who have been
privileged to take up and bear this cross of privation with singular
resignation and constancy. But those efforts on the side of virtue, that
perpetual conflict with sentiments most grateful to the human heart,--and
that separation of an entire class, constituted in society self-acting,
without any relation of endearment towards a general society,--may be
considered as some of the grave inconveniences of Roman Catholicism, or
rather as some of the most formidable obstacles which that faith opposes
to the regular habits and to the peace of families.
The dangers of celibacy in the clergy are perhaps more serious and more
inevitable in Spain than in any other country of Europe. The Spanish
nation is, generally, renowned for its chivalrous sentiments, for the
violence of the tender passions, and for the influence which the fair sex
exercises, not only in all the domestic but in the civil and political
relations of life. There is, in the society of the Spanish lady, a
distinctive feature of character, called _franqueza_, which, above all
others, gives her the greatest charm in the eyes of a foreigner. She is
eminently sociable, and is the life and essence of Spanish society, in
which she maintains an imperium over all tastes, affections, and
operations. Besides this, it is the universal custom of Spaniards to be
constantly going in and out of one another's houses without ceremony or
invitation; and this frequent contact with Spanish women, generally
pretty, but almost always amiable and graceful, naturally produces
intimate relations, and not unfrequently reciprocal attachments. One may
conceive of such a thing as a cold, repulsive resistance to such
attractions in the dreariness of a desert, or even within the four walls
of a cell; but when such influences are not merely occasionally, but
unceasingly brought to bear upon the senses, they too often leave
impressions which, by a law of our sinful nature, are capable of
reciprocating so as to produce their corresponding effects. Hence
humanity, unless upheld and strengthened by a superior power, is too
often insufficient and prone to give up the contest.
In Spain, the inferior classes of society have always, until of late,
submitted not only to the influence but to the authority of a priest or a
friar; and it may well be conceived how easy it is to abuse this power in
the intercourse which such functionaries have with ignorant and weak
persons. In small towns, the inhabitants of which are devoted
exclusively to labour, fathers and husbands pass the entire day in the
fields, whilst the priest remains at home without a witness of his
conduct or his actions. No domestic hearth is at liberty to exclude him.
He is authorised by custom to enter all houses, at all hours, where he is
received and treated almost as a god. These are facts which can be
vouched by all Spaniards, by whom they are spoken of without the least
reserve. In laying them before the English public, we disavow all idea
of calumniating an entire class of Spanish society. Our object is to
point out one of the causes which, in our opinion, enters into the number
of those which, most effectively, have contributed to the decline of so
sensible and generous a nation.
CHAPTER IV.
THE MASS--Its introduction but modern--The Spaniard Lainez opposed it--On
what grounds--Description of the ceremony--Its religious and secular
peculiarities--Sacerdotal vestments worn while celebrating it--High and
Low Mass--Both performed in an unknown tongue--Consequent indifference of
the congregation--Mercenary character of the mass--"_Masses for the
intention_"--Masses for the dead--The solemn mass on Christmas eve, or
_Noche buena_--Its profane accompaniments--Passion week--Thursday--Good
Friday--Adoration of the Cross--Processions--Anecdotes of Isabella
II.--Brilliant rites and ceremonies on the day after Good
Friday--Uproarious conduct of the faithful on that occasion--The mass as
celebrated at Toledo--Judicial combat, or judgment of God.
The mass is the chief rite in the Roman Catholic worship. The obligation
for all members of that church to hear it, on every Sunday and every
feast-day, is imperative and absolutely indispensable; and the infraction
of it is considered a mortal sin. Although the obligation does not
extend to those days of labour on which masses are said, yet pious and
devout persons go to hear it, and this act is considered as eminently
commendable and meritorious.
The introduction of the mass into Roman Catholic worship is of an epoch
comparatively modern. In the first centuries of the church, the divine
offices were but those of singing hymns and psalms, reading the Sacred
Scriptures, and the sermon. These rites being terminated, a collection
was made among believers for the relief of their poor; and the portion of
these alms which was _sent_ to such of them as could not attend the place
of worship was called _missa_, or _sent_, from the participle of the
Latin verb _mittere_, to send.
Many have been the disputes between Roman Catholic writers themselves
touching the epoch at which that part of the ceremonial called the mass,
used in the present day, was first introduced. There is no doubt that
many ages of the church passed away before it was considered as a
sacrifice; and even the Council of Trent were much divided in their
opinions on this point, and the fathers vacillated much before they
decided respecting it. The Spaniard Lainez, general of the order of
Jesuits, was one of the most strenuous opposers of the novelty, and gave
the same reasons for his opposition that all Protestant writers have
alleged against it, viz., that the New Testament abolished the sacrifice,
or rather, that ancient rites and ceremonies were superseded by the great
sacrifice of the Saviour of the world himself on the cross, and that the
idea itself involves the profanation that mortal and sinful man can
sacrifice on his altars at his will the immaculate Lamb of God. These
powerful objections were only met with excuses of convenience and
utility. The Council wrestled with the reformed doctrines, and contended
that its own system must necessarily be entirely different from that
taught by the Reformers, not only in substance but even in its accidents.
Reform denied Transubstantiation, and therefore the Roman church thought
it convenient to fortify that dogma by bringing it daily before the eyes
of the people, and constituting it an essential part of their worship.
If, in a Protestant point of view, the mass is considered as an attack on
the true spirit of Christianity, as upholding not only
transubstantiation, but also the doctrine of intercession of saints, yet
still, in the eyes of a good Roman Catholic, it is a rite full of
elevated thoughts, devout prayers, and highly proper and religious ideas.
The first part of the mass, from the _Introite_ to the _Offertory_, is
composed almost entirely of fragments of Scripture: such are, first, the
_Introite_, generally taken from the Psalms; secondly, the _Collect_,
which is the same as that in the Protestant Book of Common Prayer for
Sundays; thirdly, the _Epistle_, which is part of a chapter out of the
prophecies, or out of one of the epistles in the New Testament; fourthly,
the _Gradual_, also taken from the Psalms; and fifthly, the _Gospel_,
which, as its name indicates, is a portion of a chapter taken from some
one of the four evangelists. The parts added by the popes are, first,
the _Kyrie Eleyson_, taken from the rites of the Greek church; secondly,
the _Gloria_, which is a magnificent outburst of the most elevated
religious sentiments; and lastly, the _Symbol_ of the faith.
The _Offertory_, which is the second part of the mass, is one series of
prayers, in which the _Canon_ is prepared, by offering up the host (which
has to be consecrated in order to obtain upon it the blessing of the Most
High), and by invoking the intercession of the saints, and enumerating
all the graces and favours implored through the medium of the sacrifice.
The priest, in this part of the ceremony, washes his hands; he concludes
with the _Preface_, an act of thanksgiving, in which are explained some
of the mysteries of religion applicable to the day on which they are
celebrated. Among others of this latter class, the preface for the
Trinity is admired for its conciseness, and the elegance and accuracy
with which the composition explains that great mystery, in terms which
cannot be objected to even by any Protestant church.
After the offertory follows the canon, which is the preparation for the
consecration, and is also composed of prayers, in which a spirit of
penitence, and the invocation of the divine protection in the solemn act
about to be celebrated, form prominent features. The priest next takes
the host, pronounces over it the words of consecration, and elevates it,
so that the people may see and adore it. He does the like with the
chalice, and then prepares himself for the communion, which consists in
his eating the host and drinking the wine in the cup. Twice afterwards
he pours wine and water into the cup, and drinks off the contents, which
are called the _ablutions_. He pronounces other two prayers or
thanksgivings, blesses the people, and dismisses them with the formula,
"_Ite_, _missa est_," "Go, the mass is over." Still, however, he
continues to read, on ordinary days, in the first chapter of St John's
Gospel, or, on other solemn days, from the other evangelists.
All this is accompanied with various ceremonies, genuflections, and
changes of position. For example: the prayers are said in front of the
altar; the introite, the collect, and the epistle, on the right; the
gospel on the left; the priest, at certain parts of the ceremony, turning
his back upon the altar, and his face towards the people. In celebrating
the mass, it is required that the priest be dressed in certain vestments,
which are, in no small degree, complicated. Some of these are white, and
of linen. Others are of silk, and in colour varied according to the
solemnity of the day. For example: on the feast-day of a martyr, the
ornament is red; on the feasts of the Virgin, and on those on which are
celebrated any of the mysteries of the life of the Saviour, it is white;
in masses for the souls of the departed, of which we shall treat
hereafter, it is black; the violet colour is used in Advent and in Lent;
the green on some particular Sundays. The cathedral of Seville alone
enjoys the privilege, in all the Roman Catholic world, of using the
sky-blue colour on the day whereon is celebrated the Conception of the
Virgin.
On the altar at which mass is said, there ought to be, at least, a
crucifix, two wax lights, and a slab (_ara_) of stone. The cloth which
covers the chalice and the exterior adornment of the altar, called the
_frontal_, must be of the same colour as the ornament of the day.
There are two kinds of mass, high mass and low mass. The first is
generally performed by three priests, viz., the officiating priest, the
subdeacon, who chants the epistle, and the deacon, who chants the gospel.
In the high mass, the choir sings many parts of it, and the organ is
played at times by way of accompaniment, and at other times as a solo,
during the offertory and the canon. On these occasions incense is burned
to perfume the altar, after which the deacon perfumes the officiating
priest; and if persons of authority or distinction are in attendance at
the office of the mass, the acolytes perfume them with the incensories.
The most extraordinary, and, we may justly say, absurd thing in all this
complicated series of practices and ceremonies is, that the whole of them
are performed in a language which the people do not understand, and
consequently they play the part of mere spectators, without having one
single religious idea communicated to the mind, or one devout sentiment
to the heart. The people see nothing more than a man dressed in a
certain manner, moving from one side to another, and from whose lips are
proceeding words which are absolutely void of sense. Hence proceeds that
species of indifference with which the people regard that spectacle, an
indifference which degenerates into profanation and levity. In Spain,
particularly, it is quite common for lovers to converse with each other
during the mass; and the turbulent crowds which rush in towards the
conclusion, the noise, the haste, and, sometimes, the bad expressions
which fall on the ear, in the precincts of the edifice, form a strange
and scandalous contrast to the sacred character with which the church
seems anxious to invest the sacrifice of the mass. The greater number of
those persons who assemble to witness it, particularly the humble
classes, believe they have complied with the obligation they are under to
hear the mass, if even they only _see_ the priest; and so wearisome has
this duty become to the majority of Spaniards, that the most popular
priests are those who say the shortest masses.
We have heard such and such a father spoken of with enthusiasm who says
the mass in twelve minutes, although it appears impossible even to read
the parts composing it in less than eighteen or twenty. On the other
hand, when a devout and scrupulous priest recites these offices with due
deliberation, and performs the ceremonies with a becoming degree of
solemnity and decorum, the church is deserted. The popular phrase in
such cases is "Father So-and-so is heavy in the mass,"--("_El padre tiene
la misa pesada_.")
There are some persons who, during the mass, read their prayers
translated into Spanish; but this is really a French custom, and wholly
inadmissible among a people the great majority of whom are unable to
read. But the most objectionable thing in the mass is its mercenary
character. The object which induces a Christian to pay for a mass, is to
recompense the priest for applying the merits of the sacrifice to
_desires_ and _intentions_, sometimes not very pure, on the part of those
who pay.
Thus they pay for a mass to obtain the health of a sick person, security
during a journey, a good result from a speculation, or the preservation
of a soul from the fire of purgatory. Even robbers will give a certain
portion of their plunder to a priest to say a mass for their next
adventure. The ordinary phrase in these cases, at the time of paying the
father for the mass, is this:--"Say a mass for my _intention_;" so that
the priest has recourse to the throne of the Most High, immolates the
most sacred of victims, believes that he introduces to his own body that
of the Saviour, and all this without knowing why or wherefore! He who
orders a mass and pays for it has no need to reveal to any one his object
or intention; and if he likes to be silent, it is a want of discretion
and of delicacy on the part of the priest to question him on that point.
The price of a mass varies from a shilling to one pound sterling. A high
mass is much dearer, and its price depends on the pomp and ornaments
bespoken by the person desiring it. In wills and testaments it is very
common to order a number of masses to be said for the soul of the
testator; and even in recent times, it has been a common practice to
found what are called "pious works." These consist in giving to a church
a sum of money, a rural or a city property, bound by an obligation to say
so many masses in the year for the soul of the donor.
Whenever it happens that this obligation is disregarded, and the required
masses are not said, the Pope concedes a "bull of composition" (_bula de
composicion_), which, in effect, commands that a single mass shall serve
for all those which have been omitted. This kind of legislation will
appear incredible to all those who are ignorant of the irregularities of
the court of Rome; but every person who has lived in Spain knows that it
is of daily occurrence.
One of the most solemn masses in the year is that which is celebrated on
Christmas-eve at midnight, that being the hour at which, it is supposed,
the Saviour of the world was born. It is called "The mass of the cock,"
(_misa del gallo_), as having an allusion to the hour in which it is
celebrated. The hilarity of the Spaniards on this occasion is expressed
in a way more analogous to that accompanying heathen rites, than to any
which should pertain to Christian worship. Under pretext of taking part
in so happy a commemoration, they abandon themselves, during the whole
night, to the most noisy demonstrations of joy. Numerous parties of men
and women perambulate the streets, singing couplets, called
_villancicos_, which are exclusively applicable to this feast, and
playing on two species of musical instruments, having the most abominable
sound, called _raveles_ and _zambombas_, which are never used but on this
occasion. The churches are filled with people, who are far from
conducting themselves with that decorum and moderation belonging to the
place. The jovial dispositions then manifested are encouraged by the
organ, on which are played waltzes, polkas, and even the vulgar songs
heard at dances of the lower classes; and these performances are
distinctly heard whilst the priest is saying the mass. In general, the
believers, after having taken a part in the service, give themselves up
to all the disorders of excessive eating and drinking. Nothing in modern
times approximates so nearly to the orgies of antiquity as this
celebrating "the good night" (_la noche buena_) in Spain. Sometimes the
civil authorities are obliged to put a check upon them, but we believe
there is no instance in which the clergy have made the slightest attempt
to repress such scandalous disorders. We cannot see how the most zealous
Roman Catholic can justify a practice so opposed to the true spirit of
Christianity, and so deeply rooted in the public manners, that, in the
eyes of most Spaniards, any person who would dare to censure it would
pass for an unbeliever or a heretic.
There are two days in the year on which it is prohibited to say mass at
all; these are, Thursday in Passion-week and Good Friday. The English
tourists know the eminently dramatic character which distinguishes these
feasts at that season of the year in St Peter's at Rome. All the offices
of the seven days of that week are well calculated to excite the
imagination, and awaken in the coldest hearts the most lively sympathy
with the great events then commemorated. Every thing connected with
those rites breathes grief and sadness, and there is a certain mournful
solemnity in them which harmonises with the scenes of our Saviour's
passion. The chapters of the four Evangelists, containing the narrative
of that great event, from the going up of our Lord to Jerusalem to the
crucifixion, are chanted by three priests, each one taking a distinct
part. One takes the words in which the evangelist recounts those events;
another the words put into the mouths of Judas, Pilate, Peter, and the
other persons referred to in the narrative; and the third, whose voice is
generally a profound bass, the words of the Saviour. The solemnity of
the Thursday has for its object the institution of the eucharist, and the
long series of ceremonies in which this grand mystery is symbolised,
concludes by conducting, in solemn procession, the consecrated host from
the great altar of the church, where it has been preserved all the year,
to a wooden sanctuary in the same church, more or less richly adorned,
called the monument (_monumento_), which is dressed up with a profusion
of jewels, lights, and flowers, and remains all night guarded by some of
the devout, and, in towns which contain a garrison, by military
sentinels. Some of those monuments are, in truth, works of architecture
of great merit; and among them that of the cathedral of Seville is
distinguished for its gigantic dimensions, and for the richness and
elegance of its structure.
In the offices for Good Friday, the host is restored to the altar, with a
ceremony as solemn as that of the day preceding; and the services, which
are very long, refer to all the scenes of the crucifixion, including all
the passages in the prophecies and other parts of the Old Testament in
which the event is prefigured or foretold. After the offices are gone
through, the cross is placed on the ground, supported by a cushion, and
all the faithful, from the highest personages of the state down to the
meanest subject, bow down before it, kiss it, and leave some piece of
money on a plate placed by its side. In the royal chapel of the palace
are placed, close to the cross on this occasion, the files of the
proceedings against criminals who have been condemned to die. The
sovereign, in the act of adoration, takes into his hands one of those
files, which signifies the granting a pardon to the culprit whose trial
it contains. There is a pleasing anecdote related of the young Queen
Isabella II., that, being but a girl when she for the first time took a
part in this ceremony, and on being informed of its signification, she
took up _all_ the files placed before her; by which act of grace a free
pardon was extended to all the delinquents. {98}
During the whole night of Thursday until the Friday, the faithful go
about the streets in numerous companies visiting the different monuments.
Every foreigner who is present at these peregrinations would take
Spaniards for the most devout people in the world. The whole population
are at that time circulating through the streets. The use of coaches or
other vehicles is prohibited, and the churches are never empty. The
different regiments of the army, the functionaries of the tribunals, and
every public body, all these visit the monuments headed by their
respective chiefs. The queen sets the example, accompanied by all the
nobility, her ministers, and all the high officers of state. A sedan
chair of great magnificence is carried in the rear for her Majesty's use,
in case she should become fatigued.
On the Saturday after Good Friday only one mass is said, viz., high mass,
after the consecration of the oils and blessing the water for the service
of the daily ablutions of the faithful. This mass is dedicated to the
resurrection, and its rites have a character really striking and
romantic. When the offices commence, the altar is entirely covered with
a black veil, the church is in darkness, and not a single light to be
seen in the whole space. But on the intonation of the _Gloria in
excelsis Deo_, the veil divides itself into two parts, and is drawn to
the sides, which operation, suddenly performed, discloses hundreds of
lights and a most splendid profusion of ornaments. Then the bells, which
have been silent for the two preceding days, are set a-ringing,--pigeons
are let off upon the wing,--every one makes the greatest possible noise,
striking the benches of the church, firing rockets within its walls, and
salvos of artillery in the squares. Some churches enjoy the privilege of
saying only low masses (_misas rezadas_) on this day.
We have spoken of the obligation of all to hear mass on Sundays and
feast-days; and we should add that this is the only act of devotion
required from Spaniards on those days. By the words, "observe the
feasts," is understood, in Spain, that after joining in the mass, as
before stated, believers are at liberty to dedicate the day to every
species of diversion and profanity. In France and in England, it is
obligatory also to attend vespers on the Sundays. Not so, however, in
Spain, where, in the evenings, scarcely a person is to be seen in the
churches.
All truly religious men who read the foregoing remarks, and in which
there is not the least exaggeration or departure from the truth, will
imagine, doubtless, that the modern ecclesiastical authorities of the
peninsula have, at least, attempted to rectify all that is absurd and
irreverent in those practices, and to strip a ceremony so august and
imposing as that of the mass of all that a want of true devotion, and
that ignorance and neglect on the part of the clergy, has introduced to
that ceremony,--nevertheless it is not so; the clergy themselves appear
to co-operate in those attempts to pervert the ideas of the nation. The
proof of it is, that being ordered by all the councils, especially that
of Trent, to preach a sermon, during the high mass, explaining the gospel
for the day, as is done in all other Roman Catholic countries, yet in
Spain no such practice is observed, except in poor and small towns; so
that the Spaniard is not only wanting of that spiritual aliment which the
reading of the Bible is able to furnish, but also of a person to explain
those parts of Scripture which he has been hearing read, and in a strange
language, during the mass. Preaching, as has already been stated in our
introductory chapter, is in Spain reduced to panegyrics on the saints,
and to Lent-sermons,--which, in truth, have only reference to the gospel
for the day; and although this spiritual food is administered but seldom
and in small quantities, that is to say, eight or ten times from
Ash-Wednesday until Palm-Sunday, there is no doubt whatever of its
beneficial effects, and that by its means some temporal improvement in
the habits of the people evidently results from it. But, that season
over, the flock is abandoned by the shepherd, these slight impressions
wear off, and the people return to the same godless and mundane system of
life.
In the cathedral church of Toledo there is a particular chapel in which
the mass is celebrated, according to the rite called Mozarabe,
introduced, as its name indicates, in the time of the occupation by the
Moors, by the Christians who lived under their yoke in that city. The
Roman Catholic ritual having been made prevalent all over the peninsula
by the Great Isabella, and adopted in all the churches, the faithful of
Toledo still wished to preserve that form of ritual which they had
practised for many centuries. Although this portion of Spain's
ecclesiastical history is wrapt in great obscurity, and has given rise to
many disputes among learned men, yet it is certain that in order to
decide between that authority which wished to extinguish those remains of
antiquity, and the people who desired to preserve them, recourse was had
to what then went by the name of "the judgment of God," viz., a formal
duel, attended with all the ceremonies which the feudal system had
imported into Europe. The partisans of the Roman ritual placed their
defence of it in the hands of one knight-errant, and those of the
opposite party confided theirs to the care of another. He who defended
the Roman rite was conquered in the fight; and although the conditions of
the combat were not entirely observed, because the cathedral and the
other churches of Toledo were, after all, reduced to the authority of the
Pope, yet a chapter of canons was instituted, to whom was conceded the
privilege of saying mass according to the ritual of the conquerors.
CHAPTER V.
DEVOTION of Protestants scriptural and reasonable--That of Roman
Catholics poetical and affectionate--Religious enthusiasm leads to
insanity--Mental devotion as distinguished from physical--Nature of Roman
Catholic devotion accounted for by the worship of images--Intercession of
saints--Saint Anthony--The illiterate guided by bodily vision rather than
spiritual discernment--Horace confirms this--Illustrated by popular
errors--Sensual and poetical elements were introduced to devotion by the
Greeks--Destruction of images by the Emperor Leo the Iconoclast--Opinion
of Pope Leo the Great--Images adorned like human beings perplex the mind
between truth and fiction--Familiar examples--Money-contributions for
adornment of images--Belief that saints can cure certain complaints--List
of these--Saint Anthony of Padua's miracles--The fete of _San Anton
Abad_--Virgin Mary, and her innumerable advocations--A list of
several--The Rosary--Statues of the Virgin--Immense value of their
wardrobes and trinkets--The most ugly of those statues excite most
devotion--Virgin of Zaragoza--The heart of Mary--Month of Mary
(May)--Kissing images--Anecdote of the Duke of A--- and his
courtezan--Habits and promises--Penance.
Devotion in Roman Catholicism is totally distinct in its essence from
that of Protestantism. The devotion of Protestants is scriptural and
reasonable; that of Roman Catholics poetical and affectionate. The
Protestant considers God as a spiritual being, and, as such,
incomprehensible, the only object of worship, the only fountain of grace
and pardon. The Roman Catholic represents the Eternal in material forms,
accessible only through the indirect medium of intercession, and
addresses him with the familiarity and tenderness peculiar to the human
relations between a father and a son. In prayer the truly devout Roman
Catholic weeps, afflicts himself, gesticulates, touches the ground with
his forehead, kisses it, strikes his breast, and reveals, by his whole
physiognomy and exterior actions, a vehemence and intensity which his
physical frame appears scarcely able to sustain. His prayers are full of
poetical exclamations, which are called _jaculatorias_; and in addressing
the object of his devotion, he feels more complacency in accumulating
sonorous epithets, and in repeating groans and sighs, than in imploring,
by properly-constructed and continuous phrases, the protection and mercy
of the Almighty. Roman Catholic devotion gives a perfect idea of
ecstasy, and shows that religious enthusiasm, carried to the utmost
extreme, agitates the nervous system, and produces effects very similar
to those of mental abstraction; and, in truth, in those asylums provided
for the insane, we find many of their inmates to be persons who have
fallen into that deplorable state through religious enthusiasm. There
are other cases in which these excesses in devotion have ended in
catalepsy; and some of those women who have been celebrated for the
supernatural state in which it has been pretended they lived for many
years, without food, and insensible to all external impressions, have
been rather the unhappy victims of mental disease than the instruments of
wilful imposture.
Perhaps some one may ask why, seeing that the mysterious principles of
the Roman Catholic faith and those of the Protestants are equal, there
should be so much difference in their devotional characters, the one
being opposed to the other? why in the one case it is entirely mental,
while the other largely participates in a physical nature? why in
Protestant devotion there is thinking and reflection, while in that of
Roman Catholics all is feeling and affection? The problem is resolved in
a single expression,--the worship of images.
This practice, which neither the fathers nor the councils have enforced
or authorised to the extent to which it has been carried by modern Roman
Catholics, and especially by Spaniards, exercises so powerful an
influence, or rather so irresistible an imperium, over the mind of man,
that it entirely perverts his reason, and radically extinguishes in it
the difference between the spiritual and the physical world. This great
enigma, the solution of which the Eternal has, in his wisdom, reserved
from mortal creatures, loses all its obscurity and ceases to be a mystery
to the man who converses with a figure made of wood or painted on canvas;
for he not only believes that it sees him, but that it can protect him,
grant him favours, and even obtain for him salvation. In vain it will be
said that the Roman Catholic sees in the image a symbol, an emblem, a
representation. It is not so. In his eyes the image is the saint
itself, and therefore he adorns it, covers it with splendid attire,
surrounds it with flowers and with lights, kneels down before it,
confides to it his griefs, and asks its intercession. If the object of
veneration and of worship were the saint itself,--that is to say, a
beatified spirit, which is supposed to dwell in heaven, and there enjoy
the favour of the Eternal Being,--the prayer made and the homage rendered
would be to that pure essence, and would be purged of all the external
accidents of humanity. But not so do Roman Catholics generally pray. In
order to pray it is necessary for them to have a material object; they
must enter with that object into similar relations as those which exist
between man and man; they must bring down the saint to their own level,
instead of endeavouring to lift up themselves to the level of the saint,
by means of a communication purely spiritual.
The proof of this is, that, among the images which represent the same
original and the same type, there are some which are believed to have
more power, and to be capable of working more miracles, than others. The
Saint Antonio, for example, which is venerated in one church in Madrid,
called La Florida, is much more popular than the Saint Antonio venerated
in another, called the Church de los Portugueses. In Burgos there is a
crucifix to which infinitely more solemn worship is paid than to one in
any parish church, or even in any chapel of the same city. The popes
have encouraged this absurd aberration of the human mind, by conceding,
and permitting the bishops to concede, indulgences to certain statues,
certain pictures, and even certain engravings, which represent objects of
devotion. The person who prays in front of that favoured object gains so
many years of indulgences; he who prays to the same saint, but before
another statue, another picture, or another engraving, obtains nothing.
Of course, all these concessions which are obtained are paid for in ready
money.
Now to the point. Are not these means the most efficacious that can be
imagined in order to materialise religion, and to subjugate it entirely
to the senses? Is it not infinitely more easy and shorter, especially
for rude and illiterate men, to believe in what they actually see, than
in any metaphysical notions, far above the reach of their understanding,
like those of a spiritual kind? From very ancient times it has been
thought that the impressions which the mind receives through the medium
of sight, are more striking and efficacious than those which are
communicated to it by all the other organs of the senses. Horace has
followed out this idea in his well-known lines:--
"Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem
Quam quae sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus, et quae
Ipsi sibi tradit spectator."
_De Ar. Poe._, 180.
Thus it is explained why men imagined for many centuries that the sky was
a solid superficies, and that the earth was a superficial plane, bounded
by the horizon; that the sun moved round the earth; that the existence of
the antipodes was a chimera; that the dew fell in the same way as the
rain from the upper regions of the atmosphere; and other popular errors
which science has corrected, but which were in a certain way justified by
the undeniable testimony of the senses. How difficult then is it, on
such evidence, to doubt the existence of a soul in a human representation
to which one speaks as to a person alive, and to which are tendered all
marks of respect and veneration, and before whom even the priests, those
masters of the people and depositaries of all true doctrine, kneel down
as would a son before his father, a subject before his sovereign, and a
culprit before his judge? Who would forbid this delusion to that simple
and ignorant mind, whose relations with the exterior world form the only
source of all his knowledge and all his feelings?
The Christian religion, purely spiritual in its dogmas and practices,
never would have admitted into them this profanation of their sublime
essence, if the Greek empire, by virtue of the great religious revolution
conducted by Constantine, had not been placed at the head of Christendom.
But the Greek Christians were descendants of those who had condemned
Socrates, and had not been purged, nor have they yet been purged, of
their sensual propensities, of their artistic tastes, and of their
attachment to whatever is pompous and ornamental. When the Emperor Leo
wished to uproot this abuse, and ordered the images venerated in the
temples to be destroyed, his orders were executed with so much imprudence
and cruelty, and the persecution raised against those who participated in
the common error was conducted in so sanguinary and implacable a manner,
that the general opinion rose against the new doctrine, and the name of
_iconoclast_ denoted in that day one of the most odious forms of heresy,
and one most severely condemned by the apostolical see. {107}
The Latin Church was long preserved from that contagion. When John, the
patriarch of Alexandria, consulted the great Pope Leo, whether it would
be right to adorn the Christian temples with pictures representing pious
objects, that eminent man answered him, that he could only be permitted
to have the representations of the historical facts related in the Bible,
in order that those believers who were unable to read might in this way
instruct themselves in sacred history, but that great care must be taken
that such a practice might not degenerate into idolatry.
We have already mentioned the fact that the Council of Granada prohibited
the worship of images; but when the thrones founded by the invading
nations of the north became settled, their monarchs--men profoundly
ignorant, and exclusively devoted to war and conquest--placed their
consciences and the direction of public affairs in the hands of the
clergy, who were then the monopolisers of learning and literature. The
clergy spared no means of consolidating their power, and it was their
interest to brutalise the people, in order to domineer over them with the
greater facility; and nothing could contribute more certainly to carry
out that view than the puerilities of a worship solely limited to the
adoration of the physical man. The pageantry of processions, the jewels,
the splendid vestments and ornaments with which their images were
covered, the miracles attributed to them, and the incense burned on their
altars, were so many other soporiferous drugs administered to the
understanding to lull its energy, and deprive it of every devoted thought
and of all liberty of examination. There is, moreover, in the
representation of a human being of the size and colour of life, a certain
character of reality, which at first sight cannot do less than make a
profound impression on the mind, leaving it for a time in a state of some
perplexity between truth and fiction. That immovable attitude, those
fixed eyes, those features which never alter the expression of the grief
or the joy impressed upon them by the hand of the artist, have in
themselves something of the awful and mysterious, which powerfully
affects us, despite our reason and experience. How many persons are
there who could look, without shuddering, on the statue of Fieschi, the
celebrated French murderer, in the collection of Madame Tussaud? How
many, on coming out from the chamber of horrors, in the same
establishment, resolve and vow never to go into it again? How many, who
would not, for any money, pass a night in the apartment in which these
disagreeable objects are exhibited? And to what extreme may not that
imperium extend, which these works of art exercise on the imagination,
if, in addition to their resemblances to nature, superstition endows them
with a supernatural power, and when reason persuades us that they hear
what we say to them,--that they receive our homage, and are able to
favour us with their protection?
But the Roman Catholic clergy have had another motive for promoting a
belief in such things, viz., the immense wealth which they draw from them
in the name of oblations, alms, and legacies. To contribute money to the
adornment of a saint, and to the celebration of rites which are
consecrated to it, is a meritorious work, which ensures its protection to
the contributor. By this fiction the people have been made to believe
that every human complaint, every one of the misfortunes that can occur
in life, depends on some particular saint who defends their respective
devotees against it. Saint Ramon favours women in the season of
parturition; Saint Demas preserves travellers on their journeys from
robbers; Saint Apollonius cures the toothache; Saint Lucy heals diseases
of the eyes; Saint Lazarus cures the leprosy; Saint Roque the plague;
Saint Joseph protects carpenters; Saint Casianus and Saint Nicholas
preserve children; Saint Luis Gonzaga, young people; Saint Hermenegild,
soldiers; Saint Thomas Aquinas, students; Saint Gloi, silversmiths; and
Saint Rita, superior to all the celestial court, obtains, by her
mediation, the _realization of impossibilities_! {110}
And yet, after all, the most popular of all the saints which the power of
the Vatican has placed on its altars is Saint Anthony of Padua. The
miracles which he wrought in his life are quite out of the ordinary
course, and some of them appear rather preposterous and ludicrous to the
incredulous. On one occasion, when he was preaching by the sea-shore,
and his audience had gone away, the fishes came out to hear him.
Whenever he was present at a banquet, and a plate or a soup tureen was
accidentally broken, he joined the fragments so completely together that
the piece recovered its former integrity. The superior of his convent
forbade him to perform miracles; but, one day, seeing a man falling from
a high tower, he ordered him to remain suspended in the air until the
superior should give the saint permission to let him fall without injury.
The devotees of Saint Anthony treat him with great familiarity, and even
punish him when he does not satisfy their desires. When they wish to
obtain some favour from his protection,--for example, to draw a prize in
a lottery, to find a lost cow, or to find a husband for a damsel,--they
burn tapers before his image, and adorn it with flowers. If they do not
still obtain his favour, they place the image with its face towards the
wall, in the darkest corner of the house, and even treat it with other
indignities, of which decency forbids the mention.
The solemnity of the day of San Anton Abad, the protector of all horses
and mules, is of a different kind, and is considered as one of the most
noisy and brilliant of all public amusements. The equestrians of the
city, mounted on their steeds, which, on this occasion, are splendidly
caparisoned, give three gallops round the church dedicated to the saint,
and, on finishing the third, they receive from the hands of the priest
the blessed barley, which is designed that night as provender for their
happy animals. The streets are filled with people anxious to witness
this grand exhibition of luxury and of horsemanship, and the balconies
are filled with ladies, whose plaudits compensate the dexterity of the
heroes of the feast, or rather of the day.
But of all the devotions of Spaniards, none is so general, none so
fervent, none so varied in its forms and ceremonies, as that which has
for its object the mother of the Saviour. All travellers know that Spain
is the classic country of _Mariolatry_; and certainly, if we could divest
it of the idea of intercession, which is its foundation, we should find
in it much of the poetical, the affectionate, and much of analogy to the
temper of a people in which the imagination predominates, and which still
preserves many traits of the knightly spirit of its progenitors. Mary
is, in the estimation of Spaniards, a tender mother, the confidante of
all their woes, and the support of all their hopes. In their prayers to
her, they are prodigal of the most expressive epithets of endearment and
admiration. They call her the spouse of the Holy Spirit, the door of
heaven, the star of the morning, the tower of David, the tower of ivory,
the house of gold, the ark of the covenant, the health of the sick, the
queen of heaven, the queen of angels, of prophets, of apostles, of
martyrs, and of virgins. We will not do Spaniards the injustice of
suspecting them capable of believing that Mary is superior to God in
power, but there is no doubt that there are in that country many
benighted souls who, when they have addressed their prayers to God,
asking some special favour which has not been granted, have recourse to
the Virgin under a persuasion that through her means they shall obtain
it. Innumerable authors of religious books have written, and it has
daily been repeated from the pulpits, that the Virgin never denies a
favour to her devotees; that in the mere fact of being her worshippers,
they have salvation assured to them; and that it is enough to implore her
by name, in order to preserve both body and soul from all danger. "Hail,
most immaculate Mary!" (_ave Maria purisuma_) is the formula with which a
visitor salutes persons in a house, and the response is, "conceived
without sin" (_sin pecado concebida_) {113} These words are engraven on
the facades of many public buildings and private houses. They are used
also by way of exclamation in familiar conversation, in order to express
surprise and admiration. Relate to a Spaniard some extraordinary
act,--as, for example, a murder, an incendiarism, an earthquake,--and you
will hear him exclaim, "Ave Maria!" just as an Englishman would say,
"Dear me, is it possible? You don't say so!" Such is the prestige that
hovers about the name of the Virgin in the national customs of Spain.
Although the Virgin is in the eyes of Spaniards but an only being, and
although they do not believe that there is more than one mother of God,
yet the devotion which they tender to her is diversified in its forms
according to the various _advocations_ which the clergy have invented,
which the popes have sanctioned, and to which the liturgy has given an
official character. But the word _advocation_ extends itself to a
special name, a name significant of that with which the name of the
Virgin is coupled, and which is sometimes derived from the facts in her
history, from the endowments of her mind, or from the places in which her
image has miraculously appeared. To the first class pertain the Virgin
of the Nativity, the Virgin of Candlemas, the Virgin of the Assumption,
the Virgin of Griefs, the Virgin of the Seven Griefs; the Virgin of
Anguish or Agonies; and the Virgin of Solitude. To the second class, the
Virgin of the Conception, of the Rosary, of Mercy, of Remedies, and of
Pity. To the third class, the Virgin of Carmen, of Zaragoza, of
Guadaloupe, of Copacabana, of Olivia de la Victoria, of Penacerada, of
Regla, of Cavadoraga, of Montserrat, of Nieves, of Fousanta, of Atocha,
{115} and innumerable other places.
The Virgin of the Rosary is so called, because it is before her image
that her devotees pray the rosary. This pious exercise consists in a
paternoster and ten _Ave Marias_, repeated five times. The advocations
of the Virgin _de las Carretas_, the Virgin of the Dew, and some others,
are of an origin now unknown. In truth, this multiplication of the same
religious type has no fixed limits.
But the most extraordinary thing in this peculiarity of Roman Catholic
worship is, that not only is the Virgin not worshipped at all without
some one of these titles which a mistaken piety has conferred upon her,
but that every one of these titles has a particular class of persons
singled out from among the faithful, so that some are the devotees of one
Virgin and some of another; and they who profess such devotion, for
example, to the Virgin of the Rosary, never pray to the Virgin of Griefs.
To such a point does this exclusive affection arrive, that the devotees
are apt to dispute among themselves as to the respective merits of the
advocations to which each consecrates his worship. In some cities and
towns the inhabitants are divided into parties, some defending one
Virgin, and some another, which state of discord has resulted in angry
disputes, animosities, and even acts of violence.
The statues of the Virgin are of two classes; some are made entirely of
wood, including the draperies. Among these are some of superior merit.
{116} Others have only the head and hands of sculpture, the rest being
only a kind of frame-work, fit to support the dress, which is made of
worked velvet and other rich textures.
The statues consecrated to a popular advocation have immense treasures,
consisting of clothes, of crowns and collars, bracelets, and other
trinkets, brilliants, pearls, emeralds, and other precious stones. The
custody of these things is confided to one of the principal ladies of the
city, and she is called the mistress of the robes to the Virgin
(_camarera mayor de la Virgin_), and it is her duty, assisted by other
ladies of inferior degree in the sacred household, to dress and undress
the statue, varying the costume and ornaments according to the solemnity
of the day.
Some few of those advocations require particular colours to be observed
in the vestments appropriated to the respective statues; the Virgin of
Carmen, for example, must be dressed in white and dark grey; that of the
Conception in white and blue; that of Griefs in blue and red; that of
Solitude in white and black, and so on. The greater number of those
statues of the Virgin have in their arms a figure of the infant Christ.
It is worthy of remark, that the images which most excite devotion are
generally those which are most ugly and most disproportionate. The
Virgin of Zaragoza, the devotion of all Spain to which touches the
borders of enthusiasm, and on which statue Ferdinand VII. conferred the
office of field marshal (_capitan general_), is very small, and has the
appearance of a carbonised mummy.
Roman Catholics, not satisfied with this indefinite multiplication of the
personality of the Virgin, this innumerable variety of names and
attributes ascribed to the same individuality, have gone a step farther,
and worshipped one part of her body separately from the rest; and this
singular idea has given birth to another, viz., "devotion to the heart of
Mary,"--recently adopted in France, propagated in all the Papal
dominions, converted into an especial rite which the Church of Rome
celebrates with mass, vespers, and other services comprised in the missal
and the breviary. If, by the words, "heart of Mary," is to be understood
that muscle which serves as the centre of the circulation of the blood,
or the common metaphor which attributes to the heart the affections, the
desires, and all the other acts of the will, it is a mystery which
hitherto has not been explained either by the Roman Catholic church, or
any of the devotional books which have been written on the subject,--it
is a dilemma from which Roman Catholics never will be able to escape;
and, in the first case, nothing can be more preposterous than to divide
adoration between the entire person and one of its parts; and, in the
second case, the object of adoration is reduced to a mere verbal
artifice, depending on vulgar custom or on the caprice of men. If the
heart of the Virgin is adored under a supposition that it is the centre
of the most pure and virtuous sentiments, why has there not been
adoration of her head, which is supposed to be nourished with noble and
elevated thoughts? Why not her womb, in which lay the Saviour of the
world? Why not her hands, which nursed him, and performed all those
various acts and offices which are dictated by maternal solicitude?
The practice of consecrating the month of May to the Virgin, and
designating it the month of Mary, has the same origin, and been in the
same way brought into general use in the Roman Catholic world. The
religious feasts of those thirty-one days have a certain character of
splendour and of gladness, which makes them resemble those of the Greeks
and Romans consecrated to Flora. The altars, on which is placed the
image of the Virgin, are adorned with an extraordinary profusion of
feathers, flowers, rich silks, and precious jewels; the smoke of incense
ascends perpetually before the image; the temples are illuminated by
numerous candles, chandeliers, tapers; troops of women, dressed in white,
surround the image; and the most celebrated singers from the public
theatres chant hymns to the accompaniment of the organ and a numerous
orchestra. Enough has been said to enable the reader to perceive the
strict analogy that exists between the worship of saints and true
idolatry; but still, Spaniards have carried the personification of these
fragile works of men's hands far beyond the idolatries of ancient and
modern times. Not content with addressing words to them, as if they
possessed intelligence and the sense of hearing, they kiss their feet and
their hands, as though the marble, the plaster, or the wood, of which
they are made, were sensible of these demonstrations of tenderness. To
kiss an image is an act of merit which confessors recommend, and one to
which the popes have conceded spiritual privileges.
There is an anecdote related in Madrid, which proves to what an extreme
vices deserving the severest censure may be associated with the grossest
superstition. There was in that capital, towards the end of the reign of
Charles IV., a grandee of Spain, the Duke of A---, who professed especial
devotion to an image of the Virgin, which he was continually kissing.
Having taken under his protection a notorious courtesan, whose house he
furnished sumptuously, he ordered an image of the Virgin to be placed in
a corner of the staircase, which he never ascended without bestowing his
accustomed tokens of affection upon that representation of the object of
his devotion. One day, however, the favoured paramour had capriciously
elevated the image far above the reach of the lips of her protector.
Deprived of the exercise of his daily ceremony, the duke contented
himself with throwing up his handkerchief against the image, and on its
descent kissing it as an object which had been blessed by its mere
contact with the idol!
We could adduce several other proofs of the belief, prevalent in the
minds of Spaniards, that images can exercise many of the faculties of
animate objects, and therefore are capable of reciprocal intercourse in
the same way as living persons. For example, if it is intended that an
immoral act shall be committed before a picture, or a piece of sculpture,
representing the Virgin or any saint, in the first case it is turned
towards the wall; or, in the second, it is covered over with a sheet, in
order that it may not be a witness of the sin. In asking a favour of an
image, it is a common practice for the devotee, in order to propitiate
it, to inflict upon himself some punishment or privation; such, for
example, as that of absenting himself from the theatre, or the bullfights
(_corridas de toros_), abstaining from eating dessert, or from going to
the promenade, balls, and routs. This is called making _a promise_. To
wear the habit (_llevar habito_) signifies to dress modestly, and in
clothes of a dark colour, and without any ornaments, until the desired
favour from the image be obtained, and, at the same time, wearing a medal
of the Virgin on the arm. Those persons who desire to carry these acts
of penance and mortification to a greater degree of perfection, adopt
much severer practices and even more painful, such as putting hard peas
into their shoes, wearing _cilicios_,--which are belts made of hogs'
bristles, and having sharp iron goads which penetrate the
flesh,--sleeping on the ground, and other foolish practices.
All those inflictions are performed only when the favour stipulated for
with the Virgin or the saints is obtained; so that if what is asked be
not granted, the devotee remains absolved from the conditional obligation
which he has contracted.
The practice of self-scourging has been established in the Roman Catholic
Church from time immemorial. In the religious orders, particularly those
of the Capuchines, there were appointed days, such as Good Friday, on
which a whipping, self-inflicted, was a rigorous obligation. Among
devotees it is a voluntary act, except when imposed by the confessor by
way of penance. The number of lashes depends on the time which it takes
to pray the _Miserere_. The instrument employed is exactly the same as
that known to the English as the "cat o' nine tails."
There is a society, or brotherhood, designated the school of Christ ("_La
Escuela de Cristo_"), very much addicted to this self-castigation. They
meet together regularly in a subterranean chapel, which is kept in total
darkness during their exercises. The priest who conducts them ascends a
pulpit, and all his performance consists in the most lamentable
exclamations, which excite not only the grief, but the horror, of the
hearers. Every thing in these meetings breathes obscurity, and is
calculated to appal the human mind. There nothing is heard of the
goodness of God, or of his mercy, but, on the contrary, he is represented
as an inexorable tyrant, always disposed to punish with the most horrible
pains those who have offended him.
CHAPTER VI.
FEAST-DAYS--Processions and Novenas--Corpus Christi--How performed in
Seville, and the sacred dances of _los seises_--How in Madrid--Procession
of Holy Week--The _Santo Entierro_--Clerical processions--Procession of
the Rosary--Rites of Roman Catholicism--Jubilee of forty
hours--_Romerias_ or pilgrimages.
From the time at which the true spirit of Christianity, under the
dominion of the popes, began to be corrupted, and experience taught what
effects might be drawn from material worship, founded chiefly on pomp and
a complication of religious ceremonies, the Roman Catholic clergy,
especially those of Spain, have never ceased to multiply and vary the
means of occupying the imagination of men with exterior acts of an
apparently religious character. One of the principal abuses emanating
from this idea has been the invention of feast-days, which are ordered to
be observed as days of rest in the same manner as Sunday. So numerous
are the feast-days in the Spanish calendar, that there is scarcely a
month in the year which does not contain three or four of them. The
chief mysteries in the life of Jesus Christ, viz., the nativity, the
epiphany, the passion, the resurrection, ascension, and others,--the
celebrated epochs in the life of the Virgin Mary, and some of her
advocations, and the apostles, and a few favourite saints,--are the
objects to which those different feast-days are consecrated; and as on
these all kinds of labour are suspended, and as their number, including
Sundays, forms nearly a third part of the whole year, the vacuum they
leave in productive labour and in the exercise of professional avocations
is incalculable; so that feast-days may be enumerated among the various
causes tending to bring about the poverty of the nation. But besides
these days, there are others, called days of mass, on which it is
obligatory to attend that rite, although it is lawful to pursue secular
occupations.
Among the most popular exercises of worship, and from which the clergy
draw most profit, are worthy of note those of _processions_ and
_novenas_. In the most important among the former, that of _Corpus
Christi_ is the chief, and most observed. In that procession, it is the
practice to carry about the streets the _host_ and certain images of
saints. This rite was established in the twelfth century, in consequence
of a dream or vision had by a woman of Liege, in which it is pretended
this practice was commanded to be introduced to the church. At first,
almost the whole church opposed the innovation, but, by degrees, the
interests of the clergy prevailed, and the popes at length made this
procession of Corpus Christi obligatory. In Spain, it is celebrated with
all the pomp and ostentation imaginable. In the poor towns and villages,
the priest carries the consecrated _host_ in his hands; but in rich
cathedral towns, an expensive tabernacle or canopy of silver, generally a
master-work of art, is provided for the purpose. It is called _La
Custodia_. That of Seville is divided into three bodies or compartments,
and adorned with bas-relief, admirably executed, and having in the lower
part an urn of gold containing the host. This production is a gem, and
always attracts the wonder and amazement of foreigners. The structure,
when carried about, is adorned with flowers, lights, bunches of grapes,
and ears of wheat. The procession is composed of all the religious
communities, all the brotherhoods, the clergy of all the neighbouring
parishes, the municipal body, all public officers, and the most notable
persons of the city, all carrying lighted candles in their hands. It is
headed by detachments of cavalry, and surrounded by a numerous body of
infantry, with a military band. In some towns it is usual to have in
these processions immense giants, made up of pasteboard, similar to those
seen in pantomimes at English theatres, and, as may be supposed, the
laughter which these ridiculous exhibitions excite in the spectators
contrasts greatly with the august character wished to be given to the
ceremony. The cavalcade stops at various intervals during its progress,
and on these occasions the priests burn incense before the perambulating
temple; and thereupon an ecclesiastical choir chants, in succession, the
stanzas of the famous hymn, _Tantum ergo Sacramentum_,--a poetical
composition, attributed to Thomas de Aquinas, and which, although written
in rhyme, according to the practice adopted on the degeneration of the
pure Latinity, and although the verses have a species of jingling which
never met the approbation of the literati of the Augustan age,
nevertheless they contain lofty sentiments, and explain in an ingenious
manner the dogma of transubstantiation. The following may serve as an
example:--
"Tantum ergo sacramentum
Veneremus cernui,
Et antiquum documentum
Novo cedat ritui.
Suppleat fides complementum,
Sensuum defectui." {125}
In the procession of Corpus Christi in Seville, which is the most
celebrated one in all Spain, and which attracts an immense concourse of
people from all parts of the province, the moving temple is preceded by a
troop of chorister boys, called _los seises_. These boys are dressed up
with much elegance in the picturesque Spanish costume of the fifteenth
century, and, in the progress of the procession, they dance with large
castanets to the sound of an ancient kind of music, much admired by those
able to form a judgment on such matters. This custom had its origin in
the will of a devotee, who left a considerable sum of money to be so
employed, under a condition that the custom should terminate when the
dresses he had ordered for the boys should be worn out; but the canons
invented a very ingenious plan, by which the custom has been perpetuated.
When one of these dresses begins to fail at any particular part, they
order that part alone, the sleeve for example, to be replaced, so that
all these vestments have gone through innumerable transformations from
the foundation of the custom down to the present time. It is related
that a certain pope, having been informed of such a custom, and seeing in
it a profanation of the sacred ceremonies, attempted to suppress it, and
reprehended the canons for their want of discretion. These canons,
however, begged his holiness to suspend his judgment until he should
behold with his own eyes what had so much offended him; and with that
object one of the canons went to Rome, taking the boys with him. The
pope at first most positively refused the sought-for condescension; but
at last he yielded to the canon's entreaties, and the exhibition took
place in presence of the whole conclave of cardinals, presided over by
the head of the Roman Catholic Church. The sacred dance made so great an
impression on that respectable company, and so excited the admiration of
the august personages who witnessed it, that the pope changed his
opinion, and sanctioned the practice which before he had condemned. {127}
In the rear of this ambulant temple goes the archbishop, the bishop, or
principal ecclesiastical personage of the diocese, under an awning or
canopy, supported by silver rods, and carried by eight of the chief
citizens, and then come the civil authorities, with the functionaries of
the tribunals, and the head officials of the public service.
As this feast always falls in spring, the serenity of the atmosphere, the
perfumed air of Andalusia, the innumerable flowers thrown along the line
of the procession, the balconies splendidly adorned, and full of
beautiful women dressed in the highest state of luxury, the charms of
music, and the brilliant display of uniforms, embroidered vestments, and
other gay appearances which catch the eye of the spectator on every side,
form a spectacle eminently picturesque and romantic, which seldom fails
to make a lively impression on the exalted imaginations of the
inhabitants of those regions. On these occasions, more particularly, may
be observed the dexterity with which the Roman Catholic clergy avail
themselves of every opportunity of profiting by human weakness, and of
that imperium which the senses exercise over the mind, to augment the
number of their proselytes and consolidate their power over the
conscience.
In Madrid the parts of the streets through which the procession is to
pass is shaded by awnings, and the pavement is sprinkled with sand. The
ceremony over, all belonging to the elegant and fashionable class of
society go at once to the _Calle de Carretas_, which is one of the
streets in the line of the procession, and one which, on this occasion,
may certainly vie with the far-famed Long-champs of Paris; for there the
fair rulers of fashion display those tasteful changes in their personal
attire which are to be in vogue during the remainder of the spring.
The processions of Holy Week are of a character entirely different from
those of Corpus Christi. In the latter all is animation and joy, singing
and triumph; but in the former every thing is sadness, seriousness, and
grief. All the sculptured figures, called _pasos_, which are of the
natural size and colour, and are carried about in those doleful
processions, represent the principal scenes of our Saviour's
passion,--such as his prayer in the garden, the treachery of Judas, the
judgment of Pilate, and the crucifixion. In Seville, the processions of
Holy Week are of an extent and character renowned all over Christendom.
There they bring out one of these _pasos_, in which are seen the twelve
apostles seated at table, with the slight anachronism that their chairs
are of the most elegant description that can be manufactured in London or
Paris. In the processions we are now describing, besides all those
persons we have named as taking a part in that of Corpus Christi, are
innumerable _penitentes_, who are men in masks, dressed in tunics of a
white, black, or brown colour, their heads covered with an enormous cone,
of the same colour and form used by the magicians or astrologers
represented in English theatres. In Granada those tunics, which are
called _chias_, are of black velvet, embroidered with gold or silver, and
having a train of six or eight yards in length. The diversity of colour
denotes the brotherhood to which the penitent belongs; and these
brotherhoods, among which are many of opulence, bear the expenses of the
procession.
In some small towns, instead of images of wood, living persons represent
the personages of sacred history, and, generally, the young people of
both sexes most distinguished for their fine personal endowments are
selected to figure on those occasions. Even in Seville, where these
ceremonies are performed with something more of decency, may be seen,
following a _paso_, a number of children dressed up so as to represent
angels, and each of them carrying an instrument connected with our Lord's
passion, viz., the nails, the spunge, the lance, and the crown of thorns.
There are also three persons to represent three of the principal doctors
of the church who have defended the dogma of transubstantiation. In the
midst is placed one young girl who plays the part of Veronica; and it is
but a few years ago that she who was performing this part, not being
adequate to the fatigue of the day, followed by a severe cold, was taken
ill, and in a few hours died from the effects of her exertions and
exposure. It is usual to reward the young woman who plays this part with
an ounce of gold.
In a certain country-town in Spain there are two _pasos_, one
representing our Saviour and the other the Virgin, and when the
procession turns to enter the church, scarcely has the former been
introduced when the second approaches, but before she can get within the
porch the door is shut, and thereupon the whole concourse of attendants
burst out into bitter sobs and crying, deploring that the mother of our
Lord is denied the favour of following her Son into the sacred edifice.
The most solemn and brilliant of all the processions of Holy Week in
Seville is that of the holy burial (_Santo Entierro_), the name of which
indicates its object; and the expenses which it occasions are so
considerable, that it is celebrated only once in four or five years,--an
interval of time necessary for the brotherhoods to accumulate the
required amount, which, according to assurances from persons likely to
know the fact, does not fall far short of four thousand pounds sterling.
The figure which on this occasion represents the dead body of our
Saviour, and which is a fair work of art, is placed in an urn made of
large squares of glass, in framework of silver, and adorned
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