Roman Catholicism in Spain Part 8

{15} Cover me with flowers, For I am dying of love.

{16} The Virgin of Anguish, She it is who knows my grief, Because I go to her chapel And am never tired of crying.

{22} Isabella foresaw the advantages of free trade at a time when all Europe groaned under the yoke of the most severe prohibitions. Not only did she abolish all those which the fiscal legislation of Spain prior to her times had sanctioned, but she had the merit of being the founder of the first tribunal of commerce, and of expressly ordering that in all matters of mercantile contract, s.h.i.+pwrecks, &c., submitted to her judgment, barristers should take no part, so that the course of justice might not be obscured with pedantic arguments and formal technicalities.

{25} The Spanish Protestants and their Persecution by Philip II. By Don Adolfo de Castro. Translated from the original Spanish, by Tho. Parker.

Gilpin, London, 1851.

{26} _Novena_. A devotional practice applicable to the wors.h.i.+p of all saints, and consisting of music, prayer, ma.s.s, &c., and of _nine_ days'

duration.

{52a} "We must die."

{52b} "We already know it."

{57} Importunate and unwearied begging.

{59a} On the portico of the Franciscan convent, in Granada, is to be seen a large marble slab, on which a sonnet is engraved, the first two lines of which are:-

"En provincias doscientas y setenta, Tiene Francisco doce mil conventos." {59b}

{59b} "In 270 provinces, Francis has 12,000 convents."

{67} A kind of chick-pea, much used in Spain, especially in the _olla podrida_.

{71a} A kind of talisman hung round the neck of devout persons, which sometimes is supposed to contain relics of saints, pious prayers, or images of the Virgin.

{71b} "Here lies Sister Belen, Who made sweetmeats very well, And pa.s.sed her whole life In dressing wax figures" [_of the infant Christ_].

{72} The great feudal lords who had jurisdiction over their own lands were so called, because on the limits of those lands they fixed a gallows (_horca_), with a large knife (_cuchillo_), as a symbol of their privilege.

{75} Loved one, or sweetheart.

{77} The vestibules of the convents are called the _porteria_. They lead to the cells of the friars, and are distinct from the entrances to the church. All women are prohibited from entering these portions of the cloisters.

{78} This name is given to a female who confesses to one ecclesiastic exclusively, making him also the spiritual director of her conscience.

Some persons who profess to be extremely religious divide these functions between two distinct persons, one of them being the confessor, and the other the director.

{81} Agonizante was the name of a religious community. The princ.i.p.al duty of its members was that of administering to the wants and last religious consolations of the faithful at the hour of death.

{98} There are numerous other anecdotes of her Majesty, which tend to show she is possessed of some of the best qualities which can adorn the mind of a queen, and tend to make her popular. Some of these will appear in the following pages. We shall at present but give one. Pa.s.sing one day, when quite a child, along the Prado in Madrid, the eyes of a poor little girl, without shoes or stockings, were directed to the royal carriage and caught those of her Majesty. Perceiving the queen's eyes were fixed on her, the little urchin dropt a courtesy, and held out her hand in the att.i.tude of supplication. Her Majesty halted, beckoned the child forward, saw her naked feet, and having no money, in a moment took off her own shoes and threw them out of the carriage-window to the girl, desiring her to try them on, which she did, made another genuflection, and walked off with them, to the great delight of her royal benefactor.

{107} An anecdote referred to by Gibbon, in the part of his history relative to the sect of the _iconoclast_, confirms all that is advanced in the text on the powerful influence of wors.h.i.+p to images, as it regards the character of devotion. When the soldiers of Leo broke in pieces the image of a saint before whom daily prayers were wont to be offered up, a pious individual gave vent to this bitter lamentation, "Now I can no longer address my prayers to heaven; now I have no one to hear them!"

{110} Santa Rita is called by Spaniards "The advocate of impossibilities,"-(_La abogada de los imposibles_.)

Thus, it is not uncommon for a young lady to say to a suitor whom she refuses, and who imploringly asks her what he shall do to gain her favour, "Go and invoke Santa Rita."

{113} Spaniards have not waited for Pius IX. to come and acknowledge the immaculate conception as a dogma of the faith. This belief has existed in Spain from time immemorial. Murillo has immortalised it in his master-works, and Charles III. declared her to be the patroness of Spain, commanding her image to be placed in the badges of the order which he founded under the t.i.tle of "The Royal and Distinguished Order of Charles III."

{115} The Virgin of Atocha is the patron of the sovereigns of Spain.

Her image, which is small and of a colour as dark as a mulatto, appeared, as tradition a.s.serts, at the spot on which the chapel was afterwards erected, and in which, in the present day, it is deposited. This chapel is situated near the magnificent promenade called the Prado, in Madrid, and was formerly part of a convent of Dominican Friars, converted, after the suppression of the religious orders, into barracks for sick soldiers.

When the court is in Madrid, the sovereign goes every Sat.u.r.day evening to this sanctuary with a great procession of grandees and guards. The Virgin of Atocha has an immense fortune, consisting of jewels and trinkets which have been presented to her by the monarchs. Among these presents, one is the distinguished velvet dress, embroidered with gold, worn by Isabella II. at the time she was wounded by the Priest Merino.

When her Majesty felt she was wounded by the poniard of this a.s.sa.s.sin, and saw him seized by her guards, her first words were, "Pray, spare the life of that man!" This is another proof of Isabella's kind and forgiving disposition, especially when it is considered that she uttered the words spontaneously, without prompting or premeditation, but on the spur of the moment.

{116} Spaniards have greatly excelled in the sculpture of wood,-a branch of the fine arts which does not deserve the disdain with which modern writers have treated it. In many churches in Spain there are admirable productions of this kind, of a perfect execution, expression, and design.

The statue of the Virgin of the Conception, placed in the choir of the cathedral of Seville, a work of the celebrated Montanes, will rival the most celebrated masterpieces of modern sculpture.

{125} The Roman Catholic Church has adopted, for its hymns, the poetry of the low Latinity of the middle ages. Among these is distinguished for its originality that which is generally sung in the office for the dead.

The two princ.i.p.al verses are these:-

"Dies irae, dies ilia, Solvens sec'lum in favilla, Teste David, c.u.m Sybilla.

Tuba mirum spargens sonum, Per sepulchra regionum, Venient omnes ante thronum."

We cannot resist the opportunity of giving the late Sir Walter Scott's metrical translation of this sublime ode, a translation which, as a hymn, is generally sung in Protestant churches:-

I.

"The day of wrath: that dreadful day, When heaven and earth shall pa.s.s away!

What power shall be the sinner's stay?

Whom shall he trust that dreadful day?

II.

"When, shriv'lling, like a parched scroll, The flaming heavens together roll, When louder yet, and yet more dread, Swells the high trump that wakes the dead,-

III.

"Oh, on that day, that wrathful day, When man to judgment wakes from clay, Be thou, O Christ! the sinner's stay, Though heaven and earth shall pa.s.s away!"

We also find in this collection the hymn which is sung to the Virgin of Griefs in the Holy Week, and which begins thus:-

"Stabat mater dolorosa Juxta crucem lachrymosa, Dum pendebat filius."

{127} This game dance is repeated in the cathedral of Seville on the 8th of December, the day of the immaculate conception of the Virgin, and during eight days afterwards, which are called an _octave_. In the present day this cathedral, as we have said elsewhere, has also the singular privilege of using ornaments of a sky-blue colour, which is not permitted by the church on other feast-days. These ornaments are of an incomparable value, and the chief one of them, called _capa pluvial_, is richly embroidered with pearls and precious stones.

{148a} "Digo un responso por una peseta."

{148b} "Yo lo digo por media peseta."

{174} The word _alms_ in this case does not mean alms given away to the poor, but the money invested in the purchase of a copy of this bull, published and sold by the commissary-general, or by the different archbishops and bishops.

If we consider that the bull is printed on a small piece of very inferior paper, and that it is sold for 7d., and that every Spaniard in the Peninsula and its colonies is bound to purchase it, at the risk of incurring a mortal sin every Friday in the year that he eats meat without this authorization, we may form some idea of the enormous revenue derived from this source by the Spanish Church, and by the Roman See, which has a profit in the speculation. The Spanish Peninsula contains at the present moment, on a very low calculation, fifteen millions of inhabitants, the Philippine Islands four millions, and Cuba and Porto Rico together something more than one million. In Spanish America, from Mexico to Cape Horn, there are nearly sixteen millions of inhabitants subject to the Catholic Church, and his holiness grants to them likewise the privilege of the _Holy Crusade_ bull, with the further advantage of being allowed to cook their fish or vegetables with hog's lard or beef and mutton fat, on those days too on which not even Spanish Catholics are allowed to eat meat.

{176} The name given to the administration of episcopal property in the interval between the death of a bishop and the consecration of his successor. A part of the revenues of such sees during the vacancy went to the public treasury, and the other to the church treasury.