21.--The "Pragmáticas del Reyno" comprises various ordinances, defining the privileges of Salamanca and Valladolid, the manner of conferring degrees, and of election to the chairs of the universities, so as to obviate any undue influence or corruption. (Fol. 14-21.) "Porque," says the liberal language of the last law, "los estudios generales donde las ciencias se leen y aprenden effuerçan las leyes y fazen a los nuestros subditos y naturales sabidores y honrrados y acrecientan virtudes: y porque en el dar y assignar de las cátedras salariadas deue auer toda libertad porque sean dadas á personas sabidores y cientes." (Taraçona, October 5th, 1495.) If one would see the totally different principles on which such elections have been conducted in modern times, let him read Doblado's Letters from Spain, pp. 103-107. The university of Barcelona was suppressed in the beginning of the last century. Laborde has taken a brief survey of the present dilapidated condition of the others, at least as it was in 1830, since which it can scarcely have mended. Itinéraire, tom. vi. p. 144, et seq.
[137] See the concluding note to this chapter.
Erasmus, in a lively and elegant epistle to his friend, Francis Vergara, Greek professor at Alcalá, in 1527, lavishes unbounded panegyric on the science and literature of Spain, whose palmy state he attributes to Isabella's patronage, and the co-operation of some of her enlightened subjects. "----Hispaniae vestrae, tanto successu, priscam eruditionis gloriam sibi postliminiò vindicanti. Quae quum semper et regionis amoenitate fertilitaléque, semper ingeniorum eminentium ubere proventu, semper bellicâ laude floruerit, quid desiderari poterat ad summam felicitatem, nisi ut studiorum et religionis adjungeret ornamenta, quibus aspirante Deo sic paucis annis effloruit ut caeteris regionibus quamlibet hoc decorum genere praecellentibus vel invidiae queat esse vel exemplo.... Vos istam felicitatem secundum Deum debetis laudatissimae Reginarum Elisabetae, Francisco Cardinali quondam, Alonso Fonsecae nunc Archiepiscopo Toletano, et si qui sunt horum similes, quorum autoritas tuetur, benignitas alit fovetque bonas artes." Epistolae, p. 978.
[138] The sums in the text express the real de vellon; to which they have been reduced by Señor Clemencin, from the original amount in maravedis, which varied very materially in value in different years. Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. Ilust. 5.
[139] The kingdom of Granada appears to have contributed rather less than one-eighth of the whole tax.
[140] In addition to the last-mentioned sum, the extraordinary service voted by cortes, for the dowry of the infantas, and other matters, in 1504, amounted to 16,113,014 reals de vellon; making a sum total for that year, of 42,396,348 reals. The bulk of the crown revenues was derived from the alcavalas, and the tercias, or two-ninths of the ecclesiastical tithes. These important statements were transcribed from the books of the escribanía mayor de rentas, in the archives of Simancas. Ibid., ubi supra.
[141] The pretended amount of population has been generally in the ratio of the distance of the period taken, and, of course, of the difficulty of refutation. A few random remarks of ancient writers have proved the basis for the wildest hypotheses, raising the estimates to the total of what the soil, under the highest possible cultivation, would be capable of supporting. Even for so recent a period as Isabella's time, the estimate commonly received does not fall below eighteen or twenty millions. The official returns, cited in the text, of the most populous portion, of the kingdom, fully expose the extravagance of preceding estimates.
[142] These interesting particulars are obtained from a memorial, prepared by order of Ferdinand and Isabella, by their contador, Alonso de Quintanilla, on the mode of enrolling and arming the militia, in 1492; as a preliminary step to which, he procured a census of the actual population of the kingdom. It is preserved in a volume entitled Relaciones tocantes a la junta de la Hernandad, in that rich national repository, the archives of Simancas. See a copious extract apud Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. Apend. 12.
[143] I am acquainted with no sufficient and authentic data for computing the population, at this time, of the crown of Aragon, always greatly below that of the sister kingdom. I find as little to be relied on, notwithstanding the numerous estimates, in one form or another, vouchsafed by historians and travelers, of the population of Granada. Marineo enumerates fourteen cities and ninety-seven towns (omitting, as he says, many places of less note,) at the time of the conquest; a statement obviously too vague for statistical purposes. (Cosas Memorables, fol. 179.) The capital, swelled by the influx from the country, contained, according to him, 200,000 souls at the same period. (Fol. 177.) In 1506, at the time of the forced conversions, we find the numbers in the city dwindled to fifty, or at most, seventy thousand. (Comp. Bleda, Corónica, lib. 5, cap. 23, and Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 159.) Loose as these estimates necessarily are, we have no better to guide us in calculating the total amount of the population of the Moorish kingdom, or of the losses sustained by the copious emigrations, during the first fifteen years after the conquest; although there has been no lack of confident assertion, as to both, in later writers. The desideratum, in regard to Granada, will now probably not be supplied; the public offices in the kingdom of Aragon, if searched with the same industry as those in Castile, would doubtless afford the means for correcting the crude estimates, so current respecting that country.
[144] Hallam, in his "Constitutional History of England," estimates the population of the realm, in 1485, at 3,000,000, (vol. i. p. 10.) The discrepancies, however, of the best historians on this subject, prove the difficulty of arriving at even a probable result. Hume, on the authority of Sir Edward Coke, puts the population of England (including people of all sorts) a century later, in 1588, at only 900,000. The historian cites Lodovico Guicciardini, however, for another estimate, as high as 2,000,000, for the same reign of Queen Elizabeth. History of England, vol. vi. Append. 3.
[145] Philip II. claimed the Portuguese crown in right of his mother and his wife, both descended from Maria, third daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, who, as the reader may remember, married King Emanuel.
[146] Old Caxton mourns over the little honor paid to the usages of chivalry in his time; and it is sufficient evidence of its decay in England, that Richard III. thought it necessary to issue an ordinance requiring those possessed of the requisite £40 a year, to receive knighthood. (Turner, History of England, vol. iii. pp. 391, 392.) The use of artillery was fatal to chivalry; a consequence well understood, even at the early period of our History. At least, so we may infer from the verses of Ariosto, where Orlando throws Cimosco's gun into the sea.
"Lo tolse e disse: Acciò più non istea Mai cavalier per te d'essere ardito; Nè quanto il buono val, mai più si vanti Il rio per te valer, qui giu rimanti." Orlando Furioso, canto 9, st. 90.
[147] "Quien podrá, contar," exclaims the old Curate of Los Palacios, "la grandeza, el concierto de su corte, la cavallería de los Nobles de toda España, Duques, Maestres, Marqueses é Ricos homes; los Galanes, las Damas, las Fiestas, los Torneos, la Moltitud de Poetas é trovadores," etc. Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 201.
[148] Oviedo notices the existence of a lady-love, even with cavaliers who had passed their prime, as a thing of quite as imperative necessity in his day, as it was afterwards regarded by the gallant knight of La Mancha. "Costumbre es en España entre log señores de estado que venidos á la corte, aunque nó estén enamorados ó que pasen de la mitad de la edad fingir que aman por servir y favorescer á alguna dama, y gastar como quien son en fiestas y otras cosas que se ofrescen de tales pasatiempos y amores, sin que les dé pena Cupido." Quincuagenas, MS., bat. 1, quinc. 1, dial. 28.
[149] Viaggio, fol. 27.
Andrea Navagiero, whose itinerary has been of such frequent reference in these pages, was a noble Venetian, born in 1483. He became very early distinguished, in his cultivated capital, for his scholarship, poetical talents, and eloquence, of which he has left specimens, especially in Latin verse, in the highest repute to this day with his countrymen. He was not, however, exclusively devoted to letters, but was employed in several foreign missions by the republic. It was on his visit to Spain, as minister to Charles V., soon after that monarch's accession, that he wrote his Travels; and he filled the same office at the court of Francis I., when he died, at the premature age of forty-six, in 1529. (Tiraboschi, Letteratura Italiana, tom. vii. part. 3, p. 228, ed. 1785.) His death was universally lamented by the good and the learned of his time, and is commemorated by his friend, Cardinal Bembo, in two sonnets, breathing all the sensibility of that tender and elegant poet. (Rime, Son. 109, 110.) Navagiero becomes connected with Castilian literature by the circumstance of Boscan's referring to his suggestion the innovation he so successfully made in the forms of the national verse. Obras, fol. 20, ed. 1543.
[150] Fernando de Pulgar, after enumerating various cavaliers of his acquaintance, who had journeyed to distant climes in quest of adventures and honorable feats of arms, continues, "E oí decir de otros Castellanos que con ánimo de Caballeros fueron por los Reynos estrafios á facer armas con qualquier Caballero que quisiere facerlas con ellos, é por ellas ganaron honra para sí, é fama de valientes y esforzados Caballeros para los Fijosdalgos de Castilla." Claros Varones, tit. 17.
[151] "Son todos," says the Admiral, "de ningun ingenio en las armas, y muy cobardes, que mil no aguadarian tres!" (Primer Viage de Colon.) What could the bard of chivalry say more?
"Ma quel ch'al timor non diede albergo, Estima la vil turba e l'arme tante Quel che dentro alla mandra all' aer cupo, Il numer dell' agnelle estimi il lupo." Orlando Furioso, canto 12.
[152] L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, fol. 30.
[153] "I Spagnoli," says the Venetian minister, "non solo in questo paese di Granata, ma in tutto 'l resto della Spagna medesimamente, non sono molto industriosi, ne piantano, ne lavorano volontieri la terra; ma se danno ad altro, e più volontieri vanno alia guerra, o alle Indie ad acquistarsi facultà, che per tal vie." (Viaggio, fol. 25.) Testimonies to the same purport thicken, as the stream of history descends. See several collected by Capmany (Mem. de Barcelona, tom. iii. pp. 358, et seq.), who certainly cannot be charged with ministering to the vanity of his countrymen.
[154] One may trace its immediate influence in the writings of a man like the Curate of Los Palacios, naturally, as it would seem, of an amiable, humane disposition; but who complacently remarks, "They (Ferdinand and Isabella) lighted up the fires for the heretics, in which, with good reason, they have burnt, and shall continue to burn, so long as a soul of them remains"! (Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 7.) It becomes more perceptible in the literature of later times, and, what is singular, most of all in the lighter departments of poetry and fiction, which seem naturally devoted to purposes of pleasure. No one can estimate the full influence of the Inquisition in perverting moral sense, and infusing the deadly venom of misanthropy into the heart, who has not perused the works of the great Castilian poets, of Lope de Vega, Ercilla, above all Calderon, whose lips seem to have been touched with fire from the very altars of this accursed tribunal.
[155] The late secretary of the Inquisition has made an elaborate computation of the number of its victims. According to him, 13,000 were publicly burned by the several tribunals of Castile and Aragon, and 191,413 suffered other punishments, between 1481, the date of the commencement of the modern institution, and 1518. (Hist. de l'Inquisition, tom. iv. chap. 46.) Llorente appears to have come to these appalling results by a very plausible process of calculation, and without any design to exaggerate. Nevertheless, his data are exceedingly imperfect, and he has himself, on a revision, considerably reduced, in his fourth volume, the original estimates in the first. I find good grounds for reducing them still further. 1. He quotes Mariana, for the fact, that 2000 suffered martyrdom at Seville, in 1481, and makes this the basis of his calculations for the other tribunals of the kingdom. Marineo, a contemporary, on the other hand, states, that "in the course of a few years they burned nearly 2000 heretics;" thus not only diffusing this amount over a greater period of time, but embracing all the tribunals then existing in the country. (Cosas Memorables, fol. 164.) 2. Bernaldez states, that five-sixths of the Jews resided in the kingdom of Castile. (Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 110.) Llorente, however, has assigned an equal amount of victims to each of the five tribunals of Aragon, with those of the sister kingdom, excepting only Seville.
One might reasonably distrust Llorente's tables, from the facility with which he receives the most improbable estimates in other matters, as, for example, the number of banished Jews, which he puts at 800,000. (Hist. de l'Inquisition, tom. i. p. 261.) I have shown, from contemporary sources, that this number did not probably exceed 160,000, or, at most, 170,000. (