The Story of Seville. Gallichan Walter Matthew

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СКАЧАТЬ of Santa Maria de la Antigua. Some years later the Sevillians desired that the remains should be removed to their city, and they were then carried to the Carthusian monastery of Las Cuevas, to the Chapel of St. Ann, or of Santo Christo. The house of Las Cuevas was a fine one, celebrated for its pictures and treasures, and surrounded with orange and lemon groves. But the bones of Columbus were not to remain in Seville. They were taken, in 1536, to Hispaniola, and laid in the principal chapel of the Cathedral of San Domingo. Finally the remains were removed to Havanna.

      While paying due respect to Christopher Columbus, we must not forget the great services rendered to the country generally, and to Seville, by Fernando de Magallanes, or Magellan, who embarked at that port in August 1519 with five vessels. Passing the Canary Islands and Cape Verde, the Portuguese explorer reached Brazil, and went south to Patagonia, 'the land of giants,' arriving eventually at the dangerous straits which bear his name. Magellan never returned to Spain. Only two of his ships reached the Moluccas, and of the five that started but one came back to Seville on the homeward journey.

      These were the days when Seville was a bustling port of embarkation, and a great storehouse for treasure from America and the Indies. A fever of emigration seized the adventurous spirits of Andalusia; and Andrea Navigiero, a Venetian ambassador, who journeyed through Spain in 1525, says that the population of Seville was so reduced that 'the city was left almost to the women.'

      The discoveries and conquests of Pizarro, who came to Seville after his first voyage, added to the enthusiasm for emigration. But Pizarro found it a hard matter to raise money for the expenses of a second expedition. He contrived, however, to man three ships, and was about to start, when the Council of the Indies sought to inquire into the state of the vessels. Fearing that he might be hindered from his scheme, the explorer set sail at San Lucar, in great haste, and made for the Canary Islands.

      It was in January 1534 that Hernando, brother of Francisco Pizarro, was directed to return to Seville with a great hoard of treasure. The Custom House was filled with ingots, vases and ornaments of gold, and the inhabitants were much interested in the splendid spoil. Hernando Pizarro came later under a charge of cruelty to the subject race of South America. In his Spanish Pioneers, Mr Lummis tells us that 'Hernando was for many years imprisoned at Medina del Campo, and that he died at the age of a hundred. His brother, Francisco, who was born at Truxillo, in Estremadura, was a swineherd in his boyhood. Fired with the spirit of romance and adventure, the lad deserted his herd of pigs and ran away to Seville, where he found scope for his restless energy, and was able to influence seafaring men to accompany him on a cruise of discovery.

      Seville was now at the height of its commercial prosperity. There was a constant come and go of trading vessels; the silk trade was greatly developed, and leather was made for the markets of Spain. Isabel took much interest in the improvement of the commerce of the city. When she ascended the throne, Seville was notorious for its gangs of thieves and criminals of all kinds, while the surrounding country was insecure through the numbers of bandits who waylaid and robbed traders and farmers on the roads. The Queen determined to stamp out crime by rigorous measures. She held a court in the salon of the Alcázar, and, in the Castilian custom, presided over the hearing of criminal charges. Once a week, Isabel sat in her chair of state, on a daïs covered with gold cloth. For two months she conducted a crusade against robbery in the city, recovering a great amount of stolen property, and condemning many offenders to severe penalties. Her severity struck alarm among the vagabond and thieving population, and probably terrified a number of the people who had reason to fear justice. Four thousand subjects left the town. The respectable burghers grew concerned, dreading that this depopulation would injure the city and deprive it of workmen. A deputation of citizens waited upon Isabel and begged her to relax her austerity. The Queen was therefore prevailed upon to offer an amnesty for all offenders except those convicted of heresy.

      Isabel's fortunes as a ruler were largely determined by her charms. The Sevillians could not fail to worship the tall, fair young Queen, with the frank and beautiful countenance and blue eyes. Her very unconventionality delighted her court and the army; and when she rode at the head of her troops, in a suit of mail, with a sword by her side, every caballero was ready to follow the fair commander through blood and fire. Isabel's sword, a pretty little weapon, is to be seen in the Real Armeria at Madrid.

      The Queen was one of those magnetic personages to whom all things are permissible. Even in modern times it is considered unseemly for a Spanish woman to engage in field sports, or any kind of athletic exercise; but the Spaniards of Isabel's day not only forgave, but revered, the Queen who sat on the judicial bench, donned masculine attire, carried weapons, and took a man's part in the government of her state. Had it not been for the terrible taint of bigotry, which led Isabel to sanction deeds of persecution and cruelty, her character would have presented an example approaching the excellence with which enthusiastic historians have credited it.

      Four years after the accession of Isabel there began the reign of the Inquisition in Seville. When Alfonso de Hoyeda, Prior of the city, and Felipe de Barberis, Inquisitor of Sicily, persuaded Fernando that a crusade against heresy would replenish his exchequer by means of confiscation, the King was induced to listen to their proposal. At first Isabel recoiled from this scheme of torture and plunder. But her woman's mind and heart were not secure against the insidious influence of the priests, who used their utmost powers of suasion to convince her that Heaven approved of the destruction of heretics. Finally the Queen gave way; and the 17th of September 1480 saw the setting up of the tribunal of the Holy Office in the Dominican Convent of St. Paul at Seville.

      M'Crie, in The History of the Reformation in Spain, states that 'in the course of the first year in which it was erected, the Inquisition of Seville, which then extended over Castile, committed two thousand persons alive to the flames, burnt as many in effigy, and condemned seventeen thousand to different penances.' We must note, however, that according to Prescott these figures refer to several years and not to the opening years of the institution of the Holy Office in Seville. By the end of October 1481 it is recorded that three hundred persons had been burned to death in Seville. In about thirty-six years, four thousand victims went to the stake in the city, while many times that number were condemned to slavery, to perpetual imprisonment, to short terms, and to other punishments.

      'The modern Inquisition,' writes M'Crie, 'stretched its iron arms over a whole nation, upon which it lay like a monstrous incubus, paralysing its exertions, crushing its energies, and extinguishing every other feeling but a sense of weakness and terror.' Many of the Sevillians fled from the city and sought the protection of the Duke of Medina Sidonia, the Marquis of Cadiz, and the Count of Arcos.

      At this period a frightful pestilence swept over Seville, reducing the population by thirty thousand, and causing great suffering. The clergy resorted to prayer; charms and relics of the saints were displayed in the churches; but little or nothing was done in the way of preventing a spread of the plague by sanitation, or of alleviating the malady by medical science. It is a saddening picture – the people dying of the disease, thousands languishing in dungeons, and a multitude filled with fear lest they should succumb to the epidemic, or fall into the hands of the Inquisitors. Puigblanch, author of The Inquisition Unmasked, states that the number of the banished and the 'reconciled' in Andalusia from 1480 to 1520 was a hundred thousand. He asserts that forty-five thousand persons were done to death in the Archbishopric of Seville during this period.

      Without the city, on the Prado de San Sebastian, is the burning ground. As we stand there, the imagination conjures a procession accompanying a victim to the awful torture of the stake. The doomed man is an aged and devout Morisco, who has saved money by his industry. He has been found guilty of infidelity, and he has refused to partake of the Christian sacrament. He is dressed in the sanbenito, a yellow garment, with pictures of devils kindling a fire and burning faggots, and on his head is a fantastic conical cap of pasteboard, called the coroza. First comes a troop of soldiers to clear a path for the procession through the jostling rabble. The soldiers are followed by several priests in canonical vestments, and the boys of the College of Doctrine, who chant the liturgy. Then comes the convicted heretic, СКАЧАТЬ