Durant W. The Reformation. A History of European Civilization from Wyclif to Calvin: 1300-1564

as far east as the Moluccas (1512), and rejoiced to find the

nutmegs, mace, and cloves of these "Spice Islands" tastier and cheaper

than India's. Still insatiate, Albuquerque sailed with twenty

vessels into the Red Sea, and proposed to the Christian king of

Abyssinia that they join forces in digging a canal from the Upper Nile

to the Red Sea, so diverting the river and turning all Moslem Egypt

into a desert. Trouble summoned Albuquerque back to Goa, where he died

in 1515. In the following year Duarte Coelho opened Cochin China and

Siam to Portuguese trade; and in 1517 Fernao Peres de Andrade

established commercial relations with Canton and Peking.

The Portuguese Empire- the first modern imperialism- was now the

most extensive in the world, rivaled only by the empire that was being

built for Spain in the Americas. Lisbon became a thriving emporium,

whose waters harbored ships from romantically distant lands. There,

rather than in Venice or Genoa, the merchants of northern Europe now

found the lowest prices for Asiatic goods. Italy mourned her lost

monopoly of the Oriental trade. Slowly the Italian Renaissance,

mortally stricken by Columbus, Vasco da Gama, and Luther in one

generation, faded away, while Portugal and Spain, commanders of the

open sea, led the flowering of the Atlantic states.

Literature and art basked in the new glory. Fernao Lopes, writing

for twenty years (1434-54) his voluminous Cronacas, told the story

of Portugal with a vivacity of narrative and a power of

characterization rivaling Froissart. Gil Vicente inaugurated the

Portuguese drama with little plays for the court and autos - acts-

for public festivals (c. 1500). A Portuguese school of painting

developed, taking a lead from Flanders but achieving its own temper

and qualities. Nuno Goncalves (fl. 1450-72) rivaled Mantegna, and

almost the Van Eycks, in the somber polyptych that he painted for

the convent of St. Vincent: the six panels primitive in perspective

and modeling, but the fifty-five portraits- the best of them Henry the

Navigator- individualized with realistic power. To commemorate the

victorious voyage of Vasco da Gama, King Manuel "the Fortunate"

commissioned the architect Joao de Castilho to build near Lisbon, in

Flamboyant Gothic, the magnificent monastery of Belem (c. 1500).

Portugal had entered her golden age.

CHAPTER XI: Spain: 1300-1517

I. THE SPANISH SCENE: 1300-1469

-

SPAIN'S mountains were her protection and tragedy: they gave her

comparative security from external attack, but hindered her economic

advance, her political unity, and her participation in European

thought. In a little corner of the northwest a half-nomad population

of Basques led their sheep from plains to hills and down again with

the diastole and systole of the seasons. Though many Basques were

serfs, all claimed nobility, and their three provinces governed

themselves under the loose sovereignty of Castile or Navarre.

Navarre remained a separate kingdom until Ferdinand the Catholic

absorbed its southern part into Castile (1515), while the rest

became a kingly appanage of France. Sardinia was appropriated by

Aragon in 1326; the Baleares followed in 1354, Sicily in 1409.

Aragon itself was enriched by the industry and commerce of Valencia,

Tarragona, Saragossa, and Barcelona- capital of the province of

Catalonia within the kingdom of Aragon. Castile was the strongest

and most extensive of the Spanish monarchies; it ruled the populous

cities of Oviedo, Leon, Burgos, Valladolid, Salamanca, Cordova,

Seville, and Toledo, its capital; its kings played to the largest

audience, and for the greatest stakes, in Spain.

Alfonso XI (r. 1312-50) improved the laws and courts of Castile,

deflected the pugnacity of the nobles into wars against the Moors,

supported literature and art, and rewarded himself with a fertile

mistress. His wife bore him one legitimate son, who grew up in

obscurity, neglect, and resentment, and became Pedro el Cruel. Peter's

accession at fifteen (1350) so visibly disappointed the nine

bastards of Alfonso that they were all banished, and Leonora de

Guzman, their mother, was put to death. When Peter's royal bride,

Blanche of Bourbon, arrived unsolicited from France, he married her,

spent two nights with her, had her poisoned on a charge of

conspiracy (1361), and married his paramour Maria de Padilla, whose

beauty, legend assures us, was so intoxicating that the cavaliers of

the court drank with ecstasy the water in which she had bathed.

Pedro was popular with the lower classes, which supported him to the

very bitter end; but the repeated attempts of his half-brothers to

depose him drove him to such a series of treacheries, murders, and

sacrileges as would clog and incarnadine any tale. Finally Henry of

Trastamara, Leonora's eldest son, organized a successful revolt,

slew Peter with his own hand, and became Henry II of Castile (1369).

But we do nations injustice when we judge them from their kings, who

agreed with Machiavelli that morals are not made for sovereigns. While

the rulers played with murder, individual or nationalized, the people,

numbering some 10,000,000 in 1450, created the civilization of

Spain. Proud of their pure blood, they were an unstable mixture of

Celts, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Visigoths, Vandals,

Arabs, Berbers, and Jews. At the social bottom were a few slaves,

and a peasantry that remained serf till 1471; above them were the

artisans, manufacturers, and merchants of the towns; above these, in

rising layers of dignity, were the knights ( caballeros ), the

nobles dependent upon the king ( hidalgos ), and the independent

nobles ( proceres ); and alongside these laymen were grades of

clergy mounting from parish priests through bishops and abbots to

archbishops and cardinals. Every town had its conseijo or council,

and sent delegates to join nobles and prelates in provincial and

national cortes; in theory the edicts of the kings required the

consent of these "courts" to become laws. Wages, labor conditions,

prices, and interest rates were regulated by municipal councils or the

guilds. Trade was hampered by royal monopolies, by state or local

tolls on imports and exports, by diverse weights and measures, by

debased currencies, highway brigands, Mediterranean pirates,

ecclesiastical condemnation of interest, and the persecution of

Moslems- who manned most industry and commerce- and Jews, who

managed finance. A state bank was opened in Barcelona (1401) with

governmental guarantee of bank deposits; bills of exchange were

issued; and marine insurance was established by 1435. `06111

As the Spaniards mingled anti-Semitism with Semitic ancestry, so

they retained the heat of Africa in their blood, and were inclined,

like the Berbers, to rarity and violence of action and speech. They

were sharp and curious of mind, yet eagerly credulous and fearfully

superstitious. They sustained a proud independence of spirit, and

dignity of carriage, even in misfortune and poverty. They were

acquisitive and had to be, but they did not look down upon the poor,

or lick the boots of the rich. They despised and deferred labor, but

they bore hardship stoically; they were lazy, but they conquered

half the New World. They thirsted for adventure, grandeur, and

romance. They relished danger, if only by proxy; the bullfight, a

relic of Crete and Rome, was already the national game, formal,

stately, colorful, exacting, and teaching bravery, artistry, and an

agile intelligence. But the Spaniards, like the modern (unlike the

Elizabethan) English, took their pleasures sadly; the aridity of the

soil and the shadows of the mountain slopes were reflected in a dry

somberness of mood. Manners were grave and perfect, much better than

hygiene; every Spaniard was a gentleman, but few were knights of the

bath. Chivalric forms and tourneys flourished amid the squalor of

the populace; the "point of honor" became a religion; women in Spain

were goddesses and prisoners. In the upper classes, dress, sober on

weekdays, burst into splendor on Sundays and festive occasions,

flaunting silks and ruffs and puffs and lace and gold. The men

affected perfume and high heels, and the women, not content with their

natural sorcery, bewitched the men with color, lace, and mystic veils.

In a thousand forms and disguises the sexual chase went on; solemn

ecclesiastical terrors, lethal laws, and the punto de onor struggled

to check the mad pursuit, but Venus triumphed over all, and the

fertility of women outran the bounty of the soil.

The Church in Spain was an inseparable ally of the state. It took

small account of the Roman pope; it made frequent demands for the

reform of the papacy, even while contributing to it the unreformable

Alexander VI; in 1513 Cardinal Ximenes forbade the promulgation in

Spain of the indulgence offered by Julius II for rebuilding St.

Peter's. `06112 In effect the king was accepted as the head of the

Spanish Church; in this matter Ferdinand did not wait for Henry VIII

to instruct him; no Reformation was needed in Spain to make state

and Church, nationalism and religion, one. As part of the unwritten

bargain the Spanish Church enjoyed substantial prerogatives under a

government consciously dependent upon it for maintaining moral

order, social stability, and popular docility. Its personnel, even

in minor orders, were subject only to ecclesiastical courts. It

owned great tracts of land, tilled by tenants; it received a tenth

of the produce of other holdings, but paid a third of this tithe to

the exchequer; otherwise it was exempt from taxation. `06113 It was

probably richer, in comparison with the state, than in any other

country except Italy. `06114 Clerical morals and monastic discipline

were apparently above the medieval average; but, as elsewhere,

clerical concubinage was widespread and condoned. `06115 Asceticism

continued in Spain while declining north of the Pyrenees; even

lovers scourged themselves to melt the resistance of tender, timid

senoritas, or to achieve some masochistic ecstasy.

The people were fiercely loyal to Church and king, because they

had to be in order to fight with courage and success their immemorable

enemies the Moors; the struggle for Granada was presented as a war for

the Holy Faith, Santa Fe. On holy days men, women, and children,

rich and poor, paraded the streets in solemn procession, somberly

silent or chanting, behind great dolls ( pasos ) representing the

Virgin or a saint. They believed intensely in the spiritual world as

their real environment and eternal home; beside it earthly life was an

evil and transitory dream. They hated heretics as traitors to the

national unity and cause, and had no objection to burning them; this

was the least they could do for their outraged God. The lower

classes had hardly any schooling, and this was nearly all religious.

Stout Cortes, finding among the pagan Mexicans a rite resembling the

Christian Eucharist, complained that Satan had taught it to them

just to confuse the conquerors. `06116

The intensity of Catholicism in Spain was enhanced by economic

competition with Moslems and Jews, who together made up almost a tenth

of the population of Christian Spain. It was bad enough that the Moors

held fertile Granada; but more closely irritating were the

Mudejares- the unconverted Moors who lived among the Spanish

Christians, and whose skill in business, crafts, and agriculture was

the envy of a people mostly bound in primitive drudgery to the soil.

Even more unforgivable were the Spanish Jews. Christian Spain had

persecuted them through a thousand years: had subjected them to

discriminatory taxation, forced loans, confiscations,

assassinations, compulsory baptism; had compelled them to listen to

Christian sermons, sometimes in their own synagogues, urging their

conversion, while the law made it a capital crime for a Christian to

accept Judaism. They were invited or conscripted into debates with

Christian theologians, where they had to choose between a shameful

defeat or a perilous victory. They and the Mudejares had been

repeatedly ordered to wear a distinctive badge, usually a red circle

on the shoulder of their garments. Jews were forbidden to hire a

Christian servant; their physicians were not allowed to prescribe

for Christian patients; their men, for cohabiting with a Christian

woman, were to be put to death.

In 1328 the sermons of a Franciscan friar goaded the Christians of

Estella, in Navarre, to massacre 5,000 Jews and burn down their

houses. `06117 In 1391 the sermons of Fernan Martinez aroused the

populace in every major center of Spain to massacre all available Jews

who refused conversion. In 1410 Valladolid, and then other cities,

moved by the eloquence of the saintly and fanatical Vicente Ferrer,

ordered the confinement of Jews and Moors within specified quarters-

Juderia or alhama - whose gates were to be closed from sunset to

sunrise; this segregation, however, was probably for their

protection. `06118

Patient, laborious, shrewd, taking advantage of every opportunity

for development, the Jews multiplied and prospered even under these

disabilities. Some kings of Castile, like Alfonso XI and Pedro el

Cruel, favored them and raised brilliant Jews to high places in the

government. Alfonso made Don Joseph of Ecija his minister of

finance, and another Jew, Samuel ibn-Wakar, his physician; they abused

their position, were convicted of intrigue, and died in prison. `06119

Samuel Abulafia repeated the sequence; he became state treasurer under

Pedro, amassed a large fortune, and was put to death by the

King. `061110 Three years earlier (1357) Samuel had built at Toledo

a classically simple and elegant synagogue, which was changed under

Ferdinand into the Christian church of El Transito, and is now

preserved by the government as a monument of Hebraeo-Moorish art in

Spain. Pedro's protection of the Jews was their misfortune: when Henry

of Trastamara deposed him 1,200 Jews were massacred by the

victorious soldiers (Toledo, 1355); and worse slaughters ensued when

Henry brought into Spain the "Free Companions" recruited by Du

Guesclin from the rabble of France.

Thousands of Spanish Jews preferred baptism to the terror of abuse

and pogroms. Being legally Christians, these Conversos made their

way up the economic and political ladder, in the professions, even

in the Church; some became high ecclesiastics, some were counselors to

kings. Their talents in finance earned them invidious prominence in

the collection and management of the national revenue. Some surrounded

themselves with aristocratic comforts, some made their prosperity

offensively conspicuous. Angry Catholics fastened upon the Conversos

the brutal name of Marranos - swine. `061111 Nevertheless Christian

families with more pedigree than cash, or with a prudent respect for

ability, accepted them in marriage. In this way the Spanish people,

especially the upper classes, received a substantial infusion of

Jewish blood. Ferdinand the Catholic and Torquemada the Inquisitor had

Jews in their ancestry. `061112 Pope Paul IV, at war with Philip II,

called him and the Spanish the "worthless seed of the Jews and

Moors." `061113

II. GRANADA: 1300-1492

-

Ibn-Batuta described the situation of Granada as "unequaled by any

city in the world.... Around it on every side are orchards, gardens,

flowering meadows, vineyards"; and in it "noble buildings." `061114

Its Arabic name was Karnattah - of uncertain meaning; its Spanish

conquerors christened it Granada - "full of seeds"- probably from the

neighboring abundance of the pomegranate tree. The name covered not

only the city but a province that included Xeres, Jaen, Almeria,

Malaga, and other towns, with a total population of some four

millions. The capital, with a tenth of these, rose "like a watchtower"

to a summit commanding a magnificent valley, which rewarded careful

irrigation and scientific tillage with two crops a year. A wall with a

thousand towers guarded the city from its encompassing foes.

Mansions of spacious and elegant design sheltered the aristocracy;

in the public squares fountains cooled the ardor of the sun; and in

the fabulous halls of the Alhambra the emir or sultan or caliph held

his court.

A seventh of all agricultural produce was taken by the government,

and probably as much by the ruling class as a fee for economic

management and military leadership. Rulers and nobles distributed some

of their revenue to artists, poets, scholars, scientists,

historians, and philosophers, and financed a university where

learned Christians and Jews were allowed to hold chairs and occasional

rectorships. On the college portals five lines were inscribed: "The

world is supported by four things: the learning of the wise, the

justice of the great, the prayers of the good, and the valor of the

brave." `061115 Women shared freely in the cultural life; we know

the names of feminine savants of Moorish Granada. Education,

however, did not prevent the ladies from stirring their men not only

to swelling passions but to chivalric devotion and displays. Said a

gallant of the time: "The women are distinguished for the symmetry

of their figures, the gracefulness of their bodies, the length and

waviness of their hair, the whiteness of their teeth, the pleasing

lightness of their movements... the charm of their conversation, and

the perfume of their breath." `061116 Personal cleanliness and

public sanitation were more advanced than in contemporary Christendom.

Dress and manners were splendid, and tournaments or pageants

brightened festive days. Morals were easy, violence was not rare,

but Moorish generosity and honor won Christian praise. "The reputation

of the citizens" of Granada "for trustworthiness," said a Spanish

historian, "was such that their bare word was more relied on than a

written contract is among ourselves." `061117 Amid these high

developments the growth of luxury sapped the vigor of the nation,

and internal discord invited external attack.

Christian Spain, slowly consolidating its kingdoms and increasing

its wealth, looked with envious hostility upon this prosperous

enclave, whose religion taunted Christianity as an infidel polytheism,

and whose ports offered dangerous openings to an infidel power;

moreover, those fertile Andalusian fields might atone for many a

barren acre in the north. Only because Catholic Spain was divided

among factions and kings did Granada retain its liberty. Even so the

proud principality agreed (1457) to send annual tribute to Castile.

When a reckless emir, Ali abu-al-Hasan, refused to continue this bribe

to peace (1466), Henry IV was too busy with debauchery to compel

obedience. But Ferdinand and Isabella, soon after their accession to

the throne of Castile, sent envoys to demand resumption of the

tribute. With fatal audacity Ali replied: "Tell your sovereigns that

the kings of Granada who paid tribute are dead. Our mint now coins

nothing but sword blades!" `061118 Unaware that Ferdinand had more

iron in him than was in the Moorish mint, and claiming provocation

by Christian border raids, abu-al-Hasan took by assault the

Christian frontier town of Zahara, and drove all its inhabitants

into Granada to be sold as slaves (1481). The Marquis of Cadiz

retaliated by sacking the Moorish stronghold of Alama (1482). The

conquest of Granada had begun.

Love complicated war. Abu-al-Hasan developed such an infatuation for

one of his slaves that his wife, the Sultana Ayesha, roused the

populace to depose him and crown her son abu-'Abdallah, known to the

West as Boabdil (1482). Abu-al-Hasan fled to Malaga. A Spanish army

marched to besiege Malaga; it was almost annihilated in the mountain

passes of the Ajarquia range by troops still loyal to the fallen emir.

Jealous of his father's martial exploits, Boabdil led an army out from

Granada to attack a Christian force near Lucena. He fought bravely,

but was defeated and taken prisoner. He obtained his release by

promising to aid the Christians against his father, and to pay the

Spanish government 12,000 ducats a year. In the meantime his uncle

Abu-Abd-Allahi, known as Az-Zaghral (the Valiant), had made himself

emir of Granada. A three-cornered civil war ensued among uncle,

father, and son for the Granadine throne. The father died, the son

seized the Alhambra, the uncle retired to Guadix, whence he emerged

repeatedly to attack Spaniards wherever he could find them. Stirred to

imitation, Boabdil repudiated pledge and tribute, and prepared his

capital to resist inevitable assault.

Ferdinand and Isabella deployed 30,000 men to devastate the plains

that grew Granada's food. Mills, granaries, farm houses, vineyards,

olive and orange groves were destroyed. Malaga was besieged to prevent

its receiving or sending supplies for Granada; it held out until its

population had consumed all available horses, dogs, and cats, and were

dying by hundreds of starvation or disease. Ferdinand forced its

unconditional surrender, condemned the 12,000 survivors to slavery,

but allowed the rich to ransom themselves by yielding up all their

possessions. Az-Zaghral submitted. The entire province of Granada

outside its capital was now in Christian hands.

The Catholic sovereigns built around the beleaguered citadel a

veritable city for their armies, called it Santa Fe, and waited for

starvation to deliver the "pride of Andalusia" to their mercy. Moorish

cavaliers rode out from Granada and dared Spanish knights to single

battle; the knights responded with equal gallantry; but Ferdinand,

finding that his best warriors were being killed one by one on this

chivalric plan, put an end to the game. Boabdil led out his troops

in a forlorn sally, but they were beaten back. Appeals for help were

sent to the sultans of Turkey and Egypt, but no help came; Islam was

as divided as Christendom.

On November 25, 1491, Boabdil signed terms of capitulation that

did rare honor to the conquerors. The people of Granada were to keep

their property, language, dress, religion, ritual; they were to be

judged by their own laws and magistrates; no taxes were to be

imposed till after three years, and then only such as Moslem rulers

had levied. The city was to be occupied by the Spanish, but all

Moors who wished to leave it might do so, and transportation would

be provided for those who wished to cross to Moslem Africa.

Nevertheless the Granadines protested Boabdil's surrender.

Insurrection so threatened him that he turned the keys of the city

over to Ferdinand (January 2, 1492), and rode through the Christian

lines, with his relatives and fifty horsemen, to the little mountain

principality which he was to rule as a vassal of Castile. From the

crags over which he passed he turned to take a last look at the

wonderful city that he had lost; that summit is still called El Ultimo

Sospiro del Moro- the Last Sigh of the Moor. His mother reproved him

for his tears: "You do well to weep like a woman for what you could

not defend as a man." `061119

Meanwhile the Spanish army marched into Granada. Cardinal Mendoza

raised a great silver cross over the Alhambra, and Ferdinand and

Isabella knelt in the city square to give thanks to the God who

after 781 years had evicted Islam from Spain.

III. FERDINAND AND ISABELLA

-

The century between the death of Henry of Trastamara (1379) and

the accession of Ferdinand to the throne of Aragon was a fallow time

for Spain. A series of weak rulers allowed the nobles to disorder

Durant W. The Reformation. A History of European Civilization from Wyclif to Calvin: 1300-1564

Подождите немного. Документ загружается.