Part 8 (1/2)

”She took Goncales by the hand at the dawning of the day, She said 'Upon the heath you stand, before you lies the way, But if I to my father go--alas! what must I do!

My father will be angry--I fain would go with you.'”

It is perhaps needless to add that the fair Dona Sancha did go with the gallant captain, and in the lofty cathedral at Burgos, which was his capital, their wedding was celebrated in great state. At the conclusion of the marriage feast, however, Gonzalez determined to punish the faithless Garcia, and made war against him to such good effect that he was made a prisoner and only released after the repeated intercessions of his sister, Dona Teresa. Why Gonzalez should have listened to the pleadings of Teresa after her treatment of him is rather hard to imagine. A still further proof of his unsuspicious character is seen in the fact that he allowed himself to be inveigled into going to Leon to attend a meeting of the Cortes, and while there he was again imprisoned.

Such was the sum of Dona Teresa's iniquity, and all because she was in the clutch of the green-eyed monster and put a higher value upon the glory of her house than upon the glory of the Christian arms. This was the occasion for the good wife Dona Sancha to show her courage and loyalty, which stand out in striking contrast to the treacherous acts of her jealous aunt. It was Shakespeare who said: ”These women are shrewd tempters with their tongues;” and as the alcayde had been won over at the time of Gonzalez's first captivity, so now again Dona Sancha put her nimble wits to work and devised another plan for his release. In robe of sombre hue, she set out upon a pious pilgrimage to Santiago; and as her way lay through Leon, where her husband languished in prison, she resolved to tarry by the way for a short while and visit him in his misery. Permission for such a visit was slow in coming, as Dona Teresa was resolved this time that Gonzalez should not escape. After much pleading, however, Dona Sancha had her way, and the prison doors swung open before her. Once alone with her husband, she quickly changed clothes with him; and the Count of Castile, in the garb of a woman, soon after pa.s.sed the jailers and found himself at liberty. By the time the ruse was discovered, he was leagues away and in safety among his friends. The wrath of Teresa and her son King Sancho may well be imagined when the news was brought to them; but they resolved to take the matter in a philosophic way, after the first moment of anger had pa.s.sed, and Dona Sancha was allowed to join her husband, going unharmed from this unfriendly court.

In all this warring, romantic period of the tenth century, by far the most interesting and thrilling tale is that of Dona Lambra and the Seven Lords of Lara, and while the story is somewhat legendary and based rather upon stirring ballads than upon authentic records, it must not be forgotten here. Dona Lambra, a kinswoman of the Count of Castile, had been married with great ceremony at Burgos to Ruy Velasquez, brother-in-law to Don Gonzalo, Count of Lara in the Asturias; and during the five weeks of pleasure and feasting which celebrated this happy event, there were no knights in all the glittering throng more striking in appearance and more admired for their many accomplishments than the seven stalwart sons of Don Gonzalo, the nephews of the bridegroom, who were called the Seven Lords of Lara. During the very last week of the festivities a wooden target was set up upon the other side of the river, and the knights threw light Moorish _djerrids_, or wooden javelins, at it, each trying with a surer aim to outdo his fellows. Dona Lambra was an interested spectator, and when at last Alvaro Sanchez, one of her favorite cousins, struck the target full in the centre, she was more than pleased, and declared that he was the best marksman of them all.

The Seven Lords of Lara had taken no part in this contest as yet, for six of the brothers had been busily engaged in playing chess, and the youngest of them all, Gonzalo Gonzales, had been standing idly by.

Piqued, however, by Dona Lambra's praise of her kinsman, young Gonzalo threw himself upon his horse, rode to the river's edge, and hurled his _djerrid_ with such force that he completely shattered the target far on the other side. This unexpected turn of events so angered the bride that she grew white with rage, and Alvaro vented his spleen in such abusive language that Gonzalo dealt him a blow which struck him fairly upon the mouth and knocked out his teeth. Thereat Dona Lambra cried out that no maiden had ever been so dishonored at her wedding, and bloodshed was narrowly averted by the interference of the Counts of Castile and Lara.

As it was feared that Ruy Velasquez might be urged on to vengeance by his angered wife, he was induced to set out upon a trip through Castile with many of the older knights, while the Seven Lords of Lara, in the midst of a larger company, were left to escort the bride to her new home at Bavardiello. Once arrived, the brothers went into the garden of the palace, where Gonzalo, who was a devotee of falconry, was engaged in bathing his favorite hawk, when suddenly, without warning, one of Dona Lambra's slaves rushed upon him and threw in his face a gourd filled with blood. In mediaeval Spain this was a most deadly insult, and all the brothers drew their swords and rushed after the offender. They came upon him crouching at Dona Lambra's feet, and there they killed him without mercy, so that his blood was sprinkled upon her garments. Then, taking their mother with them, they returned to their home at Salas. This time Dona Lambra demanded vengeance in no uncertain tone, and Ruy Velasquez began to plot in her behalf. The old Count of Lara was prevailed upon to go to the kalif at Cordova, bearing a letter from Velasquez which was supposedly of political import, but which was intended to be the count's death warrant. The kalif, loath to put so brave a knight to death, cast him into prison. Soon after, he made an attack upon the Christians.

Velasquez gathered an army to oppose him, and succeeded in getting the young Lords of Lara to join him. In the midst of the battle, Velasquez and his whole army deserted, leaving the seven youths and a small company of retainers to fight alone against the Moorish host. Taken prisoners, their heads were cut off and sent to Cordova, where the kalif was cruel enough to present them to their imprisoned father for identification. Now let the ballad take up the story:

”He took their heads up one by one, he kissed them o'er and o'er; And aye ye saw the tears run down, I wot that grief was sore.

He closed the lids on their dead eyes, all with his fingers frail, And handled all their b.l.o.o.d.y curls, and kissed their lips so pale.

”'Oh had ye died all by my side upon some famous day, My fair young men, no weak tears then had washed your blood away; The trumpet of Castile had drowned the misbelievers' horn, And the last of all the Lara's line a Gothic spear had borne.'

”With that it chanced a man drew near to lead him from the place, Old Lara stooped him down once more, and kissed Gonzalo's face; But ere the man observed him, or could his gesture bar, Sudden he from his side had grasped that Moslem's scymetar.”

Before the count was overpowered he had killed thirteen of the Moors, and then he begged that he might be put to death; but the kalif, on learning all of the details of the treachery of Velasquez, restored the count to liberty and sent him back to his wife in the castle at Salas.

The fate of the revengeful Dona Lambra is not recorded, but it is to be hoped that she was made to atone in some way for all her savage rage.

About Ximena and her far-famed husband Don Rodrigo, widely known as the Cid, many marvellous tales have been told, and it is a matter for regret that so many of them are purely legendary. According to one of the traditions, which was followed by the French dramatic poet Pierre Corneille when he wrote his famous play, _Le Cid_, in 1636, Ximena is given a much more prominent place in the story than that accorded to her in history. According to this version, Don Diego, father of Don Rodrigo, is given a mortal insult by the braggart Don Gomez, who is the father of Ximena. Young Don Rodrigo, eager to avenge the slight put upon his aged father, provokes Don Gomez to a duel and kills him. Ximena, who has loved Don Rodrigo, overcome by these tragic events, is at a loss to know what to do, and in her heart there is a fierce struggle between her love for her lover and her respect for her father. This distressing situation is relieved somewhat by the thought that Don Rodrigo, in killing her father, has but avenged his own; but still her Spanish nature cries for redress, and she appeals to King Fernan of Castile, at whose court all these things have taken place. Believing her love for Don Rodrigo to be stronger than her hatred, the king suddenly announces the death of Rodrigo, which so surprises Ximena that she discloses her deep affection, which she had made an attempt to conceal; whereat he announces his intention to unite the two lovers as soon as Rodrigo should have given further proof of his valor.

As a matter of fact, the Cid was a free-lance of undoubted bravery and courage, who fought now with and now against the Moors; but in spite of the fact that he was not always true to the same allegiance, he is essentially a popular hero, as he represents a spirit of boldness and independence which in itself is enough to endear him to the minds of the people. His killing of Don Gomez in the manner described is extremely doubtful, and history affords no details as to the manner of his wooing or his wedding. But Ximena was his wife, shared in many of his hards.h.i.+ps, and at his death, in 1099, ruled in his stead for three years at Valencia. Finally, much harried by the Moslems, who were ever growing bolder, Ximena withdrew to Burgos, taking with her the body of the Cid, embalmed in precious spices, and borne, as in the days of his vigor, on the back of his great warhorse Babieca. The Cid was buried in the monastery of Cardena, near Burgos; and there the brave Dona Ximena was laid by his side at the time of her death, in 1104. Although a number of fanciful stories have been told about the daughters of Ximena and the doughty Cid, the fact remains that they had two daughters, who married into some of the n.o.blest houses of all Spain. The elder, Christina, became the wife of Ramiro, Infante of Navarre; while the younger, Maria, married Count Ramon Berenguer III. of Barcelona. After a long series of intermarriages, to quote from Burke, in a double stream, through the royal houses of Spain and of France, the blood of the Cid is found to flow in the veins of his majesty Alfonso XIII., the reigning King of Spain.

The religious side of Spanish life in the eleventh century, so far as Christianity is concerned, centres about a woman, Constance of Burgundy, the wife of King Alfonso VI. of Castile. This was the period when the monk Hildebrand, become Pope Gregory VII., was endeavoring to unify the power of the Roman Church and strengthen the authority of the papacy; and as he had a devout woman, the Countess Matilda of Tuscany, to aid him in Italy, so he had as his firm ally in Spain the pious Queen Constance, daughter of King Robert of France. Constance was not a Spanish woman, but the influence she exerted in Spain had such a far-reaching effect that she cannot be overlooked in any category such as the present. With Constance to Spain came the monk Bernard of Cluny, a pale ascetic, who had just been leading a crusade against the corruption existing in the Church itself, and whose whole life had been devoted to serious things. The French court had been given over to works of piety, the Church had great authority, and the clergy were held in high esteem. When the French princess left this devout atmosphere to go to sunny Spain, she had grave misgivings as to the frivolous and irreverent character of her new subjects, and deemed it wise to take with her as a friend and adviser the stern Bernard. The worst fears of these two zealous Christians were more than realized. The king had friendly intercourse with Moorish va.s.sals, and Moslem and Christian lived side by side in perfect harmony! That all this should be and at a time when the same Moslem brood was defiling the place of the Holy Sepulchre in far-off Palestine, and when the crusading spirit filled the air, was almost beyond belief, and Constance and the monk were greatly scandalized thereat. Totally without that toleration which comes with experience, they could conceive of no religion as a good religion which did not meet the rigid requirements of their own belief; and they planned at once a Spanish crusade which was intended to improve the general deplorable condition of public morals and at the same time to modify, in a most radical way, the liturgy of the Spanish Church, which was far too lax in points of discipline. Their conduct at the time of the surrender of Toledo, in 1074, is a most excellent example of the eager, yet thoughtless, way in which they went about their new work.

When King Alfonso, after an interval of more than three hundred years, regained possession of the ancient capital of the Goths, the city from which the luckless Rodrigo, the last of the Goths, was driven, Toledo was surrendered on the express condition that the Moors should not be disturbed in their religious beliefs and that they were to retain the use of their mosques. Such terms with such an enemy appeared monstrous to the queen. Especially did it seem a sin before G.o.d that the princ.i.p.al mosque, the Alfaqui, the n.o.blest building in all that fair city which lay stretched out with many a gilded dome and minaret upon its seven hills above the Tagus, should still be used for the wors.h.i.+p of a pagan people; and Constance and Bernard plotted together, piously, for the triumph of the true religion. The first time that the king left the city, Bernard, now Archbishop of Toledo, acting under the authority of Queen Constance, went to the Alfaqui at the head of a company of monks summoned from his monastery at Sahagun, opened the doors, set up crosses, erected altars, hung bells, and then publicly summoned the people to ma.s.s on the following morning. The king, upon his return, was furious at this intolerant act, and was moved to threaten punishment; but the Moors, satisfied by his indignation, displayed a real spirit of toleration in asking for the pardon of the monks.

The queen and Bernard, successful in this first struggle, continued to labor incessantly for the glory of the Church. The masterful Pope Gregory VII., in his letter addressed to the princes of Spain, said: ”You are aware, I believe, that from the earliest times the kingdom of Spain was the special patrimony of Saint Peter, and although pagans have occupied it, it still belongs to the same master.” The King of Castile was not bold enough to deny this papal claim of overlords.h.i.+p, and Gregory demanded as first proof of his submission that he should subst.i.tute throughout his realm the Roman liturgy for the national or Mozarabic ritual then in general use. Queen Constance and Bernard were in favor of this reform, and they prevailed upon the king to accept it; but it was a far different matter to secure its actual use at the hands of the national clergy, who were strongly opposed to the change. In spite of all her efforts the queen could do nothing, and finally, as a compromise, it was decided to submit the question to the ordeal of trial by battle. Two champions were duly appointed who fought before a most august a.s.sembly over which the queen presided. The Knight of the Gothic Missal, Don Juan Ruiz de Matanzas, killed the Champion of Rome, and was not only victorious, but unscathed, much to the disgust of Constance and her followers. The manifest disinclination to accept this result as final made another ordeal necessary, and this time, in truly Spanish style, a bull fight was resolved upon. The great arena at Toledo was selected as the place where this ecclesiastical combat was to take place, and on the appointed day the great amphitheatre was crowded with an expectant mult.i.tude. The queen, the king, and the archbishop, backed by black-robed monks, looked on with evident interest, hoping that this time the scales would turn in their favor; but the people, expert in contests of this kind, had already picked the Castilian bull as the winner and had begun to wager their small coin as to the probable duration of the fight. The people were right, the Roman _toro_ was promptly slain, and once more the cause of Spain was triumphant. But the queen was persistent, and in spite of the fact that the result of each of these ordeals was popularly considered as a direct sign from heaven, she refused to accept them as final, because her pet project had been rejected. If the results had been different, there is little doubt but that the ordeals would have been received as infallible. However, it was not possible to cast a slight upon this time-honored procedure by any act which might tend to throw it into disrepute, so the whole question was dropped for the s.p.a.ce of seven years. Queen Constance, in this interval, carried on a quiet campaign which she hoped would lead eventually to the adoption of the much discussed and twice rejected liturgy, and at no time did she give up her hope. Rome, to her narrow mind, must reign supreme in matters spiritual if the kingdom of Spain was to have relations with the kingdom of heaven, and she did not hesitate to ride rough-shod over the national clergy, to whom alone, without any aid whatever from the pope, the recent Christian successes in Spain had been due. When she considered the time ripe for some radical action, Gregory sent his legate, the Cardinal Ricardo, to hold a Church council at Burgos, and there it was formally decreed that the Mozarabic ritual must be put aside in Castile. Before the formal adoption of the Roman form, however, it was decided wise to resort once more to a trial by ordeal, as the favorable issue of such a public test would make it much easier to conquer the prejudices of the people. This time, Constance advising it, the ordeal by fire was tried, and, as Miss Yonge phrases it, ”a great pile was erected in the market place of Toledo for the most harmless _auto de fe_ that ever took place there.”

Seats were built up on all sides in amphitheatre fas.h.i.+on, the queen, the king, the court, and the dignitaries of the two clerical parties were there in special boxes, and again were the people much in evidence, but this time much in doubt as to the final outcome. When all was ready, the torch was applied to the pile and the two volumes were committed to the flames. The book which was not consumed by the fire was to be considered acceptable to G.o.d. To the chagrin of the papal party, the Roman book was utterly consumed, but the Gothic missal came forth unscathed. Although there was great rejoicing at this final triumph for the national clergy, the foreigners were in control, and the king, urged on by his wife, decided to act upon his own responsibility, without regard for the manifest judgment of heaven, and lost no time in giving his signature to the decree of the Council of Burgos, which then went into immediate effect. This time the people made no resistance, and, as has been said, Spain became once more, after the lapse of nearly seven centuries, the obedient province of Rome. In the succeeding centuries the influence of Rome has been ever present and powerful in the affairs of the Spanish peninsula, and whether for its weal or woe, which is not a matter for consideration here, the fact remains that Queen Constance was the one person in Spain who was most responsible for this state of affairs. Her unflagging interest in the success of the papal party and her perseverance in the face of the opposition of a majority of the Spanish clergy made her the life of the whole movement, and to this day she is held in grateful memory at the Holy See.

CHAPTER XV

WOMEN IN EARLY POLITICAL LIFE

After the time of the good Queen Constance and with the growth of the Spanish monarchies, which in spite of all their internal turmoil and confusion were fast becoming more powerful and more of a menace to the Moslem rule, the wheels of fate seem to bring women into greater political prominence than ever before. Constance, it is true, had been no mean figure in that epoch, and had exerted a most powerful influence in shaping the destinies of Spain for her own time and for the future, but this was done by an exercise of indirect rather than direct authority. Constance had been queen, but there had been a king to rule as well, and with him remained the real power. As Constance influenced him, she may have been said to use this royal power, it is true, but the fact remains that it was the woman Constance who was using her powers of feminine persuasion to bring about the results which were so dear to her heart. No political responsibilities rested upon her shoulders, there were no cares of state to weary and make uneasy her crowned head, and she was free to follow her own penchants unimpeded by this larger task.

But now a wider field for the activities of women seems to come; in Spain, chance gives them full control in their own name in certain instances, and they bear the full responsibility. The measure of their success may not be greater than the measure of their failure in these new lines of endeavor, but, good or bad as their methods of administration may have been, it does not appear that they fall below the level of masculine achievement at the same time. And this is a curious thing. Since the birth of time men have been regarding women as weaklings, both mentally and physically. Tennyson has it that ”woman is the lesser man,” and such has been the commonly expressed opinion.

Everything in the social life of the world has conspired to give truth to this statement; women are still the real slaves of their husbands in many countries, and the virtual slaves in almost all the world; education has been granted to them grudgingly, the scope of their intellect has been limited in the narrowest way; and in spite of all these facts, in spite of this suppression and repression from time immemorial, women have been able by some power or some cunning to exert a most powerful influence in the world, and when called upon to take up a man's work they have left a record for judgment and skill and wisdom which needs no apologies and which is generally above the average. To those who are content with generalities it may be sufficient to say that women are not the equals of men, but to anyone who attempts to study, step by step, the history of human development it becomes apparent that the French admonition _Cherchez la femme_ contains the truth, unalloyed.

In America it has become the custom to say that in every great national emergency there is always a man ready to meet the situation and meet it n.o.bly and with understanding; and what can be said here can be said with equal truth perhaps in other countries of the world, but to this statement it may be well to add that women also may be found to do n.o.bly the tasks which may fall to their lot.

In every day and generation, however, it will rarely be found that the women are better than the men. The interests of men and women are so identical from so many points of view, society is in so many ways but a composite of their common interests, that their moral level must of necessity be the same. By intuition, then, by inherent capacity, by woman's wit, by that something feminine which is at once the power and the charm of a woman, the members of this so-called weaker s.e.x have been able to take their place worthily beside their brothers in the open field of the world's activities whenever circ.u.mstance has called them forth, without the inheritance, the education, or the experience which the men possess, but morally they can but be as society makes them.

There are exceptions to all rules, however; some women as well as some men may be better or worse than the majority of their fellows, and these are the ones who are signalled out by the historian for special attention. The people who are always good and always happy have no history, as there is nothing noteworthy to tell of them, life has no tragedies, all is plain sailing, and the whole story can be told in a few words. In a measure the same thing is true of the ordinary man, be he good or bad, for what can be said of him can be said of a whole cla.s.s, and so the history of the cla.s.s may be told, but the individual will always remain in the background.

In the special epoch of Spanish history with which the present chapter is concerned, the twelfth century and the first part of the thirteenth, there is little to say of women in general which cannot be said of the mediaeval women of other parts of Europe. Oriental ideas had been introduced to some extent, it is true, by the Moors, but otherwise the general ignorance and dependence of the women of the time call for no special comment. Above this commonplace level there are to be seen, nevertheless, two women who occupied a commanding position in the world, which was quite unusual. They were both queens of Castile, and as one was bad, vain, reckless, and frivolous, so was the other good, unselfish, wise, and dignified. Within the extremes of character which their lives present is traced the measure of a woman's possibilities at that time.