Letters from Spain

by Joseph Blanco White

GOOD FRIDAY.

The crowds of people who spent the evening and part of the night of Thursday in visiting the numerous churches where the host is entombed, are still seen, though greatly thinned, performing this religious ceremony, till the beginning of service at nine. This is, perhaps, the most impressive of any used by the Church of Rome. The altars, which, at the end of yesterday’s mass, were publicly and solemnly stripped of their cloths and rich table-hangings by the hands of the priest, appear in the same state of distressed negligence. No musical sound is heard, except the deep-toned voices of the psalm, or plain chaunt singers. After a few preparatory prayers, and the dramatized history of the Passion, already described, the officiating priest, (the archbishop at the cathedral) in a plain albe or white tunic, takes up a wooden cross six or seven feet high, which, like all other crosses, has for the last two weeks of Lent been covered with a purple veil; and standing towards the people, before the middle of the altar, gradually uncovers the sacred emblem, which both the clergy and laity worship upon their knees. The prelate is then unshod by the assistant ministers, and taking the cross upon his right shoulder, as our Saviour is represented by painters on his way to Calvary, walks alone from the altar to the entrance of the presbytery or chancel, and lays his burden upon two cushions. After this, he moves back some steps, and approaching the cross with three prostrations, kisses it, and drops an oblation of a piece of money, into a silver dish. The whole chapter, having gone through the same ceremony, form themselves in two lines, and repair to the monument, from whence the officiating priest conveys the deposited host to the altar, where he communicates upon it without consecrating any wine. Here the service terminates abruptly; all candles and lamps are extinguished; and the tabernacle, which throughout the year contains the sacred wafers, being left open, every object bespeaks the desolate and widowed state of the church, from the death of the Saviour to his resurrection.

The ceremonies of Good-Friday being short and performed at an early hour, both the gay and the devout would be at a loss how to spend the remainder of the day but for the grotesque Passion Sermons of the suburbs and neighbouring villages; and the more solemn performance known by the name of Tres Horas—three hours.

The practice of continuing in meditation from twelve to three o’clock of this day—the time which our Saviour is supposed to have hung on the cross—was introduced by the Spanish Jesuits, and partakes of the impressive character which the members of that order had the art to impart to the religious practices by which they cherished the devotional spirit of the people. The church where the three hours are kept, is generally hung in black, and made impervious to day-light. A large crucifix is seen on the high altar, under a black canopy, with six unbleached wax-candles, which cast a sombre glimmering on the rest of the church. The females of all ranks occupy, as usual, the centre of the nave, squatting or kneeling on the matted ground, and adding to the dismal appearance of the scene, by the colour of their veils and dresses.

Just as the clock strikes twelve, a priest in his cloak and cassock ascends the pulpit, and delivers a preparatory address of his own composition. He then reads the printed Meditation on the Seven Words, or Sentences spoken by Jesus on the cross, allotting to each such a portion of time as that, with the interludes of music which follow each of the readings, the whole may not exceed three hours. The music is generally good and appropriate, and, if a sufficient band can be collected, well repays to an amateur the inconvenience of a crowded church, where, from the want of seats, the male part of the congregation are obliged either to stand or kneel. It is, in fact, one of the best works of Haydn, composed, a short time ago, for some gentlemen of Cadiz, who shewed both their taste and liberality in thus procuring this masterpiece of harmony for the use of their country. It has been lately published in Germany, under the title of “Sette Parole.”

Every part of the performance is so managed that the clock strikes three about the end of the meditation, on the words It is finished.—The description of the expiring Saviour, powerfully drawn by the original writer of the Tres Horas, can hardly fail to strike the imagination when listened to under the influence of such music and scenery; and when, at the first stroke of the clock, the priest rises from his seat, and in a loud and impassioned voice, announces the consummation of the awful and mysterious sacrifice, on whose painful and bloody progress the mind has been dwelling so long; few hearts can repel the impression, and still fewer eyes can conceal it. Tears bathe every cheek, and sobs heave every female bosom.—After a parting address from the pulpit, the ceremony concludes with a piece of music, where the powers of the great composer are magnificently displayed in the imitation of the disorder and agitation of nature which the Evangelists relate.

The Passion Sermons for the populace might be taken for a parody of the Three Hours. They are generally delivered, in the open air, by friars of the Mendicant Orders, in those parts of the city and suburbs which are chiefly, if not exclusively, inhabited by the lower classes. Such gay young men, however, as do not scruple to relieve the dulness of Good-Friday with a ride, and feel no danger of exposing themselves by any unseasonable laughter, indulge not unfrequently in the frolic of attending one of the most complete and perfect sermons of this kind, at the neighbouring village of Castilleja.

A moveable pulpit is placed before the church door, from which a friar, possessed of a stentorian voice, delivers an improved history of the Passion, such as was revealed to Saint Bridget, a Franciscan nun, who, from the dictation of the Virgin Mary, has left us a most minute and circumstantial account of the life and death of Christ and his mother. This yearly narrative, however, would have lost most of its interest but for the scenic illustrations which keep up the expectation and rivet the attention of the audience. It was formerly the custom to introduce a living Saint Peter—a character which belonged by a natural and inalienable right to the baldest head in the village—who acted the Apostle’s denial, swearing by Christ, he did not know the man. This edifying part of the performance is omitted at Castilleja; though a practised performer crows with such a shrill and natural note as must be answered with a challenge by every cock of spirit in the neighbourhood. The flourish of a trumpet announces, in the sequel, the publication of the sentence passed by the Roman governor; and the town crier delivers it with legal precision, in the manner it is practised in Spain, before an execution. Hardly has the last word been uttered, when the preacher, in a frantic passion, gives the crier the lie direct, cursing the tongue that has uttered such blasphemies.[40] He then invites an angel to contradict both Pilate and the Jews: when, obedient to the orator’s desire, a boy gaudily dressed, and furnished with a pair of gilt pasteboard wings, appears at the window, and proclaims the true verdict of Heaven. Sometimes in the course of the preacher’s narrative, an image of the Virgin Mary is made to meet that of Christ, on his way to Calvary, both taking an affectionate leave in the street. The appearance, however, of the Virgin bearing a handkerchief to collect a sum for her son’s burial, is never omitted, both because it melts the whole female audience into tears, and because it produces a good collection for the convent. The whole is closed by the Descendimiento, or unnailing a crucifix as large as life from the cross; an operation performed by two friars, who, in the character of Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, are seen with ladders and carpenters’ tools, letting down the jointed figure, to be placed on a bier and carried into the church in the form of a funeral.

I have carefully glided over such parts of this absurd performance as would shock many an English reader even in narrative. Yet such is the strange mixture of superstition and profaneness in the people for whose gratification these scenes are exhibited, that though any attempt to expose the indecency of these shows would rouse their zeal “to the knife,” I cannot venture to translate the jokes and sallies of wit that are frequently heard among the Spanish peasantry upon these sacred topics.