During the first century after the Reconquest bull-fighting was opposed by several powerful influences, but each in turn it survived and set at naught. Isabel la Católica, horrified by the sight of bloodshed at a bull-fight which she personally attended, decided to prohibit all corridas; but that, she found, lay beyond even her great influence. Next, in 1567, the power of the Papacy was invoked in vain.
Pope Pius V., by a bula of November 20, forbade the spectacle under pain of excommunication, the denial of Christian burial, and similar ecclesiastical penalties; but he and his bula had likewise to go under in face of the national sentiment of Spain.
A noble bull fell to the lance of Isabel’s grandson, H.M. the Emperor Charles V., in the Plaza Mayor of Valladolid amidst acclamation of countless admirers. This occurred during the festivals held to celebrate the birth of his eldest son, afterwards Phillip II.
In 1612 bull-fighting first assumed a financial aspect. Phillip III. conceded to one Arcania Manduno the emoluments accruing during the term of three lives from the corridas de toros in the city of Valencia. Charities and asylums benefited under this fund, but the bulk went in payment for professional services in the Plaza.
During the reign of Phillip IV.—that king being skilled in the use of lance and javelin (rejón), and frequently himself taking a public part—the fiesta advanced enormously in national estimation. English readers may recall the sumptuous corrida which marked the arrival of Charles I., with the Duke of Buckingham, at Madrid.
Later, during the reigns of the House of Austria, to face a bull with bravery and skill and to use a dexterous lance was the pride of every Spanish noble.
Phillip V., however, would have none of the spectacle, and then the nobility held aloof from the corridas; but their example proved no deterrent. For the hold of the national pastime on the Moro-hispanic race was too firm-set to be swept aside by alien influence, however strong; and when thus abandoned by the patricians, the hidalgos and grandees of Spain, the sport of bull-fighting (hitherto confined exclusively to the aristocracy) was taken up by the Spanish people. A further impulse was generated later on under Ferdinand VII., who obtained a reversal of the anathema of the Church on condition that some of the pecuniary profits of the corridas should swell the funds of the hospitals.
It was, however, during the first half of the eighteenth century that bull-fighting on a popular basis, as understood and practised at the present day, took its start. Then there stepped upon the enclosed arena the first professional Toréro amidst thrilling plaudits from tier above tier of encircling humanity. Never before had the bull been taken on by a single man on foot armed only with his good sword and scarlet flag—with these to pit his strength and skill against the weight and ferocity of a toro bravo—alone and unaided to despatch him. Such a man was Francisco Romero, erewhiles a shoemaker at Ronda—A.D. 1726—first professional lidiador. On his death at an advanced age, he left five sons, all craftsmen of repute, who, in honour of their sire, formed a bull-fighting guild still known as the Rondénean School—distinguished from the later Sevillian cult by its more serious and dignified attack as compared with the prettiness and “swagger” of the Sevillano.
In that generation Francisco’s son, Pedro Romero, appeared in rivalry with PEPE-ILLO, the new-risen star in the Sevillian firmament. It was, by the way, the master-mind of the latter which completed and perfected the reorganisation on popular lines of the national fiesta after Bourbon influence had alienated the aristocracy from their ancient diversion. The rivalry between these competing exponents of the two styles commenced in 1771, the pair representing each a supreme mastery of their respective schools, and only terminated with the death of Pepe-Illo in the Plaza of Madrid, May 11, 1801. The Sevillian style has since attained pre-eminence, appealing more to the masses by its nonchalance and apparent disregard of danger. When the best features of both schools are combined—as has been exemplified in more than one brilliant exponent of the art—then the letters of his name are writ large on the cartels.