[13] See [note, p. 5].
[14] There was a huge mass of granite rudely carved in the shape of an animal, which had been on the bridge from time immemorial; and which Lazarillo thought was like a bull. Its great weight was considered a danger, and it was removed about thirty years ago. It is now in the vestibule of the cloister of San Domingo at Salamanca, but without a head.
[15] The copper maravedi was a coin the value of which varied. It may be taken as a penny. The blanca was so called from the whiteness of the metal of which it was made. In the time of Alonso XI. there were three blancas to the maravedi. From 1497 the maravedi was worth two blancas. The great dictionary of the Spanish Academy quotes Lazarillo de Tormes as the authority for the value of the blanca and half blanca, or farthing.
[16] Almorox is a village with three hundred houses formed in irregular streets and an open square. The church of San Cristoval has a fine north door. The place belonged to the Duke of Escalona. Its vineyards produce wine like Valdepeñas. It is about twelve miles from the town of Escalona.
[17] The Duke of Escalona was the maternal grandfather of the author. The town of Escalona is on the right bank of the river Alberche, and about one hundred feet above it. Escalona is twenty-five miles north-west of Toledo. It was surrounded by a wall ten feet thick and thirty feet high, with two gates. In the principal square there were arcades and a stone cross. Juan II. gave Escalona to the Constable Alvaro de Luna in 1424, who built a great palace there, which was demolished by the French under Marshal Soult. King Henry IV. gave Escalona to Juan Pacheco, the Master of Santiago. In Lazarillo’s time it belonged to Don Diego Lopez de Pacheco, second Duke of Escalona and Marquis of Villena. He distinguished himself in the last Moorish war in Granada, and died in 1529. He resided in the old palace built by the Constable Alvaro de Luna, where he dispensed hospitality, among many others to Don Alonzo Enriquez de Guzman (see translation of that young adventurer’s life and acts, p. 71, Hakluyt Society, 1862). Madoz states that, in his time, Escalona consisted of 190 houses, population 580.
[18] Nabo, called colewort in the Neuman and Baretti dictionary. More likely what Gervase Markham (Country Farm, p. 185) calls “navet,” a sort of small turnip.
[20] The “pillar” was a stone cross which still stands in the plaza of Escalona.
[21] Torrijos is sixteen miles north-west of Toledo, and eight miles from the Tagus, in a valley on the road from Maqueda to Toledo. It was walled, and still has two old gateways. Madoz gives it 480 houses, and in the plaza is the palace of the Count of Altamira, built of stone. The church is dedicated to San Gil. Here Beatriz, the daughter of King Pedro by Maria de Padilla, was born in 1353. The country round yields abundant oil, and the place is sometimes called Torrijos de los Olivares.
[22] Maqueda is six leagues north-west of Toledo, built on a hill, on the margin of a stream of the same name which falls into the Alberche, a tributary of the Tagus. It has 112 houses, scattered along badly paved dirty streets. There is an old castle, and two churches, San Juan Bautista and San Domingo. Water is abundant. Maqueda was taken from the Moors by Alfonso VI. in 1083, and in 1177 it was granted to the knights of Calatrava. Ferdinand and Isabella made Diego de Cardenas Duke of Maqueda.