[23] Small loaves made of the finest flour, offered to the Church. The Dictionary of the Spanish Academy quotes Lazarillo de Tormes as the authority for the meaning of this word.
[24] Escudero. The English equivalent is esquire; Latin, armiger. Selden says that the original of this title was the office or function of armiger or scutifer. Our esquire and the French escuyer are derived from Scutarius. In Froissart we have knights and esquires, in Spain cavalleros (knights) and escuderos (esquires).
[25] The Duke of Arcos was a very grand nobleman. The title belonged to the family of Ponce de Leon, but before this was written the head of the family had become Duke of Cadiz, a title which was afterwards changed to that of Duke of Arcos. The second Duke was flourishing at this time, and died in 1590. Count, in the text, is a mistake. It should be Duke.
[26] The “Pardoner,” or seller of Indulgences, was also caricatured in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, a century and a half earlier.
[27] A pardoner always had a sergeant or constable with him, to help him in such houses as refused to pay for their pardons at the appointed time.
[28] Formerly there were two kinds of parishes in Toledo. Those of the Muzarabes, founded by the Gothic King Athanagild, the grandfather of St. Ildefonso, continued through Moorish times. They were existing when Alfonso VI. took Toledo in 1085. Their number was six, reduced to two. The others were called Latinas, formed afterwards, of which there were twenty reduced to nine. St. Saviour’s was one of the latter. It has been joined to that of San Pedro since Lazarillo’s time.
[29] In 1525, at the time when Francis I. arrived as a prisoner at Madrid, Charles held a General Cortes of Castille at Toledo. There were present most of the Grandees, and all the foreign Ambassadors. The Viceroy Carlos de Lannoy arrived at Toledo, and was cordially received by the Emperor, after having brought Francis to Madrid. The Cortes petitioned Charles to marry Isabel, the Infanta of Portugal; while the English Ambassadors proposed to him his cousin, Mary Tudor. The Cortes sat until the end of August.—Sandoval, i. 664 (2).
Transcriber’s note
- Obvious printer errors have been silently corrected.
- Original spelling was kept, but variant spellings were made consistent when a predominant usage was found. Spanish spellings have been kept unchanged.
- Blank pages have been skipped.
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- Inconsistencies between the main text and the Table of Contents have been eliminated.