One of the chapels is specially reserved for the performance of the Mozarabic[36] ritual, the ancient Use of St Isidore, which had been preserved by the Toledan Christians throughout the period of their subjection to the Moors. At the reconquest the Romanizers were anxious to suppress it, and after much controversy the question was referred to ordeal by battle. Two bulls were appointed champions for the rival churches! but the defeat of the Roman representative left his clients unconvinced,{209} and two knights took the place of the bulls. Again the Toledan was victorious, but again the argumentative Romanists refused to accept the result. The arm of the flesh was a vain thing in such a matter; “the God that answereth by fire, let Him be God!” The protests of the Mozárabes were overborne, and the arbitrary bonfire was kindled in the triangular Toledan market-place. The Romanists astutely conceded the privilege of “first go.” They complacently watched their antagonists commit St Isidore’s precious Missal to the flames. And, behold, it would not burn! Had the Romanists kept their heads it might have occurred to them that the old parchment tome, with its thick oak boards and solid metal clasps, was about as unpromising a bit of fuel as mortal bonfire could tackle. But this third defeat gave them a panic. There was only a draw to be hoped for, and they dared not expose their own volume to such an unprofitable risk. With desperate ingenuity they once more tried to revive the controversy from the beginning; but their opponents were now upon too firm ground, and their orthodoxy had to be conceded.
In later years, however, the Mozarabic ritual fell into disuse, and was only rescued from oblivion by{210} the enterprise of Cardinal Ximenes, who collated and republished it, and founded the chapel wherein it is still performed. This sounds rather a broad-minded act for a Grand Inquisitor; but Ximenes, an ascetic and a conqueror, a foe to knowledge and a patron of learning, was one of those strange complex characters whose actions seem consistent to no one but himself.
One might readily fill a volume with a list of the glories of Toledo, and not a tithe of its attractions can be mentioned in these meagre notes. Its proximity to Madrid renders it somewhat better known than the majority of Castilian cities, yet most visitors appear to imagine that they can “do” it adequately in a day. A cheerful American whom I met there had come over from Madrid in the morning, and was returning the same afternoon. He was seeing Toledo in three hours, and was spending one of them in dining! A month might well prove insufficient; but a month was not to be spared. One further visit, however, is incumbent on every Englishman. A pilgrimage down the Tagus to the battlefield of Talavera is a duty that he may not ignore.
The Tagus valley becomes more tame and domesticated below the grim defiles of Toledo;{211} and its mountain fences, the Sierras of Grédos and Guadalupe, face one another at a distance of some fifty miles. Yet the intervening plains have not nearly the amplitude of the Duero’s, though the ground is comparatively open and even comparatively green. It is a very interesting district; for the Tagus was long a frontier river, and its banks were as diligently fortified as those of our own Tweed.
The roads from Madrid and Toledo unite at the castle of Magueda; and it was at the brook beneath it that I made the acquaintance of El Maestre Pedro and his wife and family, a couple of Pyrenean bears and a Barbary ape. What an ungainly group they looked as they came scrambling down the road towards me! But they were all true Castilians (at least all the human section), and offered me a share of their food when they stopped to lunch at the water side, as all well-bred wayfarers should:—Would my honour please to eat? “Many thanks! a good meal to your honours!” is the correct reply to this courtesy: and therewith I went my way.
And now the military tourist will begin to recognise that he is approaching a classic neighbourhood. His ear is caught by the names of the{212} villages—Torrijos, Sta Olalla, Alcabon. They are humble little hamlets enough, yet their names ring vaguely familiar. They each dropped a card upon history one hundred years ago.
Now, too, the landscape is pervaded by an additional feature, which was likewise important enough to win historical mention on the battlefield.[37] To wit, Pigs. Pigs and pigs and pigs. Pigs by single spies, pigs in battalions. No fat and greasy citizens, like their cousins in England, but sinewy, razor-backed racers of strong sporting proclivities, who rioted along beside the bicycle in sheer exuberance of athleticism. There was a big pig fair toward at Talavera on the morrow, and its votaries were mustering from all points of the compass like the sorcerers of Domdaniel when Eblis summoned them to doom. They were all washed beautifully clean by a tremendous thunderstorm which caught us at the bridge over the Alberche: but the streets and lanes of the city were reduced to an indescribable state.
