My Spanish Year

by Ellen M. Whishaw

The only child of wealthy parents who died when he was yet a youth, he became a priest and was given a high place in the Chapter at the early age of twenty-three. It was not to be wondered at that, as a contemporary puts it, “as his age was short and his rents were long, his steps were not so well balanced as his ecclesiastical state demanded.” His palatial mansion indeed was conducted on lines more befitting a plutocrat than a priest, and his licentious life was the scandal of the town. But when he was thirty “Heaven pleased to warn him of the peril he was in,” by a miraculous intervention which has been erroneously attached to the name of Don Juan Mañara, a contemporary of Murillo who gave much gold to the Hospital of the Caridad in Seville, and ordered “Here lies the worst man that ever lived,” to be inscribed upon his tombstone in the church of the Hospital. Thanks to this exhibition of posthumous humility, the adventure of Don Mateo has been attributed by the romancists to Don Juan Mañara, instead of to the real hero, the Archdeacon, who really was a far more picturesque personality.

The year was 1600, the day that of the feast of Corpus Christi—and we need have no fear of error in the date, for the event figures in the archives of the Chapter. Don Mateo, more intent upon his personal elegance than his holy office, arrayed himself for the occasion in a beautiful brocade under-dress, trusting that its brilliancy of silk and gold thread would gleam through the diaphanous silk of his soutane and the transparent lace of his rochet. For he had his mind and his eye fixed upon a mysterious lady whom he had observed of late among the congregation in the Cathedral, and he hoped his handsome face and richly clad figure might win her favour on this day of religious and secular cheer. All through the protracted ceremony in the Cathedral and the slow progress of the long procession, he contrived to keep her in view, and when at length he was free to divest himself of his ecclesiastical garb and go where he would, he found her waiting for him outside the sacred building, and immediately tried to address her.

But the lady was very coy, notwithstanding her coquettish glances at the Archdeacon during the ceremony, and when he approached her she moved away so fast that he could not obtain even a glimpse of her face beneath the long black veil wrapped round her head and shoulders, nor could he overtake her although he followed her all through the centre of the town, into the Macarena and out round the city walls until she led him back again into the Cathedral.

Within the building it was now twilight, for the whole afternoon had been consumed in the pursuit, and the lady flitted from chapel to chapel, and altar to altar, until at length she paused before that of Our Lady of the Old Time. Don Mateo trembled, for this image had always been his especial devotion. But the flesh after so many years of self-indulgence was too strong for the spirit. He clasped the lady in his arms, forgetful of the sacred spot on which he stood, and tore off her veil, intent on seeing the lovely features of the woman who had defied him so long. One word was breathed into his ear, like a sigh from another world.

“Eternity!” was the word he heard, and down the long empty aisles it seemed to float away, only to rise again and roll out louder—louder until it sounded like thunder on the ears of the wretched priest.

And then with a horrible rattle of dry bones, the warm living body he held in his arms sank into a shapeless heap on the floor. That for which he had committed sacrilege was nothing but a withered and disintegrated skeleton.

From that moment the Archdeacon led a new life, and in his deep repentance he became the most devout of all the priests in the Chapter. He left his magnificent mansion and moved to a mean house in the alley of Santa Marta, under the shadow of the Cathedral; he devoted his whole fortune to pious and charitable uses; and he endowed with large rents for ever the feast of Corpus Christi, because on that day God had seen fit to rescue him from his life of sin. He gave for the feast no less than an hundred silver candlesticks, hangings and canopy for the high altar, and silver altars to carry in the procession through the streets. He gave a complete set of white vestments to be used only on that day, for all the Chapter, the minor clergy, the singers, musicians, and servants of the altar, including of course the Seises. He gave altar-frontals for the portable altars, hangings for the pulpit and the Cathedral cross, curtains for the silver shrine, and rich draperies for the platform on which the shrine with the pyx within is carried through the town. And he endowed the preachers, bell-ringers, illuminations, and procession—in short, everything relating to the festival, not excepting the Guild of Our Lady of the Pomegranate, which maintains an altar in the Chapel of la Granada (pomegranate) under the Giralda, and still preserves the weighty poles on which until recent times they carried the platform with the shrine, in the genuine old Arabic fashion.

From the earliest times the procession of Corpus Christi had been attended not only by the little Seises in their gala dress, but also by groups of men and women dancers similar in idea to the Giants and Bigheads which figure in the festival of Our Lady of the Pillar at Zaragoza, as described in Chapter XVII. These have now been suppressed for so long that few know what they once were, but I find a mention of the Giants in the year 1690, when the Civil Governor or Asistente, as he was then called, combined with the Archbishop, Don Jaime de Palafox, in a determined attempt to put down celebrations which they considered inconsistent with the dignity of the Church.

They knew very well that if the public became aware beforehand of what was intended it would be impossible to carry out their scheme, so nothing was said until six o’clock in the morning of the festival. Then the announcement was made that no group of Dancers should enter the Cathedral on pain of a fine of one hundred ducats for the leader of any such party, and fifty ducats and four years’ imprisonment for the bearer of any one of their banners. But the Archbishop and the Asistente reckoned without their host, for although the people, stupefied by this unexpected interference with their immemorial rights, remained quiet as if stunned by the blow, the lawyers of the Town Council (which provided funds for the “Dancers”) went straight to the Court of Justice, and presently the Archbishop was informed that he had no legal status in the matter, that the “Dancers” were immediately to take their accustomed places in the procession within the Cathedral, and the ceremony was to proceed in the usual order.

The Archbishop, furious at his authority being disputed, ordered that if the Dancers entered the Cathedral the procession should be at once withdrawn, and the Host in its magnificent silver Custodia (a replica in miniature of that erected in the “Monument” during Holy Week) should be taken back to its own place. But now the priests, friars, and other ecclesiastics turned against him, saying that they had been invited by the Chapter to attend the carrying forth of the Host among the people, and they could not leave the Cathedral until this sacred duty had been fulfilled.