My Spanish Year

by Ellen M. Whishaw

What then was my delight at finding in the Convento de la Luz an almost perfect survival of the fortified religious houses which the Moslems called ribats—outposts built to defend the frontier, and garrisoned by men of a semi-religious order, sworn to this particular form of military service. Whether the Order was originally instituted in Andalucia by the Christians (Mozarabs) who remained in occupation of their lands and castles when Spain was conquered by the Mohammedans, no one seems to know, though the existence of La Rabida itself, and of various other places bearing the same name, in which Mozarabic remains are seen, suggests that ribats were established here long before the Almoravides founded their empire over Morocco and Spain, in a ribat on the river Niger in the first half of the twelfth century.

Be that as it may, I saw at once that the Convento de la Luz was built for such a fortress, while the church with its massive walls and buttressed ramparts could never have been intended for other than Christian worship.

So much for the outside. The only break in the enclosing walls is where an opening has been made to give easier access from the street. One sees that formerly the nuns had to come out and cross a courtyard to speak with callers at the gate, and one can understand that this would hardly suit the comfort-loving old ladies who were the last of this branch of their Order.

A Sister opened a heavy door giving on a cloister which borders all four sides of the great central court, and led us through an archway six feet deep into a large hall. This was the refectory in the days when a hundred Poor Clares occupied the convent, but now it is the nuns’ reception-room, and here the mothers of pupils, rich and poor, sit and discuss with the Superior and the heads of the classes the tastes, talents, and idiosyncrasies of their girls.

It is a very lofty, chapel-like hall, whose vaulted roof would suggest a thirteenth-century architect, but for the tiny windows, placed so high up that one sees that the first thought of the builder was security against attack. And we know that after 1257, when this district was conquered by Alfonso X., there was no need to build fortified religious houses. We sat on brick benches left in the thickness of the wall and faced with iridescent tiles of the rich green colour introduced by the Arabs out of compliment to Mahomet’s banner; and as I watched a ray of sun from one of those lofty windows lighting up the gilded halos in a fifteenth-century painting of the Last Supper, I wished the walls could speak and tell us the true history of the convent. Even the origin of its name is lost. The townspeople call it de la Luz, but they do not know why, and the earliest mention of it in Andalucian history, which is in 1349, describes it as “The convent of Santa Clara at Moguer.”

More than one of the earliest crucifixes existent in Andalucia is known as “Nuestro Señor Cristo de la luz” (Our Lord Christ of light), and such works of art, be it remembered, are necessarily Mozarabic, because the Mozarabs were the only Christians in this part of Spain previous to 1248. There is a fine one in the Nuns’ Chapel of this convent, the advocation of which has been forgotten. Perhaps the last little Poor Clare, had she not been in her dotage when the convent was taken over by its present occupants, could have told them that this was “Our Lord of Light,” whose prototype had been worshipped here for about a thousand years.

This may seem a bold statement to those who suppose that the Christians suffered persecution during the rule of Islam in Spain. But recent research has proved that so far from this being the case, the Christians as a rule were treated with kindness and consideration, as long as they refrained from showing open disrespect for the alien religion. And here in Moguer is the material corroboration of conclusions deduced from scattered references to the condition of the Mozarabs which are found in the writings of the time, both Arabic and Christian. For the walls of the Nuns’ Chapel (screened off by a stone grille with Arabic tracery from the church restored by the Portocarreros) are lined with ancient wooden choir stalls, on each arm of which is carved a lion’s head and an Arabic inscription in Kufic characters of the style used in Cordova in the tenth century. These certainly were not placed here after 1257, at which date the African character was in use all over Moslem Spain, and as certainly such stalls never were used in Moslem worship.

It was interesting to retrace the course of history from that time to this. Here was the evidence of the upholding of their faith by the native Christians for century after century, during the whole of which they were practically cut off from Rome and isolated from their co-religionists elsewhere. A painting of the Virgin of Guadalupe, surrounded by worshippers in thirteenth-century costumes, seemed to bring us into direct contact with the period when Andalucia was conquered by San Fernando of Castile, and her “few remaining loyal priests” were confirmed in their houses and offices by that wise monarch. In the church were life-size alabaster effigies of the noble family of Portocarrero, nine men and women in fifteenth-century dress, at the foot of the high altar. Burial in that sacred spot was the privilege granted to Don Pedro Portocarrero, Lord of Moguer, his wife Doña Elvira Alvarez, and their heirs for ever, in acknowledgment by a grateful Church of their benefactions to the convent of Santa Clara and the monastery of San Francisco, which last comparatively modern edifice is now falling into ruin in the shadow of the imperishable walls of the Mozarabic foundation. Above us hung a lamp made of silver brought from the New World by Martin Alonso Pinzón, although his tomb, as Conchita regretfully admitted, is not to be found here. And by my side was the young daughter of those ancient houses, who proudly told me that she too inherited the right to be buried at the foot of the high altar when her time came.

Truly this Columbus country has more than ordinary interest for the traveller in Spain, and as I remarked at the beginning of my attempt to describe it, it is a pity to be misled by the guide-books into visiting La Rabida by boat from Huelva instead of by diligence from San Juan del Puerto. Because, in the first place, if the weather be bad you cannot get to La Rabida by water at all, and, in any case, as the estuary there is very wide and much exposed to wind and to the Atlantic waves, a trip of two hours each way is apt to be unpleasant to all except first-rate sailors. And because, in the second place, even though you are a good sailor and get to La Rabida in ideal weather, you will certainly not have time to go on to Palos and Moguer and get back to Huelva before nightfall, since you will have no option but to walk from La Rabida. And, as I hope I have shown, Palos and Moguer have attractions for the artist and the archæologist, as well as for the pilgrim to the shrine of Columbus.