The cathedral referred to by Borrow was finished about 1300, after having been at least a hundred years a-building, and is in the early pointed style of what we call Gothic, but the Spaniards Tudesque. The west front and the painted glass windows in the aisles are of unrivalled beauty.
The church of San Isidoro, with the tombs of that great metropolitan and of Alfonso el Batallador, of inferior æsthetic interest, is even more attractive to the antiquary.
[318] Astorga is an old Roman town, Asturica Augusta, established after the Cantabrian war (b.c. 25), when the southern Astures first became subject to Rome. But a far more ancient origin is claimed for the city, which was traditionally founded by Astur, the son of Memnon (see Silius Italicus, iii. 334; Martial, xiv. 199). The surrounding country of the Astures was celebrated at once for the riches of its gold-mines and for its breed of horses, whence the Latin Asturco (see Petron., Sat., 86, and Seneca, Ep., 87; Pliny, viii. 42, s. 67).
[319] Borrow has it Coruña, but it should be either La Coruña, if written in Spanish, or Corunna, if written in English. Our ancestors, who had good reason to know the place, called it The Groyne, but it would be pedantic to so call it now.
[321] The origin of the Maragatos has never been ascertained. Some consider them to be a remnant of the Celtiberians, others of the Visigoths; most, however, prefer a Bedouin or caravan descent. It is in vain to question these ignorant carriers as to their history or origin, for, like the gypsies, they have no traditions and know nothing. Arrieros, at all events, they are, and that word, in common with so many others relating to the barb and carrier-caravan craft, is Arabic, and proves whence the system and science were derived by Spaniards. Where George Borrow and Richard Ford are so uncertain, it is assuredly unbecoming to dogmatize. Mariana (vol. i. lib. vii. cap. 7), speaking of King Mauregato, who is supposed, as much from his name as from anything else, to have been an illegitimate son of Alfonso I. by a Moorish lady, seeks to trace the origin of the Maragatos as being more especially the subjects of Mauregato, but it is rather an extravagant fancy than an explanation.
Monsieur Francisque Michel, in his Races Maudites de la France et de l’Espagne (Paris, 1847), has nothing to say of these Maragatos, though he notices (ii. 41–44) a smaller tribe, the Vaqueros, of the neighbouring Asturias, whose origin is also enveloped in mystery. See De Rochas, Les Parias de France et l’Espagne, p. 120. [The Cagots were also found in northwest Spain as well as in France, but not, as far as we know, to the west of Guipuzcoa. For an account of these Cagots and the various etymologies that have been suggested for their names, see De Rochas and F. Michel, ubi supra, tom. i. ch. i.]
[322] A transliteration of the old Spanish Barrete, an old kind of helmet, then, generally, a cap.
[323] A mute is the offspring of a stallion and a she-ass, a mule of a jackass and a mare.
[324a] Founded in 1471, on the site of one more ancient.
[324b] The name of this celebrated arriero was Pedro Mato; the statue is of wood.