Spain in 1830, vol. 1

by Henry D. Inglis

I had no sooner secured a bed in the posada, than I went to deliver my letters; these were, one to a gentleman, an employée, holding a situation in the finance; the other to a prebendary, librarian of the cathedral. I was received with the greatest civility by both; and after taking chocolate with the former, I accompanied him to the castle, to be present at what was considered quite an event in Toledo: this chanced to be the king’s birthday; and in honour of it, the band of royalist volunteers paraded the principal streets by torch light; and so monotonous a thing is life in Toledo, that this occurrence produced quite a sensation. It was scarcely possible to force one’s way through the narrow streets, which were filled with a dense mass of people, almost entirely men; for the ancient Spanish customs still attach to Toledo too much, to sanction there the liberty which foreign usage has conferred upon the women in most of the other Spanish towns.

I must not omit a trifling fact, that throws some light upon the state of feeling in Toledo. I had purchased a grey hat in Paris, and had worn it constantly in Spain; and although I had heard in Madrid that the wearers of white hats were looked upon with suspicion, I had never suffered any interruption or insult in consequence, excepting now and then a scrutinizing look from some royalist volunteer or police agent. But the gentleman to whom I was recommended in Toledo, would not permit me to go into the street in a grey hat; he said he could not answer for my safety; and while I remained in Toledo, he was so kind as to equip me with a small round, high-crowned hat, almost the only kind worn by its inhabitants.

The same evening that I arrived in Toledo, I was presented at a tertulia, which is the sole recreation of the inhabitants; for there is no public diversion of any kind: formerly there was a theatre; but the canon, who was then at the head of the university, obtained a royal order to suppress it, and it has remained closed ever since. Bull-fights even are forbidden in this priest-ridden city; so that unless processions of Saints and Virgins are to be considered an amusement, the inhabitants have positively no resource but in the tertulia. Nowhere are Spanish customs seen more pure than in Toledo; and nowhere is the monotony of the tertulia more striking. The party assembled about nine,—there were fifteen persons present, about one half of them ladies. The sole amusement was talking, and some of the party playing basto for a very low stake; and after a glass of agua fresca, the party separated about eleven. In Toledo a certain circle agrees to form a tertulia: one house is selected, where it is to be held,—the most central, perhaps, or the most convenient; and the same individuals assemble at the same house, and at the same hour, every day throughout the year! This is Toledo society.

The morning after my arrival in Toledo, I rose early, anxious to see this ancient and truly Spanish city; and crossing the Plaza Real, which, at the early hour of six, resounded with the ringing of the blacksmith’s hammers, whose shops half monopolise the square, I followed the widest street that presented itself; and after a steep descent, I found myself at the eastern extremity of the town, and on the bridge over the Tagus. It is impossible to walk a step in Toledo, or to turn the eye in any direction, without perceiving the remains of former grandeur, and the proofs of present decay: ruins are every where seen,—some, the vestiges of empires past away, and whose remains are crumbling into nothingness,—the empires of Carthage and of Rome: other vestiges,—those of an empire equally fallen, but more visible, in the greater perfection of its monuments,—the Empire of the Moors: and still another class of ruins,—those more recent emblems that record the decay of the Spanish monarchy through the lapse of a hundred and fifty years. Past magnificence and present poverty are every where written in a hundred forms, and in legible characters. But all this, although offering to the reflecting mind an impressive example of the “sic transit gloria mundi,” gives to Toledo much of its peculiar interest in the eye of a stranger; and adds to the picturesque and striking character of the views presented from every quarter. Few of these are finer than the view of this remarkable city and its environs, from the bridge over the Tagus, where my morning walk conducted me.

The Alcazar, that immense pile, once the residence of Moors, and subsequently of the kings of Spain, forms one corner of the city. The irregular and picturesque line of buildings, at least one half of them convents, each with its tower, and terrace, and hanging garden, stretches along the summit of the hill, towards the West; while strewing the sides of the steep acclivity, and mingled with the convent gardens, are seen the remains of the Roman walls that once entirely inclosed the city, and that even yet, are in many places nearly perfect. Withdrawing the eye from Toledo, and looking across the bridge, an elevated rocky mount presents itself, crowned with the ruins of a Moorish castle; and leaning on the parapet, and looking towards the South, the river is seen far below, flowing in a deep rocky channel, one of its banks being the hill upon which the city stands,—and the other, the North front of the Toledo mountains. The peculiar situation of Toledo is best understood from this point. The river Tagus, coming from the westward, flows directly towards the north-east corner of the city; and in place of continuing to flow in the same direction—by which it would leave the city and its hill upon the left,—it makes a sudden turn, sweeps behind the city and its hill, and in front of the Toledo mountains,—and after describing three parts of a circle, it re-appears at the opposite corner, and continues its course towards the west. The course of the Tagus is singular; the Sierra de Albarracin, where it rises, is no more than eighty miles from the Mediterranean, in a straight line across Valencia; but the Tagus, taking an opposite direction, runs a course of nearly six hundred miles to the Atlantic,—traversing the interior of Spain, passing into Portugal, and forming the glory and the riches of its capital. It would be no difficult matter, to render the Tagus navigable from Toledo to the sea, a distance of between four and five hundred miles; the passage was attempted in the winter of 1829, by a boat from Toledo, and succeeded, the boat having arrived safely at Lisbon; but this could not have been done at any other season; because in dry weather, the water is in many places almost wholly diverted from its natural channel, for the use of the mills that have been erected upon its banks.

I endeavoured to find my way from the bridge to the posada by a different road,—but this was an attempt of some difficulty. I believe there is no town in Europe in which it is so difficult to find ones way, as in Toledo: the streets are innumerable; few of them are more than three yards wide; they are steep, tortuous and short, constantly branching off at acute angles, so that all idea of direction is soon lost; and there are no open spaces from which some prominent object may be taken as a guide. A gentleman who had resided fourteen years in Toledo, told me that he was not acquainted with half of the streets; and that it was no unusual occurrence to lose himself, in endeavouring to find near cuts from one place to another. Although I arrived at the posada two hours later than I expected, I had nothing to regret in the delay; my mistakes having carried me through parts of the town which I might not otherwise have had an opportunity of seeing.

Walking through Toledo, there is a subject of more melancholy reflection than that which arises from the vestiges of former greatness; I mean, the abundant proofs of bigotry and ignorance that are gathered at every step. There is no city of Spain so entirely given up to the domination of the priests and friars, as Toledo; because there is no other city in which these form so large a portion of the population, or where the riches of the religious bodies are so preponderating. Toledo, it is believed, once contained 200,000 inhabitants; forty or fifty years ago, it contained, according to the writers of those days, about 30,000; at this day, its inhabitants do not exceed 16 or 17,000; but throughout this progressive decay, the convents and churches, the priests and friars, have continued undiminished: the cathedral is still served by its forty canons, and fifty prebendaries, and fifty chaplains; the thirty-eight parish churches and chapels, have still their curates, and their assistants, and their many dependents; and the thirty-six convents and monasteries, have yet their compliment of friars and nuns. The revenues, indeed, of all these religious bodies, have suffered some diminution during the last fifty years; but this diminution has been nothing in comparison with the decrease in the resources of all the other classes of inhabitants. The revenues of the archbishop amounted fifty years ago, to seven millions of reals, (70,000l. sterling); at present they do not exceed four millions of reals, (40,000l. sterling): the incomes of the canons amounted, at the former period, to at least eighty thousand reals (or 800l. sterling); now, they scarcely reach one half of this sum: all these diminutions are the result of the fall in the price of corn, in which their revenues are computed. But the incomes of the curates of the parishes are still more reduced, many of the parishes having entirely fallen into decay: there are some, in which there are not now twenty inhabited houses; so that the curates of these, are in a state of absolute destitution. The revenues of the convents have of course suffered a diminution proportionate to that which has affected the church. But notwithstanding this decrease in the revenues of the religious bodies, these are still sufficiently great, to create an overwhelming interest in a city whose inhabitants scarcely quadruple the number of those who live by these revenues. In fact the whole city, with the exception of the government employées, lives by these revenues. Many are directly benefited by their collection, their management, and by the husbandry of the land that produces them; while their disbursement must necessarily benefit every class of men who administer either to the necessities, or the luxuries of life. But besides the effect which self-interest has in supporting the influence of priestcraft in Toledo, other reasons may be assigned for its preponderance.

The geographical position of Toledo is highly favourable to the success of this jugglery; for, with sufficient resources in the territory that lies along the Tagus, and with no passable road or navigation of any kind to other towns, the inhabitants have scarcely any intercourse with strangers,—none whatever with foreigners. The immense number of priests and friars, also, who may all be considered spies upon the lives of the inhabitants; and the great and secret influence of the archbishop, cannot fail to act as obstacles to the progress of information, both by reading and conversation: and, indeed, there is in Toledo a species of religious espionnage, which is, in fact, a remnant of the Inquisition: certain friars call every Monday morning, at every house, to receive the certificates of confession which have been given to the inmates, if they have confessed the day before. And I must not omit to mention, as another cause of the preponderance of priestly influence in Toledo, the greater correctness exhibited in the lives of the religious orders in this city, than in the other cities of Spain; and the larger alms given by the convents. With the exception of some whispers respecting the canons and prebendaries, who were said to be remarkable for the number of infant nephews, nieces, and cousins, whom they had humanely taken under their fatherly protection, I heard not one insinuation against any other of the religious orders.

The great respect, or rather veneration, in which the religious bodies,—especially the friars,—are held in Toledo, as well as many other proofs of the bigotry of the inhabitants, are every where visible. A Franciscan friar, or any monk belonging to one of the poor and self-denying orders, receives some obeisance from every one, as he passes along the street; even the portly canon or prebendary, who bears about with him the evidences of self-indulgence in place of self-denial, receives some token of respect: every shop is provided with a saint in a niche, to bless its gains; and upon every second or third door, a paper is seen with these words printed upon it,—Maria Santa Purissima, sin Pecado concebida. In the respect too which is paid by the inhabitants to religious processions, abundant proof is afforded of the superstition that still clings to the people of Toledo. I happened to be in the neighbourhood of the Carmelite convent when the procession of St. Theresa issued from it. This is the patron saint of the convent, and her image was carried through the streets, followed by a multitude of friars: it is considered a mark of devotion, to carry a lighted candle upon such occasions; and I noticed many persons bearing candles, who, by their dress and general appearance, must have belonged to the middle classes. In the open court in front of the convent, there were not less than 2,000 persons collected; and when the image was carried past, I did not see a single individual in any other position than upon his knees.

Another time, walking in the neighbourhood of the city, on the road, or rather track, across the mountains, I observed two university students, seventeen or eighteen years of age, busily employed in collecting stones, and laying them upon a cross erected by the wayside in commemoration of a murder,—and with each stone muttering a prayer. I did not, at that time, understand the meaning of this strange occupation; but I afterwards learned, that in virtue of some ancient papal authority, a certain indulgence is granted for every stone laid on the cross of a murdered man, if accompanied by a prayer.