In England it appears that the dress of the men commanded the special attention of their rulers. Spaniards made men and women alike to feel the iron heel of sumptuary legislation; while the English, in laws of nearly coincident date, for the most part omitted the sex. By distinctive qualities, Edward IV., 1461-1483, regulated the dress of his people—from the royal cloth-of-gold down to the two-shillings-a-yard, and under, cloth of the laboring classes; but, if we may believe Sanford, he took care to exempt his women subjects from the provisions of this act, save only the wives of the two-shillings-a-yard boor, who might be expected to have other things to attend to.
The continental ladies, it appears, could flaunt it bravely upon occasion, at least in France and Flanders. For through these countries crusaded, in 1428, Thomas Conecte, a Carmelite friar, preaching against the evils of the age, or what he considered as such. Among these, dress held a place, and many other things not generally condemned at present. His manner of going to work was peculiar, and is pretty well described by Monstrelet.
In his audiences he always separated the men from the women by a cord, "for he had observed some sly doings between them while he was preaching." Having taken these wise precautions, he was accustomed earnestly to admonish his hearers "on the damnation of their souls and on pain of excommunication, to bring to him whatever backgammon-boards, chessboards, nine-pins, or other instruments for games of amusement they might possess." Right bitterly would he then attack the luxurious apparel of ladies of rank; especially the monstrous head-gear which was in fashion at that time; all of which bred trouble, as may readily be imagined, and produced no good results.
We see the same style of preaching indulged in by the Wesleys in England and Whitefield and others in America at different times, and ever with the same lack of practical results. The most costly jewelry, the finest apparel, grand houses and free living are as conspicuous among the followers of these self-sacrificing and conscientious men as among the members of any other church, or among those who are not members of any church. And if the pious Carmelite friar failed in his crusade against fine clothes, free living, and monstrous head-gear among the Spanish of the fifteenth century, so have more modern crusaders failed in similar attempts in later times.
This then was Spain and Spanish character, as nearly as I have been able to picture them in the short space allotted, at or prior to the dawn of the sixteenth century. We have found Spaniards the noblest race on earth at that time; their men brave, their women modest. Before them opened a career more brilliant than the world has ever seen before or since. To follow them in some parts of that career is the purpose of these volumes.
We have found these people after all not so very different from ourselves—more loyal than we, but more ignorant; more religious, but more superstitious; more daring, but more reckless; more enthusiastic, but more chimerical. They were endowed with the virtues and vices of their age, as we are with the virtues and vices of ours. They were sincere in their opinions, and honest in their efforts; but we have the advantage of them by four centuries of recorded experiences. Our knowledge, our advantages, are superior to theirs; do we make superior use of them? Spain lighted a hemisphere of dark waters, brought forth hidden islands and continents, and presented half a world to the other half. With all our boasted improvement, have we done more?
It is the custom of historical commentators to praise and to blame ad libitum. This is right if it be done judiciously. We should praise discreetly, and blame with steadiness. But there is really little to praise or to blame in history, and most of it that is done is simply praising or blaming the providence of progress. Would you blame the Spanish people for being ignorant, submissive, and cruel? They were as God and circumstances made them. Would you blame their king and princes for domineering them? They were as the people and circumstances made them. The people were indignant if their rulers did not impose upon them. Says Grenville, writing in his memoirs so late as 1818: "The Regent drives in the park every day in a tilbury, with his groom sitting by his side; grave men are shocked at this undignified practice."
Meanwhile, amidst the many so-called spirits which in this epoch hovered over man, the spirit of discovery was not the least potent. Curiosity, the mother of science, became the mother of new worlds; gave birth to continents, islands, and seas; gave form and boundary to earth. Over the sea, the mists of the Dark Age had rested with greater density even than on land. The aurora of progress now illumined the western horizon as of old it did the eastern. Hitherto the great ocean, beyond a few leagues from shore, was a mystery. As may be seen depicted on ancient charts, it was filled, in the imaginations of navigators, with formidable water-beasts and monsters, scarcely less terrible than those that Æneas saw as he entered the mouth of Hades:
"Multaque præterea variarum monstra ferarum:
Centauri in foribus stabulant, Scyllæque biformes,