Letters from Spain

by Joseph Blanco White

From the comparative poverty of the parish priests, and the shade into which they are thrown by the upper clergy, the power of the first is so limited, that the most bigoted and violent among them can give but little trouble to the laity. The true priest of old times is only to be found among those ecclesiastics, who to a dignified office join that degree of fanaticism which makes men conceive themselves commissioned by Heaven to weed the world of evil, and tear up by the roots whatever offends their privileged and infallible eyes. Thus it was, for instance, that the holy personage at Alcalá claimed and exercised a right to exclude from church such females as, by a showy dress, were apt to disturb the abstracted, yet susceptible minds of the clergy. The lady of a judge was, within my recollection, turned by this proud bigot out of the cathedral of Seville, in the presence of a multitude assembled for the ceremonies of the Passion-week. The husband, whose displeasure would have brought ruin on a more humble individual, was obliged to devour this insult in silence. It should be observed, by the way, that as the walking-dress of the Spanish females absolutely precludes immodesty, the conduct of this religious madman admits no excuse or palliation. Yet this is so far from being a singular instance, that, what sumptuary laws would never be able to accomplish, the rude and insolent zeal of a few priests has fully obtained in every part of Spain. Our females, especially those of the better classes, never venture to church in any dress but such as habit has made familiar to the eyes of the zealots.

Whatever be the feelings that produce it, there is, in Spain, a sort of standing crusade against the fair sex, which our priests, except such as have been secretly gained over to the enemy, carry on incessantly, though not with the same vigour, at all times. The main subject of contention is a right claimed by the clergy to regulate the dress of the ladies, and prevent the growth of such arts of charming as might endanger the peace of the church. Upon the appearance of a new fashion, the “drum ecclesiastic” never fails to sound the war-note. Innumerable are the sermons I heard in my younger days against silk shoes—for the Spanish females have the extravagance to use them out of doors—the wearing of which, especially embroidered with silk or gold, was declared by the soundest divines to be a mortal sin. Patience, however, and that watchful perseverance with which Nature has armed the weaker sex against the tyranny of the stronger, have gradually obtained a toleration for silk shoes, while taste has extenuated the sin by banishing the embroidery. Yet the Demon of Millinery had lately set up another stumbling-block, by slily suggesting to the ladies that their petticoats were monstrous long, and concealed those fairy feet and ankles which are the pride of Andalusia. The petticoats shrunk first by barleycorns; half an inch was then pared off by some bolder sempstress, till at length the ground, the former place of safety for consecrated eyes, was found thick set with snares. In vain have the most powerful preachers thundered against this abomination; nor did it avail that some of our bishops, deeming the occasion worthy of their interference, grasped the long-neglected pen to enter a most solemn protest against the profaneness of the female dress. But the case seemed hopeless. A point gained upon petticoats was sure to be lost on top-knots; and when the pious were triumphing on the final subjection of projecting stays, a pin threw them into utter confusion by altering its position on the orthodox neck-kerchief.

Often had some great calamity been foretold from the pulpit as the punishment of the incorrigible perverseness of our females; and, on the first appearance of the fever, there was but little doubt among the chosen few as to its real cause. Many a stitch was undone at Seville, and many a flounce torn off, by the same pretty hand that, but a few days before, had distributed its foldings with a conscious feeling of its future airiness and light flutterings. The pin, which, in Spain, forces the cambric kerchief to do, both morning and evening, the transient morning duty of your ruffs and spencers—that mysterious pin which vibrates daily at the toilette under the contending influence of vanity and delicacy—the pin, in short, which, on our females, acts as the infallible barometer of devotion, had risen to the highest point of dryness, without, alas! checking the progress of the disease.

Our two divines, fearful of being swept away with the guilty, were, at this time, perfectly outrageous in their zeal to bring the bakers’ wives at Alcalá to a due sense of the evil influence of their glaring, bushy top-knots and short petticoats. Having, therefore, with little ceremony to the vicar, taken possession of the parish church, they began a course of preaching for nine days, known by the name of Novena, a definite number which, with many other superstitions, has been applied to religious rites among the Catholics since the times of Roman paganism.

Most of the Spanish villages possess some miraculous image—generally of the Virgin Mary—which is the palladium of the inhabitants. These tutelar deities are of a very rude and ancient workmanship, as it seems to have been the case with their heathen prototypes. The “Great Diana” of the Alcalaians is a small, ugly, wooden figure, nearly black with age, and the smoke of the lamp which burns incessantly before it, dressed up in a tunic and mantle of silver or gold tissue, and bearing a silver crown. It is distinguished from the innumerable host of wooden virgins by the title of Virgen del Aguila—“the Virgin of the Eagle,” and is worshipped on a high romantic spot, where stood a high fortress of the Moors, of which large ruins are still visible. A church was erected, probably soon after the conquest of Andalusia, on the area of the citadel. A spring-well of the most delicious water is seen within the precincts of the temple, to which the natives resort for relief in all sorts of distempers. The extreme purity of both air and water, on that elevated spot, may indeed greatly contribute to the recovery of invalids, for which the Virgin gets all the credit.

The Novena, which was to avert the infection from the village, would have been inefficient without the presence of the Eagle patroness, to whom it was dedicated. The image was, accordingly, brought down to the parish church in a solemn procession. The eldest Missionary—for such priests as preach, not for a display of eloquence, but the conversion of sinners, assume that title among us—having a shrill, disagreeable voice, and being apt, when he addressed the people, to work himself into a feverish excitement approaching to madness, generally devolved that duty on his brother, while he devoted himself to the confessional. The brother is, indeed, cast in the true mould of a popular preacher, such as can make a powerful impression on the lower classes of Spain. His person is strong, his countenance almost handsome, his voice more loud than pleasing. He has, in fact, all the characteristics of an Andalusian Majo: jet black passionate eyes, a shining bluish beard darkening his cheeks from within an inch of his long eye-lashes, and a swaggering gait which, in the expressive idiom of the country, gives such as move with it, the name of Perdonavidas—Life sparers, as if other people owed their lives to the mercy, or contempt of these heroes. The effects of his preaching were just what people expect on similar occasions. A Missionary feels baffled and disappointed when he is not interrupted by groans, and some part of the female audience will not go into hysterics. If he has a grain of spirit about him, such a perverse indifference nettles him into a furious passion, and he turns the insensibility of his hearers into a visible proof of their reprobate state. Thus it often happens, that, the people measuring their spiritual danger by the original dulness or incomprehensibility of the sermon, the final triumph of the missionary is in exact proportion to his absurdity. To make these wild discourses more impressive, as well as to suit the convenience of the labouring classes, they are commonly delivered after sunset. Our orator, it is true, omitted the exhibition of a soul in hell-flames, which a few years ago was regularly made from the pulpit in a transparent picture; but he worked up the feelings of the audience by contrivances less disgusting and shocking to common sense. Among others he fixed a day for collecting all the children of the town under seven years of age, before the image of the Virgin. The parents, as well as all others who had attained the age of moral responsibility, were declared to be unworthy of addressing themselves in supplication, and therefore excluded from the centre of the church, which was reserved for the throng of innocent suppliants.

When the first period of nine days had been spent in this mockery of common sense and religion, the fertile minds of our missionaries were not at a loss to find a second course of the same pious mummery, and so on till the infection had ceased at Seville. The preservation of the village from the fever which, more or less, had existed for three or four months in the neighbouring towns, you will easily believe, was attributed by the preachers to their own exertions. The only good effect, however, which I observed, in consequence of their sermons, was the increased attendance of the male part of the population at the Rosario de Madrugada—the Dawn Rosary—one of the few useful and pleasing customs which religion has introduced in Spain.

It is an established practice in our country towns to awake the labouring population before the break of day, that they may be early in readiness to begin their work, especially in the corn-fields, which are often at the distance of six or eight miles from the labourers’ dwellings. Nothing but religion, however, could give a permanency to this practice. Consequently a rosary, or procession, to sing praises to the Virgin Mary before the dawn, has been established among us from time immemorial. A man with a good voice, active, sober, and fond of early rising, is either paid, or volunteers his services, to perambulate the streets an hour before daybreak, knocking at the doors of such as wish to attend the procession, and inviting all to quit their beds and join in the worship of the Mother of God. This invitation is made in short couplets, set to a very simple melody, and accompanied by the pretty and varied tinkling of a hand-bell, beating time to the tune. The effect of the bell and voice, especially after a long winter-night, has always been very pleasing to me. Nor is the fuller chorus of the subsequent procession less so. The chant, by being somewhat monotonous, harmonizes with the stillness of the hour; and without chasing away the soft slumbers of the morning, relieves the mind from the ideas of solitude and silence, and whispers life and activity returning with the approaching day.

The fever having stopped its ravages about the end of autumn, and nearly disappeared a few weeks before Christmas, my friend and myself prepared to return home. I shall never forget our melancholy arrival in this town on the last evening of December. Besides the still existing danger of infection to those who had been absent, there was a visible change in the aspect of the town, no less than in the looks and manner of the inhabitants, which could not but strike the most thoughtless on the first approach to that scene of recent misery and woe. An unusual stillness reigned in every street; and the few pale faces which moved in them, worked in the mind a vivid representation of the late distress. The heart seemed to recoil from the meeting of old acquaintances; and the signs of mourning were every where ready to check the first risings of joy at the approach of friends that had been spared.

The Sunday after our arrival, we went, according to custom, to the public walk on the banks of the river. But the thousands who made it their resort before the late calamity, had now absolutely deserted it. At the end of the walk was the burying-ground, which, during the great mortality, had been appointed for that quarter of the city. The prevalent custom of burying in vaults within the churches kept the town unprovided with an appropriate place for interment out of the walls; and a portion of waste land, or common, now contained the remains of ten thousand inhabitants, who in their holiday rambles had, not long before, been sporting unconsciously over their graves. As we approached the large mounds, which, with the lofty cross erected on the turf, were yet the only marks which distinguished the consecrated from the common ground, we saw one of the Rosarios, or processions in honour of the Virgin, slowly advancing along the avenue of the public walk. Many who formerly frequented that place for recreation, had, under the impression of grief and superstitious terror, renounced every species of amusement, and marshalling themselves in two files, preceded by a cross, and closed by the picture of the Virgin on a standard, repaired every Sunday to the principal place of burial, where they said prayers for the dead. Four or five of these processions, consisting either of males or females, passed towards the cemetery as we were returning. The melancholy tone in which they incessantly sang the Ave Maria and the Lord’s Prayer, as they glided along a former scene of life and animation; and the studied plainness of the dresses, contrasted with the gay apparel which the same persons used to display on that very spot, left us no wish to prolong our walk. Among the ladies whose penitent dress was most striking, we observed many who, not satisfied with mere plainness of attire, had, probably under a private vow, clothed themselves in a stuff peculiar to some of the religious orders. The grey mixture used by the Franciscans was most prevalent. Such vows are indeed very common in cases of danger from illness; but the number and class of the females whom we found submitting to this species of penance, shewed the extent and pressure of the past affliction.