Letters from Spain

by Joseph Blanco White

ASH-WEDNESDAY.

The frolics of Carnival are sometimes carried on till the dawn of this day, the first of the long fast of Lent, when a sudden and most unpleasant transition takes place for such as have set no bounds to the noisy mirth of the preceding season. But, as the religious duties of the church begin at midnight, the amusements of Shrove-Tuesday cease, in the more correct families, at twelve, just as your Opera is hurried, on Saturdays, that it may not encroach on the following day.

Midnight is, indeed, a most important period with us. The obligation of fasting begins just when the leading clock of every town strikes twelve; and as no priest can celebrate mass, on any day whatever, if he has taken the smallest portion of meat or drink after the beginning of the civil day, I have often seen clergymen devouring their supper against time, the watch upon the table, and the anxious eye upon the fatal hand, while large mouthfuls, chasing one another down their almost convulsed throats, appeared to threaten suffocation. Such hurry will seem incredible to your well-fed Englishmen, for whom supper is an empty name. Not so to our worthy divines, who, having had their dinner at one, and a cup of chocolate at six, feel strongly the necessity of a substantial supper before they retire to bed. A priest, therefore, who, by some untoward accident, is overtaken by “the dead waste and middle of the night,” with a craving stomach, having to perform mass at a late hour next morning, may well feel alarmed at his impending sufferings. The strictness, in fact, with which the rule of receiving the Sacrament into a fasting stomach is observed, will hardly be believed in a Protestant country. I have known many a profligate priest; yet never but once met with any who ventured to break this sacramental fast. The infraction of this rule would strike horror into every Catholic bosom; and the convicted perpetrator of such a daring sacrilege as dividing the power of digestion between the Host and common food, would find it difficult to escape the last vengeance of the Church. This law extends to the laity whenever they intend to communicate.

I must now acquaint you with the rules of the Roman Catholic fast, which all persons above the age of one-and-twenty, are bound to observe during Lent, Sundays excepted. One meal alone, from which flesh, eggs, milk, and all its preparations, such as cheese and butter, called Lacticinia, are excluded, is allowed on a fast day. It is under this severe form that your English and Irish Catholics are bound to keep their Lent. But we Spaniards are the darlings of our Mother Church of Rome, and enjoy most valuable privileges. The Bull of the Crusade, in the first place, dispenses with our abstinence from eggs and milk. Besides throwing open the hen-house and dairy, the said Bull unlocks the treasure of laid-up merits, of which the Pope keeps the key, and thus we are refreshed both in body and soul, at the trifling cost of about three-pence a-year. Yet we should have been compelled to live for forty days on your Newfoundland fish—not a savoury food in these hot countries—had it not been for a new kind of hostilities which our Government, in concert with the Pope, devised against England, I believe during the siege of Gibraltar. By allowing the Spaniards to eat meat four days in the Lent weeks, it was proposed to diminish the profits which Great Britain derives from the exportation of dried fish. We had accordingly another privilege, under the title of Flesh-Bull, at the same moderate price as the former. This additional revenue was found too considerable to be relinquished on the restoration of peace; and the Pope, who has a share in it, soon discovered that the weakness of our constitutions requires more solid nutriment than the dry chips of the Newfoundland fish can afford.

The Bull of the Crusade is proclaimed, every year before Lent, by the sound of kettle-drums and trumpets. As no one can enjoy the privileges expressed in these papal rescripts without possessing a printed copy thereof, wherein the name of the owner is inserted; there is a house at Seville with a printing-office, by far the most extensive in Andalusia, where, at the expense of Government, these Bulls are reprinted every year, both for Spain and Spanish America. Now, it has been wisely arranged that, on the day of the yearly publication, copies for the preceding twelvemonth shall become absolutely stale and unprofitable; a measure which produces a most prodigious hurry to obtain new Bulls, in all who wish well to their souls and do not quite overlook the ease and comfort of their stomachs.

The article of Bulls hold a conspicuous station in the Spanish budget. The price of the copies being, however, more than double in Spanish America, it is from thence that the chief profit of this spiritual juggle arises. Cargoes of this holy paper are sent over every year by Government to all our transatlantic possessions, and one of the most severe consequences of a war with England, is the difficulty of conveying these ghostly treasures to our brethren of the New World, no less than that of bringing back the worldly, yet necessary, dross, which they give in exchange to the Mother-country. But I fear I am betraying state secrets.

MID-LENT.

We have still the remnants of an ancient custom this day, which shews the impatient feelings with which men sacrifice their comforts to the fears of superstition. Children of all ranks—those of the poor in the streets, and such as belong to the better classes in their houses—appear fantastically decorated, not unlike the English chimney-sweepers on May-day, with caps of gilt and coloured paper, and coats made of the Crusade Bulls of the preceding year. In this attire they keep up an incessant din the whole day, crying, as they sound their drums and rattles, Aserrar la vieja; la pícara pelleja: “Saw down the old woman, the roguish b—ch.” About midnight, parties of the common people parade the streets, knocking at every door, and repeating the same words. I understand that they end this revel by sawing in two, the figure of an old woman, which is meant as the emblem of Lent.