Spanish Highways and Byways

by Katharine Lee Bates

So lies Toledo till the dead awaken,

A royal spoil of Time's resistless hand."

—Zorrilla: Toledo.

In the thirteenth century the doctrine of transubstantiation assumed especial importance. Miracle plays and cathedral glass told thrilling stories of attacks made by Jews on the sacred Wafer, which bled under their poniards or sprang from their caldrons and ovens in complete figure of the Christ. The festival of Corpus Christi, then established by Rome, was devoutly accepted in Spain and used to be celebrated with supreme magnificence in Madrid. Early in the reign of Philip IV, Prince Charles of England, who, with the adventurous Buckingham, had come in romantic fashion to the Spanish capital, hoping to carry by storm the heart of the Infanta, stood for hours in a balcony of the Alcázar, gazing silently on the glittering procession. How they swept by through the herb-strewn, tapestried streets—musicians, standard-bearers, cross-bearers, files of orphans from the asylums, six and thirty religious brotherhoods, monks of all the orders, barefoot friars, ranks of secular clergy and brothers of charity, the proud military orders of Alcántara, Calatrava, and Santiago, the Councils of the Indies, of Aragon, of Portugal, the Supreme Council of Castile, the City Fathers of Madrid, the Governmental Ministers of Spain and Spanish Italy, the Tribunal of the Holy Office, preceded by a long array of cloaked and hooded Familiars, bishops upon bishops in splendid, gold-enwoven vestments, priests of the royal chapel displaying the royal banner, bearers of the crosier and the sacramental vessels, the Archbishop of Santiago, royal chaplains and royal majordomos, royal pages with tall wax tapers, incense burners, the canopied mystery of the Eucharist, the king, the prince, cardinals, nuncio, the inquisitor general, the Catholic ambassadors, the patriarch of the Indies, the all-powerful Count-Duke Olivares, grandees, lesser nobility, gentlemen, and a display of Spanish and German troops, closed by a great company of archers. So overwhelming was that solemn progress, with its brilliant variety of sacerdotal vestments, knightly habits, robes of state and military trappings, its maces, standards, crosses, the flash of steel, gold, jewels, and finally the sheen of candles, the clouds of incense, the tinkling of silver bells before the Santisimo Corpus, that the heretic prince and his reckless companion fell to their knees. One Spanish author pauses to remark that for these, who could even then reject the open arms of the Mother Church, the assassin's blow and the Whitehall block were naturally waiting.

Such a pomp would have been worth the seeing, but we had arrived at Madrid almost three centuries too late. Catholic friends shrugged shoulder at mention of the Corpus procession, "Vale poco." And as for the famous autos sacramentales, which used to be celebrated at various times during the eight days of the Corpus solemnity, they may be read in musty volumes, but can be seen in the city squares no more. Calderon is said to have written the trifling number of seventy-two, and Lope de Vega, whose fingers must have been tipped with pens, some four hundred.

If only our train, which then would not have been a train, had brought us, who then would not have come, to Madrid in season for a Corpus celebration under the Austrian dynasty, we could have attended an open-air theatre of a very curious sort. All the way to the Plaza, we would have seen festivity at its height, pantomimic dances, merry music, struttings of giants and antics of dwarfs, and perhaps groups of boys insulting cheap effigies of snakes, modelled after the monstrous Tarasca, carried in the Corpus parade in token of Christ's victory over the Devil. At intervals along the route, adorned with flowers and draperies, and reserved for the procession and the dramatic cars, would have been altars hung with rich stuffs from the Alcázar and the aristocratic palaces; silks and cloth of gold, brocades, velvets, and shimmering wefts of the Indies. The one-act play itself might be after the general fashion of the mediæval Miracles,—verse dialogue, tuned to piety with chords of fun, for the setting forth of Biblical stories. Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac, Moses feeding the Israelites with manna, the patience of Job, the trials of Joseph, David, and Daniel, were thus represented.

More frequently, the auto sacramental belonged to the so-called Morality type of early Christian drama, being an allegorical presentation of human experience or exposition of church doctrine. Such were "The Fountain of Grace," "The Journey of the Soul," "The Dance of Death," "The Pilgrim." Sometimes a Gospel parable, as the "Lost Sheep" or the "Prodigal Son," gave the dramatic suggestion. But these Spanish spectacles sought to associate themselves, as closely as might be, with the Corpus worship, and many of them bear directly, in one way or another, upon this sacrament.

If, for instance, we had chanced on the Madrid festival in 1681, we could have witnessed in the decorated Plaza, with its thronged balconies, the entrance of four scenic platforms or cars. The first, painted over with battles, bears a Gothic castle; the second, with pictures of the sea, a gallant ship; the third, a starry globe; the fourth, a grove and garden, whose central fountain is so shaped as to form, above, the semblance of an altar. In the complicated action of the play, when the Soul, besieged in her fortress by the Devil, whose allies are the World and the Flesh, calls upon Christ for succor, the hollow sphere of the third car opens, revealing the Lord enthroned in glory amid cherubim and seraphim; but the climax of the triumph is not yet. That stout old general, the Devil, rallies fresh forces to the attack, such subtle foes as Atheism, Judaism, and Apostasy, and whereas, before, the Senses bore the brunt of the conflict, it is the Understanding that girds on armor now. Yet in the final outcome not the Understanding, but Faith draws the veil from before the altar of the fourth car, and there, in the consecrated vessel for the holding of the Wafer, appears the "Passion Child," the white bread from Heaven, "very flesh and very blood that are the price of the soul's salvation."

That is the way Spain kept her Corpus fiesta in the good old times of Charles the Bewitched; but not now. After the procession, the bull-fight; and after the bull-fight, the latest vaudeville or ballet. Last year it rained on Corpus Thursday, which fell on the first of June, and Madrid gave up the procession altogether. Some of the Opposition papers started the cry that this was shockingly irreligious in Silvela, but when the Government organs haughtily explained that it was the decision of the archbishop and Señor Silvela was not even consulted, the righteous indignation of the Liberals straightway subsided. The procession, which was to have been a matter of kettledrums and clarionets, soldiery, "coaches of respect" from the palace and the city corporation, and a full showing of the parochial clergy, did not seem to be missed by the people. Corpus has long ceased to be a chief event in the Capital.

There are a few cities in Spain, however, where the Corpus fête is maintained with something of the old gayety and splendor. Bustling Barcelona, never too busy for a frolic, keeps it merrily with an elaborate parade from the cathedral all about the city, and—delightful feature!—the distribution of flowers and sweetmeats among the ladies. The procession in Valencia resembles those of Holy Week in Seville. On litters strewn with flowers and thick-set with candle-lights are borne carved groups of sacred figures and richly attired images of Christ and the Virgin. But it is in lyric Andalusia that these pageantries are most at home. Among her popular coplas is one that runs:—