Old Continental Towns

by Walter M. Gallichan

To quell the Moorish malcontents, Cardinal Ximenes was sent to Granada, with the royal permission to enforce baptism or to compel exile. The Cardinal carried terror into the city. There was no more clemency for the heretics and “heathen”; their temples were desecrated, and they were coerced into acceptance of the Catholic religion. “The Knights of Granada, gentlemen, though Moors,” as the Spanish poets had written of them, were treated with callous cruelty. Some fled to the fortresses of the Alpujarras; others remained in ignominy in the city of their birth, exposed to harsh exactions.

It was the humane Archbishop Talavera of Granada who opposed, with all his courage and energy, the importation of the Inquisition into Spain. Let it be clearly remembered that this tyrannous institution was resisted by all the enlightened Spaniards, and that the mass of the people regarded its introduction with horror. Many of the chief Inquisitors went in fear of their lives through the hatred which they aroused in the people.

Ximenes was of a very different cast from Talavera. He was sufficiently powerful to have contested the establishment of the tribunal, but he was, on the contrary, responsible for many of its worst excesses of persecution.

The Moors in Granada, after the reconquest by Fernando, were commanded to wear the garb of Christians, to speak the Castilian language, and to abandon their ritual of cleanliness. Philip II. even destroyed the baths of the Alhambra, to prevent the ablutions of the “infidels.” The beautiful Morisco painting and decorative work were plastered over with whitewash. Christian vandalism ran riot in the fair city of the art-loving sultans.

The Moors who sought refuge in the glens of the mountains soon began to till the land, and to transform the wilderness into a garden. After a spell of peace, and a recovery of some measure of wealth, the community of refugees rebelled. Terrible is the tale of reprisal. Christians were driven to bay and slaughtered ruthlessly. The Moors gained sway over the district until their leader was slain by one of his own race. Then came the final routing by the Christian soldiery by means of the sword and firebrand, and Moorish might was for ever crushed in Andalusia.

For what counted all this bloodshed? The answer is written in the history of Spain after the expulsion of the intelligent, industrious Moriscoes. The lesson is plain. The fall of Granada was the beginning of the decline of Spain, and not, as the Spaniards thought, the dawn of a golden epoch. With the Moors went their culture, the arts and industry; and only traditions in craftsmanship remained among the Spanish artisans. The half million inhabitants at the time of the surrender of Granada very quickly dwindled under the Catholic kings. To-day there is scarcely a sign of industrial and commercial energy in this city of the past. The population seem to subsist principally upon providing for the continual influx of visitors, while there are hundreds of beggars in the place.

The Alhambra was considerably marred by Charles V., who used it as a residence. Philip V. and his consort were the last of the sovereigns of Spain who sojourned in Granada. In the wars of 1810-1812, the French troops were quartered in the Alhambra, and they are responsible for the destruction of the mosque built in the fourteenth century.

The architecture of the Alhambra is of a late Morisco order. If we enter by the Puerta de Judiciaria we shall see the inscription of Yusuf I., who built the gateways and the towers. There are two arches to this entrance, the inner one is smaller than the outer, and both are of horseshoe design, with decorations above the curves. The inner side of this portal is an extremely beautiful example of Moorish art.

The several buildings enclosed within the walls form the Alhambra, the palace itself being only a comparatively small part of the whole. Towers guard the walls, and starting from the eastern side of the puerta, before which we now stand, we come to the Prisoner’s Tower. The next tower is known as Siete Suelos, and the others, in their order, are Agua, Las Infantas, Cantivá, Candil, Picos, Comares, Puñales, Homenage, De-las Armas, Vela Guardia, and Polvora.

The Palace of Charles V. was reared in the midst of these Morisco surroundings, and to the injury of the Alhambra. It is, however, a fine quadrangular building, with richly decorated puertas. Around the centre court are a number of apartments. At the back of the palace is the fish pond, overshadowed by the imposing Comares Tower, and from here we enter the Court of the Lions, so called from the twelve lions supporting the fountain in the centre. This beautiful court dates from the time of Mohammed V. It is surrounded by an arcade with very delicate columns and horseshoe arches.