The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic — Volume 2

by William Hickling Prescott

In one of her interviews with the dying minister, the queen requested his advice respecting the nomination of his successor. The cardinal, in reply, earnestly cautioned her against raising any one of the principal nobility to this dignity, almost too exalted for any subject, and which, when combined with powerful family connections, would enable a man of factious disposition to defy the royal authority itself, as they had once bitter experience in the case of Archbishop Carillo. On being pressed to name the individual whom he thought best qualified, in every point of view, for the office, he is said to have recommended Fray Francisco Ximenez de Cisneros, a friar of the Franciscan order, and confessor of the queen. As this extraordinary personage exercised a more important control over the destinies of his country than any other subject, during the remainder of the present reign, it will be necessary to put the reader in possession of his history. [8]

Ximenez de Cisneros, or Ximenes, as he is usually called, was born at the little town of Tordelaguna, in the year 1436, [9] of an ancient but decayed family. [10] He was early destined by his parents for the church, and, after studying grammar at Alcalá, was removed at fourteen to the university of Salamanca. Here he went through the regular course of instruction then pursued, devoting himself assiduously to the civil and canon law, and at the end of six years received the degree of bachelor in each of them, a circumstance at that time of rare occurrence. [11]

Three years after quitting the university, the young bachelor removed by the advice of his parents to Rome, as affording a better field for ecclesiastical preferment than he could find at home. Here he seems to have attracted some notice by the diligence with which he devoted himself to his professional studies and employments. But still he was far from reaping the golden fruits presaged by his kindred; and at the expiration of six years he was suddenly recalled to his native country by the death of his father, who left his affairs in so embarrassed a condition, as to require his immediate presence. [12]

Before his return, Ximenes obtained a papal bull, or expectative, preferring him to the first benefice of a specified value, which should become vacant in the see of Toledo. Several years elapsed before such a vacancy offered itself by the death of the archpriest of Uzeda; and Ximenes took possession of that living by virtue of the apostolic grant.

This assumption of the papal court to dispose of the church livings at its own pleasure, had been long regarded by the Spaniards as a flagrant imposition; and Carillo, the archbishop of Toledo, in whose diocese the vacancy occurred, was not likely tamely to submit to it. He had, moreover, promised this very place to one of his own followers. He determined, accordingly, to compel Ximenes to surrender his pretensions in favor of the latter, and, finding argument ineffectual, resorted to force, confining him in the fortress of Uzeda, whence he was subsequently removed to the strong tower of Santorcaz, then used as a prison for contumacious ecclesiastics. But Carillo understood little of the temper of Ximenes, which was too inflexible to be broken by persecution. The archbishop in time became convinced of this, and was persuaded to release him, but not till after an imprisonment of more than six years. [13]

Ximenes, thus restored to freedom, and placed in undisturbed possession of his benefice, was desirous of withdrawing from the jurisdiction of his vindictive superior; and not long after effected an exchange for the chaplainship of Siguenza. In this new situation he devoted himself with renewed ardor to his theological studies, occupying himself diligently, moreover, with Hebrew and Chaldee, his knowledge of which proved of no little use in the concoction of his famous Polyglot.

Mendoza was at that time bishop of Siguenza. It was impossible that a man of his penetration should come in contact with a character like that of Ximenes, without discerning its extraordinary qualities. It was not long before he appointed him his vicar, with the administration of his diocese; in which situation he displayed such capacity for business, that the count of Cifuentes, on falling into the hands of the Moors, after the unfortunate affair of the Axarquia, confided to him the sole management of his vast estates during his captivity. [14]

But these secular concerns grew more and more distasteful to Ximenes, whose naturally austere and contemplative disposition had been deepened, probably, by the melancholy incidents of his life, into stern religious enthusiasm. He determined, therefore, to break at once from the shackles which bound him to the world, and seek an asylum in some religious establishment, where he might devote himself unreservedly to the service of Heaven. He selected for this purpose the Observantines of the Franciscan order, the most rigid of the monastic societies. He resigned his various employments and benefices, with annual rents to the amount of two thousand ducats, and, in defiance of the arguments and entreaties of his friends, entered on his novitiate in the convent of San Juan de los Reyes, at Toledo; a superb pile then erecting by the Spanish sovereigns, in pursuance of a vow made during the war of Granada. [15]

He distinguished his novitiate by practising every ingenious variety of mortification with which superstition has contrived to swell the inevitable catalogue of human sufferings. He slept on the ground, or on the hard floor, with a billet of wood for his pillow. He wore hair-cloth next his skin; and exercised himself with fasts, vigils, and stripes, to a degree scarcely surpassed by the fanatical founder of his order. At the end of the year, he regularly professed, adopting then for the first time the name of Francisco, in compliment to his patron saint, instead of that of Gonzalo, by which he had been baptized.

No sooner had this taken place, than his reputation for sanctity, which his late course of life had diffused far and wide, attracted multitudes of all ages and conditions to his confessional; and he soon found himself absorbed in the same vortex of worldly passions and interests, from which he had been so anxious to escape. At his solicitation, therefore, he was permitted to transfer his abode to the convent of our Lady of Castañar, so called from a deep forest of chestnuts, in which it was embosomed. In the midst of these dark mountain solitudes, he built with his own hands a little hermitage or cabin, of dimensions barely sufficient to admit his entrance. Here he passed his days and nights in prayer, and in meditations on the sacred volume, sustaining life, like the ancient anchorites, on the green herbs and running waters. In this state of self-mortification, with a frame wasted by abstinence, and a mind exalted by spiritual contemplation, it is no wonder that he should have indulged in ecstasies and visions, until he fancied himself raised into communication with celestial intelligences. It is more wonderful that his understanding was not permanently impaired by these distempered fancies. This period of his life, however, seems to have been always regarded by him with peculiar satisfaction; for long after, as his biographer assures us, when reposing in lordly palaces, and surrounded by all the appliances of luxury, he looked back with fond regret on the hours which glided so peacefully in the hermitage of Castañar. [16]