[35] "Trataba las monjas," say Riol, "con un agrado y amor tan cariñoso, que las robaba los corazones, y hecha dueña de ellas, las persuadia non suavidad y eficacia á que votasen clausura. Y es cosa admirable, que raro fue el conventu donde entró esta celebre heroina, donde no lograse en el propio dia el efecto de su santo deseo." Informe, apud Semanario Erudito, tom. iii. p. 110.
[36] Fléchier, Hist. de Ximenes, pp. 56, 58.—Gomez, De Rebus Gestis, fol. 14.—Zurita, Hist. del Rey Hernando, lib. 3, cap. 15.—Robles, Vida de Ximenez, cap. 13.
[37] Gomez, De Rebus Gestis, fol. 23.—Quintanilla, Archetypo, lib. 1, cap. 11.
[38] Quintanilla, Archetypo, lib. 1, cap. 13-14.—Riol discusses the various monastic reforms effected by Ximenes, in his Memorial to Philip V., apud Semanario Erudito, tom. iii. pp. 102-110.
[39] L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, fol. 165.—Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 201.—et al.
[40] The practice of concubinage by the clergy was fully recognized, and the ancient fueros of Castile permitted their issue to inherit the estates of such parents as died intestate. (See Marina, Ensayo Histórico- Crítico sobre la Antigua Legislacion de Castilla, (Madrid, 1808,) p. 154.) The effrontery of these legalized strumpets, barraganas, as they were called, was at length so intolerable as to call for repeated laws, regulating their apparel, and prescribing a badge for distinguishing them from honest women. (Sempere, Hist. del Luxo, tom. i. pp. 165-169.) Spain is probably the only country in Christendom, where concubinage was ever sanctioned by law; a circumstance doubtless imputable, in some measure, to the influence of the Mahometans.
[41] Gomez, De Rebus Gestis, fol. 23.
CHAPTER VI.
XIMENES IN GRANADA—PERSECUTION, INSURRECTION, AND CONVERSION OF THE MOORS.
1499-1500.