Erasmus, in a lively and elegant epistle to his friend, Francis Vergara, Greek professor at Alcalá, in 1527, lavishes unbounded panegyric on the science and literature of Spain, whose palmy state he attributes to Isabella's patronage, and the co-operation of some of her enlightened subjects. "——Hispaniae vestrae, tanto successu, priscam eruditionis gloriam sibi postliminiò vindicanti. Quae quum semper et regionis amoenitate fertilitaléque, semper ingeniorum eminentium ubere proventu, semper bellicâ laude floruerit, quid desiderari poterat ad summam felicitatem, nisi ut studiorum et religionis adjungeret ornamenta, quibus aspirante Deo sic paucis annis effloruit ut caeteris regionibus quamlibet hoc decorum genere praecellentibus vel invidiae queat esse vel exemplo…. Vos istam felicitatem secundum Deum debetis laudatissimae Reginarum Elisabetae, Francisco Cardinali quondam, Alonso Fonsecae nunc Archiepiscopo Toletano, et si qui sunt horum similes, quorum autoritas tuetur, benignitas alit fovetque bonas artes." Epistolae, p. 978.
[138] The sums in the text express the real de vellon; to which they have been reduced by Señor Clemencin, from the original amount in maravedis, which varied very materially in value in different years. Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. Ilust. 5.
[139] The kingdom of Granada appears to have contributed rather less than one-eighth of the whole tax.
[140] In addition to the last-mentioned sum, the extraordinary service voted by cortes, for the dowry of the infantas, and other matters, in 1504, amounted to 16,113,014 reals de vellon; making a sum total for that year, of 42,396,348 reals. The bulk of the crown revenues was derived from the alcavalas, and the tercias, or two-ninths of the ecclesiastical tithes. These important statements were transcribed from the books of the escribanía mayor de rentas, in the archives of Simancas. Ibid., ubi supra.
[141] The pretended amount of population has been generally in the ratio of the distance of the period taken, and, of course, of the difficulty of refutation. A few random remarks of ancient writers have proved the basis for the wildest hypotheses, raising the estimates to the total of what the soil, under the highest possible cultivation, would be capable of supporting. Even for so recent a period as Isabella's time, the estimate commonly received does not fall below eighteen or twenty millions. The official returns, cited in the text, of the most populous portion, of the kingdom, fully expose the extravagance of preceding estimates.
[142] These interesting particulars are obtained from a memorial, prepared by order of Ferdinand and Isabella, by their contador, Alonso de Quintanilla, on the mode of enrolling and arming the militia, in 1492; as a preliminary step to which, he procured a census of the actual population of the kingdom. It is preserved in a volume entitled Relaciones tocantes a la junta de la Hernandad, in that rich national repository, the archives of Simancas. See a copious extract apud Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. Apend. 12.
[143] I am acquainted with no sufficient and authentic data for computing the population, at this time, of the crown of Aragon, always greatly below that of the sister kingdom. I find as little to be relied on, notwithstanding the numerous estimates, in one form or another, vouchsafed by historians and travelers, of the population of Granada. Marineo enumerates fourteen cities and ninety-seven towns (omitting, as he says, many places of less note,) at the time of the conquest; a statement obviously too vague for statistical purposes. (Cosas Memorables, fol. 179.) The capital, swelled by the influx from the country, contained, according to him, 200,000 souls at the same period. (Fol. 177.) In 1506, at the time of the forced conversions, we find the numbers in the city dwindled to fifty, or at most, seventy thousand. (Comp. Bleda, Corónica, lib. 5, cap. 23, and Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 159.) Loose as these estimates necessarily are, we have no better to guide us in calculating the total amount of the population of the Moorish kingdom, or of the losses sustained by the copious emigrations, during the first fifteen years after the conquest; although there has been no lack of confident assertion, as to both, in later writers. The desideratum, in regard to Granada, will now probably not be supplied; the public offices in the kingdom of Aragon, if searched with the same industry as those in Castile, would doubtless afford the means for correcting the crude estimates, so current respecting that country.
[144] Hallam, in his "Constitutional History of England," estimates the population of the realm, in 1485, at 3,000,000, (vol. i. p. 10.) The discrepancies, however, of the best historians on this subject, prove the difficulty of arriving at even a probable result. Hume, on the authority of Sir Edward Coke, puts the population of England (including people of all sorts) a century later, in 1588, at only 900,000. The historian cites Lodovico Guicciardini, however, for another estimate, as high as 2,000,000, for the same reign of Queen Elizabeth. History of England, vol. vi. Append. 3.
[145] Philip II. claimed the Portuguese crown in right of his mother and his wife, both descended from Maria, third daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, who, as the reader may remember, married King Emanuel.
[146] Old Caxton mourns over the little honor paid to the usages of chivalry in his time; and it is sufficient evidence of its decay in England, that Richard III. thought it necessary to issue an ordinance requiring those possessed of the requisite £40 a year, to receive knighthood. (Turner, History of England, vol. iii. pp. 391, 392.) The use of artillery was fatal to chivalry; a consequence well understood, even at the early period of our History. At least, so we may infer from the verses of Ariosto, where Orlando throws Cimosco's gun into the sea.