NOTES. Count Julian called the invaders. - I. p. 1. THE story of Count Julian and his daughter has been treated as a fable by some authors, because it is not mentioned by the three writers who lived nearest the time. But those writers state the mere fact of the conquest of Spain as briefly as possible, without entering into particulars of any kind; and the best Spanish historians and antiquaries are persuaded that there is no cause for disbelieving the uniform and concurrent tradition of both Moors and Christians. For the purposes of poetry, it is immaterial whether the story be true or false. I have represented the Count as a man both sinned against and sinning, and equally to be commiserated and condemned. The author of the Tragedy of Count Julian has contemplated his character in a grander point of view, and represented him as a man self-justified in bringing an army of foreign auxiliaries to assist him in delivering his country from a tyrant, and foreseeing, when it is too late to recede, the evils which he is thus bringing upon her. Not victory that o'ershadows him, sees he! Stands solitary, stands immoveable Upon some highest cliff, and rolls his eye, Act 5. Scene 2. Parts of this tragedy are as fine in their kind as any thing which can be found in the whole compass of English poetry. Juan de Mena places Count Julian with Orpas, the renegado Archbishop of Seville, in the deepest pit of hell. No buenamente te puedo callar Orpas maldito, ni a ti Julian, Pues soys en el valle mas hondo de afan, A vender un dia las tierras y leyes De Espana, las quales pujança de reyes Copla 91. A Portugueze poet, Andre da Sylva Mascarenhas, is more indulgent to the Count, and seems to consider it as a mark of degeneracy in his own times, that the same crime would no longer provoke the same vengeance. His catalogue of women who have become famous by the evil of which they have been the occasion, begins with Eve, and ends with Anne Boleyn. Louvar se pode ao Conde o sentimento Da offensa da sua honestidade, Se o nam vituperara co cruento Disbarate da Hispana Christandade; Por mulheres porem se tem perdido Muitos reynos da outra e desta vida; Por Eva se perdeo o Ceo sobido, Destruicam de Espanha, p. 9. Inhuman priests with unoffending blood Never has any country been so cursed by the spirit of persecution as Spain. Under the Heathen Emperors it had its full share of suffering, and the first fatal precedent of appealing to the secular power to punish heresy with death, occurred in Spain. Then came the Arian controversy. There was as much bigotry, as much rancour, as little of the spirit of Christianity, and as much intolerance, on one part as on the other; but the successful party were better politicians, and more expert in the management of miracles. Near to the city of Osen, or Ossel, there was a famous Catholic church, and a more famous baptistery, which was in the form of a cross. On holy Thursday in every year, the bishop, the clergy, and the people assembled there, saw that the baptistery was empty, and enjoyed a marvellous fragrance which differed from that of any, or all, flowers and spices, for it was an odour which came as the vesper of the divine virtue that was about to manifest itself: Then they fastened the doors of the church and sealed them. On Easter Eve the doors were opened, the baptistery was found full of water, and all the children born within the preceding twelve months were baptized. Theudisclo, an Arian king, set his seal also upon the doors for two successive years, and set a guard there. the miraculous baptistery was filled. The third year he suspected pipes, and ordered a trench to be dug round the building; but before the day of trial arrived, he was murdered, as opportunely as Arius himself. The trench was dry, but the workmen did not dig deep enough, and the miracle was con Still tinued. When the victory of the catholic party was complete, it was no longer necessary to keep it up. The same baptistery was employed to convince the Spaniards of their error in keeping Easter. In Brito's time, a few ruins called Oscla, were shown near the river Cambria; the broken baptistery was then called the Bath, and some wild superstitions which the peasantry related bore traces of the original legend. The trick was not uncommon; it was practised in Sicily and in other places. The story, however, is of some value, as showing that baptism was administered* only once a year, (except in cases of danger,) that immersion was the manner, and that infants were baptized. Arianism seems to have lingered in Spain long after its defeat. The names Pelayo (Pelagius), and Arias, certainly appear to indicate a cherished heresy, and Brito † must have felt this when he deduced the former name from Saint Pelayo of the tenth century; for how came the Saint by it, and how could Brito have forgotten the founder of the Spanish monarchy ? In the latter half of the eleventh century, the Count of Barcelona, Ramon Berenguer, Cap de estopa, as he was called, for his bushy head, made war upon some Christians who are said to have turned Arians, and took the castles into which they retired. By the number of their castles, which he gave to those chiefs who assisted him in conquering them, they appear to have been numerous. It is not improbable that those people were really what they are called; for Arian has never been, like Manichæan, a term ignorantly and indiscriminately given to heretics of all descriptions; and there is no heresy which would be so well understood in Spain, and so likely to have revived there. The feelings of the triumphant party toward their oppo * In the seventeenth, and last council of Toledo, it was decreed that the baptistery should be shut up, and sealed with the episcopal seal, during the whole year, till Good Friday; on that day the bishop, in his pontificals, was to open it with great solemnity, in token that Christ, by his passion and resurrection, had opened the way to heaven for mankind, as on that day the hope was opened of obtaining redemption through the holy sacrament of baptism.-Morales, 12. 62, 3. + Monarchia Lusitana, 2. 7. 19. Père Tomich. c. 34. ff. 26. nents, are well marked by the manner in which St. Isidore speaks of the death of the Emperor Valens. Thraciam ferro incendiisque depopulantur, deletoque Romanorum exercitu ipsum Valentem jaculo vulneratum, in quadam villa fugientem succenderunt, ut merito ipse ab eis vivus temporali cremaretur incendio, qui tam pulchras animas ignibus æternis* tradiderat. If the truth of this opinion should be doubted, there is a good Athanasian miracle in the Chronicon† of S. Isidore and Melitus, to prove it. A certain Arian, by name Olympius, being in the bath, blasphemed the Holy Trinity, and, behold! being struck by an angel with three fiery darts, he was visibly consumed. With regard to the Arians, the Catholics only did to the others as the others would have done to them; but the persecution of the Jews was equally unprovoked and inhuman. They are said to have betrayed many towns to the Moors; and it would be strange indeed if they had not, by every means in their power, assisted in overthrowing a government under which they were miserably oppressed. St. Isidore has a memorable passage relating to their cruel persecution and compulsory conversion under Sisebut; Qui initio regni Judæos ad Fidem Christianam permovens æmulationem quidem habuit, sed non secundum scientiam: potestate enim compulit, quos provocare fidei ratione oportuit. Sed sicut est scriptum sive per occasionem sive per veritatem, Christus annuntiatur, in hoc gaudeo et gaudebo. S. Isidor. Christ. Goth. Espana Sagrada, 6. 502. - The Moorish conquest procured for them an interval of repose, till the Inquisition was established, and by its damnable acts put all former horrors out of remembrance. When Toledo was recovered from the Moors by Alonso VI., the Jews of that city waited upon the conqueror, and assured him that they were part of the ten tribes whom Nebuchadnezzar had transported into Spain; not the descendants of the Jerusalem Jews who had crucified Christ. Their ancestors, they said, were entirely innocent of the crucifixion; for when Caiaphas the high-priest had written to the Toledan synagogues to ask their Hist. Goth. apud Florez. Espana Sagrada, t. 6. 486. + Espana Sagrada, t. 6. 474. |