About this time the processions, known by the name of _Cofradías_,
(Confraternities) begin to move out of the different churches to
which they are attached. The head of the police appoints the hour
when each of these pageants is to appear in the square, where stand
the Town Hall, and the _Audiencia_ or Court of Justice. From thence
their route to the Cathedral, and out of it, to a certain point, is
the same for all. These streets are lined by two rows of spectators
of the lower classes, the windows, being occupied by those of a
higher rank. An order is previously published by the town-crier,
directing the inhabitants to decorate their windows, which they do
by hanging out the showy silk and chintz counterpanes of their beds.
The processions themselves, except one which enjoys the privilege of
parading the town in the dead of night, have little to attract the
eye or affect the imagination. Their chief object is to convey groups
of figures, as large as life, representing different scenes of our
Saviour’s passion.
There is something remarkable in the established and characteristic
marks of some figures. The Jews are distinguished by long aquiline
noses. Saint Peter is completely bald. The dress of the Apostle
John is green, and that of Judas Iscariot yellow; and so intimately
associated is this circumstance with the idea of the traitor, that it
has brought that colour into universal discredit. It is, probably,
from this circumstance (though yellow may have been allotted to Judas
from some more ancient prejudice,) that the Inquisition has adopted
it for the _Sanbeníto_, or coat of infamy, which persons convicted
of heresy are compelled to wear. The red hair of Judas, like Peter’s
baldness, seems to be agreed upon by all the painters and sculptors
of Europe. _Judas hair_ is a usual name in Spain; and a similar
appellation, it should seem, was used in England in Shakspeare’s
time. “His hair,” says Rosalind, in As you like it, “is of the
dissembling colour:” to which Celia answers--“Something browner than
Judas’s.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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