Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVI., December, 1880.Various
History
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVI., December, 1880.
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals
The succeeding combats were but repetitions, with trifling variations,
of those just described. From dawn, when the trumpet sounded for battle,
until the evening grew so dark that the judges could not distinguish the
combatants, the defenders maintained the Pass against all comers with
bravery and honor.
The third day there passed near Orbigo two ladies, and the judges sent
the king-at-arms and the herald to ascertain whether they were of noble
birth and provided with knights to represent them in the lists and win
them a passage through Orbigo, and also to request them to give up their
right-hand gloves. The ladies answered that they were noble and were on
a pilgrimage to Santiago; their names were Leonora and Guiomar de la
Vega; the former was married and accompanied by her husband; the latter
was a widow. The king-at-arms then requested their gloves to be kept as
a pledge until some knight should ransom them. Frances Davio, an
Aragonese knight, immediately offered to do combat for the ladies. The
husband of Dona Leonora said that he had not heard of this adventure,
and was unprepared to attempt it then, but if the ladies were allowed to
retain their gloves, as soon as he had accomplished his pilgrimage he
would return and enter the lists for them. The gloves, however, were
retained and hung in the judges' stand. The matter caused some
discussion, and finally the judges decided that the gloves should not be
kept, for fear it should seem that the defenders of the Pass were
interfering with pilgrims, and also on account of Juan de la Vega's
chivalrous response. So the gloves were sent on to Astorga to be
delivered to their owners, and Juan de la Vega was absolved from all
obligation to ransom them, "and there was strife among many knights as
to who should do battle for the sisters."
On the 16th of July, Frances Davio jousted with Lope de Estuniga, and
when the trial of arms was ended with great honor to both, Davio swore
aloud, so that many knights heard him, "that never in the future would
he have a love-affair with a nun, for up to that time he had loved one,
and it was for her sake that he had come to the Pass; and any one who
had known it could have challenged him as an evil-doer, and he could not
have defended himself." Whereat Delena, the notary and compiler of the
original record of the Pass, exclaims, "To which I say that if he had
had any Christian nobleness, or even the natural shame which leads every
one to conceal his faults, he would not have made public such a
sacrilegious scandal, so dishonorable to the religious order and so
injurious to Christ."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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