Toledo, the Story of an Old Spanish CapitalLynch, Hannah
History
Toledo, the Story of an Old Spanish Capital
Lynch, Hannah
Toledo (Spain) -- Description and travel; Toledo (Spain) -- History
_Mater Navarra, metrix Castilla Tolatum_
_Sedes Parisius studium, mons Rhodams Horta,_
_Mausoleum, coelum requies, nomen Rodericus._
What a dazzling achievement the lives of these Toledan archbishops,
martial, learned, literary, eloquent, and artistic; every facet of
multiple genius. Now they build ships, then cathedrals, colleges or
palaces. They print rare editions, collect rare MSS., debate in
councils, rule the land, vociferate magnificently from the pulpit,
decide on all questions of education and civil law, advise their
sovereign, guide foreign politics, voyage in foreign lands, win
glorious battles, and write histories and verse! What modern life can
match theirs? Even Mr Gladstone has neither built a great cathedral nor
won a great battle! This Archbishop of Toledo, a mighty chancellor of
Castille, was as charitable a pastor as Victor Hugo's bishop. Indeed,
nothing remains to his discredit as a great and simple nature, but the
unavoidable bigotry and injustice of his history. He died on his last
voyage back from Rome, and was buried, as his quoted epitaph indicates,
in the monastery of Huesta, June 10th, 1247.
Alfonso's crusade against the Moors was followed by dreadful dearth, by
famine and sickness, and the entire ruin of villages and farms. Public
misfortune habitually forges fresh unexpected miseries for man, and
bands of armed robbers and assassins, called _golfines_, descended in
hordes from the mountains of Toledo, of Ciudad Real and Talavera. They
pitched their tents in the outlying woods, and in self-defence the
Toledans formed their celebrated _Hermandad_, a brotherhood of citizens
sworn to persecute robbers and assassins. This brotherhood was so
successful that in 1223 it was qualified as "holy," and was conceded as
a right one head of every flock and cattle that crossed the mountains.
The Society held its feast on St Pedro Advinada's day, 1st August, and
consisted of sixty Toledan proprietors and hidalgoes, whose sons
inherited their office; two governors, a squadron, archers and minor
subalterns elected by the two alcaldes. The uniform was green, with
collar and cuffs of vivid scarlet trimmed with gold, and pointed caps.
The inferior officers wore a loose green garment suitable for the road,
and capes and bonnets of green, without the bright touch of scarlet and
gold, and their uniform may still be seen on a stone station above a
sixteenth century porch in a laneway opposite the Calle de la Tripería,
where the ancient prison of the Hermandad is. They rode in procession,
preceded by timbrals and clarinets, and carried a green banner with the
arms of Castille. It was this brotherhood that Philip II. presented with
a magnificent camp of green cloth which to-day may be seen in the Museum
of Artillery in Madrid, and here the Hermandad received their sovereigns
when they visited Toledo. The success of this brotherhood provoked the
creation of minor fraternities and another Toledan order was started
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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