The
heathens washed themselves daily; therefore a Christian should not. The
monks, who were too lazy to bathe, taught their followers to be filthy
by precept and example. Water was never to be applied externally except
in baptism. It was a treacherous element, and dallying with it had
gotten Bathsheba and Susanna into no end of trouble. So when the cleanly
infidels were driven out of Granada, the pious and hydrophobic Cardinal
Ximenez persuaded the Catholic sovereigns to destroy the abomination of
baths they left behind. Until very recently the Spanish mind has been
unable to separate a certain idea of immorality from bathing. When
Madame Daunoy, one of the sprightliest of observers, visited the court
of Philip IV., she found it was considered shocking among the ladies of
the best society to wash the face and hands. Once or twice a week they
would glaze their pretty visages with the white of an egg. Of late years
this prejudice has given way somewhat; but it has lasted longer than any
monument in Spain.
These, however, are but trivial manifestations of that power of
tradition which holds the Spanish intellect imprisoned as in a vice of
iron. The whole life of the nation is fatally influenced by this blind
reverence for things that have been. It may be said that by force of
tradition Christian morality has been driven from individual life by
religion, and honesty has been supplanted as a rule of public conduct by
honor, - a wretched substitute in either case, and irreconcilably at war
with the spirit of the age.
The growth of this double fanaticism is easily explained; it is the
result of centuries of religious wars. From the hour when Pelayo, the
first of the Asturian kings, successfully met and repulsed the hitherto
victorious Moors in his rocky fortress of Covadonga, to the day when
Boabdil the Unlucky saw for the last time through streaming tears the
vermilion towers of Alhambra crowned with the banner of the cross, there
was not a year of peace in Spain. No other nation has had such an
experience. Seven centuries of constant warfare, with three thousand
battles; this is the startling epitome of Spanish history from the
Mahometan conquest to the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella. In this vast
war there was laid the foundation of the national character of to-day.
Even before the conquering Moslem crossed from Africa, Spain was the
most deeply religious country in Europe; and by this I mean the country
in which the Church was most powerful in its relations with the State.
When the Council of Toledo, in 633, received the king of Castile, he
fell on his face at the feet of the bishops before venturing to address
them. When the hosts of Islam had overspread the Peninsula, and the last
remnant of Christianity had taken refuge in the inaccessible hills of
the northwest, the richest possession they carried into these inviolate
fastnesses was a chest of relics, - knuckle-bones of apostles and
splinters of true crosses, in which they trusted more than in mortal
arms. The Church had thus a favorable material to work upon in the years
of struggle that followed. The circumstances all lent themselves to the
scheme of spiritual domination. The fight was for the cross against the
crescent; the symbol of the quarrel was visible and tangible. The
Spaniards were poor and ignorant and credulous. The priests were enough
superior to lead and guide them, and not so far above them as to be out
of the reach of their sympathies and their love. They marched with them.
They shared their toils and dangers. They stimulated their hate of the
enemy. They taught them that their cruel anger was the holy wrath of
God. They held the keys of eternal weal or woe, and rewarded
subservience to the priestly power with promises of everlasting
felicity; while the least symptom of rebellion in thought or action was
punished with swift death and the doom of endless flames. There was
nothing in the Church which the fighting Spaniard could recognize as a
reproach to himself. It was as bitter, as brave, as fierce, and
revengeful as he. His credulity regarded it as divine, and worthy of
blind adoration, and his heart went out to it with the sympathy of
perfect love.
In these centuries of war there was no commerce, no manufactures, no
settled industry of importance among the Spaniards. There was
consequently no wealth, none of that comfort and ease which is the
natural element of doubt and discussion. Science did not exist. The
little learning of the time was exclusively in the hands of the
priesthood. If from time to time an intelligent spirit struggled against
the chain of unquestioning bigotry that bound him, he was rigorously
silenced by prompt and bloody punishment. There seemed to be no need of
discussion, no need of inculcation of doctrine. The serious work of the
time was the war with the infidel. The clergy managed everything. The
question, "What shall I do to be saved?" never entered into those simple
and ignorant minds. The Church would take care of those who did her
bidding.
Thus it was that in the hammering of those struggling ages the nation
became welded together in one compact mass of unquestioning, unreasoning
faith, which the Church could manage at its own good pleasure.
It was also in these times that Spanish honor took its rise. This
sentiment is so nearly connected with that of personal loyalty that they
may be regarded as phases of the same monarchical spirit. The rule of
honor as distinguished from honesty and virtue is the most prominent
characteristic of monarchy, and for that reason the political theorists
from the time of Montesquieu have pronounced in favor of the monarchy as
a more practicable form of government than the republic, as requiring a
less perfect and delicate machinery, men of honor being far more common
than men of virtue.
