Monachism—The superiority of the monastic over the secular clergy—Reasons for it—Orders of monks—The Carthusians—Their advancement in agriculture and love of the fine arts—Their seclusion and mode of living—Only learned men admitted to their order—Their form of salutation—Curious adventure of a lady found in the cell of a Carthusian—The Hieronimites—The Mendicant orders—“Pious works”—TheQuestacion—Decline of Spain accounted for—Vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience—How vow of poverty eluded—La honesta—Vicar-general of the Franciscan orders—His immense income—Religious orders have produced many great and good men—Cardinal Ximenez de Cisneros—His celebrated Bible—Corruption of monastic orders—Insubordination of friars to the bishops—The Jesuits—Deplorable reputation of their literature—Pascal, Escobar, Sanchez, and Mariana—Suppression of the Jesuits by Charles III.—Their subsequent expulsion by Espartero under Isabella II.—Nunneries, though spared on suppression of religious houses, utterly useless—The Pope’s attempt to perpetuate them byconcordat—The lives of the nuns described—Their means of subsistence is now precarious—Convent de las Huelgas.
All the power, all the influence, and all the riches of the secular clergy, such as we have described them in the preceding chapter, would not have been sufficientcompletely to enslave the Spanish nation under the baneful dominion of Rome, if its unwearied ambition for command and power had not found out an instrument, much more efficacious, in the institution of Monachism, the establishment of which propagated itself on the Spanish soil with more rapidity and in greater numbers than in any other Catholic nation.
The superiority of the monastic clergy in comparison with the secular, as to popularity and numbers, was owing to many causes. In the first place, to become one of the clergy, two things were necessary, and neither of these were within the reach of the lower classes of the people, viz., theological attainments and acongrua, which latter word comprehended the property, income, or pension, indispensable to ensure to the aspirant a proper and competent maintenance. In many rich families there was, besides the entail (el mayorazgo) pertaining exclusively to the eldest son, another inheritable portion—the mortmain (main-morte), as inalienable as the entailed estates themselves, and designed for that individual of the family who might desire to adopt the ecclesiastic state. These inheritable provisions were calledcapellanias, and generally the brother, or cousin, or nephew, to whom this right, separated from the chief inheritance, belonged, took holy orders, but might or might not practically follow the vocation, by the exercise of those functions, the discharge of those duties, and submission to those privations, imposed on one who takes upon himself so high and responsible a calling. Although there was much laxity in the observance of those requirements,there were not wanting bishops who insisted on their most rigorous execution; so that in many dioceses there was great difficulty in gaining admission to the ranks of the clergy. But none of those obstacles presented themselves in seeking admission to the monasteries, or convents. Their doors were constantly open to the poorest and the most ignorant. In their interior organization there was a sufficient variety of employment for every class of human beings; the mason, the carpenter, the simple journeyman, possessed of no other instruments than his muscular force, was eligible to become a useful member of the holy community; and, as in the act of taking upon him the habit of the order, he had guaranteed to him a subsistence and all the conveniences of life, and at the same time that the habit itself opened to him the doors of great houses and palaces and placed him on a level with the most elevated circles, so also these two powerful allurements attracted innumerable persons to the cloisters, and multiplied in a most surprising degree the numerical force of the monastic orders.
These orders divided themselves into two great ramifications, the monks and the friars, and composed what may be called the aristocracy and the democracy of monachism. The monks were distinguished from the friars by their immense wealth, by the possessions of their monasteries, which were generally situated out of, and at a great distance from, towns, by the dignity of their manners, and by certain peculiarities in their internal government, over which there reigned a certain spirit of retirement and love of seclusion, that separatedthem from worldly things and the interests and passions of profane society.
The principal orders of monks established in Spain were the Benedictine, the Bernardine, the Carthusian, and the Hieronimites. The last two were superior to all the rest in number, importance, and wealth, and it is only respecting them that we shall treat in this chapter.
The Carthusians were opulent landowners; they lived in the midst of their possessions, and, to a considerable extent, cultivated their own lands. In these operations they rendered great service to agriculture; they practised the science with great care and knowledge; they brought their productions to great perfection. The breed of the Carthusian horses of Xeres was notoriously the best in Europe. In most of the Carthusian establishments they had schools in which education was given gratuitously to the children of their tenantry, and to those of the poor of the neighbouring towns. Under this point of view, it is certain that the monasteries of the Carthusians contributed greatly to the extension and improvement of agriculture and education in Spain. They were also notable for the stimulus which they gave to the fine arts; for their churches and monasteries were true museums of sculpture, painting, and architecture. In that of Granada, all travellers admire the beautiful paintings of its cloisters and refectory, the magnificent marbles of its chapels and sacristy, and the good taste and richness of the ornaments which cover all parts of the edifice.
The Carthusians observed, as fundamental rulesof their order, silence and seclusion. They had but few acts which they performed in common, and these only on holidays. Each Carthusian lived in his cell, but each cell was a house, full of conveniences, with an extensive garden, in which they cultivated with the greatest care fruits and vegetables of the most delicious kinds. They were forbidden to give presents or even alms; but they allowed visitors to take from their gardens whatever they pleased. In Granada there was a famous Father Reyes who devoted himself to the cultivation of flowers, and from his garden all the elegant ladies of the city were furnished with the choicest descriptions. Their male friends were sent to gather them, nor was the reverend father altogether ignorant of the fair uses to which they were about to be applied.
The Carthusian dined alone in his cell, into which his food was conveyed by means of atorno, a kind of revolving cylindrical cupboard with shelves, into which were put the numerous and abundant dishes composing the dinner. Thetornobeing then spun round on its axis, the shelves were unloaded of their sumptuous contents by the Carthusian himself.
As these monks were prohibited the use of meat, they kept up in their monasteries a great stock of live fish and a number of turtles; these latter being a delicacy they greatly prized. The place in which they killed these turtles was called theGalapagar. They fed them in a curious manner: at night there was thrown for them, into a large dry tank, the carcase of a cow or a calf; and such was the voracity of the amphibiousanimals, that, in the morning, nothing remained of these carcases but the bones.
The dinner of the Carthusian generally consisted of eight or nine distinct dishes, and their friends were accustomed to pay their visits about the hour of dinner; for, as invitations were not allowed, they were dispensed with. The wines they grew were always those of the best quality, and there were no persons in all Spain who fared so sumptuously and deliciously as did those devoted recluses.
None but presbyters were admitted to the Carthusian order, and even these were generally only such as had exercised some dignity in cathedral or collegiate churches; hence nearly all of them were learned men—men of good morals and great experience in the affairs of the world. Sometimes a military man of good attainments, a person high in the ministerial office, or a member of the higher courts of justice, sought admission within their walls; and although such acquisition was considered as very useful and very honourable, they were admitted only after having for some years belonged to the secular clergy and taken holy orders.
In a kind of life so extraordinary, so distinct, and so marked among all human associations, they were unable to form relations of friendship, even among individuals of the same community. They, therefore, seldom saw and scarcely knew each other. Their salutation, when they met, was brief but expressive; the senior began withMorir hemos,[52a]and the junior answered,Ya,lo sabemos.[52b]Beyond this the conversation did not extend.Once a-year the chapter met together to decide on the urgent and important matters of business of their society; and once in three years to elect a prior and aprocurator, who were the only two persons authorised to treat with the world without, and direct the material interests of the establishment.
There is recorded of one of those Carthusian monasteries a narrative of a circumstance which at first was attempted to be concealed by all possible means, but at last came to be made known and fully authenticated. The case is shortly told. There was in that monastery a monk, who, for many years prior to his entering on a monastic life, had encouraged a vehement passion for one of the principal ladies of the city. The flame was mutual; but the lovers finding great obstacles in the way of their union, agreed to wait, in the hope that time might afford a favourable opportunity of realising their wishes. The father of the lady offered her hand to a gentleman very high in the hierarchy. She, not having sufficient courage to resist the parental authority, obeyed the mandate, thus sacrificing herself on the altar of filial obedience. The lover gave himself up a victim of despair, abandoned the world, and retired to the monastery. A few months after the marriage the husband died. The lady’s affection revived; the flame was kindled anew in her heart; and she formed the resolution of uniting herself with the object of her first love, and of overcoming all obstacles which stood in the way of her determination. In male attire she wandered long in the neighbourhood of the monastery, informing herself most minutely ofits internal position, and reflecting on the means of introducing herself to the cell of her beloved Carthusian. The stream of water which served to irrigate the gardens of the monastery, entered a wall by a large semicircular arch or opening near the garden itself. The lady, prodigal in the expenditure of money, and in the employment of faithful and trustworthy agents, procured a raft to be constructed, by means of which, all other things being prepared, she ventured through the opening, and was carried down the stream to the desired spot. The secret was kept. No one had the least suspicion of this extraordinary voyage, nor was it discovered until many years afterwards, when the monks observing that this particular one of their number had not for a length of time been present at any of the devotional exercises prescribed by the rules of their order, were desirous of learning the cause of his absence. They entered his cell, and found to their astonishment, his dead body, a lady, and four children! The civil power was, at first, about to investigate the affair, but, in order to avert the scandal that would result from such a proceeding, all inquiry was suspended, and the fate of that unhappy woman and her family was never known. The whole account seems romantic. The facts appear incredible, but they have long been established on unquestionable authority.
Like the Carthusians, the Hieronimites had their establishments far from towns and cities. They were very wealthy, but did not cultivate their own lands; they let them out on hire, and showed great consideration to their tenants. These fathers devoted themselves,almost entirely, to teaching, to singing, and to sacred music. From their halls have been sent forth to the world many vocalists, organists, and composers, of eminence. When Philip II. built the Escurial, he confided that sumptuous edifice to the Hieronimites; and so high a position did the prior hold in the hierarchy and in the state, that he was privileged to enter, at all times, into the king’s apartments without asking leave to do so, and his coachman and other servants were permitted to wear the royal livery.
General opinion accuses these reverend fathers of too great a propensity to indulge in gastronomy, and it is related of them that, in prescribing for themselves, as a rule for their supper rations, one dozen of mincemeat-balls (abondigas), they afterwards, by a supplementary rule, extended that number to thirteen, from which circumstance the number thirteen is generally called, in Spain, “the friars’ dozen.”
The inferior section of Monachism, viz., that of the Friars, is composed of many orders, among which the most important and numerous were the following:Mercenarios, or Friars of Mercy (de la Merced), founded with the exclusive object of ransoming Christian captives who groaned in the dungeons of the Barbary States; theCarmelites,—calzados, wearing shoes and stockings, anddescalzos, without either; theAugustines,calzadosanddescalzos; thePreachers, orDominicans; the Friars ofSt John of God, whose duty was to serve sick persons in the hospitals attached to their convents; and above all the large family ofSt Francis, divided into four great ramifications, viz., theFranciscanproperlyspeaking; theFathers of Observance; theFathers of St Diego; and theCapuchins. All these orders had convents in the principal towns of the Peninsula, and its colonies. In some cities,—as, for example, Madrid, Seville, and Toledo,—there were as many as twenty or thirty of these establishments, many of which contained from one hundred to one hundred and fifty inmates; but the average may be stated, with reason, at thirty for each convent. Thecalzadosorders were at liberty to hold property; but thedescalzos, in whose number are to be reckoned all the family of Franciscans, were strictly forbidden to do so; and hence they lived, exclusively, on the alms of the faithful.
These alms were of various kinds. Those called pious works (obras pias), consisted of certain rents, or pensions, granted to a convent on condition that certain masses should be said therein, during the year, for the soul of the grantor. Rich men who had acquired a fortune by unfair means, or through an extortionate usury, were induced to expect forgiveness of their sins, if they left large sums of money to the fathers of the convent the saint of which they were accustomed to worship or venerate, and to whom they usually paid their devotions. Some of those benefactors, most generously, defrayed the expenses of a religious festival, from which resulted a considerable profit to the convent in which that festival was celebrated. Others repaired conventual edifices at their own expense, or enlarged them by making extensive wings or other additions, in which there was always a profuse display of marble, bronze, and other preciousmaterials. But the principal source of the revenue of the mendicant orders was that called thequestacion.[57]Every morning each convent poured out from its gates a certain number of lay brothers (legos), each being furnished with a wallet over his shoulder; and it was the duty of each to traverse the whole town, begging alms for his respective convent. These pious beggars visited, one by one, the shops of the trades-people, and places most frequented, calling at the houses of the poor as well as at those of the rich. The alms which they thus received were chiefly in bread, meat, eggs, and every description of eatables, besides small copper coins generally contributed by the poor, and which were not the least important parts of these gatherings. In this way thousands of robust, able-bodied men, not only maintained themselves, but were enabled to live in the lap of luxury, for many years, without contributing, on their part, one farthing to the public treasury, but on the contrary diminishing, immensely, the population and the number of those engaged in cultivating the soil and in other useful labour. Was not this alone sufficient to explain the deplorable state of the economy of the Spanish Peninsula, the paucity of its inhabitants, the backwardness of its agriculture, its want of capital, and the nakedness and poverty of its fields and its towns? Indolence being, so to speak, thus sanctified, what stimulus could there be for productive labour? Why should men have fatigued themselves by arduous employments, when the convent offered them not only food, raiment, and lodging, buteven a respectable position in society, without further trouble than that of passing a few hours in the choir of the church, to confess penitents, assist now and then at the bedside of a dying person, and to preach an occasional sermon, for which they always received a decent payment?
In all the religious orders three vows were exacted, namely, those of chastity, poverty, and obedience. Of the first we shall have some remarks to make when we come to speak of celibacy in the ecclesiastical state. That of poverty was eluded in a very simple manner; individuals were held bound by that vow, but communities were entirely free to accept and acquire property; and thus it was that the greater number of the convents lived in opulence, and the friars enjoyed all the conveniences of life. The friar delivered to the chief of his community all that came to his hands, either as alms or by way of salary for the masses he had to say and the sermons he preached.
Each order had, at its head, a superior chief, called the Vicar-general; the chief functionary of each province was called the Provincial, and that of each convent the Guardian in the Franciscan orders, and the Prior in all the rest. These personages were exempt from the vow of poverty; they had, tacitly, a dispensation for the use of money, under the supposition that all they received or possessed would be by them laid out for the good of their community. Every three years the provincial visited all the convents in his jurisdiction, and it was the universal custom, that in the act of finishing his visit, the prior of the visited convent put into his handsa purse of gold. This contribution was calledla honesta. The vicar-general of the Franciscan orders, generally a Spaniard, received another species of tribute, which put him on a level with the most opulent men in Europe. Each convent of the three Orders in all parts of the globe sent to him, weekly, the largest amount it had received for any one mass said during that week. These orders had no less than two hundred and seventy provinces, and in them twelve thousand convents,[59a]from which may be conceived the immense sums of money that came into his power. This personage enjoyed the honours of a grandee of Spain, and was always in great favour with its sovereigns, on whom he lavished money. Father Campany, who occupied this post during the reign of Charles IV., was accustomed to send to the queen, Mary Louisa, yearly, large quantities of bricks made of fine chocolate, and studded all over, within and without, with solid gold doubloons.
The last vicar-general of the order was the celebrated Father Fray Cirilo de Alameda, now Archbishop of Burgos, well known for his attachment to the cause of Don Carlos, during the civil war between that prince and Queen Christina.
The vow of obedience was observed with the mostrigorous exactness. The chief of each convent was a despot to whose mandates it was not possible to offer the least resistance. All his inferiors, except those ordained to the priesthood, spoke to him only on their knees. The most tyrannical precepts were obeyed with the greatest docility. It would often occur that the guardian, or the prior, wishing to exercise influence in some powerful family, commanded one of his friars to use all possible means of gaining an introduction, so that the end might be accomplished. In this way they became possessed of great power over the most important families in the chief cities and towns of the kingdom; and from these families they received large donations and handsome legacies.
The penal code of the convents provided for certain offences the punishment of flagellation, imprisonment in a dungeon for indeterminate periods, living on bread and water, and public confession of sins. The mildest punishment consisted in being compelled to eat off the ground, kneeling, at the hour of the refectory. The friar who by his conduct had become incorrigible, and worthy of the severest punishment, was sent away, for the remainder of his life, to one of the convents situated in desert places.
All the religious orders of Spain have produced many men eminent for science and virtue, and among these may be reckoned one of the greatest and most distinguished statesmen that ever governed in that country,—such was the Cardinal Ximenez de Cisneros, minister of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic sovereigns, and of Charles V. This cardinal was thefounder of the proud university of Alcala; he was the conqueror of Oran, and the great reformer in all branches of the administration and of the government.
The sacred sciences owe to him inexpressible benefits for his famous Complutense Polyglot Bible, one of the most correct and splendid editions of the sacred writings hitherto published. One of the few copies now extant of that monument of piety and wisdom is to be found in the British Museum. Such men, however, were, it must be admitted, extremely rare exceptions, which do not weaken the force of our objections to the whole system of monastic institutions.
The corruption of the monastic orders began during the earliest times of the monarchy. In the time of Isabella the Catholic, the immorality of the friars had arrived at such a height as to induce that eminent woman, led by the counsels of the Cardinal Cisneros, to demand of Pope Alexander VI. a bull permitting her to introduce a radical reform among the religious orders in Spain. The Pope resisted, but, ultimately, was obliged to cede to the Spanish court; and Isabella checked, for some years, the disorders which brought so much scandal on the nation. The fact is, that the friars formed a separate state, independent of the government, and even of the bishops; they acknowledged no authority but that of the Pope, and their communications with the court of Rome were as frequent as they were private and mysterious. The bishops often claimed the right to exercise their own authority over this part of the ecclesiastical state, but always in vain; and although the Chamber of Castille,which was the supreme tribunal, lent its support to those just pretensions, that support was always disregarded by the pontifical court. The friars never would submit themselves to the bishops, except to receive holy orders from them; and whenever these were refused, although it might be on strong and just grounds, the friar had recourse at once to Rome, and returned from thence ordained.
We have not entered, in our list of religious orders, that of the Jesuits, because these formed an entirely separate class, and the greatest insult that could be committed against a Jesuit was to call him a friar. The Spanish Jesuits, like those throughout all Europe, were, in their exterior conduct, modest and decorous. They mixed but little with the lower classes of society, and their chief occupation was to direct the consciences of eminent persons, and particularly those of kings, bishops, and ministers. In Spain, as in all other places, they took a large share in politics, they patronised good studies, and accumulated great wealth. If jesuitical casuistry had not its birth in Spain, at least the greater part of its ecclesiastical writers, who propagated and defended that absurd and immoral conceit, were Spaniards, as may be seen on reference to the catalogue of them published by Pascal, in hisLettres d’un Provincial. The names of Escobar and of Sanchez have left a deplorable reputation for them in this branch of ecclesiastic literature. The treatiseDe Matrimonioof the latter contains such profound immorality, and such dangerous and obscene queries and doctrines, that the Inquisition included the publicationin its index of prohibited books. But far greater scandal was produced throughout Europe by the book entitledDe Rege et Regis Institutione, written by the celebrated Jesuit, Juan de Mariana. This man, truly great, and whom Gibbon places in the number of the most distinguished historians of ancient and modern times, wrote that work, apparently with the view of assisting in the education of Philip IV., but in reality to justify the assassination committed in France on the person of Henry III., and probably to prepare for that of his successor. Mariana sustains, with warmth, with eloquence, and with erudition, the dogma of regicide; determines the cases in which the commission of that crime is not only lawful but necessary and praiseworthy; lays down rules by which the deed should be executed, under certain and determinate circumstances; and even goes the length of excusing the use of poison, if other means fail, to get rid of a tyrant! The book was prohibited by all the governments of Europe, and burnt publicly in Paris by the hands of the common hangman.
That culpable and highly dangerous doctrine was not the only one of the same character with which the Jesuits poisoned the public morals in Europe. The system of ethics which they taught in their classes, and propounded from the pulpit and confessional, had for its basis the famous doctrine of probablism, by means of which all crimes found a powerful subterfuge through which their perpetrators were enabled to avert responsibility and punishment. For all kinds of excess, that doctrine afforded excuses; and hence falsehood, perjury,robbery, and even murder and adultery, might be converted by it into innocent actions, by means of the sophisms and frauds with which that absurd theory was interwoven. To this was united, in order to exasperate opinion against such men, the irresistible influence which these Jesuits exercised in all the courts. Meanwhile the immense wealth which they were accumulating, by means of commerce with the West Indies and in South America, betrayed, in the so-called Company of Jesus, a mundane and ambitious spirit totally incompatible with that which ought to prevail in every religious and cloistral establishment. About the middle of the eighteenth century, all the enlightened men of Europe exclaimed against that company, and ardently desired its extermination; and, although many works were published against it, and the voices of many religious orders were raised in denouncing it to the pontifical throne and to the public, such was the power and dexterity with which it neutralised these hostile dispositions, that nobody dared to attack its front, until a king of Spain, the illustrious Charles III., undertook that great work, and carried it on to its consummation with as much resolution as ability.
We have already described the characters of those good and able ministers who surrounded that monarch, and we have alluded to their Jansenistic doctrines, which were diametrically opposed to those professed by the Jesuits. But neither the upright principles nor enlarged ideas of the monarch, nor yet the influence exercised by Aranda, Campomanes, Floridablanca, and Roda, would have been sufficient to induce him to takea measure so violent, if there had not intervened a circumstance which necessarily appeared, in his eyes, an outrage on his dignity, a wound on his self-respect, and a threat against the legitimacy of his rights.
The king was as much a Jansenist as his ministers. The Jesuits knew it, and resolved to make a secret war against him, which should terminate in his dethronement. Father Rizzio, General of the Jesuits established in Rome, gave orders to all the chiefs of the convents belonging to their institution to propagate, by means of their subalterns, as well by private conversations as through the confessional, the important secret that Charles III. was the illegitimate son of Ferdinand VI., and that, consequently, he ought to be considered as a usurper of the throne of his reputed father. The minister, Roda, intercepted a correspondence containing irrefragable proofs of that abominable intrigue; and this was sufficient to make the king resolve upon a course of action which he had refrained from for some time, at the instance of his ministers, through fear of offending the court of Rome and of bringing a scandal on the Christian world. The king had no power to suppress a religious order; but he could, as chief of the state, expel from his territory any persons whomsoever, and this was the part which he took with respect to the individuals of the Company of Jesuits. The execution of this grand design was a master-work of foresight and prudence. The civil authorities of all the towns having Jesuitical establishments, as well in Spain as in the colonies, received a sealed packet from the government. On opening theouter cover was found an order that the interior packet was not to be opened till a certain day and at a certain hour, and in the presence of the subaltern authorities, and a most severe injunction to keep even that operation secret till the moment of its execution. On the arrival of the day and hour appointed the packets were opened, as had been previously arranged, simultaneously; and then was found, in each, an order to take immediate possession of the houses of the Jesuits, to sequester their goods, and transmit, without delay of time, their persons to the nearest port, in which would be found vessels already waiting to receive them on board, and convey them into Italy. This was done, at the same instant, in all places for hundreds of leagues in extent, without the Jesuits, with all their cunning, having received a breath of information, or entertained a suspicion, as to the stroke impending over them; and, what is still more strange, without having given rise to the least symptom of complaint or disapprobation. On the contrary, the other religious orders, who had been offended by the haughty bearing of the Jesuits, and who beheld their opulence and preponderance with envy, celebrated their fall without restraint, and considered it as a triumph of the true religion over the dangerous novelties which these men had introduced.
From that period nobody cared for the Jesuits nor thought of them, and the rest of the reigns of Charles III. and Charles IV. passed without a single voice being raised in their favour.
In 1817, Ferdinand VII., released from his captivity in France, and ruled entirely by the persecuting andfanatical party, not satisfied with having re-established the Inquisition, wished also to recall the Jesuits. The Council of Castille, which he consulted,pro formâ, on that business, showed itself favourable, moved by the able report of his fiscal, Gutierez de la Huerta, a man known for his Voltairean opinions, who was suspected of having received a large sum of money to defend, with energy, the cause of fanaticism and of intolerance. The few Jesuits who have outlived their expulsion, and who are scattered over some of the towns of Italy, are returning to the Peninsula in such small numbers, that they are scarcely enough to occupy the ancient establishment of San Isidro in Madrid. Their installation, which was announced as an epoch of triumph, disappointed the expectation of the court, and of their friends. Those extraordinary beings, whose dress, customs, and even affected Italian accent, were opposed to the national habits and the ideas of the new generation, were beheld by the public with the most perfect indifference. It was said publicly that they were strangers, and that they despised their country; that they atemaccaroniinstead ofgarbanzos;[67]and people spread about innumerable other epigrams and satires against them, regardless of the government police, and even without fear of the inquisitors. But what most tended to destroy their reputation was the circumstance that none of them were in a condition to instruct youth, and that, in order to fill the professorships of their college, they were obliged to take theirprofessors from the secular ranks, some of them notorious for their independent and anti-Roman-Catholic opinions. When they began to recruit novices, they were unable to find any decent men, or known family, who would submit their children to their rule; and their noviciate was consequently composed of only ninety young persons, and these drawn from the lowest classes of society.
For the space of seventeen years they maintained themselves in this precarious condition, without advancing one step in their popularity, and even without exhibiting any of the qualities which had given confidence to their rule in former times. Far from captivating the will of the people, they exasperated it to such a degree, that in 1834, after the death of the king, the people of Madrid, in one of those moments of madness and irritation so frequent after the scourge of the cholera, penetrated the establishment of those holy fathers, and inhumanly sacrificed them to their fury. Even to this day the mystery which covered that sanguinary catastrophe has never entirely been revealed. One thing is certain, that in spite of the religious ideas of Spaniards, and of the superstitious veneration with which they beheld a religious habit, the Jesuits were immolated without causing one murmur of fanaticism or one tear of compassion.
It is but a few years ago that the Spanish government had the inexpressible condescendence to allow a community of Jesuits to establish itself in the magnificent convent of Loyola, the country of their founder. The last revolution which happened in that countryoffered them an opportunity of putting in practice those absolute principles which have always governed their conduct. The government of Espartero, informed of their secret intrigues, by which they contrived to agitate the public mind in the Basque provinces in favour of Don Carlos, ordered them to be expelled to the Balearic Islands; but they, fearful perhaps of severer measures being adopted against them, and convinced of the general hatred in which they were held by the people, fled to France, from whence it is probable they will not attempt to recross the frontier.
Monachism, then, has entirely disappeared from Spain, where only two convents remain for the instruction of those who are destined for the priesthood in the Philippine Islands. These men live within the cloisters according to the ancient regime; but they are forbidden to appear in public in the costumes of their respective orders. The preservation of those two establishments was considered indispensable for the preparation of materials for the government of those remote possessions, where the Indians are accustomed to obey the priest, and look upon him with more respect than that shown to the civil authority, and where their influence is sufficient, according to general opinion, to put down that revolutionary spirit which has despoiled Spain of her splendid dominions in South America. All this, however plausible, may arise out of a mistaken policy. New political ideas and legislation, under constitutional rule, have respected the convents of the nuns. One can scarcely conceive of this inconsistency on the part of governments which, under the name ofliberty, have ruled Spain in these latter times. If the abolition of the convents of friars had for its chief ground the uselessness of those who inhabited them, it must be admitted that infinitely more useless is the life of a nun, consecrated to perpetual idleness, and without further occupation than that of assisting in the choir and in devotional practices, to which duties she could equally resign herself in the bosom of her own family.
The religious communities of women have the same denominations as the convents of friars, and they call themselves Augustines, Franciscans, Benedictines, &c. The respective rules of their organization do not exact from them, in any case, more duties than those of a contemplative life; and, in reality, there are now but few of those convents of nuns whose inmates dedicate themselves to the task of giving to persons of their own sex even the imperfect and limited education which, after all, forms no part of that useful knowledge required by modern civilization.
The Spanish nuns are, absolutely, some of the most insignificant of beings. There is nothing recorded of them either good or bad, and for many centuries we have no account of any Spanish nun distinguished for her talents, her writings, or even for her eminent virtues. In their conversation, they display a childish simplicity and an unwearied curiosity, together with an extraordinary deficiency of knowledge as it respects the fundamental truths of the Christian faith. The amusements with which they while away their secluded lives are reduced to those of making sweets (dulces),dressing images of saints, embroidering scapularies,[71a]and other such-like frivolities. A celebrated living poet has characterised them with great propriety and truth in the following epitaph:—
“Aqui yace Sor Belen,Que hizó almibares mui bien,Y pasó la vida enteraVistiendo niños de cera.”[71b]
“Aqui yace Sor Belen,Que hizó almibares mui bien,Y pasó la vida enteraVistiendo niños de cera.”[71b]
Except the convents of nuns of the mendicant orders, the greater part of them, in Spain, possessed, prior to the constitutional regime, considerable inheritances. These, however, having been, by a decree of the Cortes, converted and sold as national property, all their means are reduced to a bare subsistence on a small pension whichoughtnow to be paid from the public treasury; but as that obligation has frequently been neglected in consequence of the repeated disturbances which have interrupted the peace of the monarchy, those unhappy women have often been overwhelmed with the greatest privations and misery. In such cases Christian charity has lent its succour, and all classes of the state have contributed to their relief. The government, on different occasions, has prohibited the admission of novices to these convents of nuns, in order that death itself might, without violence,extinguish those institutions, which are contrary to the ideas of the age. But this salutary provision has been imprudently eluded by the bishops, and recently modified by an article of theconcordateffected with the court of Rome a few years ago, and which is everywhere unpopular.
One of the great evils resulting from the continuance of these nuns in Spain is, that they occupy numerous edifices worthy of a better purpose, and generally in the best situations in populous cities. Only one convent of this class deserves particular mention, on account of the great historical recollections connected with its existence, for the singularity of its organization, and for the pious object of its institution. It is called the Conventde las Huelgas, and is situated at a short distance from Burgos.
This magnificent establishment, founded and enriched by ancient monarchs, maintained an hospital in which a great number of invalids were attended to with the greatest care. The abbess wore the mitre andbaculolike the bishops, and exercised both civil and criminal jurisdiction in the vast dominions belonging to the convent; she was called Señora dehorca y cuchillo,[72]and was the chief of several ecclesiastical and secular officers. The sumptuous church of this convent contained within its walls the ashes of many of the kings and princes of ancient Spanish dynasties.
Celibacy and Morals.—Illicit relations formed by the clergy—Shameless avowal of their fruits—Ferocious character of love in the cloisters—Three flagrant cases—Murder of a young lady by her confessor, the Carmelite of San Lucar—His trial and sentence—Murder by a wife of her husband under the direction of her confessor, the Capuchine of Cuenca—His trial, imprisonment, and escape—Murder of a lady by the Agonizante of Madrid—His trial and execution—Scandalous occurrences in the Convent of the Basilios of Madrid—Forcible entry of the civil power—Murder of the abbot—Suppression of inquiry—Shameful profligacy of the Capuchines of Cascante and the nuns of a neighbouring convent—Mode of its discovery—Imprisonment of inmates of both convents—Removal of prisoners—Their mysterious escape—Exemplary performance of vows in some cases—Dangers of celibacy—Spanish women and their influence on society.
Religious celibacy has been justly censured, by true Christians, as opposed to the ends of creation, to the spirit of the gospel, and the good order of human society. If so severe a prohibition can scarcely be observed without great mortification and inconvenience by a few,—a very small number of men, endued with an aptitude which places them above the ordinary laws of humanity,—what shall we say to the possibility of its exercise by men with no such fitness for the task,—men of a nation whose very climate is incessantly solicitingthe expansion of the sensual faculties,—a nation of whose social organization frequent intercourse in all the affairs of life between the two sexes is one of the most essential and necessary elements? We have already alluded to the state of concubinage in which the Spanish clergy were living prior to the reign of Isabella the Catholic. But we shall not be guilty of an injustice in admitting, that from that period until our own times a great number of the Spanish clergy, as well regular as secular, have borne the yoke with singular patience, and have, with exemplary self-denial, resigned themselves to the severe privation imposed upon them by that ordinance of their church. On the other hand, however, we cannot dissimulate the violent struggle between inclination and duty which they have had to sustain, and the immense difficulty of resisting a temptation which the frequent intercourse with the female portion of their charge has always offered to the clergy and friars in the discharge of their functions, especially when it is considered how prodigal nature has been to the women of the Peninsula in the bestowment of her richest personal attractions, and that great facilities have been given to the spiritual guides for the abuse of thatprestigeconferred upon them by the habit of their order.
In large towns, the presence of the bishops, and the respect which a polished and select society inspired, were, for the most part, a check on the impure inclinations of the clergy, even when their own sense of virtue and religion was insufficient to lead them to a spontaneous compliance with their arduous but sacred duty. But in small towns where these barriers did not exist,the clergy and friars, it must be admitted, infringed, and continued grossly to infringe, frequently in a scandalous manner, the vow of celibacy which they had solemnly sworn to observe. The priest of a rural parish, who was generally the most important personage of the whole population, had so frequent and such dangerous opportunities of forming relations of an illicit character with the weaker sex, that he required a proportionate degree of sanctity, virtue, and prudence, to resist them. These relations, however, be it said to the shame of Spain, once formed, are not concealed, but are generally openly and unblushingly made known to the public. All the towns-people know very well the person who is the priest’squerida;[75]nay more, on many occasions they have recourse to her influence over the mind of their pastor; and even the fruits of these illicit relations are commonly known throughout the parish by the name of “the children of the priest!” (los hijos del cùra.)
Not many years ago, in a small town in Valencia, and on a Sunday, the parishioners assembled in the square according to custom, waiting till the bell should announce to them the hour of entering the church to hear mass; hour after hour passed—no bell sounded—the people directed their steps towards the house of the priest’squerida, where they found that he had passed the night in orgies of drunkenness and dissipation, and was, even then, in a state of intoxication.
It is worthy of note, as a remarkable circumstance, borne out by experience and by facts well authenticated,that the softer passion of the mind is, generally, in the cloisters, one of a cruel and ferocious character, quite incompatible with its natural essence. The archives of the Spanish tribunals abound with criminal proceedings against friars, for murders committed on the persons of their unhappy victims or paramours. There are three celebrated instances of this kind,—one against the Carmelite of San Lucar, another against the Capuchine of Cuenca, and the third against the Agonizante of Madrid.
The first of these notorious delinquents was a man of middle age, robust, strong, and who, until the event now referred to, had not given occasion for the least suspicion as to his morality. A young lady, of extraordinary beauty, and held in great esteem by all the towns-people for the purity of her conduct and the sanctity of her life, used frequently to attend the confessional of this Carmelite friar. He conceived for her, secretly, a violent passion, which he kept up and fostered through the constant interviews which his vocation afforded him in gaining the unlimited confidence of his penitent. But he contrived, with incredible command over himself, to suppress his feelings. He never uttered one word to the young creature which could indicate to her the risks she was incurring in seeking for his guidance and blessing. One day, however, she appeared before him on her knees at his confessional, and, with a simplicity and sweetness, such as innocence alone can command, informed him that, with the advice and consent of her parents, she was about to enter into the married state, and now came before him, as her spiritual father, to prepare herself for soimportant an ordinance by the previous sacraments of confession, absolution, and the holy communion. The friar heard this simple statement, received the child’s confession, little as that amounted to, pronounced upon her the absolution, and administered to her the eucharist, without betraying the least perturbation or confusion in his countenance. On rising from her knees, as pure, as holy, and as fully and freely pardoned from sin as her fond and simple mind imagined it was in the power of her church and its minister to make her, the friar said he wished her to go to the vestibule (porteria[77]), where he would give her some counsel relative to the new state into which she was about to enter. The unsuspecting girl blindly obeyed the voice which had often before directed her in the ways of virtue; she rose, went to the indicated spot, where already stood the friar, who, without uttering one word, drew from his bosom a poniard, and thrust it into the heart of his ill-fated victim, who fell mortally wounded at his feet. With the utmost coolness, the assassin retired to his cell, wiping the gory blade on the sleeve of his habit, as if he had been performing a most innocent deed. The alarm was immediately given. The friar was arrested and thrown into prison. Proceedings were commenced, and supported by evidence which left no doubt as to the author of the crime, and the circumstances under which it was committed. Thepublic prosecutor (fiscal) moved the court for the extreme penalty of death; but against this sentence arose a strenuous opposition on the part of the bishops, who pretended, in the first place, that the crime was one which ought only to be judged by the ecclesiastical authority, and in the second, that in no case could the penalty of death be inflicted on a priest. The contest was carried to the government for its decision, and the minister, Campomanes, a zealous defender of the sovereign’s rights, as well as a constant enemy to the usurpations of the clergy, confirmed the jurisdiction of the civil power which had heard the cause, and declared that the Spanish legislature offered no impediment to the execution of the last penalty of the law, if the judges found sufficient grounds to warrant them in awarding it. The judges did so find, and pronounced sentence accordingly; but the king, Charles III., commuted the sentence to perpetual banishment and imprisonment. The assassin was conducted to Puerto Rico, where he ended his life, weighed down by remorse, though his hours were consecrated to penitence and prayer.
The history of the second case, viz., that of the Capuchine of Cuenca, bears a still more scandalous and atrocious character. The unhallowed passions of this great criminal had their origin also in the confessional. The accomplice of his wickedness was, too, his “daughter of confession,” (hija de confesion.[78]) She wasthe wife of a carpenter of respectable character, who, not content with the influence which the friar exercised over the conscience of his wife, wished that influence might also be brought to bear over the concerns of his own modest household, and therefore frequently invited the friar to his table. The latter and hisquerida, unknown to the confiding carpenter, passed some years in a total abandonment of themselves to vicious courses. The friar began, subsequently, to imagine he observed a certain coldness or indifference on the part of his companion in guilt, and, attributing that change to a feeling of the woman’s self-disgust and reproach, he had recourse to the most diabolical means of searing her conscience, and making her still more the associate of his depravity: indeed, it is not possible even to read without horror of the abominable artifices to which this monster of iniquity had recourse, although these were all minutely detailed in the written charges brought against him at his trial, and were deposed to by the woman herself, she being fully corroborated by the testimony of other witnesses secreted in a part of the house from whence his revolting conduct was both seen and heard. One step in the path of immorality and crime too often leads on to another. The friar at length imagined that the woman’s indifference arose from some latent spark of affection which she still bore to her husband, and he resolved on sacrificing the life of the unfortunate man whose connubial rights seemed to stand in his way. Full of impatience for the consummationof the diabolical project when once he had determined on its execution, and having given to his victim a strong soporific, which threw him into a heavy sleep, he proceeds to urge on the faithless wife to the act of stabbing her unconscious husband. This tragedy she performed with one of the unhappy man’s own instruments of trade, under the guidance of the friar, who first ascertained and indicated to her, by the pulsations of the doomed man’s heart, the exact spot into which she was to give the instrument its fatal plunge.
The extreme docility of the woman in the hands of the friar, as disclosed in the evidence, can only be explained by the absolute control which he held over her conscience and her will; and, doubtless, even that control arrived at such a pitch, that, at last, the yoke became insupportable, if we may judge from the declarations which she made during the trial, for she appeared to take credit to herself for the revelations which she then made of all the disgusting particulars connected with the crimes of that detestable culprit.
Immediately after the perpetration of the crime, the civil power seized the persons of both the guilty parties, and began to prosecute judicial inquiries, with the greatest secrecy, under the clandestine supervision of the bishop. The proceedings were prolonged to an indefinite period, until the friar had been six years in prison, within which interval the woman died. In a popular commotion which occurred in Cuenca in consequence of an invasion by the French, all prisoners were set at liberty, and this execrable miscreant disappeared.
TheAgonizanteof Madrid[81](which is the third case) also murdered the companion of his vices, on her own bed too, in which they had passed the preceding night. The true motive of this murder could never be satisfactorily ascertained. But the friar having been takenin flagrante, the judges could not hesitate for a moment in passing sentence of death upon him. All the Spanish clergy had recourse to Ferdinand VII., and used their utmost influence to obtain a pardon, or at least a commutation of the sentence; but the king was inflexible, and the criminal died at the hands of the executioner, by thegarrote, in the Plazuela de la Cebada, in Madrid.
Under the same reign of Ferdinand VII., the Convent of the Basilios of Madrid was the theatre of most scandalous and sanguinary atrocities, which had their origin in the relaxed manners of the inhabitants of that establishment. The friars were accustomed to introduce by night into the cloisters women of ill fame, and this custom had grown into something like a right or privilege, which the friars were resolved to maintain at all hazards, as it was afterwards proved; for the abbot, who until then had connived at these irregularities, wished all of a sudden to adopt a system of the utmost rigour and discipline, and to reduce the friars to the severe observances of their order. The convent was situated in the most populous part of Madrid. One night in the year 1832, loud screams were heardby the inhabitants of the opposite houses, and by people who were passing in the streets. The civil authorities were called to the spot, and informed of the circumstances. They demanded entrance at the doors of the convent, but the friars refused to comply. Force became necessary. The gates were broken open, and the officers rushed in. All, however, that the public could ever learn of that nocturnal invasion was simply that the head of the unfortunate abbot was found in one cell, and his trunk in another. Ferdinand VII. did not on that occasion display the same degree of indignation and severity as he had done towards the Agonizante. He was at that moment in all the plenitude of his despotic power, and this mysterious affair of the convent of the Basilios was buried in the most profound oblivion.
These terms of harmony have always existed between the Spanish monarchs and the clergy, who have been accustomed to lend themselves, reciprocally, to the interests and persecutions of each other; and hence it is that a great number of crimes similar to that just referred to has never before been brought to light. Some of these, however, have been of such a nature and magnitude, and accompanied with such extraordinary circumstances, that, in spite of the efforts made by the clergy to conceal them, they have not altogether eluded the public curiosity. To this class belongs the celebrated case of the Capuchines of Cascante, the recollection of which is traditionally preserved, and is still the subject of many a conversation, although to the present day we are not aware of any account that has been published on the subject of that shamefultransaction. There still exist those who either were children in the time of Charles III., or who heard, from the lips of their fathers or grandfathers, all the particulars of that flagrant case, as well as of the extraordinary sensation which the discoveries then made produced on the public mind. The facts, which appear indisputable, are these:—Towards the middle of the reign of that sovereign, a prelate of one of the districts of the province of Arragon had good reason to believe that there existed intimate and criminal relations between the nuns and the friars of two convents situated in the same town. It had been observed that the number of foundlings had been for some time considerably on the increase, many of which were left, by persons unknown, in the houses of poor women, who received with them very considerable sums of money. At first, no suspicion whatever fell on the friars, who continued their offices of preaching, saying mass, confessing penitents, and giving ostentatious indications of their leading humble and ascetic lives. A diligent watch was instituted by the authorities, but as far as exterior observances went, there was no reason to believe that any suspicious persons from without ever entered the convent of the nuns; it was therefore thought right to have an internal examination of that convent, a measure never had recourse to by the authorities but on occasions of the gravest kind.
The result of this step was, that in the interior of the edifice was discovered a door leading to a subterranean passage or tunnel which crossed underneath the principal street of the town, and led direct to theconvent of the Capuchines. All the inmates of both establishments were immediately taken prisoners; a judicial examination followed, when it was found that for many years the societies of these two convents had been living in a state of concubinage,—that even the outward doors of the two houses were seldom shut at night,—that the friars had free ingress to the convent of the nuns, where both sexes gave themselves up to the most dissolute abandonment in drunkenness, gluttony, debauchery, and all sorts of carnal excesses. The authorities found more than they had expected, and began to repent the course they had taken. The trials, however, were pushed forward apparently with all usual formalities, but the judges were exclusively ecclesiastics, and everything was conducted with profound caution and secrecy. The prisoners were removed to several towns in Arragon, and kept apart from each other, in different cells; but in one single night they all disappeared, and were never afterwards heard of. The only part which the civil authority took in this mysterious affair was to command the two convents to be pulled down, and salt to be sown on their foundations,—a ceremony which was accordingly performed, and one which the laws of Spain then required as to all houses which had been the scene of any atrocious offence.
It may hardly be necessary to reiterate what we have already more than once insisted on, as a well authenticated fact, that in the midst of all such irregularities and crimes as those detailed to show the unnatural and violent character of celibacy in the clergy, therealways have been, in Spain, a large number of persons of both sexes, who have been privileged to take up and bear this cross of privation with singular resignation and constancy. But those efforts on the side of virtue, that perpetual conflict with sentiments most grateful to the human heart,—and that separation of an entire class, constituted in society self-acting, without any relation of endearment towards a general society,—may be considered as some of the grave inconveniences of Roman Catholicism, or rather as some of the most formidable obstacles which that faith opposes to the regular habits and to the peace of families.
The dangers of celibacy in the clergy are perhaps more serious and more inevitable in Spain than in any other country of Europe. The Spanish nation is, generally, renowned for its chivalrous sentiments, for the violence of the tender passions, and for the influence which the fair sex exercises, not only in all the domestic but in the civil and political relations of life. There is, in the society of the Spanish lady, a distinctive feature of character, calledfranqueza, which, above all others, gives her the greatest charm in the eyes of a foreigner. She is eminently sociable, and is the life and essence of Spanish society, in which she maintains an imperium over all tastes, affections, and operations. Besides this, it is the universal custom of Spaniards to be constantly going in and out of one another’s houses without ceremony or invitation; and this frequent contact with Spanish women, generally pretty, but almost always amiable and graceful, naturally produces intimate relations, and not unfrequently reciprocal attachments.One may conceive of such a thing as a cold, repulsive resistance to such attractions in the dreariness of a desert, or even within the four walls of a cell; but when such influences are not merely occasionally, but unceasingly brought to bear upon the senses, they too often leave impressions which, by a law of our sinful nature, are capable of reciprocating so as to produce their corresponding effects. Hence humanity, unless upheld and strengthened by a superior power, is too often insufficient and prone to give up the contest.
In Spain, the inferior classes of society have always, until of late, submitted not only to the influence but to the authority of a priest or a friar; and it may well be conceived how easy it is to abuse this power in the intercourse which such functionaries have with ignorant and weak persons. In small towns, the inhabitants of which are devoted exclusively to labour, fathers and husbands pass the entire day in the fields, whilst the priest remains at home without a witness of his conduct or his actions. No domestic hearth is at liberty to exclude him. He is authorised by custom to enter all houses, at all hours, where he is received and treated almost as a god. These are facts which can be vouched by all Spaniards, by whom they are spoken of without the least reserve. In laying them before the English public, we disavow all idea of calumniating an entire class of Spanish society. Our object is to point out one of the causes which, in our opinion, enters into the number of those which, most effectively, have contributed to the decline of so sensible and generous a nation.