The Buried Mirror: Reflections on Spain and the New World [1 ed.] 0395924995, 9780395924990

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THE

BURIED MIRROR 1^ Reflections

on Spain and the Neu^ Worlc) m^

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I

n his introi^uction to this passionate history

id Spain and the Spanish-speaking peoples ot the [Americas. Carlos Fuentes asks the necessary [question:

have to celebrate on

really

hundredth anniversary of Columbus's

[the five [historic

What do we

New

voyage to the

World? After

all,

the

[quincentennial of the "discovery ok America" I

American republics

finds the Latin

deep

crisis,

a state of

in

with inflation, unemployment, and

excessive foreign debt threatening their

still

pre-

carious economic and political institutions. But

Fuentes finds much consolation rich cultural heritage,

with "the greatest the greatest risk" ture,

and above

an amazingly

in

one that has been created

joy. the greatest gravity,

and that

all in

and

lives in art, in litera-

the vital societies of Central

and South America.

From

the mysterious cave drawings at Altamira

to the explosive graffiti

on the walls of

Elast

Los

Angeles, images of Spain and the Americas speak to us of the great variety of los

Fuentes knows

Spanish culture. Car-

this culture intimately.

Com-

bining a sophisticated perspective on world events and a novelist's eye for irony and metaphor, he

weaves a

historical narrative of dazzling

color and vibrancy.

Sweeping across centuries of

tumultuous history, Fuentes gives new

life

to

monarchs and conquistadors,

to Indian cultures

and revolutions, and

modern-day Spain,

finally to

Latin America, and the Hispanic United States. Historv'

and

its

in the stories

the heroes

players

come

alive

on every page,

of the famous and the little-known,

and

tyrants, martyrs

and

saints, virgins

and kings.

Using the illuminating metaphor of mirrors, inspired in

by mirrors found

in

^'^^'

ancient burial caches

the Americas, Fuentes challenges us to think in

4

^

continued on back flap

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BURIED MIRROR Reflectlotu on Spain

and

the

New

World

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E

BURIED MIRROR Reflectiond on Spain

and

the

New World

Carbd Faentcd

Houghton Boston

Mifflin Corti^ah\

New York London

1992

Copyright

©

1992 bv Carlos Fuentes

All rights reserved

For information about permission from

to

reproduce selections

book, write to Permissions, Houghton

this

215 Park Avenue South,

Library of

New

York,

New York

Contjre.i,! dilaloijinij-iii-Piihluiilioii

iWitflin

Company,

10003.

Dnln

Fuentes, Carlos.

The buried mirror

reflections

:

on

Spam and

the

New World

/

Carlos Fuentes.

cm.

p.

Includes bibliographical references (p.

ISBN 1.

—

Spain

America.

3.

Civilization.

DP96.F84 946'. 02

-

Printed

m

10

Civilization

Spain I.

dc20

—

—

711-1516.

Civilization

—

and index.

91-34312

CIP

the United States of America b\'

Renee Khatami

987654321

2.

Spam

1516-1700.

Title.

1992

Book design

HOR

)

0-395-47978-9

— 4.

Colonies

—

Latm America

—

For

Silvia^

alwayd

Books by Carlos Fuentes

Where

the

Air Li Clear

The Good Conscience

Aura The Death of Artemio Cruz

A

Change of Skin Terra Nostra

The Hydra Head

Burnt Water

Dutant

Relations

The Old Gringo

Myself with Others Chruitopher Unborn

Constancia and Other Stories for Virgins

The Campaign

The Buried Mirror

CONTENTS

Introduction

8

E PARTI THE VIRGIN AND THE BULL K One: Sun and Shadow

15

Two: The Conquest of Spain

33

Three: The Reconquest of Spain Four: 1492: The Crucial Year

79

THE CONFLICT OF THE GODS S 93 Five: The Rise and Fall of the Indian World New of the World and Reconquest Conquest The part

r.

Six:

51

22

II

PART

III

CHILDREN OF LA MANCHA ^

Age of Empire 151 171 Eight: The Century of Gold Nine: The Baroque Culture of the New World Ten: The Age of Goya 215 Eleven: Toward Independence 233 Seven: The

195

partiv the price of freedom s

23

Twelve: Simon BoliVar and Jose de San Martin Thirteen: The Time of Tyrants

261

Fourteen: The Culture of Independence Fifteen: 23

Land and Liberty

299

PARTV UNFINISHED BUSINESS S Sixteen: Latin America

313

Seventeen: Contemporary Spain Eighteen: Hispanic U.S.A.

The Monarchs of Spain Sources and Readings Illustration Credits

Acknowledgments Index

389

341 356 366

385 388

331

277

249

1

19

Introduction

October

n

wager on a

1492, Christopher

12,

scientific

all

But he was wrong

w^est.

thought that he had arrived

in Asia.

small

evidence, he had put his

hypothesis and won: since the earth

can reach the Ea^t by sailing

He

Columbus landed on a

Western Hemisphere. Against

island in the

is

round, one

in his

geography.

His desire was to reach the fabled

lands ol Cipango (Japan) and Cathay (China), cutting short the route

along the coast of Africa, south to the Cape of to the Indian It

Ocean and

was not

islands,

the

which he

pean settlements first

first

the

New

Columbus estabhshed

He

World.

the

first

built the first churches,

Christian masses were celebrated there. Finding a domain

the Asian wealth that he had hoped

for,

Spain the discover)' of great richness wise, his patroness,

ment (and her

then east

or the last Occidental dis-Orientation. In these

called the Indies, in

Good Hope and

the Spice Islands.

Queen

Isabella,

Euro-

and the

empty of

he invented and reported back to

in forests, pearls,

and gold. Other-

might have thought that her invest-

faith) in the highly inventive

Genoese

sailor

had been

misplaced.

More

than offering gold, Columbus offered a vision of the Golden

Age: these lands were Utopia, the happy place of the natural man.

come upon

the earthly paradise and the noble savage.

immediately forced to deny

own

his

so recently described as "naked,

Why,

taken prisoner

was he

discover^', attack the people he

unarmed and

friendly," hunt

enslave them, and even send them back to Spain in irons? In

women who were

He had

then,

in

Cuba

all

had

them down, fact,

young

died before they even

reached Spain.

At through

Columbus did

first

his

own

step into the

doing, the earthly paradise

merly good savage was seen as to

sow and

8 3

to

Golden Age. But very soon,

do aught

else that

"fit

to be

was destroyed and

the for-

ordered about and made to work,

may be needed." Ever since,

the

American

Introduction

continent has existed between dream and

good society live.

We

that

we

reality, in

memory of the good

end of the road, as the

society

—

the quincentennial of his voyage

of human history, a turn age. But

many

A

which we

lies in

really

as a Utopia,

our origins, and also

at the

fulfillment of our hopes.

Five hundred years after Columbus,

whether there

in

we were founded

have clung to Utopia because

because the

a divorce between the

and the imperfect society

desire

in

we

are being asked to celebrate

undoubtedly one of the great events

modern

events that heralded the arrival of the

of us in the Spanish-speaking parts of the Americas wonder is

anything to celebrate.

glance at the Latin American republics would lead us to reply in

the negative.

Whether in Caracas

or in

Mexico

City, in

Lima or

Buenos

in

Aires, the fifth centennial of the "discovery of America" finds us in a state

of deep, deep

crisis.

Inflation,

unemployment, the excessive burden of

foreign debt. Increasing poverty and illiteracy; an abrupt decline of pur-

chasing power and standards of

hopes and

Yet

lost illusions. Fragile

I

living.

believe that in spite of

we do have something

A

sense of frustration, of dashed

democracies menaced by social explosion. all

to celebrate.

our economic and

political troubles,

The present

throughout Latin

crisis

America demonstrates the vulnerability of our political and economic systems, which have come crashing down around our heads. But it has also revealed something that has remained standing, something that w^ere not acutely aw^are of during the decades of political fervor following

World War

our misfortunes, has remained on heritage ity,

—

II.

Something

and the greatest

risk.

This

blacks, and Europeans

greatest joy, the greatest grav-

the culture that w^e have been able to

hundred years,

the

as descendants of Indians,

New World.

own hands and

forced us to realize that there

single Latin American, from the Rio Grande

heir to each

midst of

has impoverished us has also put the wealth of our

crisis that

culture back in our

in

is

that, in the

own tw^o feet. And that is our cultural

what we have created with the

create during the past five

The

its

we

economic boom and

and every aspect of our

to explore in this book.

It

to

Cape Horn, w^ho

cultural heritage. This

is

is

is

w^hat

not a

not an I

w^ish

ranges from the stone of Chichen Itza and

Machu Picchu to modern Indian influences in painting and architecture. From the baroque art of the colonial era to the contemporary literature of Jorge Luis Borges and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. From the multifaceted

European presence

in

Latin America

—

Iberian,

and through Iberia

Mediterranean, Roman, Greek, and also Arab and Jewish gular and suffering black Alrican presence.

From

—

to the sin-

the caves of Altamira

r.9

The Buried Mirror And Irom

to the graffiti in l^st Ix)s Angeles.

Bermg

across the

U.S. border

Few nuity. In

and

it,

we Spanish Americans can on

That

this continent.

been unable I

undocumented workers crossing the

Strait to the latest

Tijuana-San Diego.

cultures in the world possess a comparable richness and conti-

sisters

ha\'e tit\'.

at

the earliest immigrants

to establish a

identify ourselves

why we

is

find

it

and our brothers

comparable economic and

suspect that this has been so because

all

we

so striking that

too olten

political iden-

we have sought

or imposed on ourselves models of development that are scarcely related to

our cultural

can give

us,

nomic, and

coming

with luck and

this reason, a rediscovery

of cultural values

etlort, the necessar\' vision of cultural, eco-

convergences. Perhaps this

political

our mission

is

the

in

centur\'.

This book ity that

For

realit\'.

therefore dedicated to a search for the cultural continu-

is

can inform and transcend the economic and

fragmentation of the Hispanic world. The subject polemical, and

will

I

try'

also be passionate about

to be

evenhanded

because

it,

it

in

political disunit\' is

dealing with

concerns

me

and

both complex and it.

But

shall

I

intimately as a man, as

who

a writer, and as a citizen, from Mexico, in Latin America,

writes in

the Spanish language.

Searching for a guide through Hispanic world,

found

I

it

near the

this divided night of the soul

site of

Tajin, in Veracruz, Mexico. Veracruz

been the port

capital has

abiding hearth

of entry for

iMexican

of

identity'.

is

of the

the ancient Totonac ruins at El

the native state of

my

family. Its

change, and at the same time the

Veracruz

is

a city that holds

many

The Spanish, French, and North American conquerors have entered Mexico through it. But the oldest cultures — the Olmecs to the mysteries.

south of the port the north, In

1

city,

dating from 3,500 years ago, and the Totonacs to

,500 \'ears old

—

are also rooted here.

tombs surrounding the

religious sites of these native peoples,

mirrors have been found, buried, ostensibly, to guide the dead through the underworld. Concave, opaque, polished, they contain the spark of light in the

midst of darkness. But the buried mirror

indian occurrence. \\\s

L e,*piLwterrat,

tradition not far

is

Amera book of

not only an

The Catalonian poet Ramon Xirau has

titled

the buried mirror, recovering an ancient Mediterranean

remoxed from

that of the ancient Amerindians.

A

mirror:

looking from the Americas to the Mediterranean, and back. This

the

is

very sense and rhythm of this book.

On this shore are the slate-black pyrite mirrors found at the of El Tajin, an astounding

P\Tamid of the Niches,

10^

site

whose name means

rising 82 feet

on a base

pyramid

"lightning." In

of 115

square

feet,

its

365

Introduction

square windows open out, symbolizing, of course, the days of the solar year. Created in stone. El Taj in

On w^ith

Don

has a mirror

in

in his

fool,

Nearby,

it

a mirror of time.

Quixote, attempting to cure him of his madness. The old hidalgo

which, poor

quez

is

the other shore, Cervantes' Knight of the Mirrors does battle

mind, reflecting everything that he has ever read,

he considers to be the truth.

in the

Prado

Museum of Madrid

hangs a painting by Velaz-

which he pictures himself painting w^hat he

he had created a mirror. But

in

mirror reflects the true witnesses ol the work of

Perhaps the mirror the

smoking mirror

the

god

offer

ol

of

is

actually painting, as

the very depth of his canvas, yet another

Velazquez also

of the Toltec

god

you and

art:

reflects,

I.

on the Spanish shore,

ol night, Tezcatlipoca, as

he

visits

peace and creativity, Ouetzalcoatl, the Plumed Serpent, to

him the

gilt

Does he

On

of the mirror.

identifies himself with

seeing himself reflected, Ouetzalcoatl

humanity, and

falls, terrified.

find his true nature, both

human and

House

divine, in the

of Mirrors, the circular temple of the Toltec pyramid at Teotihuacan, or in

the cruel social mirror of Goya's Caprichoj,

and human society cannot deceive truth?

You thought you were

Mirrors symbolize surface,

its

depths, and

itself as

where vanity it

of

debunked

a dandy? Look, you are truly a monkey.

reality, the sun, the earth, all

is

gazes into the mirror of

its

and

its

four corners,

Americas, they also cling to the bodies of the humblest celebrators

Peruvian highlands or

in the

its

peoples. Buried in caches throughout the

Mexican Indian

carnivals.

the

in

As the people

dance, w^ith scissors hanging from their legs and arms and bits and pieces

of mirrors

embedded

in their

headdresses, they

salvaging this reflection ot their identity, which

gold they gave Europe

Are they not

in

is

now

reflect the

world,

more precious than the

exchange.

right? Is not the mirror both a reflection of reality

and

a projection of the imagination?

E

//

>.

'.,^.;V('.,H,|t,j.(ji/;J

),!;A,;i..,.i'ri '

'1,1 III

l> .

"''''•'"''

.»*ir.\.aL

'''11 iiiVayu'i'r

a).

'5

B

75

The Buried Mirror Two

still the Jews who employed the comment on them, write philosophy, and study astronomy. One can say that the Jews fixed and circulated the

centuries after Alfonso,

was

it

vulgar tongue to read the Scriptures,

use of the Spanish language

in

Spain.

Nevertheless, in the tricultural sweepstakes, with their bonuses of tolerance and intolerance, none suffered more than the Spanish Jews, the

Sephardim. The reign, in the

Jews

first

artisans, farmers, traders,

were

fiercely persecuted.

sions as a

arrived in Spain during the emperor Hadrian's

second century, and they became not only

means

intellectuals but

and physicians. But under the Visigoths they

They were accused of creating economic depres-

lor expropriating property. Saint Isidore of Seville

was

not above a stale and repugnant reason for rejection of the Jews: they

were condemned by It is

their father's sins to dispersion

and oppression.

not surprising that, rejected (but not expelled) by the Gothic

kingdoms, the Jews should have welcomed the Arab invasions of Spain, preparing for them with great anticipation and remaining part of the

Muslim

society,

where they

in

Andalusia as

w^ere recognized as children of

Abraham. But the successive invasions of the Almoravids and the Almohads, after the death of Al-Mansur, brought to Muslim Spain a wave of strict orthodoxy directed against all non-Muslims, including Mozarabs and Jews. These then fled north, to the Christian territories, swiftly migrating from city to

city.

They

lived in their separate ghettos {aljamaj,

and enjoyed royal support because of their special talents (commerce and medicine), but they were constantly harassed by popular

juder'uuf^

Had they not killed Christ? Had they not "lost Spain" to the Muslims? Were they not richer than most, and also oppressively usu-

hatred.

rious?

Indeed, the Catholic church forbade usury, and Saint

Thomas Aqui-

money with interest w^as a crime against Holy Ghost. Capitalism could hardly prosper under these circumstances; it kills the Holy Ghost every morning as soon as Wall Street opens. But anti-Semitism could and did. And along with it, the criterion nas himself w^rote that lending

the

that purity of race

and

religious

orthodoxy w^ere somehow basic to the

very notion of Spain came into being. First Jews were forbidden to

occupy the same houses as Christians; then Jews could not judge or bear witness against Christians; and finally the pogrom exploded, fanned by

envy (Hispanic envy

—

the most virulent), by the Black Death,

brought extreme paranoia

in its

which

wake, and by extremist preachers who,

lacking television to inflame their bigoted audience, developed verbal fanaticism into a fine

76

K

art.

Not only was

the plague attributed to the Jew^s;

The Reconquedt of Spain

if

in

a battle against the it,

Moors was lost and converted Jews had participated

they were blamed for the defeat.

pogrom

In 1391,

follow^ed

pogrom.

It

w^as a

year of poverty and

plague. Four thousand Jew^s w^ere killed in Seville. In Cordoba, two

thousand dead men, women, and children lay

in

heaps

synagogues. Hundreds of Jews committed suicide

in

among the burned

Barcelona to escape

persecution, and also in response to the pain of seeing their families

butchered.

The

converjOii:

where

else

could a Spanish Jew^ trying to save his or

her neck go but into the arms of the Catholic church, always ready to receive the repentant? Yet mass conversions, often against the will of the

converted, permitted anti-Semitic preachers to blame the

cotu'erjoj for all

the sins that before they had placed on the Jew^s. Converted, the

Jews

soon found that they were suspected of heresy and malignant practices. Called

"new

Christians," they began to intermarry with "old Christians."

And

they gained access to the Spanish Catholic church, there becoming,

as

common

is

with the converted, the most zealous persecutors of their

former community, their Torquemadas. Events

had

now rushed forward

to face the challenge of

Would

to a

new world

situation in

becoming a modern, unified

which Spain nation-state.

she become modern and unified with or without her tricultural

heritage? This question previews Spain's role in the

were decided

in the

New

World. Both

events of the watershed year of Spanish history: 1492.

S

//

78^

rr8>(ir/svirrsvirrs\iySYirrSfiri«\irrstir)«\i>svirirsvirirs\irirSYih^

l'^92:

The Crucial Year

hroughout the West, Jl.hr

by

the Middle

Ages waned and were followed

a sense of renew^al, of expansion, and of discovery, forcing each Euro-

pean polity to take stock of itself and imagine what

its

place

would be

in a

new^ world order defined by a single w^ord: renaissance. For Spain, the national agenda comprised ending

Moorish kingdom remaining

la reconqu'uta

in the peninsula,

by defeating the

last

Granada. This w^ould

as-

sure territorial unity and the possibility of establishing a national state.

The

legal

map

of medieval Spain was that of a true archipelago of

laws and habits, going from the private pacts imposed by the feudal lords, to

customs shared by many on a

decisions.

But given the

tricultural nature of Iberia, this pattern also

to include the statutes privy to

Out

local basis, to judicial decisions, to royal

Jews, Mozarabs,

and

niudejared,

had

others.

of the jumble nevertheless emerged a constellation of local rights and

rights of the

were

kingdom, which opposed each other as long as the

local rights

The transformation of local rights into public laws gave the kingdoms added force, as they championed a return to Roman law and legal allegiance to one traditional ruler and

identified with the private, feudal link.

to public institutions.

through

his compilation of

Once more,

since Saint Isidore's to a restored

Roman

la\v

it

was Alfonso the Wise who,

Spanish laws, gave the most important thrust

and of Aristotelian

Roman

political

tradition.

The reception of

theory through King Alfonso, the

gradual replacement of feudal jurisdictions

in

matters of justice, taxes,

and armies by the kings of Castile, Aragon, and Navarre, and of renewing the nobility by ennobling their ow^n in spite of the turmoils of succession

allies

and dynastic

their policy

prepared the stage,

rivalry, for the unified

Spain of the fifteenth century. Detail of

Coiumbuj, from

a

map by

de

Bry

Theodor

Achieving Unity

When aries

the frontiers ceased to budge, between 1280 and 1480, the bound-

between each kingdom became

clearly established.

The

fight against

H 79

The Buried Mirror feudalism had signified two things:

be imposed over territory should

that the

first,

power of

the territory, and second, that the inhabitants of each

all

owe

allegiance to the king.

To

But

they were interested

in truth

and the of

citizens.

each person

of a iUUtUj/ of a lord to that of a juhject to themselves.

princely court established

over the territories of tence.

cities

changing the status

in

And

itself in

one capital

la reconijuLita.

A

we

this end, the kings, as

have seen, attempted to protect the freedoms of the from that

the king should

city,

Each

instead of roaming

royal bureaucracy

came

all

into exis-

the conrquhnui milked the towns for taxes.

Nevertheless, the

Roman

"full

powers," pote^ttatu

plenitiuh,

were

se-

verely undermined by political instability and dynastic warfare, which

much

plagued Spain as

Death

as the Black

did.

The plague appeared

around 1350, along with the reign of Peter the Cruel, who inherited the throne of Castile at age

was dominated by

went on

Henry

in

to fight five bastard brothers,

Maria

on a wintry day

fratricide. Finally,

his brother

fifteen,

his mistress,

in

Padilla,

and

who encouraged him

to

a tent outside Montiel, Peter fought

hand-to-hand combat, then perished when Henry

thrust a dagger into his heart.

Henry's triumph established the Trastamara family on the Castilian

The

throne. final

were far-reaching,

effects

for

through their lineage came the

dynastic struggle, which, significantly,

was

also a battle

and monarchy for the succession in Castile. The handsome but weak King John II of Castile permitted

between

nobility

the gov-

ernment to be run by the authoritarian and unscrupulous Alvaro de Luna,

who was

executed on orders of the king's wife,

who

then secured the

throne for her son. This was the impotent Henry IV, whose daughter w^as allegedly sired by a Beltraneja, she

nobleman

called Beltran de la Cueva.

was proclaimed

meet the opposing

will of the nobles,

sister, Isabella of Castile, as

by her putative

heiress

who

Known

as

La

father, only to

chose and imposed the king's

queen.

by dreams

Bright, energetic, intolerant, driven

of faith

and

unity,

but quite alien to the dream of cultural unity, Isabella married the king of

Aragon, Ferdinand,

in

M69, thus

sealing the union of Castile

and Aragon.

After her triumph over La Beltraneja and her marriage to Ferdinand, Isabella

was sure

of

one thing: her wedding enabled Spain

medieval kingdoms and bring forward, all

now without

to unify the

great impediments,

the forces furthering order, legality, and unity, at the expense of both

feudal

power

in

the countryside and

civil

power

in the cities. Isabella

Ferdinand had learned the lessons of Spain's long gration. Their actions promptly

monta

80 K

tanto, Isabel

showed

como Fernando,

"

it;

their

Isabella

and

fight for national inte-

motto w^as "Tanto monta,

was

as

worthy as Ferdi-

N92: The

Crucial Year

nand, and Castile the equal of Aragon. They created a bureaucracy of merit, not of favoritism,

and established

all

the trappings of

Roman

beginning with the identification ol monarchy, sovereignty, national diction,

and a centralized administration. The

was

to the

city,

and certainly not

monarchy and no longer to

subjects'

to the feudal lord

—

new

law,

juris-

allegiance

not even to his

another culture or another religion.

The unity of Spain formally achieved by

the royal couple

now

re-

quired a particular sanction: Islam had to be expelled for good from the peninsula.

As they prepared

were unaware

that they

the assault on Granada, the Catholic rulers

were embarking on the "watershed year of Spanish

history.

Ferdinand and Isabella were certainly clear about the importance

of

capturing Granada, but they could not have truly calculated the harm

would bring down on Spain by expelling the Jews, also in 1492. And when they sent an obscure sailor named Christopher Columbus on a that they

w^ild

goose chase over the horizon, the monarchs' hopes that they would

outflank the Portuguese on the quickest route to the Indies certainly did

not include coming upon a whole

new

continent, the third great event of

1492.

The fourth

act of that crucial year

is

hardly mentioned

books. Antonio de Nebrija published the

first

grammar

in the history

of the Spanish

language, an instrument of artistic achievement, moral strength, political alternative,

and multiracial union

and most of the

follies

that w^as to outlive

many

of the virtues

of the Catholic Monarchs, Isabel de Castilla and

Fernando de Aragon.

The Expulsion of the Jews Perhaps the worst blunder of the unified kingdom and

its

rulers, the

expulsion of the Jew^s, was determined by both ideological and material forces. Ideologically,

Ferdinand and Isabella wanted to consolidate unity

on the basis of religious orthodoxy and

racial purity.

The

ideal scapegoats

were, as usual, the Jews. The Catholic Monarchs decided to sacrifice Spain's greatest cultural asset, tion. Statutes calling for purity

the

Jews and then

its

mutually enriching tripartite

and orthodoxy were the

for persecuting, supervising,

nating the converts,

who remained

in

eval Inquisition,

from

suspected of

this end, the

weak medi-

under the direct orders of the Spanish kings. In

for this power, the

Rome

need be extermi-

dependent on the pope and the bishops, was transformed

into a potent tribunal

exchange

basis for expelling

if

who were

Spain and

being closet Jew^s or even outright heretics. To

and

civiliza-

church had to change

its

practical allegiance

to Spain.

r.

81

The Buried A\irror

LuiMla

in 1-192.

Spaiu.ih nianti.uript tlltiiniiuition,

As Gabriel Jackson explains fattened as

spread

it

its

against converts as well.

community

the Jewish

themselves

in

paradox of

became

in his AJahi'val Spain,

the Inquisition

persecution not only against the infidels but It

to

stalled conversion

become more

and forced what was

left of

intolerant than the Inquisitors

order to prove their orthodox trustworthiness. The supreme

dead-end situation was that converted Jews

this

the persecutors of their

own

fenders of monolithic order. The

at times

people and the most interested deinquisitor-general of Castile

and

Aragon, Torquemada, belonged to a family of converted Jews: the

zeal

first

of the converted. Religious considerations alone did not guide the policy of Ferdinand

and

They were

Isabella.

also interested in filling the royal coffers w^ith the

expropriated w^ealth of the most Industrious castes ironic that the

in

Spain.

but a pittance compared with what

it

mediately and immediately

1492, out of a total population of seven million, there were half a million lation

Jews and

was of Jewish

that expelled the

saw

its

truly

co/u'emo^K

stock.

Jews, rents

The

in

lost. In

Spain only

Yet about one third of the urban popuresult

in Seville

was

that one

year after the edict

dropped by one

half

and Barcelona

municipal bank go bankrupt.

Above deprived

all,

itself

the expulsion of the

of

need to maintain

many its

Jews meant

of the talents and services

imperial stature.

that Spain in effect it

would

later sorely

The Jews were the doctors and

surgeons of Spain, to a degree that Charles V,

82 3

It is

immediate benefits that the unified Crown received were

In

the 1530s, congratulated

/}.().

N92: The

a student of the University of Alcala on being "the

Crucial Year

hidalgo of Castile

first

to become a medical man. The Jews were the only tax collectors and the principal taxpayers of the realm. They were the bankers, the merchants, "

the moneylenders, and the spearhead of the nascent capitalist class in

Spain. Throughout the Middle Ages, they had been the intermediaries

between the Christian and Moorish kmgdoms, the administrators, for the sundry kings

who

altnojarife,

or finance

incessantly repeated that with-

out their Jewish bureaucracy the royal finances w^ould disappear, as they

indeed did servants,

when

the Jew^s

left.

The Jews served

upon themselves what the Spanish plish,

as ambassadors, public

and administrators of the royal patrimony.

considering

it

nobility

In fact, they took

would not deign

to

accom-

beneath their dignity as hidalgos. This meant that

after the edict of 1492, the converted

Jews had

their traditional occupations, since these openly

to disguise or

abandon

branded them as people

of "impure blood."

Who would take their place? "All

Is

Possible"

In the fifteenth century,

new

ideas influenced physical reality as

physical reality influenced the intellectual climate.

The

much

as

so-called discov-

ery of America, w^hatever one might ideologically think about

it,

w^as a

great triumph of scientific hypothesis over physical perception. Improve-

The Catholic Monarchic ing a

recen'-

Jewuh

deputation before the

expabion

of the Jeu\i. 19th-centiuy engraving, art Lit

unknown

ss

83

ThK

BL'RIKI)

iMlRROR

merits in navigation increased trade

and communication among peoples,

while the invention ot the printing press aroused great curiosity and a

growing whether

for

thirst

knowledge about the world.

this planet of

wondered

Scientists

ours could really be the center

And

ot the universe.

they also wondered about the shape ot the earth, while artists pondered

human presence on

the sense of the

human body, male and than

lile

eternal. "All

is

earth, including the shape of the

female, by celebrating the here and

"Nothing should be disdained. Nothing

Ficino.

impossible.

The

now

rather

possible," wrote the Italian humanist Marsilio

we deny

possibilities that

is

Nothing

incredible.

are but the possibilities that

is

we

ignore."

Spain was as prepared as any other European culture to join elan of the Renaissance.

The

of

Good Love, El

priest,

Juan

libro de hiien

spirit in

Spain.

The

first is

The Book

amor, published in 1330 by a jovial itinerant

Ruiz, the archpriest of Hita. His book

is

a song to the plea-

sures of the body, a celebration of the female form, and a refusal of

Deeply influenced by Arab poetry, Juan Ruiz

and

his conciliatory

the

produced two great

tricultural experience

books that nourished the Renaissance

in

message

is

that faith

is

sin.

the Spanish Chaucer,

and pleasure should not be

at

odds.

Even more

significant, perhaps,

by Fernando de Rojas sometime

ten

is

the tragicomedy Z/^z

A

the unprotected

by money, passion, cit\'

Jews.

It is

and

rambling, episodic, not to say itinerant play,

modern

city,

it

set in

is

seen by Rojas as a sieve of historical reality,

where the exemplary voices and

modern

two young

writ-

lovers,

after the expulsion of the

the stor)' of an old go-between, her female pupils, their servants.

Cele,