CHAPTER VIII.

THE REBELLION OF GRANADA.

In Granada the experiment was pushed to the uttermost of how far the endurance of a population could be tried by oppression and wrong of every kind. In the severe repression of the rising of 1500 the more turbulent spirits had been allowed to seek refuge in Barbary and the remainder had settled down peacefully, had pursued their industries and had formed, if not a contented, at least a fairly prosperous community, constituting, as they did, a vast majority of the inhabitants. Pedraza, himself a canon of the cathedral of Granada, and almost a contemporary, gives a most favorable account of them. There were few idlers among them, they were moral, strictly honorable in their dealings, and most charitable to their poor, but the avarice of the judges and the insolence of the officials of the law rendered them disaffected through the abuses to which they were subjected and, as the ministers of the Church were no better, they lost all affection for religion. Archbishop Guerrero, in 1565, held a provincial council to reform these evils, but his chapter appealed from its provisions as an illegal invasion of their privileges and matters went on as before. The Moriscos had submitted to baptism but were heretics at heart; they went to mass to escape the fine; they worked behind doors on feast-days with more pleasure than on other days and

they kept Fridays better than Sundays; they washed themselves even in December and regularly performed the accompanying zala; to comply with the law they had their children baptized and then washed off the chrism, performed circumcision on the boys, and gave them Moorish names. Brides went to church in borrowed Christian garments and on returning home changed them to Moorish and celebrated the nuptials with zambras and leilas. They learned the prayers in order to marry and then forgot them; they confessed during Lent in order to get the requisite certificate, but their confessions were imperfect and one year merely repeated another.1 They at least were loyal subjects for, in 1522, they were among the first to take up arms against the Comuneros; Don Juan de Granada, brother of the last native king Abdelehi, served as general in Castile and did his full duty.2

In 1526 Charles, while in Granada, was appealed to, in the name of the Moriscos, by three descendants of the old Moorish kings, Fernando Venegas, Miguel de Aragon and Diego Lopez Benexara, for protection against their ill-treatment by the priests, judges, alguaziles, and other officials, whereupon he appointed a commission to investigate and report.3 Fray Antonio de Guevara was one of the commissioners and hurried from his baptismal work in Valencia to the Alpujarras where he describes, in a letter to a friend, the New Christians as requiring so much to correct that it had better be done in secret rather than to punish them publicly; they have been so ill-taught in

1 Pedraza, Historia eclesiastica de Granada, fol. 236-8 (Granada, 1638).

* Marmol Carvajal, Rebelion y Castigo, p. 164. 3 Sandoval, xiv. 18.-Dormer, Lib. II. cap. vii.

the faith, and the magistrates have so winked at their errors that it will be enough to remedy it in the future without meddling with the past.1 There can be no doubt as to the nature of the commissioners' reports which Charles received in Granada; they confirmed the complaints of ill-usage but stated that there were not to be found among the Moriscos more than seven true Christians. He referred the reports to a junta of important personages, under the presidency of Inquisitor-general Manrique, and the outcome was the Edict of Granada, December 7, 1526. As might be expected this did not address itself to the redress of the admitted grievances of the Moriscos but to the repression of their apostasy—not by providing them with instruction but by restrictions and threats. granted an amnesty for past offences but as a means of salutary terrorizing it ordered the transfer to Granada of the Inquisition of Jaen. A term of grace was granted for those who would come forward and confess, after which the laws against heresy would be rigorously enforced, except that for some years, fines were in practice, substituted for confiscation and time was given to allow the culprits to earn them.3

It

The Edict imposed many restrictions which were trifling but vexatious, and some that were oppressive to no small degree. It forbade the use of Arabic and the wearing of Moorish dress; tailors were not to make garments

1 Guevara, Epistolas familiares, p. 543.

2 Sandoval, Dormer, ubi sup. The papal brief authorizing this transfer was dated July 7, 1527, in the castle of Sant' Angelo where Clement was kept a prisoner by Charles's troops.-Llorente, Añales, II. 315.

3 Archivo de Simancas, Libro 926, fol. 80 (see Appendix No. XI. ).

nor silversmiths jewels after their fashion; their baths were prohibited; all births were to be watched by Christian midwives to see that no Moorish rites were performed; disarmament was to be enforced by a rigid inspection of licences; their doors were to be kept open on feast-days, Fridays, Saturdays and during weddings, to see that Moorish rites were abandoned and Christian ones observed; schools for the education of children in Castilian were to be established in Granada, Guadix and Almeria; no Moorish names were to be used and they were not to keep gacis or unbaptized Moors either free or as slaves.1

1 Dormer, Lib. I. cap. vii.—Bleda, Cronica, p. 566.—Marmol Carvajal, p. 158.—Nueva Recop. Lib. VII. Tit. ii. leyes 13, 15, 17.

The wearing of Moorish garments had been forbidden under Ferdinand, but the prohibition was suspended until, in 1518, Charles ordered it enforced and again suspended it at the petition of the Moriscos.— (Marmol Carvajal, Bleda, ubi tup.) It and the abandonment of Arabic were ordered in Valencia, but in the concordia of 1528 they were suspended for ten years (Danvila, p. 102).

In 1572 Philip II. again prohibited the use of Arabic by the exiles from Granada as we shall see below. The Moorish ritual was in Arabic and seems never to have been translated. In the trials the prayers are always spoken of as being in Arabic. Francisca de Ribera, reconciled in the Toledo auto de fe of 1603, confessed that she had the intention of being a Moor and desired to learn some prayers but was unable in consequence of her ignorance of Arabic.—(MSS. of Library of Univ. of Halle, Yc. 20, Tom. I.) In the middle of the seventeenth century, after the final expulsion, a manual of religious observances for the use of the exiles in Tunis was composed in Spanish, the author of which lamented that Arabic was unknown to them and the rites of worship forgotten.—Tratados de Legislasion Musulmana, p. 7 (Madrid, 1853). Fray Bleda, in a letter to Philip III, in 1605, treats with contempt the project of Christianizing the Moriscos by forcing them to abandon their dress and language. Their greatest alfaquies, he says, dress like Christians and use the vernacular so as not to be identified; he would

This naturally caused great agitation among the Moriscos. They held a general assembly and raised 80,000 ducats which they offered to Charles in addition to the ordinary tribute if he would recall the edict. Money doubtless was not spared among his advisers and before he left Granada he suspended it during his pleasure and also permitted them to carry sword and dagger in the towns and a lance when in the country, but not to keep other arms in their houses. In 1530, however, during his absence in Germany, the Empress-regent revived the provision respecting dress, but on an appeal made to him he revoked her order, until he should return.1 It was doubtless then that the matter was compromised by the imposition of a special tax or licence known as farda, by the payment of which the use in Granada of the Moorish language and vestments was conceded. In 1563 we happen to know that this contributed 20,000 ducats to the royal treasury.2 The matter thus remained in abeyance for many years, and when the Archbishop Gaspar de Avalos (about 1540) endeavored to compel the Moriscos to abandon their costume, the secular authorities, with the captain-general at their head, made him abandon the attempt.3

rather see them distinguished by dressing in yellow or blue, like the Jews in Rome.-Crónica, p. 968. Cf. Defensionem Fidei, p. 425.

In the older time costume was not of so much moment. The Cid was buried in a Moorish garment. At the battle of Grados, in 1063, Sadada, one of the Moorish chiefs, who wore a Christian dress and spoke Romance, was enabled to penetrate the Spanish lines and mortally wound Ramiro I. of Aragon.—Dozy, Recherches, II. 232, 243.

1 Dormer, Marmol Carvajal, Bleda, vbi sup.

2 Relazioni Venete, Serie I. Tom. V. p. 37.

3 Marmol Carvajal, p. 163.