REPOST: January 2 – The Feast of the Liberation of Granada

As we have seen before, the Spanish Reconquista was as much a military enterprise as a religious one; as Diego de Valera told King Ferdinand the Catholic, “the Queen fights [the Muslims] no less with her many alms and devout prayers than you, my Lord, armed with the lance”. This is especially true of the final chapter in that long saga: the liberation of Granada by the Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella on 2 January of that portentous year for Spain, 1492.  

The feast of the Miraculous Triumph over the Most Impious Infidel King of the Arabs, Benamarin by Name, Around the Year of Our Lord 1340, in a Missal of Palencia from 1567.

The battle of Las Navas de Tolosa on 1212, liturgically remembered as the feast of the Triumph of the Holy Cross, was a decisive Christian victory from which the Mohammedans were never able to recover. Within a few decades, their hold on the Iberian peninsula was limited to the rump kingdom of Granada, a vassal of the kingdom of Castile. In a final bid to undo Christian advances, in 1340 the Sultan of Granada called upon his counterpart of Morocco (whom the Spaniards called the king of Benamarín) for succor, and the latter obliged with a massive host. In the ensuing battle of Río Salado, despite being outnumbered by more than three to one, the combined forces of Castile and Portugal struck a splendid victory which proved the harbinger of the end of Muslim Iberia. The triumph was duly commemorated liturgically on 30 October as the feast of the Victory of Christians (Victoriæ Christianorum) in Portugal and Victory or Triumph against Benamarín in Spain (in some manuscripts, confusingly, it is called the Triumph of the Holy Cross, like the feast of Las Navas de Tolosa).

The beleaguered Mohammedan kingdom of Granada still ambled on for over a century, though wracked by civil wars and at the perpetual mercy of Castile’s benevolence. In response to Granadan raids and internecine struggles for power within the sultanate, Ferdinand and Isabella made war upon it with the approbation of the Lord Pope Sixtus IV, who granted a Bull of Crusade in 1479. The Pope gifted the Monarchs a great silver crucifix, which was borne by the soldiers during the entire campaign; after the surrender of each city, the soldiers adored the crucifix and sung the Te Deum. The papacy also provided much financial aid for the campaign, and this was administered by the Hieronymite friar Hernando de Talavera, bishop of Ávila and confessor of Queen Isabella. 

The Lord Hernando de Talavera, first Archbishop of Granada.

Talavera accompanied the Catholic Monarchs to Granada when its last sultan, Boabdil, finally surrendered in 1492, and, at the suggestion of the Monarchs, was appointed the first archbishop of Grenada by the Lord Pope Alexander VI. He set upon the task of organizing his new diocese and converting its Moorish population with zeal. He commissioned his Hieronymite confrère Pedro de Alcalá to write an Arabic grammar and Spanish-Arabic dictionary to help his priests evangelize the region, and he himself tried to learn the Moorish language. He owned a copy of the Koran and took counsel with the local alfaquíes, and encouraged the zambras—Moorish musical ensembles—to participate not only in processions such as that of Corpus Christi, but even in Mass itself, where he also made use of his knowledge of Arabic, as recounted by his one-time page Francisco Núñez Muley, a Moorish convert:

When His Lordship said Mass in person, the zambra was in the choir with the clerics. At the moments when the organ was to be played, since there was none, the zambra responded with its instruments. He said some words in Arabic during Mass, especially that instead of saying Dominus bobyspon [sic!] he said Y barafiqun. I remember this as if it were yesterday, in the year five hundred and two.¹

A Moorish dance, by Christoph Weiditz, 1529.

In these pre-Tridentine days, Talavera had full freedom to dispose the liturgy of Granada, and he decreed that “the Divine Office be prayed in accordance with the Roman, and the chant be as that of the Church of Toledo”. When setting up the kalendar, Talavera was keenly aware of the power of the liturgy to cement the Christian conquest and convert the local population, and became a prolific composer of new Offices for these very purposes. The Archbishop, who  had become a choirboy in the collegiate church of Santa María la Mayor in Talavera de la Reina at the age of five, was renowned for his musical talent, being described as “as learned in chant as he was in theology”, and put these abilities into use when writing the musical propers of these Offices. 

A manuscript of the propers of the Feast of the Surrender of the Most Renowned City of Granada.

He established 2 January as the feast of the Surrender of the Most Renowned City of Granada (In festo deditionis nominatissime urbis Granate) and composed its Mass and Office, which were effusively praised by the German traveller Hieronymus Münzer: “Oh! I can scarcely describe how noble and elegant is the Office he composed about the [surrender of the] kingdom of Granada by the mercy of God and the victory of the King”². Like other Crusader feasts, the Office contains many echoes of the Easter liturgies: the first lesson of Mattins, for instance, is a beautiful panegyric of the Day of victory, which brought an end to the Night of Mohammedanism, reminiscent of the Exultet:

A solemn and illustrious day has come to us, most beloved brethren, a day of gladness and rejoicing, a day of joy and jubilation, a day of good tidings, in which it would be criminal to keep silent. A venerable day, a holy day of the Lord, a most renowned day, a day to us more renowned and holy than all others, for it is the day of God’s mercy. A day for which our forefathers yearned and waited, but saw not. But blessed are our eyes, for they are merited to see it. A day which is almost double, and one day better than a thousand. A day the Lord hath made that we might rejoice and be glad thereon. A day on which the city of Granada is made subject to the Catholic faith and acquired by the Christian religion and restored to the empire of the Spanish. A most powerful city, with secure bridges and surrounded by walls. A most mighty city, a city of refuge and excellent dwelling, a city full of delights, a glorious city, deservedly renowned throughout the whole globe, the mistress of the gentiles and prince of the provinces, a city of perfect beauty, the gladness and pride of the Sarracens, the head and summit of the Mohammedan madness in the lands of the Spanish.³

The Mattins responsories, too, connect the day of victory over the Mohammedans to Christ’s day of victory over Death:

To-day true peace has come down to us from heaven. To-day has shone down upon us the day of our redemption, of renewal of the old, of desired happiness.⁴

The Paschal theme continues in Mass, where the Gradual is Haec dies, and the Alleluia Dies sanctificatus, though taken from Christmas Day Mass, follows the same idea. The Gospel pericope is from Luke 10, 21-24, which is by the line “Blessed are the eyes that see the things which you see” tied into the Mattins lesson. The Epistle, from Isaias 54, 1-5, appropriately represents Granada as the city of Jerusalem awaiting her salvation. But the liberation of Granada is not only a type of the day of Resurrection, but the antitype of Old Testament figures and events: in the Mattins lessons, King Ferdinand is called an alter Iosue and Queen Isabella an altera sapientissima Delbora (sic, Debbora) and altera venustissima, religiosissima ac honestissima Iudich (sic, Judith). The antiphons are expertly written to link the psalm to the victory at Grenada; e.g., in First Vespers:

Ant. Let us celebrate the solemn day in which God the Father almighty placed the gable of the enemies of His Son as His footstool. Psalm 109.
Aña. Solemnem agamus diem in qua Deus Pater omnipotens fastigium inimicorum Filii sui posuit scabellum pedum eius.

Ant. Let us praise the Lord, and magnify His works, Who on this holy day hath given his people the inheritance of the gentiles, and redeemed many captives. Psalm 110.
Aña. Confiteamur Domino, et magnificemus opera eius qui hac sacra die dedit populo suo hereditatem gentium, et fecit redemptionem plurimorum captivorum.

Ant. King Ferdinand with Queen Isabella shall enjoy eternal memory, for by his works and toil to-day the Lord hath given to the Christian people the glory and riches of the Saracens. Psalm 111.
Aña. In memoria eterna erit Fernandus rex cum regina Helisabeth, quia sua opera et labore dedit hodie Dominus populo Christinano gloriam et diuicias Agarenorum.

Ant. From the rising of the sun unto its going down let the name of the Lord be praised, who by the works of faith made barren Granada a joyful mother of many churches. Psalm 112.
Aña. A solis ortu usque ad occasum laudetur nomen Domini, qui Granatam fidei operibus sterilem matrem fecit multarum ecclesiarum letantem.

Ant. All the peoples of the Spains praise the Lord, who to-day hath confirmed his mercy upon you, putting an end to the ancient sin. Psalm 116.
Aña. Omnes populi Ispaniarum laudate Dominum, quia confirmauit hodie super uos misericordiam suam, finem imponens antiquo peccato.

Thus does Talavera deftly weave the liberation of Granada into the history of Salvation.

The feast of the Exaltation of the Faith, i.e. the feast of Granada, in a Breviary of Santiago de Compostela from 1569.

This feast does not show up in later propers for the archdiocese of Granada, but it might have survived in certain monasteries, such as the Abbey of Sacromonte, where copies of this office have been found dating as late as the 18th century. A much longer future was enjoyed by another Office and Mass for the liberation of Granada, under the name of the feast of the Exaltation of the Faith (Exaltationis fidei), composed for the Archdiocese of Santiago de Compostela by the Mercedarian friar Diego de Muros, bishop of Ciudad Rodrigo, on the orders of the Catholic Monarchs, who wanted the feast inserted into the kalendar of that important archdiocese. In remained there until the 18th century, and some of the propers were put into polyphonic settings. A third Office and Mass in memory of the liberation was written by the humanist Juan Maldonado for the diocese of Burgos at the request of its bishop, Juan Rodríguez de Fonseca. It was expunged from the kalendar of Burgos by Rodriguez de Fonseca’s successor’s Antonio de Rojas, who went on to succeed Talavera in the see of Granada, and therefore might be responsible for the suppression of the feast there as well.

Talavera himself also set his sights upon the old Office for the feast of the battle of Río Salado. Disappointed with the quality of the Mattins lessons of that feast, he rewrote them, as he explained to Queen Isabella herself:

Since Your Highness is so fond of the writings that I present or communicate, and shews them with, perhaps, not much prudence and too much charity, when they are things that ought not be shewn; because of that and because it is in Latin, I am sending it to Doctor [Rodrigo Maldonado] de Talavera⁵. so that, if he approves it, he might present it to Your Serenity: the most excellent victory, worthy of immortal memory, which Our Lord gave to the Lord King Alphonse XI, your four-times grandfather, near the river they call the Salado against the King of Morocco and Bellamarín, etc., which I put into Latin accompanied by some phrases from Holy Scripture so that we might read them as lessons on Mattins of that feast, which we began to celebrate some time ago with much solemnity, as is reasonable, because the lessons I saw in the Breviary of Toledo seemed to me brief and not such as I should like, and so Your Highness shall see some of the occupations that fill up my time.⁶

Talavera also wrote an office for the feast of the Guardian Angel, which was celebrated in Toledo and Aragon on 1 March in thanksgiving for King Ferdinand’s victory over King Alphonse V of Portugal in the battle of Toro in 1476. By establishing this feast in Granada, he may have been trying to exploit Mohammedan belief in the angels. Indeed, he also wrote the propers for the feast of the Archangel Gabriel, who is mentioned in the Koran.

Knowing that Our Lady was highly regarded by the Muslims, and seeing this as an opportunity for their conversion, he established and wrote two Marian Offices. One was for the feast of the Expectation of Our Lady, or Our Lady of the O, the celebration whereof was already widespread in Spain on 18 December. In it, Talavera emphasizes the doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Our Lady, since it was an idea widely accepted amongst Muslims. The other was for the feast of the Transfixion of Our Lady.

Finally, Talavera composed an office for the feast of St Joseph, to whom he had a particular personal devotion. One of the first churches he set up Granada, taking over a former mosque, was dedicated to him. 

Any perusal of such compositions should suffice to demonstrate Talavera’s deep piety and firm orthodoxy, but unfortunately, his benignity towards the local population of Granada, which revered him as el santo alfaquí, earned him the distrust of churchmen eager to pursue a tougher policy with respect to the Moors. The Inquisition especially resented his refusal to allow it to operate in Granada, and in 1505, after the death of his protectress Queen Isabella, Diego Rodríguez de Lucero, the Inquisitor of Córdoba, ordered the arrest of Talavera’s friends and family on suspicion of heresy, and tried to gather, or rather, fabricate evidence arraign the Archbishop himself on charges of heresy and apostasy. He was firmly defended by the Lord Pope Julius II, but died, before the matter was entirely settled, on 14 May 1507, having fallen ill after walking barefoot during a procession whilst it was raining. After his death, the scandal caused by Lucero’s witch-hunt against Talavera, and his numerous other excesses, led to the General Congregation of the Spanish Inquisition to investigate Lucero, and he was finally removed from his post, whereafter he died. 

We finish with the excellent hymn Talavera wrote for Vespers of the feast of the Surrender of Granada, inspired by St Venantius Fortunatus’ well-known panegyric on the triumph of the Holy Cross:

Pange, lingua, voce alta triumphi preconium. Laudes Deo semper canta, conditori omnium qui, edomita Granata, bellis dedit somnium.Dedit quippe pacem plenam populis Ispaniae; dedit autem malam cenam Mahumeti insanie qui illusit Sarracenam gentem et Arabie. Personarum Trinitatem diffitetur impius, et sumpsisse humanitatem Deum negat inscius; tollit fidei pietatem multis aliis nescius. Deum Patrem nos laudemus atque Sanctum Spiritum; verbum quoque adoremus vere carni insitum; et uterum honoremus quo fuit nobis editum. Amen.

Sing, my tongue, with lofty voice, the praise of victory. Sing praises to God for aye, to the author of all, who, with the conquest of Granada, hath put war to sleep.Lo! he hath given full peace to the peoples of Spain, but hath given a bad banquet to the madness of Mohammed, who cozened the Saracen people and the Arabians. That blasphemer rejects the Trinity of Persons, and, benighted, denies that God took up humanity; this fool destroys the piety of faith in sundry other ways. Let us praise the Father and the Holy Ghost; let us also adore the Word who truly became flesh; and let us honour the womb whence he was begotten for us. Amen.

The Mass and parts of the Office of the feast of the Surrender of Granada, composed by the Lord Archbishop de Talavera.

Notes

1. Y quando su señoría dezia la misa en persona, estaua la zanbra en el coro con los clerigos, y en los tienpos que avian de taner los organos porque no los avia rrespondia la zanbra y estrumentos della, y dezia en la misa en algunas palablas en arabigo, en espeçial quando dezia «dominus bobyspon», dezia «y barafiqun». Esto me acuerdo dello como si fuese ayer, en el año de quinientos y dos.

2. O quam nobile et elegans officium de regno Granate, misericordia Dei et victoria Regis scripsit, non possum scribere.

3. Adest nobis, dilectissimi fratres, dies solemnis et preclara; dies gaudii et exsultationis; dies leticie et iubilationis, dies boni nuntii, in quo, si tacuerimus, sceleris arguemur. Dies uenerabilis, dies sanctus Domini, dies celeberrimus, dies nobis celebrior et sancior uniuersis, quia dies miserationis Domini; dies quam optauerunt et expectauerunt patres nostri, nec uiderunt. Nostri autem beati oculi, qui eam videre meruerunt. Dies que facta est quasi duo. Et dies una: melior super millia; Dies quam fecit Dominus ut exultemus et letemur in ea. Dies uidelicet in qua fidei catholice subiicitur; in qua Christiane religioni acquiritur; et in qua Ispaniarum imperio restituitur, ciuitas Granata. Ciuitas fortissima, firma pontibus et muris circumsepta. Ciuitas potentissima. Ciuitas refugii et optime habitationis. Ciuitas plena deliciis. Ciuitas feracissima. Ciuitas inclita. Ciuitas gloriosa. In toto terrarum orbe merito nominatissima. Domina gentium, et princeps prouinciarum. Urbs perfecti decoris. Gaudium et superbia Agarenorum. Caput et fastigium Mahumetice insanie in partibus Ispanorum.

4. Hodie nobis de caelo pax vera descendit. Hodie illuxit nobis dies redemptionis nostre, reparationis antique, felicitatis optatae.

5. Rector of the University of Salamanca and counsellor of the Catholic Monarchs.

6. Porque vuestra alteza es avarienta de las escripturas que le presento o comunico, y no las muestra quizá con mucha prudentia y no menos caridad, sino son tales que se deban mostar, por esso y porque va en latín, envío al doctor de Talavera para que si le pareciere bien, la presente a vuestra serenidad, la muy excelente victoria y digna de inmortal memoria que nuestro Señor dió al Rey D. Alonso XI, vuestro cuarto abuelo, cerca del rio que dicen del Salado contra el Rei de Marruecos y de Bellamarín etc.: la cual puse en latín acompañada de algunas sentencias de la santa escritura para que la leyésemos por lecciones a los maitines de aquella fiesta, porque unas lecciones que ví en un breviario toledano me parecieron breves y no tales como yo quisiera, y así verá vuestra alteza alguna de las ocupaciones que estragan mi tiempo.

The Hat and the Head: Juan Manuel de Prada on Traditionis Custodes

The following article, written by the eminent Spanish columnist Juan Manuel de Prada, first appeared on ABC on 18 July 2021. We offer our readers the following translation with the author’s permission. It has been cross-posted on Rorate Caeli.

Chesterton asserted that “the church asks us to take off our hats, not our heads when entering it.” Taking off one’s hat can, however, be an act of mortification when the church lacks a roof or if its roof is leaky, not to mention when shitting pigeons nest therein. But through mortification a Catholic completes the Passion of Christ in his flesh, as St. Paul asked of us. In order to mortify myself, I have humbly endured masses that violently assault my artistic sensibility and devotional preferences: masses with revolting little ditties based on Simon & Garfunkel tunes, masses with empowered laywomen who read the epistles stumbling over every phrase, masses with thick-headed priests who stuff the liturgy with a tacky filling of improvisation till it overflows, masses with sermons that stink of forgettable politicking. And I have endured all these mortifications because I believe that a Catholic should go to mass in his parish, even if the masses he slurps leave him disgusted and sodden with their hideousness. This painful awareness of their hideousness stings even more when I compare them with the awareness of beauty I have felt in the few traditional masses I have participated in. There I have recognized myself as another link in the chain of a living tradition that has inspired the most eminent artists.

For the sake of my faith I have often taken off my hat, putting up with a shower of revolting little ditties, tacky improvisations, empowered laywomen, and forgettable sermons. However, my faith cannot demand that I take off my head, and this, precisely this, is what Bergoglio has just asked of me. Only a few years ago, Benedict XVI explained in a motu proprio that “the Roman Missal promulgated by Pope Paul VI is the ordinary expression of the lex orandi of the Catholic Church of the Latin rite. The Roman Missal promulgated by Saint Pius V and revised by Blessed John XXIII is nonetheless to be considered an extraordinary expression of the same lex orandi”. And now Bergoglio affirms in another motu proprio that “the liturgical books promulgated by Saint Paul VI and Saint John Paul II, in conformity with the decrees of Vatican Council II, are the unique expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite”.

I am a Catholic, but I cannot be irrational. I cannot accept one thing and its opposite; I cannot split my head in half. I cannot obey contradictory instructions, as if I were a corpse or a robot that reacts to electric impulses. The virtue of obedience does not exempt us from the obligation to use our reason correctly, since obedience, as St. Thomas teaches us, is “a reasonable offering ratified by a vow to submit one’s will to another in order to submit it to God for the sake of perfection”. Obedience cannot assent to an absurdity, nor can it submit to contradictory commands just to avoid annoyances or complications.

The God in whom I believe is the Logos, and therefore I cannot be asked to take off my head. Bergoglio’s motu proprio asks me to do just that, and I have no intention of doing it.   

REPOST: The Fight for the Mozarabic Rite Continued: Liturgical Trial by Fire

One of our earlier posts recounted the story told by Roderic, Archbishop of Toledo, about the trial by combat in held in 11th century Spain between the champions of the Roman rite and of the autochthonous Mozarabic rite. The imposition of the Roman rite on Spain was an enterprise pursued by King Alphonse VI, who reconquered Toledo—the ancient capital of the Visigothic kingdom—from the Mohammedans in 1085. As part of his efforts to consolidate his power, he saw fit, like Charlemagne centuries before him, to promote liturgical unity within his kingdom, with the support of Rome and Cluny. The Chronicle of the Cluniac monastery of Sahagún explains:

Alphonse VI, king of Castile, Leon, and Galicia, “Emperor of the Spains”.

After rising to the lofty and magnificent royal estate of his kingdom, in the eleventh year of his reign, he [Alphonse VI], amongst other things he very laudably and piously did, procured that in all Spain the divine office be celebrated according to the use of the Roman Church, seeking the approval of the most honourable lord Gregory the Seventh of the apostolic see. [1]

Alphonse carried out his design of establishing the Roman rite in Spain ruthlessly, despite the setbacks not only of the trial by combat, but also of a trial by fire. The chronicle of Nájera reports:

Thus the aforesaid king Alphonse, after he had taken up the government of the kingdoms, sent emissaries to Rome to Pope Hildebrand, who is called Gregory the Seventh, that he might establish the celebration of the Roman rite in all his kingdom. And so the Pope remembered his cardinal Richard, an abbot from Marseilles, and sent him to Spain. He held a noble and general council in Burgos and ordered that the divine office be done according to the Roman custom in the whole kingdom of the aforesaid king.

In the era 1115, on Palm Sunday [9 April 1077], two knights fought in Burgos, one of king Alphonse for the Roman law and the other a Castilian, namely Lope Martínez de Matanza, for the Toledan law; and the king’s knight was defeated. Moreover, while they were still fighting, a great fire was lit in the middle of the plaza, and two books were thrown therein, one containing the Roman office and the other containing the Toledan office, under this condition: that the office be kept of whichever book might escape the flames unharmed. But since the Toledan [book] made a great leap out of the fire, the king, made wroth, forthwith returned it to the fire with a kick, saying, “The horns of the laws bend before the will of kings”. [2]

We return to Archbishop Roderic’s chronicle, which recalls the trial by fire thus:

Since a great riot broke out after this [the trial by combat] amongst the knights and the people, it was finally resolved that the book of the Toledan office and the book of the Gallican [i.e. Roman] office would be placed in a great bonfire. After the primate, legate, and clergy ordered everyone to fast, and everyone having made a devout prayer, the book of the Gallican office was consumed by the fire; and, while everyone watched and praised God, the book of the Toledan office jumped out of all the flames of fire, remaining altogether unharmed and untouched by the burning of the fire. But since the king was bold and pertinaciously carried out his will, he was not afraid of the miracle, nor was he persuaded to bend to the supplications. Instead, threatening those who resisted with the death penalty and expropriation, he ordered that the Gallican office be observed in all the lands of his kingdom. And then, while everyone wept and was grieved, he coined the proverb, “Laws go whither kings will.”

And thereafter the Gallican office, which had never before been received, was observed in Spain in the psalter as well as in everything else, even though in some monasteries [the Mozarabic use] was kept for some time, and indeed the [Hispanic] translation of the psalter is still to-day recited in many cathedral churches and monasteries.

One cannot help but admire the fortitude and tenacity wherewith against such powerful forces these doughty Castilians defended the liturgy bequeathed to them by their forefathers Sts Isidore and Leander. Would that more of the faithful had shown the same zeal for the liturgy handed down by their forefathers during the calamitous course of the 20th century liturgical “reforms”!

An illustration of the trial by fire found in an edition of the Mozarabic Missal published in 1770 in Mexico (taken from the Liturgical Arts Journal).

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[1] El qual, despues que suuio en el alteça e magnifico estado rreal de su rreyno, entre otras cosas muchas que muy loable e rreligiosamente fiço, en el onçeno año de su rreino procuro, suplicando al baron de muy onrrada vida Gregorio setimo en la silla apostolical, que en toda España fuese çelebrado el diuinal ofiçio segun que la iglesia rromana acostumbraba.

[2] Prefatus itaque rex Aldefonsus postquam regnorum suscepit regimina, nuntios Romam misit ad papam Aldebrandum qui cognominatus est Gregorius septimus, ut Romanum ministerium in omni regno suo constitueret celebrandum. Memoratus itaque papa cardinalem suum Ricardum, abbatem Massiliensem in Yspaniam misit; qui apud Burgensem ciuitatem nobile et generale concilium celebrans diuinum officium iuxta Romanam consuetudinem in omni regno predicti regis haberi mandauit.

Era MCXV.a in Dominica de ramis palmarum apud Burgis pugnauerunt duo milites, unus regis Aldefonsi pro lege Romana et alter Castellanus, scilicet Lupus Martinez de Matanza, pro lege Toletana; et uictus est miles regis. Super quo illis adhuc contendentibus, accenso magno igne in platee medio missi sunt in eum duo libri, unus Romanum officium continens alter uero officium continens Toletanum, sub tali conditione: ut cuius modi liber ignem illesus euaderet, eius officium teneretur. Sed cum Toletanus magnum extra ignem saltum dedisset, mox rex iratus illum in ignem pede reiciens dixit: «ad libitum regum fletantur cornua legum». (Until the introduction of the Anno Domini system in the 14th-15th centuries, years were reckoned in Spain as “eras” starting on 38 BC, considered to be the beginning of the Pax Romana in Hispania.)

[3] Cumque super hoc magna sedicio in milicia et populo oriretur, demum placuit ut liber officii Toletani et liber officii Gallicani in magna ignis congerie ponerentur; et indicto omnibus ieiunio a primate, legato et clero et oratione ab omnibus deuote peracta, igne consumitur liber officii Gallicani et prosiliit super omnes flammas incendii, cunctis uidentibus et Deum laudantibus, liber officii Toletani illesus omnino et a combustione incendii alienus. Set cum rex esset magnanimus et sue uoluntatis pertinax executor, nec miraculo territus nec supplicatione suasus uoluit inclinari, set mortis supplicia et direptionem minitans resistentibus precepit ut Gallicanum officium in omnibus regni sui finibus seruaretur. Et tunc cunctis flentibus et dolentibus prouerbium inoleuit: «Quo uolunt reges uadunt leges».

Et ex tunc Gallicanum officium tam in Psalterio quam in aliis, numquam ante susceptum, fuit in Hispaniis obseruatum, licet in aliquibus monasteriis fuerit aliquanto tempore custoditum, et etiam translatio Psalterii in plurimis ecclesiis cathedralibus et monasteriis adhuc hodie recitatur. 

REPOST: Liturgical Trial by Combat

The traditional Mozarabic rite in Hispania was suppressed and substituted with the Roman rite principally through the efforts of Alphonse VI, King of Leon, Castile, Galicia, and Portugal, soi-disant Emperor of all Spain, with the support of Pope St Gregory VII and the Cluniac congregation. Such a liturgical revolution was by no means easily achieved, however, as is evident in the chronicle written by Archbishop Roderic of Toledo:

The clergy and people of all Spain were troubled, for they were compelled to take up the Gallican [i.e., Roman] Office by the legate [Richard] and king [Alphonse]. On the appointed day, when the king, the primate, the legate, and a great multitude of clergy and people were assembled, there was a long quarrel: the clergy, the knights, and the people firmly resisted any change in the Office, whereas the king, counselled contrariwise by the queen, thundered terrible threats. Finally, on account of the obstinacy of the knights, it was decided that this dispute would be settled by combat. Two knights were chosen, one by the king that he might fight for the Gallican Office, the other by the knights and the people to fight for the Office of Toledo. The king’s knight was defeated forthwith, and the people rejoiced because the victor was the knight of the Office of Toledo. But Queen Constance persuaded the King not to abandon his designs, saying that the duel was not lawful. The knight who fought for the Office of Toledo was of the house of Matanza, near Pisorica, and his family still exists to-day.

[…] clerus et populus tocius Hispanie turbabatur, eo quod Gallicanum officium suscipere a legato et principe cogebantur; et statuto die rege, primate, legato, cleri et populi maxima multitudine congregatis, fuit diutius altercatum, clero, milicia et populo firmiter resistentibus ne officium mutaretur, rege a regina suaso, contrarium minis et terroribus intonante. Ad hoc ultimo res peruenit militari pertinacia decernente, ut hec dissensio duelli certamine sedaretur. Cumque duo milites fuissent electi, unus a rege, qui pro officio Gallicano, alter a milicia et populis, qui pro Toletano pariter decertarent, miles regis ilico uictus fuit, populis exultantibus quod uictor erat miles officii Toletani. Set rex adeo fuit a regina Constancia stimulatus, quod a proposito non discessit, duellum iudicans ius non esse. Miles autem qui pugnauerat pro officio Toletano, fuit de domo Matancie prope Pisoricam, cuius hodie genus extat.

Roderic of Toledo, De Rebus Hispanie, book VI, chapter XXVI

Vignettes of Capitular Life in Barcelona: The Portions

In 1978, the canon-archivist and -librarian of the chapter of the Cathedral of Barcelona, Dr. Àngel Fàbrega i Grau, was received into the Royal Catalan Academy of Fine Arts of St. George (Reial Acadèmia Catalana de Belles Artes de Sant Jordi) and, for his inaugural address, he regaled his audience with a description of canonical life in Barcelona towards the end of the reign of His Most Catholic Majesty King Philip II. His fascinating account was soon thereafter published under the title La vida quotidiana a la Catedral de Barcelona en declinar el Renaixement, any 1580 (“Daily Life in the Cathedral of Barcelona at the Close of the Renaissance, Year 1580”).

Surmising that our readers, too, might enjoy and be edified by some vignettes of cathedral life in Barcelona, we hereby begin a new series of posts based on Canon Fàbrega i Grau’s book.

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Canon Nadal Garcés wearing the winter habit of the canons of Barcelona, in the retable of the Visitation in the Cathedral (anonymous, 1466-1475).

According to the canonical norms established and regulated by the Corpus Iuris Canonici, each canon was to receive an endowment which was divided into three parts. Two of these, called the massa or grossa, were destined—and still are to-day—to the decorous upkeep of the beneficiary, who normally did not lose the right to receive this massa or grossa even if he were absent from choir or chapter meetings. The remaining third part constituted what are called “distributions”, and was considered a supplement to the capitular endowment. Since it was meant to encourage the beneficiary’s presence in capitular acts, it was normally lost if he were absent therefrom, even if this absence were justified by the fulfilment of other responsibilities. […]

In Barcelona, as in many other places, the daily distributions were of old done in two ways: by the handing out of “portions”, mainly of bread, wine, and meat; or in coin, either the legal and common tender or in a private currency whose value was only recognized within the Chapter or Cathedral. In Barcelona, these were officially called ploms (“pieces of lead”) or senyals, and are nowadays also called pellofes.

The Chapter of Barcelona followed the rules for distributions established in a book officially entitled Caputbreve de hiis quae Praepositi ecclesiae Barcinonensis et Domus Caritatis debent dare suis mensibus, et de hiis quae debent canonici ab eisdem recipere. In the 18th century, this book was popularly known as El llibre del ventre (“The Book of the Belly”), because it only refers to edible distributions. The oldest manuscript thereof preserved in the capitular archives was written in parchment in the first third of the 15th century, although the first of its two parts is manifestly a copy of an original which must have dated from at least the 13th century.

[…] The Llibre del ventre was as it were a customary of the portions that the provosts (praepositi) and the House of Charity had to distribute daily among the canons, beneficiaries, chaplains, clerks, and laymen so long as they resided in the city of Barcelona, for they were not given their portion if they went abroad. A ministral and a bottler were in charge of the actual distribution of these portions.

Until the end of the 13th century, almost all the distributions were given in food. They were handed out in the canonical refectory, but the bottler took the portions to the houses of those canons who lived outside the cloister in houses owned by the Chapter within the city walls. Each “portioner” (canon, beneficiary, master of grammar, monk, porter, baker, ministral, etc.) normally received every day a large loaf of bread (of some 800 grams) and a small one (of some 600 grams), or two small loaves, or only one: there was an extremely complex programme for the distribution of bread, the staple food of the time, that depended on the day and the person’s office.

Neules are a traditional Catalan biscuit made of egg whites, butter, sugar, and flour.

The provost on duty, through the bottler, also handed out the wine, which could be vinum bonum, vinum non limphatum, or vinum limphatum (mixed with water), giving to each the quantity that was due to him: either unus quarterius, the basic measure, or two or three glasses of the four contained in the quaterius of wine. This quantity also depended on the person’s category and the liturgical solemnity of the day.

On Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost, each canon and beneficiary received a special drink called nectar, which was made with rosé wine, honey, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, round and long pepper, nutmeg, foli [the identity of this spice is unknown], & other aromatic herbs. Each priest got his measure, together with a dozen neules provided by the House of Charity. These neules seem to have been round and of the usual size, somewhat thick, and of different colours.

– pp. 37-38.