Chapter XXXIII: Appendix: , A (2)

But, though we cannot, with Father Andres and his followers, trace the poetry and refinement of all the South of Europe in modern times primarily or mainly to the Arabs of Spain, we must still, so far as the Spanish language and literature are concerned, trace something to them. For their progress in refinement was hardly less brilliant and rapid than their progress in empire. The reigns of the two Abderrahmans, and the period of the glory of Córdova, which began about 750 and continued almost to the time of its conquest by the Christians in 1236, were more intellectual than could then be found elsewhere; and if the kingdom of Granada, which ended in 1492, was less refined, it was, perhaps, even more splendid and luxurious.[435] The public schools and libraries of the Spanish Arabs were resorted to, not only by those of their own faith at home and in the East, but by Christians from different parts of Europe; and Pope Sylvester the Second, one of the most remarkable men of his age, is believed to have owed his elevation to the pontificate to the culture he received in Seville and Córdova.[436]

[435] Conde, Historia de la Dominacion de los Arabes en España,
Madrid, 1820-21, 4to, Tom. I. and II., but especially Tom. I. pp.
158-226, 425-489, 524-547.

[436] Sylvester II. (Gerbert) was Pope from 999 to 1003, and was
the first head France gave to the Church. I am aware that the
Benedictines (Hist. Litt. de la France, Tom. VI. p. 560) intimate
that he did not pass, in Spain, beyond Córdova, and I am aware,
too, that Andres (Tom. I. pp. 175-178) is unwilling to allow him
to have studied at any schools in Seville and Córdova except
Christian schools. But there is no pretence that the Christians
had important schools in Andalusia at that time, though the Arabs
certainly had; and the authorities on which Andres relies assume
that Gerbert studied with the Moors, and prove more, therefore,
than he wishes to be proved. Like many other men skilled in
the sciences during the Middle Ages, Gerbert was considered a
necromancer. A good account of his works is in the Hist. Litt. de
la France, Tom. VI. pp. 559-614.

In the midst of this flourishing empire lived large masses of native Christians, who had not retreated with their hardy brethren under Pelayo to the mountains of the Northwest, but dwelt among their conquerors, protected by the wide toleration which the Mohammedan religion originally prescribed and practised. Indeed, except that, as a vanquished people, they paid double the tribute paid by Moors, and that they were taxed for their Church property, these Christians were little burdened or restrained, and were even permitted to have their bishops, churches, and monasteries, and to be judged by their own laws and their own tribunals, whenever the question at issue was one that related only to themselves, unless it involved a capital punishment.[437] But, though they were thus to a certain degree preserved as a separate people, and though, considering their peculiar position, they maintained, more than would be readily believed, their religious loyalty, still the influence of a powerful and splendid empire, and of a population every way more prosperous and refined than themselves, was constantly pressing upon them. The inevitable result was, that, in the course of ages, they gradually yielded something of their national character. They came, at last, to wear the Moorish dress; they adopted Moorish manners; and they served in the Moorish armies and in the places of honor at the courts of Córdova and Granada. In all respects, indeed, they deserved the name given to them, that of Mozárabes or Muçárabes, persons who seemed to become Arabs in manners and language; for they were so mingled with their conquerors and masters, that, in process of time, they could be distinguished from the Arabs amidst whom they lived by little except their faith.[438]

[437] The condition of the Christians under the Moorish
governments of Spain may be learned, sufficiently for our
purpose, from many passages in Conde, e. g. Tom. I. pp. 39, 82,
etc. But after all, perhaps, the reluctant admissions of Florez,
Risco, etc., in the course of the forty-five volumes of the
“España Sagrada,” are quite as good a proof of the tolerance
exercised by the Moors, as the more direct statements taken
from the Arabian writers. See, for Toledo, Florez, Tom. V. pp.
323-329; for Complutum or Alcalá de Henares, Tom. VII. p. 187;
for Seville, Tom. IX. p. 234; for Córdova and its martyrs, Tom.
X. pp. 245-471; for Saragossa, Risco, Tom. XXX. p. 203, and Tom.
XXXI. pp. 112-117; for Leon, Tom. XXXIV. p. 132; and so on.
Indeed, there is something in the accounts of a great majority
of the churches, whose history these learned men have given in
so cumbrous a manner, that shows the Moors to have practised
a toleration which, _mutatis mutandis_, they would have been
grateful to have found among the Christians in the time of Philip
III.

[438] The meaning of the word _Mozárabe_ was long doubtful; the
best opinion being that it was derived from _Mixti-arabes_, and
meant what this Latin phrase would imply. (Covarrubias, Tesoro,
1674, _ad verb._) That this was the common meaning given to it in
early times is plain from the “Chrónica de España,” (Parte II.,
at the end,) and that it continued to be so received is plain,
among other proofs, from the following passage in “Los Muçárabes
de Toledo,” (a play in the Comedias Escogidas, Tom. XXXVIII.,
1672, p. 157,) where one of the Muzárabes, explaining to Alfonso
VII. who and what they are, says, just before the capture of the
city,--

Muçárabes, Rey, nos llamamos,
Porque, entre Arabes mezclados,
Los mandamientos sagrados
De nuestra ley verdadera,
Con valor y fé sincera
Han sido siempre guardados.
Jornada III.

But, amidst the other rare learning of his notes on “The
Mohammedan Dynasties of Spain,” (4to, London, 1840, Vol. I.
pp. 419, 420,) Don Pascual de Gayangos has perhaps settled
this vexed, though not very important, question. _Mozárabe_,
or _Muzárabe_, as he explains it, “is the Arabic _Musta’rab_,
meaning a man who tries to imitate or to become an Arab in his
manners and language, and who, though he may know Arabic, speaks
it like a foreigner.” The word is still used in relation to the
ritual of some of the churches in Toledo. (Castro, Biblioteca,
Tom. II. p. 458, and Paleographía Esp., p. 16.) On the other
hand, the Moors who, as the Christian conquests were advanced
towards the South, remained, in their turn, inclosed in the
Christian population and spoke or assumed its language, were
originally called _Moros Latinados_. See “Poema del Cid,” v. 266,
and “Crónica General,” (ed. 1604, fol. 304. a,) where, respecting
Alfaraxi, a Moor, afterwards converted, and a counsellor of the
Cid, it is said he was “de tan buen entendimento, e era _tan
ladino_ que semejava Christiano.”

The effect of all this on whatever of the language and literature of Rome still survived among them was, of course, early apparent. The natives of the soil who dwelt among the Moors soon neglected their degraded Latin, and spoke Arabic. In 794, the conquerors thought they might already venture to provide schools for teaching their own language to their Christian subjects, and require them to use no other.[439] Alvarus Cordubensis, who wrote his “Indiculus Luminosus” in 854,[440] and who is a competent witness on such a subject, shows that they had succeeded; for he complains that, in his time, the Christians neglected their Latin, and acquired Arabic to such an extent that hardly one Christian in a thousand was to be found who could write a Latin letter to a brother in the faith, while many were able to write Arabic poetry so as to rival the Moors themselves.[441] Such, indeed, was the early prevalence of the Arabic, that John, Bishop of Seville, one of those venerable men who commanded the respect alike of Christians and Mohammedans, found it necessary to translate the Scriptures into it, because his flock could read them in no other language.[442] Even the records of Christian churches were often kept in Arabic from this period down through several succeeding centuries, and in the archives of the cathedral at Toledo, above two thousand documents were recently and are probably still to be seen, written chiefly by Christians and ecclesiastics, in Arabic.[443]

[439] Conde, Tom. I. p. 229.

[440] Florez, España Sagrada, Tom. XI. p. 42.

[441] The “Indiculus Luminosus” is a defence of the fanatical
martyrs of Córdova, who suffered under Abderrahman II. and his
son. The passage referred to, with all its sins against pure
Latinity and good taste, is as follows:--“Heu, proh dolor!
linguam suam nesciunt Christiani, et linguam propriam non
advertunt Latini, ita ut omni Christi collegio vix inveniatur
unus in milleno hominum numero, qui salutatorias fatri possit
rationabiliter dirigere literas. Et reperitur absque numero
multiplex turba, qui eruditè Caldaicas verborum explicet pompas.
Ita ut metricè eruditiori ab ipsis gentibus carmine et sublimiori
pulchritudine,” etc. It is found at the end of the treatise,
which is printed entire in Florez (Tom. XI. pp. 221-275). The
phrase _omni Christi collegio_ is, I suppose, understood by
Mabillon, “De Re Diplomaticâ,” (fol., 1681, Lib. II. c. 1, p.
55,) to refer to the clergy, in which case the statement would be
much stronger, and signify that “not one _priest_ in a thousand
could address a common letter of salutation to another” (Hallam,
Middle Ages, London, 8vo, 1819, Vol. III. p. 332);--but I incline
to think that it refers to the whole body of Christians in and
about Córdova.

[442] The time when John of Seville lived is not settled
(Florez, Tom. IX. pp. 242, etc.); but that is not important
to our purpose. The fact of the translation is in the Crónica
General (Parte III. c. 2, f. 9, ed. 1604): “Trasladó las sanctas
Escripturas en Arávigo e fizó las exposiciones dellas segun
conviene a la sancta Escriptura.” And Mariana gives the true
reason for it: “A causa que la lengua Arábiga se usaba mucho
entre todos; la Latina ordinariamente ni se usaba, _ni se
sabia_.” (Lib. VII. c. iii., _prope finem_.) See, also, Antonio,
Bib. Vet., Lib. VI. c. 9; Castro, Bib. Esp., Tom. II. pp. 454,
etc.

[443] Paleographía Española, p. 22.

Nor was this state of things at once changed when the Christians from the North prevailed again; for, after the reconquest of some of the central portions of the country, the coins struck by Christian kings to circulate among their Christian subjects were covered with Arabic inscriptions, as may be seen in coins of Alfonso the Sixth and Alfonso the Eighth, in the years 1185, 1186, 1191, 1192, 1199, and 1212.[444] And in 1256 Alfonso the Wise, when, by a solemn decree dated at Burgos, 18th December, he was making provision for education at Seville, established Arabic schools there, as well as Latin.[445] Indeed, still later, and even down to the fourteenth century, the public acts and monuments of that part of Spain were often written in Arabic, and the signatures to important ecclesiastical documents, though the body of the instrument might be in Latin or Spanish, were sometimes made in the Arabic character, as they are in a grant of privileges by Ferdinand the Fourth to the monks of Saint Clement.[446] So that almost as late as the period of the conquest of Granada, and in some respects later, it is plain that the language, manners, and civilization of the Arabs were still much diffused among the Christian population of the centre and South of Spain.

[444] Memorias de la Real Acad. de la Hist., Tom. IV., Ensayo de
Marina, pp. 40-43.

[445] Mondejar, Memorias de Alonso el Sabio, fol., 1777, p. 43.
Ortiz y Zuñiga, Anales de Sevilla, fol., 1677, p. 79.

[446] Mem. de la Real Acad. de la Hist., Tom. IV., Ensayo de
Marina, p. 40.

When, therefore, the Christians from the North, after a contest the most bitter and protracted, had rescued the greater part of their country from thraldom, and driven the Moors before them into its southwestern provinces, they found themselves, as they advanced, surrounded by large masses of their ancient countrymen, Christians, indeed, in faith and feeling, though most imperfect in Christian knowledge and morals, but Moors in dress, manners, and language. A union, of course, took place between these different bodies, who, by the fortunes of war, had been separated from each other so long, that, though originally of the same stock and still connected by some of the strongest sympathies of our nature, they had for centuries ceased to possess a common language in which alone it would be possible to carry on the daily intercourse of life. But such a reunion of the two parts of the nation, wherever and whenever it occurred, necessarily implied an immediate modification or accommodation of the language that was to be used by both. No doubt, such a modification of the Gothicized and corrupted Latin had been going on, in some degree, from the time of the Moorish conquest. But now it was indispensable that it should be completed. A considerable infusion of the Arabic, therefore, quickly took place;[447] and the last important element was thus added to the present Spanish, which has been polished and refined, indeed, by subsequent centuries of progress in knowledge and civilization, but is still, in its prominent features, the same that it appeared soon after what, with characteristic nationality, is called the Restoration of Spain.[448]

[447] For the great Arabic infusion into the language of Spain,
see Aldrete, Orígen, Lib. III. c. 15; Covarrubias, Tesoro,
_passim_; and the catalogue, of 85 pages, in the fourth volume
of the Memorias de la Academia de Historia. To these may be well
added the very curious “Vestigios da Lingua Arábica em Portugal
per João de Sousa,” Lisboa, 1789, 4to. A general notice of the
whole subject, but one that gives too much influence to the
Arabic, may be found in the “Ocios de Españoles Emigrados,” Tom.
II. p. 16, and Tom. III. p. 291.

[448] The common and characteristic phrase, from a very early
period, for the Moorish conquest of Spain, was “la _pérdida_
de España,” and that for its reconquest, “la _restauracion_ de
España.”

The language, however, which was thus brought from the North by the Christian conquerors, and became modified as it advanced among the Moorish population of the South, was, as we have seen, by no means the classical Latin. It was Latin corrupted, at first, by the causes which had corrupted that language throughout the Roman empire, even before the overthrow of the Roman power,--then by the inevitable effect of the establishment in Spain of the Goths and other barbarians immediately afterwards,--and subsequently by additions from the original Iberian or Basque, made during the residence of the Christians, after the Moorish conquest, among the mountaineers, with whom that language had never ceased to prevail. But the principal cause of the final degradation of the Latin at the North, after the middle of the eighth century, was, no doubt, the miserable condition of the people who spoke it. They had fled from the ruins of the Latinized kingdom of the Goths, pursued by the fiery sword of the Moslem, and found themselves crowded together in the wild fastnesses of the Biscayan and Asturian mountains. There, deprived of the social institutions in which they had been nurtured, and which, however impaired or ruined, yet represented and retained to the last whatever of civilization had been left in their unhappy country; mingled with a people who, down to that time, appear to have shaken off little of the barbarism that had resisted alike the invasion of the Romans and of the Goths; and pent up, in great numbers, within a territory too small, too rude, and too poor to afford them the means of a tolerable subsistence, the Christians at the North seem to have sunk at once into a state nearly approaching that of savage life,--a state, of course, in which no care or thought would be given to preserve the purity of the language they spoke.[449] Nor was their condition much more favorable for such purposes when, with the vigor of despair, they began to recover the country they had lost. For they were then constantly in arms and constantly amidst the perils and sufferings of an exhausting warfare, embittered and exasperated by intense national and religious hatreds. When, therefore, as they advanced with their conquests towards the south and the east, they found themselves coming successively in contact with those portions of their race that had remained among the Moors, they felt that they were at once in the presence of a civilization and refinement altogether superior to their own.

[449] The Arabic accounts, which are much to be relied on,
because they are contemporary, give a shocking picture of the
Christians at the North in the eighth century. “Viven como
fieras, que nunca lavan sus cuerpos ni vestidos, que no se las
mudan, y los llevan puestas hasta que se les caen despedezados
en andrajos,” etc. (Conde, Dominacion, etc., Parte II. c. 18.)
The romantic and uncertain accounts, in the beginning of the
third part of the Crónica General, and the more formal narrative
of Mariana, (book seventh,) leave little doubt that such
descriptions must be near the truth.

The result was inevitable. The change, which, as has been said, now took place in their language, was governed by this peculiar circumstance in their position. For, as the Goths, between the fifth and eighth centuries, received a vast number of words from the Latin because it was the language of a people with whom they were intimately mingled and who were much more intellectual and advanced than themselves, so now, for the same reason, the whole nation received, between the eighth and thirteenth centuries, another increase of their vocabulary from the Arabic, and accommodated themselves, in a remarkable degree, to the advanced cultivation of their Southern countrymen and of their new Moorish subjects.

At what precise period the language, since called the Spanish and Castilian, can be said to have been formed by this union of the Gothicized and corrupted Latin that came from the North with the Arabic of the South, cannot now be determined.[450] Such a union was, from its nature, brought about by one of those gradual and silent changes in what belongs essentially to the character of a whole people, which can leave behind them no formal monuments or exact records. But the learned Marina, who may perhaps be safely trusted on this point, asserts that no document in the Castilian language, with a date anterior to the year 1140, exists, or, in his opinion, ever did exist.[451] Indeed the oldest yet cited is a confirmation of privileges by Alfonso the Seventh, in the year 1155, to the city of Avilés in Asturias.[452] However gradual, therefore, and indistinct may have been the formation and first appearance of the Castilian as the spoken language of modern Spain, we may no doubt feel sure, that, about the middle of the twelfth century, it had risen to the dignity of being a written language, and had begun to appear in the important public documents of the time.

[450] Consult Marina, Ensayo, p. 19.

[451] Ibid., pp. 23, 24.

[452] The Avilés document is regarded by all who have noticed it
as of great importance for the earliest history of the Castilian.
It is first mentioned, I believe, by Father Risco, in his
“Historia de la Ciudad y Corte de Leon” (Madrid, 1793, 4to, Tom.
I. pp. 252, 253); and next by Marina, in his “Ensayo” (Memorias
de la Acad. de Historia, Tom. IV., 1805, p. 33);--both competent
witnesses, and both entirely satisfied that it is genuine. Risco,
however, printed no part of it, and Marina published only a
few extracts. But in the “Revista de Madrid,” (Segunda Epoca,
Tom. VII. pp. 267-322,) it is published entire, as part of an
interesting discussion concerning the old codes of the country,
by Don Rafael Gonzalez Llanos, a man of learning and a native
of Avilés, who seems to have a strong love for the place of his
birth and to be familiar with its antiquities.

The document in question belongs to the class of instruments
sometimes called “Privilegios,” and sometimes “Foros,” or
“Fueros” (see, _ante_, Vol. I. p. 47, note 28); but where, as in
this case, the authority of the instrument is restricted to a
single town or city, it is more properly called “Carta Puebla,”
or municipal charter. This Carta Puebla of Avilés contains a
royal grant of rights and immunities to the several citizens,
as well as to the whole municipality, and involves whatever
regarded the property, business, and franchises of all whom it
was intended to protect. Charters, which were so important to the
welfare of many persons, but which still rested on the arbitrary
authority of the crown, were, as we have previously said, (Vol.
I. p. 47, note 27,) confirmed by succeeding sovereigns, as often
as their confirmation could conveniently be procured by the
communities so deeply interested in their preservation.

The Carta Puebla of Avilés was originally granted by Alfonso VI.,
who reigned from 1073 to 1109. It was, no doubt, written in such
Latin as was then used; and in 1274 it was formally made known
to Alfonso the Wise, that it had been burnt during the attack on
that city by his son Sancho. The original, therefore, is lost,
and we know how it was lost.

What we possess is the translation of this Carta Puebla, made
when it was confirmed by Alfonso VII., A. D. 1155. It is still
preserved in the archives of the city of Avilés, on the original
parchment, consisting of two skins sewed together,--the two
united being about four feet and eleven inches long, and about
nineteen inches wide. It bears the known seal of Alfonso VII.,
and the original signatures of several persons who were bound to
sign it with him, and several subsequent confirmations, scattered
over five centuries. (See Revista, _ut sup._, pp. 329, 330.) So
that in all respects, including the coarseness of the parchment,
the handwriting, and the language, it announces its own
genuineness with as much certainty as any document of its age. As
printed, it fills about twelve pages in octavo, and enables us to
judge somewhat of the state of the Castilian at the time it was
written.

After a caption or enrolment in bad Latin, it opens with these
words:--

“Estos sunt los foros que deu el rey D. Alfonso ad Abilies
cuando la poblou par foro Sancti Facundi et otorgo lo emperador.
Em primo, per solar pinder, I solido a lo reu et II denarios a
lo saion, é cada ano un sólido en censo per lo solar: é qui lo
vender, de I solido á lo rai, é quil comparar dará II denarios a
lo saion,” etc. p. 267.

A part of one of its important regulations is as follows:--“Toth
homine qui populador for ela villa del rey, de quant aver qui ser
aver, si aver como heredat, dè fer en toth suo placer de vender o
de dar, et á quen lo donar que sedeat stabile si filio non aver,
et si filio aver del, delo á mano illo quis quiser é fur placer,
que non deserede de toto, et si toto lo deseredar, toto lo perdan
aquellos á quen lo der.” Revista, p. 315.

Its concluding provisions are in these words:--“Duos homines cum
armas derumpent casa, et de rotura de orta serrada, LX. sólidos
al don de la orta, el medio al rei, é medio al don dela.--Homines
populatores de Abilies, non dent portage ni rivage, desde la mar
ata Leon.” Ibid., p. 322.

It ends with bad Latin, denouncing excommunication on any person
who shall attempt to infringe its provisions, and declaring him
“cum Datam et Abiron in infernum damnatus.” Ibid., p. 329.

By the general consent of those who have examined it, this Carta
Puebla of Avilés is determined to be the oldest document now
known to exist in the Castilian or vulgar dialect of the period,
which dialect, in the opinion of Don Rafael Gonzalez Llanos,
received its essential character as early as 1206, or six years
before the decisive battle of the Navas de Tolosa, (see, _ante_,
Vol. I. p. 9, note,) though not a few documents, after that date,
abound in Latin words and phrases. Revista, _ut supra_, Tom.
VIII. p. 197.

I am aware that two documents in the Spanish language, claiming
to be yet older, have been cited by Mr. Hallam, in a note to Part
II. c. 9 of his Middle Ages, London, 1819, 8vo, Vol. III. p. 554,
where he says: “The earliest Spanish that I remember to have seen
is an instrument in Martene, Thesaurus Anecdotorum, Tom. I. p.
263; the date of which is 1095. Persons more conversant with the
antiquities of that country may possibly go farther back. Another
of 1101 is published in Marina’s Teoria de las Cortes, Tom.
III. p. 1. It is in a Vidimus by Peter the Cruel, and cannot, I
presume, have been a translation from the Latin.” There can be no
higher general authority than Mr. Hallam for any historical fact,
and this statement seems to carry back the oldest authentic date
for the Spanish language sixty years earlier than I have ventured
to carry it. But I have examined carefully both of the documents
to which Mr. Hallam refers, and am satisfied they are of later
date than the charter of Avilés. That in Martene is merely an
anecdote connected with the taking of “the city of Exea,” when
it was conquered, as this story states, by Sancho of Aragon. Its
language strongly resembles that of the “Partidas,” which would
bring it down to the middle of the thirteenth century; but it
bears, in truth, no date, and only declares at the end that the
city of Exea was taken on the nones of April, 1095, from the
Moors. Of course, there is some mistake about the whole matter,
for Sancho of Aragon, here named as its conqueror, died June 4th,
1094, and was succeeded by Peter I., and the person who wrote
this account, which seems to be, after all, only an extract from
some monkish chronicle, did not live near enough to that date to
know so notorious a fact. Moreover, Exea is in Aragon, where it
is not probable the earliest Castilian was spoken or written.
Thus much for the document from Martene. That from Marina’s
Teoria is of a still later and quite certain date. It is a
charter of privileges granted by Alfonso VI. to the Mozárabes of
Toledo, but translated in 1340, when it was confirmed by Alfonso
XI. Indeed, it is so announced by Marina himself, who in the
table of contents says especially, that it is “_translated_ into
Castilian.”

From this period, then, we are to recognize the existence in Spain of a language spreading gradually through the greater part of the country, different from the pure or the corrupted Latin, and still more different from the Arabic, yet obviously formed by a union of both, modified by the analogies and spirit of the Gothic constructions and dialects, and containing some remains of the vocabularies of the Germanic tribes, of the Iberians, the Celts, and the Phœnicians, who, at different periods, had occupied nearly or quite the whole of the Peninsula. This language was called originally the _Romance_, because it was so much formed out of the language of the Romans; just as the Christians, in the northwestern mountains, were called by the Arabs _Alromi_, because they were imagined to be descended from the Romans.[453] Later, it was called _Spanish_, from the name taken by the whole people, and perhaps, at last, it was even more frequently called _Castilian_, from that portion of the country, whose political power grew to be so predominant, as to give its dialect a preponderance over all the other dialects, which, like the Galician, the Catalonian, and the Valencian, were, for a longer or shorter period, written languages, each with claims to a literature of its own.

[453] Marina, Ensayo, p. 19.

The proportion of materials contributed by each of the languages that enter into the composition of the Spanish has never been accurately settled, though enough is known to permit an adjustment of their general relations to each other. Sarmiento, who investigated the subject with some care, thinks that six tenths of the present Castilian are of Latin origin; one tenth Greek and ecclesiastical; one tenth Northern; one tenth Arabic; and the remaining tenth East Indian and American, Gypsy, modern German, French, and Italian. Probably this estimate is not very far from the truth. But Larramendi and Humboldt leave no doubt that the Basque should be added; and, while Marina’s inquiries give a smaller proportion to the Arabic, those of Gayangos raise it to an eighth. The main point, however, is one concerning which there can be no doubt;--the broad foundations of the Castilian are to be sought in the Latin, to which, in fact, we are to trace nearly or quite all the contributions sometimes attributed to the Greek.[454]

[454] The most striking proof, perhaps, that can be given of the
number of Latin words and constructions retained in the modern
Spanish, is to be found in the many pages of verse and prose that
have, from time to time, been so written that they can be read
throughout either as Latin or as Spanish. The first instance of
this sort that I know of is by Juan Martinez Siliceo, Archbishop
of Toledo and preceptor to Philip II., who, when he was in Italy,
wrote a short prose dissertation that could be read in both
languages, in order to prove to some of his learned friends in
that country that the Castilian of Spain was nearer to the Latin
than their Italian;--a _jeu-d’esprit_, which he printed in his
treatise on Arithmetic, in 1514. (Antonio, Bib. Nov., Tom. II.
p. 737.) Other examples occur afterwards. One may be found in
a Spanish Grammar, published at Louvain in 1555, and entitled
“Util y Breve Institution para aprender Lengua Hespañola”; a
curious book, which treats the Castilian as only one of several
languages then spoken in the Spanish Peninsula, and says of it,
“no es otra cosa que Latin corrupto,”--adding that many letters
had been written in Spanish words that were yet Latin letters,
one of which he proceeds to give in proof. Other examples
occur in a Dialogue by Fern. Perez de Oliva, and an Epistle of
Ambrosio Morales, the historian, printed in 1585, with the works
of the first; in a Sonnet published by Rengifo, in his “Arte
Poética,” in 1592; and, finally, in an excessively rare volume of
_terza rima_, by Diego de Aguiar, printed in 1621, and entitled
“Tercetos _en Latin congruo_ y puro Castellano,” of which the
following is a favorable specimen:--

Scribo historias, graves, generosos
Spiritus, divinos Heroes puros,
Magnanimos, insignes, bellicosos;
Canto de Marte, defensores duros
Animosos Leones, excellentes,
De rarâ industriâ, invictos, grandes muros,
Vos animas illustres, præeminentes
Invoco, etc.

Much cannot be said for the purity of either the Castilian or
the Latin in verses like these; but they leave no doubt of the
near relationship of the two. For the proportions of all the
languages that enter into the Spanish, see Sarmiento, Memorias,
1775, p. 107;--Larramendi, Antiguedad y Universalidad del
Bascuence, 1728, c. xvi., apud Vargas y Ponce, Disertacion, 1793,
pp. 10-26;--Rosseeuw de St. Hilaire, Etudes sur l’Origine de
la Langue et Romances Espagnoles, Thèse, 1838, p. 11;--W. von
Humboldt, Prüfung, already cited;--Marina, Ensayo, in Mem. de la
Acad. de Hist., Tom. IV., 1805;--and an article in the British
and Foreign Review, No. XV., 1839.

The Spanish, or Castilian, language thus formed was introduced into general use sooner and more easily than, perhaps, any other of the newly created languages, which, as the confusion of the Middle Ages passed off, were springing up, throughout the South of Europe, to take the place of the universal language of the Roman world. The reasons of this were, that the necessity for its creation and employment was more urgent, from the extraordinary relations between the Moors, the Muçárabes, and the Christians; that the reign of Saint Ferdinand, at least as late as the capture of Seville in 1247, was a period, if not of quiet, yet of prosperity and almost of splendor; and that the Latin, both as a written and a spoken language, had become so much degraded, that it could offer less resistance to change in Spain than in the other countries where a similar revolution was in progress.[455] We must not be surprised, therefore, to find, not only specimens, but even considerable monuments, of Spanish literature soon after the first recognized appearance of the language itself. The narrative poem of the Cid, for instance, cannot be dated later than the year 1200; and Berceo, who flourished from 1220 to 1240, though he almost apologizes for not writing in Latin,[456] and thus shows how certainly he lived in the debatable period between the two languages, has left us a large mass of genuine Spanish, or Castilian, verse. But it is a little later, and in the reign of Alfonso the Tenth, from 1252 to 1282, that we are to consider the introduction of the Spanish, as a written, a settled, and a polite language, to have been recognized and completed. By his order, the Bible was translated into it from the Vulgate; he required all contracts and legal instruments to be written in it, and all law proceedings to be held in it; and, finally, by his own remarkable code, “Las Siete Partidas,” he at once laid the foundations for the extension and establishment of its authority as far as the Spanish race and power should prevail.[457] From this period, therefore, we are to look for the history and development of the Spanish language, in the body of Spanish literature.

[455] All the documents containing the privileges granted by St.
Ferdinand to Seville, on the capture of the city, are in the
vernacular of the time, the _Romance_. Ortiz y Zuñiga, Anales de
Sevilla, fol., 1677, p. 89.

[456]
Quiero fer una _prosa_ en _Roman paladino_,
En qual suele el pueblo fablar a su vecino,
Car non so tan letrado por fer _otro latino_, etc.
Vida de S. Domingo de Silos, St. 2.

_Roman paladino_ means the “plain Romance language,” _paladino_
being derived, as I think, with Sanchez, from _palam_, though
Sarmiento (in his manuscript on “Amadis de Gaula,” referred to,
Vol. I. p. 322, note) says, when noticing this line: “Paladino
es de _palatino_ y este es de _palacio_.” The _otro latino_
is, of course, the elder Latin, however corrupted. Cervantes
uses the word _ladino_ to mean Spanish, (Don Quixote, Parte I.
c. 41, and the note of Clemencin,) and Dante (Par., III. 63)
uses it once to mean _plain_, _easy_; both curious instances of
an indirect meaning, forced, as it were, upon a word. _Prosa_
means, I suppose, _story_. Biagioli (Ad Purgatorio, XXVI. 118)
says: “_Prosa_ nell’ Italiano e nel Provenzale del secolo xiii.
significa precisamente _istoria o narrazione in versi_.” It may
be doubted whether he is right in applying this remark to the
passage in Dante, but it is no doubt applicable to the passage
before us in Berceo, the meaning of which both Bouterwek and his
Spanish translators have mistaken. (Bouterwek, Trad. Cortina,
etc., 8vo, Madrid, 1829, Tom. I. pp. 60 and 119.) Ferdinand Wolf
(in his very learned work, “Über die Lais, Sequenzen und Leiche,”
Heidelberg, 1841, 8vo, pp. 92 and 304) thinks the use of the word
_prosa_, here and elsewhere in early Spanish poetry, had some
reference to the well-known use of the same word in the offices
of the Church. (Du Cange, Glossarium, _ad verb_.) But I think the
early Spanish rhymers took it from the Provençal, and not from
the ecclesiastical Latin.

[457] Mondejar, Memorias del Rey D. Alonso el Sabio, fol.,
Madrid, 1777, pp. 450-452. Mariana, Hist., Lib. XIV. c. 7, and
Castro, Bib., Tom. I. pp. 411, etc.