Juan and Catalina, and gave their throne to the first occupant. He sent his forces into Africa, and subjugated or reduced to vassalage, Tunis, Tripoli, Algiers, and most of the Barbary powers. A new world was also given to him, without cost, by the discoveries of Columbus, for the expense of the enterprise was borne exclusively by his consort Isabella. He had three objects at heart from the commencement of his reign, which he pursaed with bigoted and persecuting zeal the conquest of the Moors, the expulsion of the Jews, and the establishment of the Inquisition in his dominions. He accomplished them all, and was rewarded by Pope Innocent VIII. with the appellation of Most Catholic Majesty a title which his successors have tenaciously retained.

:

Contemporary writers have been enthusiastic in their descriptions of Isabella, but time has sanctioned their eulogies. She is one of the purest and most beautiful characters in the pages of history. She was well formed, of the middle size, with great dignity and gracefulness of deportment, and a mingled gravity and sweetness of demeanor. Her complexion was fair; her hair auburn, inclining to red; her eyes were of a clear blue, with a benign expression, and there was a singular modesty in her countenance, gracing, as it did, a wonderful firmness of purpose and earnestness of spirit. Though strongly attached to her husband and studious of his fame, yet she always maintained her distinct rights as an allied prince. She exceeded him in beauty, in personal dignity, in acuteness of genius, and in grandeur of soul.† Combining the active and resolute qualities of man with the softer charities of woman, she mingled in the warlike councils of her husband, engaged personally in his enterprises, and in some instances surpassed him in the firmness and intrepidity of her measures; while, being inspired with a truer idea of glory, she infused a more lofty and generous temper into his subtle and calculating policy.

It is in the civil history of their reign, however,

that the character of Isabella shines most illustrious. Her fostering and maternal care was continually directed to reform the laws, and heal the ills engendered by a long course of internal wars. She loved her people, and while diligently seeking their good, she mitigated, as much as possible, the harsh measures of her husband, directed to the same end, but inflamed by a mistaken zeal. Thus, though almost bigoted in her piety, and perhaps too much under the influence of ghostly advisers, still she was hostile to every measure calculated to advance religion at the expense of humanity. She strenuously opposed the expulsion of the Jews and the establishment of the Inquisition, though, unfortunately for Spain, her repugnance was slowly vanquished by her confessors. She was always an advocate for clemency to the Moors, although she was the soul of the war against Granada. She considered that war essential to protect the Christian faith, and to relieve her subjects from fierce and formidable enemies. While all her public thoughts and acts

* Pedro Salazar di Mendoza, Monarq. de Esp. lib. iii. cap. 5. (Madrid, 1770, tom. i. p. 402.) Gonzalo de Illescas, Hist. Pontif. lib. vi. cap. 23, § 3.

+ Garibay, Hist. de España, tom. ii. lib. xviii. cap. I.

Several suits of armor cap-a-pié, worn by Isabella, and still preserved in the royal arsenal at Madrid, show that she was exposed to personal danger in her campaigns.

were princely and august, her private habits were simple, frugal, and unostentatious. In the intervals of state business, she assembled round her the ablest men in literature and science, and directed herself by their counsels, in promoting letters and arts. Through her patronage, Salamanca rose to that height which it assumed among the learned institutions of the age. She promoted the distribution of honors and rewards for the promulgation of knowledge; she fostered the art of printing recently invented, and encouraged the establishment of presses in every part of the kingdom; books were admitted free of all duty, and more, we are told, were printed in Spain, at that early period of the art, than in the present literary

All the chivalry of Spain had been summoned to the field; the streets of Cordova echoed to the tramp of steed and sound of trumpet, as day by with each other in the number of their troops and day the nobles arrived with their retainers, vying the splendor of their appointments. The court was like a military camp; the king and queen were surrounded by the flower of Spanish chivalry; by those veteran cavaliers who had distinguished themselves in so many hardy conflicts with the Moors, and by the prelates and friars who mingled in martial council, and took deep interest and agency in this war of the Faith.

This was an unpropitious moment to urge a suit like that of Columbus. In fact the sovereigns had not a moment of leisure throughout this eventful year. Early in the spring, the king marched off to lay siege to the Moorish city of Loxa; and though the queen remained at Cordova, she was continually employed in forwarding troops and supplies to the army, and, at the same time, attending to the multiplied exigencies of civil government. On the 12th of June she repaired to the camp, then engaged in the siege of Moclin, and both sovereigns remained for some time in the Vega of Granada, prosecuting the war with unremitting vigor. They had barely returned to Cordova to celebrate their victories by public re

* Elogio de la Reina Catholica, por Diego Clemen cin. Madrid, 1821.

even common to find cardinals and bishops in nelm and corselet at the head of armies; for the crosier had been occasionally thrown by for the lance, during the holy war against the Moors. The era was distinguished for the revival of learning, but still more for the prevalence of religious zeal, and Spain surpassed all other countries of Christendom in the fervor of her devotion. The Inquisition had just been established in that kingdom, and every opinion that savored of heresy made its owner obnoxious to odium and persecu

tion.

Such was the period when a council of clerical sages was convened in the collegiate convent of St. Stephen, to investigate the new theory of Columbus. It was composed of professors of astronomy, geography, mathematics, and other branches of science, together with various dignitaries of the church, and learned friars. Before this erudite assembly, Columbus presented himself to propound and defend his conclusions. He had been scoffed at as a visionary by the vulgar and the ignorant; but he was convinced that he only required a body of enlightened men to listen dispassionately to his reasonings, to insure triumphant conviction.

The greater part of this learned junto, it is very probable, came prepossessed against him, as men in place and dignity are apt to be against poor applicants. There is always a proneness to consider a man under examination as a kind of delinquent, or impostor, whose faults and errors are to be detected and exposed. Columbus, too, appeared in a most unfavorable light before a scholastic body: an obscure navigator, a member of no learned institution, destitute of all the trappings and circumstances which sometimes give oracular authority to dullness, and depending upon the mere force of natural genius. Some of the junto entertained the popular notion that he was an adventurer, or at best a visionary; and others had that morbid impatience of any innovation upon established doctrine, which is apt to grow upon dull and pedantic men in cloistered life.

We are

What a striking spectacle must the hall of the old convent have presented at this memorable conference! A simple mariner, standing forth in the midst of an imposing array of professors, friars, and dignitaries of the church; maintaining his theory with natural eloquence, and, as it were, pleading the cause of the new world. told that when he began to state the grounds of his belief, the friars of St. Stephen alone paid attention to him; that convent being more learned in the sciences than the rest of the university. The others appear to have intrenched themselves behind one dogged position that, after so many profound philosophers and cosmographers had been studying the form of the world, and so many able navigators had been sailing about it for several thousand years, it was great presumption in an ordinary man to suppose that there remained such a vast discovery for him to make.

Several of the objections proposed by this learned body have been handed down to us, and have provoked many a sneer at the expense of the university of Salamanca; but they are proofs, not so much of the peculiar deficiency of that institution, as of the imperfect state of science at the time, and the manner in which knowledge, though rapidly extending, was still impeded in its prog

* Remesal, Hist. de Chiapa, lib. xi. cap. 7.

ress by monastic bigotry. All subjects were still contemplated through the obscure medium of those ages when the lights of antiquity were trampled out and faith was left to fill the place of inquiry. Bewildered in a maze of religious controversy, mankind had retraced their steps, and receded from the boundary line of ancient knowledge. Thus, at the very threshold of the discussion, instead of geographical objections, Columbus was assailed with citations from the Bible and the Testament: the book of Genesis, the psalms of David, the prophets, the epistles, and the gospels. To these were added the expositions of various saints and reverend commentators: St. Chrysostom and St. Augustine, St. Jerome and St. Gregory, St. Basil and St. Ambrose, and Lactantius Firmianus, a redoubted champion of the faith. Doctrinal points were mixed up with philosophical discussions, and a mathematical demonstration was allowed no weight, if it appeared to clash with a text of Scripture or a commentary of one of the fathers. Thus the possibility of antipodes, in the southern hemisphere, an opinion so generally maintained by the wisest of the ancients as to be pronounced by Pliny the great contest between the learned and the ignorant, became a stumbling-block with some of the sages of Salamanca. Several of them stoutly contradicted this fundamental position of Columbus, supporting themselves by quotations from Lactantius and St. Augustine, who were considered in those days as almost evangelical authority. But, though these writers were men of consummate erudition, and two of the greatest luminaries of what has been called the golden age of ecclesiastical learning, yet their writings were calculated to perpetuate darkness in respect to the sciences.

The passage cited from Lactantius to confute Columbus is in a strain of gross ridicule, unworthy of so grave a theologian. Is there any one so foolish," he asks, "as to believe that there are antipodes with their feet opposite to ours: people who walk with their heels upward, and their heads hanging down? That there is a part of the world in which all things are topsy-turvy : where the trees grow with their branches downward, and where it rains, hails, and snows upward? The idea of the roundness of the earth,' he adds, "was the cause of inventing this fable of the antipodes, with their heels in the air; for these philosophers, having once erred, go on in their absurdities, defending one with another."

Objections of a graver nature were advanced on the authority of St. Augustine. He pronounces the doctrine of antipodes to be incompatible with the historical foundations of our faith; since, to assert that there were inhabited lands on the opposite side of the globe would be to maintain that there were nations not descended from Adam, it being impossible for them to have passed the intervening ocean. This would be, therefore, to discredit the Bible, which expressly declares that all men are descended from one common parent.

Such were the unlooked for prejudices which Columbus had to encounter at the very outset of his conference, and which certainly relish more of the convent than the university. To his simplest proposition, the spherical form of the earth, were opposed figurative texts of Scripture. They observed that in the Psalms the heavens are said to be extended like a hide, that is, according to commentators, the curtain or covering of a tent,

* Extendens cœlum sicut pellem. Psalm 103. In the English translation it is Psalm 104, ver. 3.

which, among the ancient pastoral nations, was formed of the hides of animals; and that St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Hebrews, compares the heavens to a tabernacle, or tent, extended over the earth, which they thence inferred must be flat. Columbus, who was a devoutly religious man, found that he was in danger of being convicted not merely of error, but of heterodoxy. Others more versed in science admitted the globular form of the earth, and the possibility of an opposite and habitable hemisphere; but they brought up the chimera of the ancients, and maintained that it would be impossible to arrive there, in consesquence of the insupportable heat of the torrid zone. Even granting this could be passed, they observed that the circumference of the earth must be so great as to require at least three years to the voyage, and those who should undertake it must perish of hunger and thirst, from the impossibility of carrying provisions for so long a period. He was told, on the authority of Epicurus, that admitting the earth to be spherical, it was only inhabitable in the northern hemisphere, and in that section only was canopied by the heavens ; that the opposite half was a chaos, a gulf, or a mere waste of water. Not the least absurd objection advanced was, that should a ship even succeed in reaching, in this way, the extremity of India, she could never get back again; for the rotundity of the globe would present a kind of mountain, up which it would be impossible for her to sail with the most favorable wind.*

Such are specimens of the errors and prejudices, the mingled ignorance and erudition, and the pedantic bigotry, with which Columbus had to contend throughout the examination of his theory. Can we wonder at the difficulties and delays which he experienced at courts, when such vague and crude notions were entertained by the learned men of a university? We must not suppose, however, because the objections here cited are all which remain on record, that they are all which were advanced; these only have been perpetuated on account of their superior absurdity. were probably advanced by but few, and those persons immersed in theological studies, in cloistered retirement, where the erroneous opinions derived from books had little opportunity of being corrected by the experience of the day.

They

There were no doubt objections advanced more cogent in their nature, and more worthy of that distinguished university. It is but justice to add, also, that the replies of Columbus had great weight with many of his learned examiners. In answer to the scriptural objections, he submitted that the inspired writers were not speaking technically as cosmographers, but figuratively, in language addressed to all comprehensions. The commentaries of the fathers he treated with deference as pious homilies, but not as philosophical propositions which it was necessary either to admit or refute. The objections drawn from ancient philosophers he met boldly and ably upon equal terms; for he was deeply studied on all points of cosmography. He showed that the most illustrious of those sages believed both hemispheres to be inhabitable, though they imagined that the torrid zone precluded communication; and he obviated conclusively that difficulty; for he had voyaged to St. George la Mina in Guinea, almost under the equinoctial line, and had found that region not merely traversable, but abounding in population, in fruits and pasturage.

*Hist. del Almirante, cap. II.

When Columbus took his stand before this learned body, he had appeared the plain and simple navigator; somewhat daunted, perhaps, by the greatness of his task and the august nature of his auditory. But he had a degree of religious feeling which gave him a confidence in the execution of what he conceived his great errand, and he was of an ardent temperament that became heated in action by its own generous fires. Las Casas, and others of his contemporaries, have spoken of his commanding person, his elevated demeanor, his air of authority, his kindling eye, and the persuasive intonations of his voice. must they have given majesty and force to his words, as, casting aside his maps and charts, and discarding for a time his practical and scientific lore, his visionary spirit took fire at the doctrinal objections of his opponents, and he met them upon their own ground, pouring forth those magnificent texts of Scripture, and those mysterious predictions of the prophets, which, in his enthusiastic moments, he considered as types and annunciations of the sublime discovery which he proposed!

How

Among the number who were convinced by the reasoning, and warmed by the eloquence of Columbus, was Diego de Deza, a worthy and learned friar of the order of St. Dominick, at that time professor of theology in the convent of St. Stephen, but who became afterward Archbishop of Seville, the second ecclesiastical dignitary of Spain. This able and erudite divine was a man whose mind was above the narrow bigotry of bookish lore; one who could appreciate the value of wisdom even when uttered by unlearned lips. He was not a mere passive auditor: he took a generous interest in the cause, and by seconding Columbus with all his powers, calmed the blind zeal of his more bigoted brethren so as to obtain for him a dispassionate, if not an unprejudiced, hearing. By their united efforts, it is said, they brought over the most learned men of the schools.* great difficulty was to reconcile the plan of Columbus with the cosmography of Ptolemy, to which all scholars yielded implicit faith. How would the most enlightened of those sages have been astonished, had any one apprised them that the man, Copernicus, was then in existence, whose solar system should reverse the grand theory of Ptolemy, which stationed the earth in the centre of the universe!

One

Notwithstanding every exertion, however, there was a preponderating mass of inert bigotry and learned pride in this erudite body, which refused to yield to the demonstrations of an obscure foreigner, without fortune or connections, or any academic honors. "It was requisite," says Las Casas, "before Columbus could make his solutions and reasonings understood, that he should remove from his auditors those erroneous principles on which their objections were founded; a task always more difficult than that of teaching the doctrine." Occasional conferences took place, but without producing any decision. The ignorant, or what is worse, the prejudiced, remained obstinate in their opposition, with the dogged perseverance of dull men; the more liberal and intelligent felt little interest in discussions wearisome in themselves, and foreign to their ordinary pursuits; even those who listened with approbation to the plan, regarded it only as a delightful vision, full of probability and promise, but one which never could be realized. Fernando de

* Remesal, Hist. de Chiapa, lib. xi. cap. 7.

Talavera, to whom the matter was especially intrusted, had too little esteem for it, and was too much occupied with the stir and bustle of public concerns, to press it to a conclusion; and thus the inquiry experienced continual procrastination and neglect.

CHAPTER IV.

FURTHER APPLICATIONS AT THE COURT OF CASTILE-COLUMBUS FOLLOWS THE COURT IN ITS CAMPAIGNS.

THE Castilian court departed from Salamanca early in the spring of 1487 and repaired to Cordova, to prepare for the memorable campaign against Malaga. Fernando de Talavera, now Bishop of Avila, accompanied the queen as her confessor, and as one of her spiritual counsellors in the concerns of the war. The consultations of the board at Salamanca were interrupted by this event, before that learned body could come to a decision, and for a long time Columbus was kept in suspense, vainly awaiting the report that was to decide the fate of his application.

It has generally been supposed that the several years which he wasted in irksome solicitation were spent in the drowsy and monotonous attendance of antechambers; but it appears, on the contrary, that they were often passed amid scenes of peril and adventure, and that, in following up his suit, he was led into some of the most striking situations of this wild, rugged, and mountainous war. Several times he was summoned to attend conferences in the vicinity of the sovereigns, when besieging cities in the very heart of the Moorish dominions; but the tempest of warlike ffairs which hurried the court from place to place and gave it all the bustle and confusion of a camp, prevented those conferences from taking place, and swept away all concerns that were not immediately connected with the war. When

ever the court had an interval of leisure and repose, there would again be manifested a disposition to consider his proposal, but the hurry and tempest would again return and the question be again swept away.

The spring campaign of 1487, which took place shortly after the conference at Salamanca, was full of incident and peril. King Ferdinand had nearly been surprised and cut off by the old Moorish monarch before Velez Malaga, and the queen and all the court at Cordova were for a time in an agony of terror and suspense until assured of his safety.

When the sovereigns were subsequently encamped before the city of Malaga, pressing its memorable siege, Columbus was summoned to the court.

He found it drawn up in its silken pavilions on a rising ground, commanding the fertile valley of Malaga; the encampments of the warlike nobility of Spain extended in a semicircle on each side, to the shores of the sea, strongly fortified, glittering with the martial pomp of that chivalrous age and nation, and closely investing that important city.

The siege was protracted for several months, but the vigorous defence of the Moors, their numerous stratagems, and fierce and frequent sallies, allowed but little leisure in the camp. In the course of this siege, the application of Columbus to the sovereigns was nearly brought to a violent close; a fanatic Moor having attempted to assassinate Ferdinand and Isabella. Mistak

ing one of the gorgeous pavilions of the nobility for the royal tent, he attacked Don Alvaro de Portugal, and Doña Beatrix de Bobadilla, Marchioness of Moya, instead of the king and queen. After wounding Don Alvaro dangerously, he was foiled in a blow aimed at the marchioness, and immediately cut to pieces by the attendants.* The lady here mentioned was of extraordinary ment and force of character. She eventually took a great interest in the suit of Columbus, and had much influence in recommending it to the queen, with whom she was a particular favorite.t

Malaga surrendered on the 18th of August, 1487. There appears to have been no time during its stormy siege to attend to the question of Columbus, though Fernando de Talavera, the Bishop of Avila, was present, as appears by his entering the captured city in solemn and religious triumph. The campaign being ended, the court returned to Cordova, but was almost immediately driven from that city by the pestilence.

For upward of a year the court was in a state of continual migration; part of the time in Saragossa, part of the time invading the Moorish territories by the way of Murcia, and part of the time in Valladolid and Medina del Campo. Columbus attended it in some of its movements, but it was vain to seek a quiet and attentive hearing from a court surrounded by the din of arms and continually on the march. Wearied and discouraged by these delays, he began to think of applying elsewhere for patronage, and appears to have commenced negotiations with King John II. for a return to Portugal. He wrote to that monarch on the subject, and received a letter in reply dated 20th of March, 1488, inviting him to return to his court, and assuring him of protection from any suits of either a civil or criminal nature, that might be pending against him. He received also a letter from Henry VII. of England, inviting him to that country, and holding out promises of encouragement.

There must have been strong hopes, authorized about this time by the conduct of the Spanish sovereigns, to induce Columbus to neglect these invitations; and we find ground for such a supposition in a memorandum of a sum of money paid to him by the treasurer Gonzalez, to enable him to comply with a summons to attend the Castilian court. By the date of this memorandum, the payment must have been made immediately after Columbus had received the letter of the King of Portugal. It would seem to have been the aim of King Ferdinand to prevent his carrying his proposition to another and a rival monarch, and to keep the matter in suspense, until he should have leisure to examine it, and, if advisable, to carry it into operation.

In the spring of 1489 the long-adjourned investigation appeared to be on the eve of taking place. Columbus was summoned to attend a conference of learned men, to be held in the city of Seville; a royal order was issued for lodgings to be provided for him there; and the magistrates of all cities and towns through which he might pass, on his way, were commanded to furnish accommodations gratis for himself and his attendants. A provision of the kind was necessary in those days, when even the present wretched establishments, called posadas, for the reception of travellers, were scarcely known.

The city of Seville complied with the royal

*Pulgar, Cronica, cap. 87. P. Martyr.

+ Retrato del Buen Vassallo, lib. ii. cap. 16.