The Supernatural IN Early Spanish Literature

STUDIED IN THE WORKS OF THE COURT
OF ALFONSO X, EL SABIO

By

FRANK CALLCOTT, Ph. D.

Department of Romance Languages
Columbia University

NEW YORK
1923

Es propiedad. Derechos reservados para todos los países.

Copyright, 1923,
by the Instituto de las Españas.

To

MY PARENTS

PREFACE

The works of Alfonso el Sabio have been chosen because, to a large extent, they represent not only their own period but all that had gone before them, as recorded not only in Castillian but in Latin and to a greater or less degree in Arabic and Hebrew also. Alfonso gathered to his court a select group of scholars versed in these languages; and under his direction they produced or collected a representative library of works dealing with their respective subjects. It is the accessible books of this collection that have furnished the material for the present study.

The author wishes to express sincere thanks to Professor Federico de Onís of Columbia University for sympathetic encouragement and valuable suggestions thruout the entire period of study; to Professor Antonio G. Solalinde, of the Centro de Estudios Históricos, Madrid, for helpful suggestions and criticism of the manuscript as well as for the privilege of consulting the proof-sheets of the Antología de Alfonso X, el Sabio, which has recently issued from the press; to Professor Raymond Weeks, of Columbia University, for his sympathetic interpretation of the Middle Ages and for actually introducing the writer to the true spirit of that period; to his wife, thru whose timely assistance solely it has been possible to complete the study without undue delay; and especially to Professor Henry Alfred Todd, of Columbia, for his painstaking aid and expert criticism while this work was taking form and being put thru the press.

F. C.

Columbia University, January, 1923.

INTRODUCTORY

Furthermore, we are not content to limit our curiosity to the comprehension of what others have understood before us, but push our way in quest of the answer to the eternal and ever haunting how? and why? We climb the mountains, we crouch beneath a shelter while the storm beats, we gaze into space on a starlight night, and these compelling queries become ever more insistent. This element of inexhaustible curiosity is, and has been as far back as the existence of society can be traced, present in all human nature; the leaders of mankind have not been slow to utilize it for the attainment of their own lofty or ignoble aims. The warrior has employed it to inspire his soldiers; the priest to exalt his followers; the minstrel to entrance his auditors.

In the introduction to her Columbia doctorial dissertation, The Supernatural in Modern English Fiction,[1] Dr. Dorothy Scarborough has discussed in a very engaging manner the inherent need of the supernatural in fiction. In real life as well it plays a highly important part. It is a demonstrated fact that when a man faces a supreme crisis—when face to face with death—not only will he turn instinctively to the supernatural powers in that moment but all that is extraneous to his real self will disappear and the true man will stand forth revealed. What is true of the individual in this respect applies also to the race. It is in recognition of this universal truth that the following study has been undertaken, in the hope that a careful examination of the supernatural aspect of the beliefs and practices of Spain as reflected in the literature of a given period will contribute to a better understanding of the questions involved.

Naturally there is a wide difference between the method of thinking of the average person in the Middle Ages and that of the average person of to-day. In the 20th century every peculiar or remarkable phenomenon of nature is subjected to the scrutiny of scientific study, while with the medieval man it was accepted at its face value as being the manifestation of unseen powers, of gods or of devils. It would seem that consciously or otherwise they attempted to make everything appear supernatural whether they could explain it or not. We of today demand that the God of the universe should work thru well defined natural laws; they, on the other hand, expected that “el milagro sea contra natura”.[2] It is true nevertheless that the “call” of the supernatural in one form or another has continued to exert a powerful influence even down to our own time. Some of its forms of manifestation may have changed, but the belief is almost everywhere present. Instead of forecasting the future by Astrology many today seek aid in the séance; miraculous cures are still being sought for as of old not only in many cases abroad but also in communities nearer home—even in the city of New York, during the Novena of St. Ann; while only recently it was reported in the daily press that a young girl in a convent on the banks of the Hudson showed the marks of the stigmata so prominently associated with the history of St. Francis of Assisi.

Before entering upon the study proper of the early Spanish period it will be well to review rapidly some of the important facts in the “supernatural” history of the Iberians since the time when the Goths invaded Spain.[3]

When they came they brought with them their songs and legends, which were peculiarly Germanic. The writer Jordanes, about the middle of the 6th century, states that stories of sunken cities, subterranean voices, etc., were common in the region of the Vistula, the river which separated Scythia from Germany.[4] But we find no trace of this in the early Spanish literature owing to the fact that when the Goths conquered the Iberians they did not blend readily with the people of the newly acquired territory. Nor did they, as the Romans had done, encourage the vanquished to continue their established customs and religion giving to their own traditions an opportunity, thru friendly intercourse, to become adopted by their new subjects. On the other hand, in their effort to make assimilation still more impossible they forbade intermarriage. The result of this was, to use the words of Amador de los Ríos, that

It seems, however, that in this struggle the Church was not always successful. Often the result was a compromise in which the pagan customs were remodeled and made to conform to the requirements of the Church instead of being completely abolished. For instance, according to J. A. MacCulloch, the ancient Celtic warriors used to advance dancing and singing to the fray;[6] and É. Philipon says:

“Lorsqu’ ils marchaient au combat, les guerriers ibères entonnaient à pleine voix leur chants nationaux, leur péans, comme disaient les Romains.”[7]

In the early Middle Ages this custom of the ancient inhabitants of Spain still continued under the Christian domination; and into these war cries and songs had slowly crept the names of the Christian Deity and of the Christian saints.

This habit of consciously directing the minds of the soldiers to things spiritual in such a moment may have been an important factor in the development of the numerous legends of visions seen by soldiers during battle.[8]

One would naturally expect to encounter a marked Arabic influence in the early monuments of the language, considering the fact that the Moslems with all their wealth of magic and other arts peculiar to the East, entered Spain in the early years of the 8th century, but this is not the case. When the Moslems entered Spain those who were able retreated before them, but a large part of the population, unable to do this, remained under Mohammedan rule. These mozárabes, as the conquered Christians were called, struggled bravely to keep themselves and their children free from the heresies of their conquerors and for some time were successful, but by the 9th century the Mohammedans were rapidly instilling their teachings into their captives.[9]

A reaction against this began under Abderrahman II. The Christians, becoming obsessed with a desire to be martyrs, began rashly to expose themselves everywhere. So serious did this movement become that in 852 Abderrahman constrained the bishops to call a council, presided over by Recafredo, instructing them to condemn this zeal for martyrdom, which they did, but only in a half-hearted manner. This movement was the last serious attempt on the part of the mozárabes to rebel against the teachings of the Moors. From this time on they were rapidly merged into the nation of the conquerors and it is a question whether any of them remained true to the Catholic Church at the time Spain was reclaimed by the Christians, all of which explains the lack of a very noticeable Arabic influence in the early Castillian writings.

We have therefore (at the time the early Castillian literature began to appear) a nation from which the clergy had attempted to remove everything that could not be remodeled to conform to their interpretation of Christian Scriptures—an endeavor in which they had been signally successful. At this time, so far as the vernacular was concerned, there had been little influence from the outside world (since the time of the Gothic invasion) other than that which had been imported from Rome. But this isolation was not to last long. When the Christians reconquered the cities from the Moors they made a practice of killing the men but of enslaving the women and children.[10] These women as nurses naturally told the children in their care the stories of their people. In addition to this, Paschal II, Pope from 1099-1118, issued a bull declaring sacred the war in Spain against the Moors as well as that in the Holy Land. This gradually brought into Spain Christian knights from all Europe with their traditions. Likewise, in the earlier part of the 12th century a school of clerical writers appeared in Spain who sought to win the favor of the people thru making their versions of the traditions of the Church more attractive by mixing freely sacred history and profane. They sought inspiration in the Moorish and the Classic traditions; they confused the legends of the past by transferring to them the customs of their own day.[11] It was they who sought out the mysterious legends of the East common among the Moors who lived in the South, incorporating them into their sermons and poems and mingling them with the Christian mythology. All this prepared the way for the great efflorescence of the supernatural which began with Alfonso X and continued in full sway until the 17th century.

CHAPTER I

Alfonso el Sabio as King and Scholar

Recent criticism has also brought to light the fact that the almost blasphemous quotation so long attributed to this king, “Si Dios me hubiera consultado, habría hecho el mundo de otra manera,” is not his at all, but rather was invented later in Catalonia by a certain king Pedro IV, or perhaps by his chronicler Bernat Descoll. Some have attributed it to Fernando IV.[12]

Altho these conceptions may contain some modicum of truth, they are only a part of the truth. Alfonso took an active part in the politics of his day and the surprising thing is that amid all the strife and trouble that surrounded him he found any time at all to give to literary production.

Alfonso was born on November 23, 1221, according to the findings of his biographer, the Marqués de Mondéjar[13] (whose deductions have been confirmed by documents discovered later) and was named for his grandfather Alfonso IX of Leon and his great-grandfather Alfonso VIII of Castile. Practically nothing is known of his early childhood except that he was associated with certain of the nobility, viz., García Fernández and Doña Mayor Arias of the province of Burgos. Of his early training nothing is known. He was probably reared in Toledo, his father’s capital, and as Sr. Solalinde suggests, much might be inferred from the rules for the training of princes given in the Siete Partidas, a collection of the laws of the time, provided the reader does not take these too literally. At the age of sixteen he began his career as a soldier under his father, Fernando III, el Santo, in the conquest of Andalucía. He himself added to his father’s crown the kingdom of Murcia and took an active part in the conquest of Sevilla in 1248. The next year he married Doña Violante of Aragón, daughter of Jaime el Conquistador, hoping in this way to effect an alliance between the two kingdoms, but it seems as tho Fate had decreed that from the very first his should be a life of disappointments and trouble. The frontier warfare between these two nations continued, growing even more sharp later when Alfonso aspired to the crown of Navarra. It was not until much later that the friendship of Alfonso and Don Jaime became firmly established.

Aside from his legal wife, whom he married by way of securing a political asset—a mode of procedure not unknown even in later times—he really loved a certain beautiful lady, Doña Mayor Guillén de Guzmán, who bore to him his daughter Doña Beatriz, later married by her father to Alfonso III of Portugal. The sepulcher and also the body of Doña Mayor in a remarkable state of preservation are still to be seen in Alcocer. One of the hands still wears the glove with which it was clothed at the time of the burial.

In May, 1252, Alfonso ascended the throne, after receiving his father’s solemn charge: “Fijo, ricas fincas et tierra et de muchos buenos vasallos más que rey que en la cristianidad sea; pugna en facer bien e ser bueno, ca bien has con qué.”

Alfonso, the king, was undoubtedly an indefatigable worker and a man of the highest intentions. He knew what ought to be done but apparently did not have the power of will or the personality to insure the execution of his purpose. When he ascended the throne the war with the Moors had been reduced to operations of minor importance and they recognized the Castillian monarch as their master. But here as elsewhere history repeats itself. Each Christian king on the peninsula was dominated by the desire to extend his territories; and, since there was no longer the necessity of standing together against the common foe, a series of petty quarrels soon arose followed by attempted conquests. As time went on, not only Alfonso’s own nobles, but his brothers and even his own son became involved against their king. It was precisely here that Alfonso was unable to hold the reins of power in as firm a hand as his father before him had done. It was because of internal troubles that he failed, at the critical moment, to bring the wars in Italy to a decisive conclusion, and to terminate successfully with the popes and others, the diplomatic controversies in which the throne of the Holy Roman Empire was at stake. To this throne he had been legally elected at the death of William of Holland in 1256, when he received four of the seven votes. He was opposed by Richard of Cornwall. The long contest which followed was in reality a political battle with the popes, from Alexander IV to Gregory X, in which Richard usually had the upper hand. At Richard’s death Rudolph of Hapsburg under the pontifical protection was elected to take his place, and it was only after nineteen years that Alfonso finally succeeded, in 1275, in obtaining an audience with Gregory in France. The unfortunate outcome of this interview was that Alfonso was persuaded to give up all pretentions to the imperial crown and to forego his custom of signing international papers with the title of “rey de romanos.” In this manner ended Alfonso’s vain attempt at external territorial expansion.

At home, in contests with his own nobles, he had been hardly more successful. Indeed, with all the accumulated expenses of his long-continued attempts to obtain the imperial crown it would have required a man of almost superhuman force to keep his powerful vassals under control and at the same time subject them to the excessive taxation necessarily involved. This, as we have seen, Alfonso did not possess. The Infante Don Enrique was the first to rebel. His outbreak was followed by a more serious uprising of the nobles under the ostensible leadership of the king’s brother, the Infante Don Felipe, but was really fostered and maintained by Nuño de Lara, the boldest and most favored noble of the court. To restore harmony the king surrendered many of his own prescriptive rights, but even then the nobles were not satisfied and Nuño de Lara, inspired by this recently acquired power, objected to the royal decision to require no further payments of tribute from the king of Portugal. Alfonso, in anger, demanded that Nuño withdraw from the council; this he did but in open rebellion, successfully drawing with him a large number of the nobles. Many of these, apparently faithful to Alfonso, followed an intimation given them by Nuño and outwardly supported their sovereign while privately plotting with some of his powerful enemies, the king of Navarre and even the emir of Granada.

In an endeavor to adjust matters Alfonso summoned a general convocation, which the aggrieved nobles, in an attitude of open affront, attended fully armed while their sovereign wore only civilian dress. At this meeting the monarch ceded still further privileges; but, pursuing their advantage, they finally came out in open rebellion and, gathering their army, marched away from Castile to the kingdom of Granada, burning and plundering as they went. Meanwhile Alfonso, by means of his eldest son and heir, Fernando de la Cerda, still endeavored to negotiate with them.

In spite of all these internal troubles the crown of the Holy Roman Empire still held the uppermost place in the mind of the monarch and it was just at this juncture that he succeeded in arranging for his above mentioned visit to France and left his oldest son, Fernando de la Cerda, to govern in his stead. The latter altho only a boy of twenty years was already showing great ability as his father’s representative, when suddenly he died. Fate seemed determined that not one bright lingering hope should be permitted to relieve Alfonso’s long, unhappy reign.

This unfortunate death was the cause of additional troubles. Don Sancho, Alfonso’s second son, immediately took up the reins of government where his brother had let them fall. War having been declared on the Moors, no time was to be lost. Alfonso returned to find his son and heir dead, his father-in-law, Don Jaime,—that valiant warrior who had now become his devoted friend—just killed by the unbelievers, and his second son, Sancho, self-established as heir-apparent. Altho this was contrary to what the king himself had ordered in Las Siete Partidas,[14] he confirmed Sancho as his successor, whereas the crown should have gone to Fernando’s eldest son. This brought more trouble. Queen Violante left him and sought refuge with her brother, Pedro III of Aragon, in order to defend the rights of her grandsons. The wife of the deceased prince hastened to her father, king of France, and war was about to be declared between the two kingdoms, when Rome interfered. Violante returned to her lord upon receiving his promise to cede the kingdom of Jaén to his grandson; but this angered Don Sancho, who rebelled against his father. Alfonso publicly disinherited his son, and incontinently set out to crush him. The other Infantes who had previously supported their brother now forsook him and came to the aid of their father. Sancho himself, with a kind of religious respect for his royal father, avoided battle and finally implored pardon. Such was the condition of affairs when, after an exceedingly turbulent reign of thirty-two years, Alfonso X died in Seville on the 4th of April, 1284.

During all these years Alfonso had cherished the fond hope of carrying on an ever broadening war against the Moors and finally of extending it into Africa and there dealing a death blow to the power of the Crescent. This purpose of his, like a will-o’-the-wisp, fluttered constantly just beyond his power of execution. He did succeed in carrying out minor conquests, but the ruler of Granada was always quick to take advantage of the civil strife in the kingdom to the north of him to recover his lost territory. The final net result was that Alfonso succeeded in adding to his crown the cities of Jerez de la Frontera, Medina-Sidonia, Lebrija, Niebla, Cádiz, and a few other towns of little importance.

From the foregoing it is easy to see that Alfonso was not a mere theorizing star-gazer. It is surprising that a man with his hands so full of terrestrial affairs could ever have found time to turn his eyes heavenward or could ever find the leisure and the quiet necessary for the careful editing of the lengthy works produced at his command.

In speaking of these works and discussing their chronological order Sr. Ramón Menendez Pidal says:

Of the above I have been able to consult only those printed or reproduced in facsimile, which are the following:

Las Siete Partidas, (the best edition of which is the large three volume work published in 1807 by the Real Academia) is the result of Alfonso’s successful attempt to complete the work begun by his father in collecting, codifying and standardizing the various laws of the numerous regions of the kingdom, and it has been used as the basis of Spanish jurisprudence ever since. This work has proved of very great value because of the ample comments (made, it seems, either by the compilers or by Alfonso himself) on the laws contained and the customs referred to.

Las Cantigas is a collection of 422 lyric or narrative poems in the Gallego-portugués dialect, many of which were probably written by the monarch. Of these 353 are narrations of miracles attributed to the Blessed Virgin. The edition used in this study is that of the Real Academia, 1889, 2 Vols., 33 cm. edited with a critical introduction by Leopoldo Augusto de Cueto, Marqués de Valmar. A third volume of this work by J. Ribera treating of the music of Las Cantigas has just appeared.

Los Libros del Saber de Astronomía, contain a large number of drawings of the heavens, various astronomical instruments, etc., as well as a compendium of what was then known relating to this science. In the introduction to the edition which consists of five 45 × 33 cm. volumes by Manuel Rico y Sinobas, Madrid, 1868, the editor states that among the compilers were 8 Christians and 6 Jews; while the works of more than 17 Arabs were consulted (p. XCII).

La Primera Crónica General (edition of Ramón Menéndez Pidal in Nueva Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, vol. 5, 1906) is an account of the history of Spain from the time of Moses to the death of Fernando III, el Santo. This, says Sr. Pidal in his Estudios Literarios (p. 208 ff.), is the first chronicle written in Spain which considers the Spaniards as a Roman instead of a Gothic people. Being guided by the results of his research, the latest and most authoritative on the subject, I have included in this study only the first part of the Crónica, i. e., chapters 1-566, as the remaining part is probably the work of Alfonso’s successor.

La General Estoria is still unedited. It is a work of five parts, each of which is in size equal to the Primera Crónica General. It purports to be a history of the world from the creation to the time of Alfonso and is based primarily on the Bible, altho other authorities, both sacred and profane, are freely drawn upon. For this study I have been able to consult only those extracts that appear in the Antología of Sr. Antonio G. Solalinde.

El Lapidario treats of 360 stones, dividing them into twelve groups describes their appearance and the country or locality in which they are found, bringing in in this way interesting comments on manners and customs, scraps of folk-lore, etc., as well as discussing the medicinal and supernatural properties of the various stones introduced. The edition used was that of José T. Montaña, Antonio Selfa, and Hippólito Rodrigáñez, Madrid, 1881.

El Libro de Ajedrez. A two volume photographic edition of this work was brought out in Leipzig in 1913 by J. G. White under the title of A Spanish Treatise of Chess written by the order of King Alfonso, the Sage, in 1283. It is a careful discussion of the game and description of the various moves. As well as chess, the games of dice and backgammon are included.

In this study have been included only those works which may, without reasonable doubt, be considered to be the productions of Alfonso el Sabio or works in whose composition he took part in the manner indicated below. Those which may have been more or less plausibly attributed to him but whose authorship still remains in doubt, have been purposely omitted. Of these latter the most important is Calila y Dimna, which many still maintain was translated by the order of Alfonso.[16] But even if this be correct the book is a purely allegorical one, entirely foreign to the spirit and manner of Spain, and can in no way aid us in understanding the superstitions and religious beliefs of the Spanish nation.

While it is true that Alfonso did not with his own hands write out the works included in our study, nevertheless the compilers themselves bear witness to the fact that he did carefully edit them, scrutinizing the contents, eliminating the non-essential and perfecting the language. In the General Estoria is found this significant statement:

Small wonder then that the king realized the value of quietude and specified as one of the essentials for the making of good laws that

CHAPTER II

Miracles Performed by the Virgin in Response to Prayer

Since all the extant works of this period, with the exception of Las Cantigas and a few cantigas de amor et de maldecir, were written for the erudite and were in no sense popular in their origins, it is apparent that the popular beliefs in regard to the supernatural will be found mentioned in them only incidentally. Occasionally, as in the Crónica General for example, the traditions of the common people had firmly established themselves in the Cantares de Gesta and other sources which were drawn upon by the compilers. In such scientific works as El Lapidario and Los Libros del Saber de Astronomía, the effect of the various heavenly bodies upon things terrestrial is mentioned, but these reflect the beliefs of the learned, not of the ignorant. While these beliefs of the intellectual classes are interesting and useful in themselves, they are by no means as important for our study as the superstitions of the man of the street. Las Siete Partidas has furnished much pertinent information because of the laws concerning practices involving the supernatural which were forbidden, or which, as in the case of conjuring, were permitted only under certain circumstances. But from such sources we can get only a very small proportion of the great mass of popular conceptions and traditions which must have existed, as is forcibly illustrated by the fact that in all the other works excepting Las Cantigas only nine miracles are narrated. On the other hand the term “milagro” was considered important enough to merit a lengthy definition in the laws of the times.[19] According to this definition a “milagro” is a divine intervention in the regular course of nature the purpose of which is, among other things, to reward the faithful and to bear witness to the veracity of the Christian faith.

But when we consider Las Cantigas, a work whose avowed purpose is to gather together all the current stories of miracles attributed to the Virgin either directly or indirectly, we have a collection of 353 accounts drawn both from the writings of the saints and from popular tradition. It is to be noticed too that all of these are performed either directly or indirectly by the Virgin and do not include any of those attributed to the various other saints, to the Child nor to the Man Jesus, etc. If such a host of legends and stories could be gathered with the facilities of that time dealing with only one phase of supernatural lore and with only one saint how great must have been the entire store!

Another interesting fact in connection with this collection is that, altho according to the Church authorities, the Virgin could perform miracles only when especially empowered to do so, she is represented here as performing them of her own accord. Only seldom does she go to her Son or to God the Father for aid or permission.

Such a procedure can not be attributed to ignorance on the part of one so well versed in ecclesiastical law and customs as Alfonso. It is probably a conscious reflection of the general belief of the common people who knew little of Theology.

In a period of such absolute and naive faith it is not at all surprising that the same miracle, with a few minor alterations perhaps, should be attributed at one time to the Virgin and at another to God,[20] or at one time to the crucifix and at another to the image of the Virgin, etc.[21] The result of this customary promiscuous attribution of benevolent deeds to various divine forces and personages was that the counterpart of every miracle mentioned in any of the writings of king Alfonso X is found in Las Cantigas. Therefore our study of this topic will be based on this collection with appropriate notes of any variations of interest in the legends as found in his other works.

A large number of the miracles in the beginning of the collection of Las Cantigas are taken, as usually stated in the poem itself, from some other accessible book.[22] But as legends from these sources grew scarce the store of oral tradition was drawn upon, and occasionally, as in apprehension that the veracity of the story might be challenged, some such strengthening line as “mui bien sey que foi e é gran uerdade”[23] was added. So personal is the tone of the whole collection that there is no hesitation whatever in recounting the miraculous experience of some member of the royal family or of the king himself.[24] Constant search in the manuscripts at hand was apparently continued however during the entire time of composition and as late as No. 362 occurs the expression “achei escrito.”[25]

The cult of the Virgin became very popular during the 13th century and when we consider the influence it had all thru the period we are studying it is natural to expect, that in a group of miracles dedicated expressly to her, that Jesus, the Son of Mary, and even God the Father would be but seldom mentioned.[26] But when they are they are recognized as being supreme. The Virgin herself often has to ask a favor of the Son, as in Nos. 14, 45, etc. At times we are privileged to catch a glimpse of the court of heaven resembling greatly a medieval court with God the Father and His Son as the supreme rulers and below them the saints in the order of their various ranks.

On one occasion, No. 14 for instance, Saint Peter pleads without success for the soul of a licentious monk who during life was especially devoted to him. After invoking the aid of the other saints to no avail he finally appeals to the Virgin and in answer to her God permits the return of the soul to the body for the benefit of another chance. The details here are such that one might easily imagine the scene to be that of any court of 13th century Europe.

Naturally in so large a collection[27] any classification has to be arbitrary, and however the division is made there will be a number which may be placed under two or more headings. The present classification, tabulated in detail on page 135 has been made to suit the needs of this study exclusively. In what here follows I shall summarize only the typical examples of each class.

The group of miracles studied especially in this chapter, those performed by the Virgin in response to prayer, includes almost every conceivable form of aid, all the way from restoring life to the dead down to helping a man find his lost falcon. They suffice to give us a rare conception of the beliefs and faith, often almost childlike in their simplicity, of that time.

The greatest of all miracles, the restoration of life, is performed in all over 30 times in answer to prayer and for a great variety of reasons. In one instance (No. 182) a certain robber who had the redeeming quality of always giving to those in need when asked in the name of Santa María, died suddenly. In answer to a mother’s prayer and to afford an opportunity for repentance his soul was restored and from that moment he observed faithfully all the commandments “da Uírgen.” In another, to aid a faithful follower in his work on earth the Holy Mother sends to Santo Domingo as a helper a well-educated, zealous young man who kills himself by overwork. In answer to the supplication of the saint she descends from heaven with a chorus of virgins and together they read from their books and anoint the corpse, head, body and feet, thus restoring the life of the young man that he might continue in the service of his worthy master (No. 204).[28] In No. 84 a wife becomes ignorantly jealous of the Holy Mother because her husband slips away mysteriously every night and when asked the reason for his absence he answers that he loves his wife as much as ever but admits to her, almost in jest, that he loves another woman more. This proved too much and in a fit of anger she stabbed herself, but in answer to her husband’s prayers her life was restored. No. 241 is particularly interesting because of its details and of its really lifelike setting. Two mothers, one having a son and the other a daughter, decided that a marriage of the young couple would be advantageous. All went well until the day of the wedding, when the boy, being in a very happy and buoyant mood, leaned too far out of the window as he wiped out a glass, lost his balance, fell and was killed. All were overcome with grief except his mother who confidently took him to the altar of the Virgin, where his life was restored. As life returned his first words were “What a beautiful mansion you took me from.” The two young people were so impressed they decided to devote themselves to religion. At another time Alfonso’s immediate family were concerned for the daughter of “o bon rei Don Fernando”, who after being carefully reared for the convent at Las Huelgas died. Her mother took her to the foot of the image and putting everyone out of the church, determined to remain until her daughter revived. Her faith was rewarded, and later in life the princess held an important place in the convent (No. 122).[29]

When we come to consider the various kinds of bodily ailments cured by the Holy Mother we are presented with a formidable list. An arrow striking a man in the face stuck in the bone in such a manner that none could remove it. He requested to be taken to the altar of the Virgin and there confessed, implored aid, and the arrow came out of its own accord (No. 126). Seven separate times do lepers appeal to her and are healed.[30] The blind have their sight restored; but one clerk, apparently thru lack of faith, asked only that his sight be given him while Mass was being said. She took him at his word and allowed him the privilege of seeing every day only during the time of Mass (No. 92). Swellings disappear (No. 346); while often Alfonso sings of the cures he himself has experienced. After leprosy the most common ailment to incite the pity of the Blessed Mother is rabies, which is mentioned in no less than five separate cantigas;[31] reason is also restored to those who have been deprived of it (No. 331). No. 69 is the legend of a deaf mute who presented himself before the altar of the Virgin in Toledo. While there he saw Saint Mary in the form of a beautiful girl approach him as in a vision, put her finger in his ear and take out a worm which had