Galicia, the Switzerland of Spain. Annette M. B. Meakin

tongue. It is true, as Valmar points out, that the formation of the languages of Castille and Galicia must have required centuries, but that formation reached its completion towards the middle of the twelfth century. When new dialects came into existence, the synthetic beauty so remarkable in the Latin language was lost, but in its place animation and ease of expression were gained. “Marriages,” says Valmar, “also helped on the triumph of the Romance languages; but perhaps the most powerful influence was Christ’s religion of charity and love.”

      Even in Italy Latin gradually became an unknown tongue to the lower classes. Pope Boniface VIII. translated the Stabat Mater into the young Italian language that the people might be able to appreciate it.

      Alfonso x. indicates in Cantiga viii. that in his day a young man needed the help of the Holy Spirit before he could learn to speak Latin. To help on the propagation of the Christian religion, even Arabic was sometimes resorted to. Juan, Bishop of Seville, wrote sermons in Arabic at the beginning of the tenth century,[78] “a proof,” says Valmar, “that Latin was little known, as also the Romance language which was not yet risen.”

      French, owing to the influence of the parish schools, took the precedence of all the neo-Latin languages, and had a powerful influence over other nations. There was a sudden flowering of Romance poetry in England just after the Norman conquest in 1066, and this spread to all the neo-Latin peoples—the story of Tristam and Iseult, the Arthurian legends, penetrated more deeply than the provençal lyrics. St. Francis of Assisi went about reciting French songs. Sir John Mandeville was the precursor of the famous Portuguese Ferñao Mendes Pinto, wrote in French the story of his travels in Asia (published by Lynn just after the invention of printing in 1480). Marco Polo also wrote, or rather dictated, his book of travel in French.

      Alfonso el Sabio did not write in a vulgar dialect, but in the cultivated and polished language used by the aristocracy of Galicia. “The popular Gallegan dialect remained in the land of its birth, and kept the characteristic of a euphonic dialect,” says Valmar; but the language of learning ‘el Gallego erudito,’ so skilfully used by Alfonso and those innumerable Portuguese Spanish poets whose work is preserved in the Cancionero of the Vatican, acquired (without losing the essence of the primitive dialect) the character of a refined literary language. This language it was which became the mother of Portuguese.

      The trouvadores of Aquitaine came in such numbers to Santiago, that it is no wonder they founded a centre of poetical unification, as Theophile Braga has called it. It was a school of national lyric poetry in the language which has been called Galaico-Portuguese. French influence was strongly reflected in it. It reached its highest point of resplendence in the reign of Alfonso X., and at that time even the lower classes understood and appreciated its poetry; so historians need be surprised no longer that the poet king chose to write in the language of Galicia.

      Valmar has made a critical study of the versification of the Cantigas.[79] “In vain,” he says, “philologists have sought a connecting link between Latin prosody and the prosody of the Romance languages.” To write Hexameters in the language of Galicia would be impossible. The origin of the Cantigas is undoubtedly the popular and religious poetry of Latin decadence, at the moment when there was added to it a rhythmic element. There were, in Roman days, two Latin versifications, rhythmic and metric, corresponding to the two idioms sermo plebius and sermo patricius. The rhythmic versification used in popular poetry existed from the earliest days of Rome. It is mentioned by Livy, Cicero, Horace, and many other literary Romans. In the primitive hymns used by the Christian Church, the metric and rhythmic principles were curiously mixed. The earliest of these were composed by St. Ambrose and sung in Milan in 386. Léon Gautier has remarked that the poetry of France originated with the verses sung in the churches.

      The fact that Alfonso X. wrote many hymns of devotion to the Virgin does not prevent his morals from having been very shady. Dante went so far as to class him among princes unfit to reign,[80] and Valmar, unable to truthfully contradict the Italian poet, devotes pages to proving that Dante himself was not a better man. It is clear, however, that morals were everywhere very lax in those days, and one need not be surprised that the trovadores of Galicia were infected by the “audacias de la musa provenzal.” The poets of those days often seem to forget the moral dignity of humanity; they would attack the honour even of princes in their bold and bitter satyrs. “Alfonso,” says Valmar, “ever expressed real tenderness in his love songs.” But one or two of them have shocked even Valmar by their naked naturalism. “All this,” he says, “shows the relaxation of morals in his day, and the evil influences that came from Provence.”

      One of the most singular legends contained in the Cantigas is that in which a rich and gallant gentleman, who has fallen blindly and immorally in love with a lady, prays with obstinate fervour two hundred Ave Marias to the Virgin every day for a whole year, entreating her that she would touch the lady’s heart. At length the Virgin appears to him in the church, and says, “Look at me well, and then choose between me and that other woman, the one who pleases you best (a que te mais praz).” The gallant gentleman instantly consecrated himself wholly to the adoration of the Virgin, and a year later she took him up with her to heaven.

      In another Cantiga, the nun who acts as sacristan of the convent of Fontebras is in love with a knight, and is on the point of fleeing with him. She goes and prostrates herself before the Crucifix to take leave of Christ. Suddenly the holy effigy gives her such a blow in the face that it leaves a mark for ever on her cheek.

      In yet another Cantiga (xciv.) a nun who acts as treasurer of a convent escapes from the cloisters with a lover, after having left the keys of the treasury before the altar of the Virgin with a prayer. The Virgin, in pity, takes her place,

      WHERE THE SIL JOINS THE CABE, ORENSE

      A MOUNTAIN VINEYARD, ORENSE

      PHOTOS. BY AUTHOR

      and when the repentant nun returns after many years to the convent, she finds the keys where she had left them, and learned with astonishment and gratitude that no one had noticed her absence.

      There are three hundred and fifty-nine Cantigas in Alfonso’s collection.

      Macías (“O Namorado,” the infatuated lover) flourished in the last half of the fourteenth century, in the reign of Peter the Cruel (1350-69). Of all the trovadores of Galicia, Macías is the most popular. His fame is due to his tragic end, rather than to his merits as a poet. Professor Rennert,[81] who has recently published a monograph of Macías, does not find enough merit in his poems to account for his extraordinary fame. Macías has been extravagantly glorified alike by all the Portuguese and Spanish poets as a perfect model of true love, of love faithful even unto death. “Love alone was the cause of his death,” says Gregorio Silvestre.[82]

      “El fino amante es Macías

       Que con solo amor murió.”

      Macías is one of the most romantic figures in Spanish literature. Rennert has spared no pains in hunting for every scrap of information obtainable with regard to this pattern lover. He has perused the Satira de Felice e’ Infelice Vida, by Pedro, Constable of Portugal, written between 1453 and 1455; also the writings of Fernan Nuñez of Toledo, which appeared in 1499, and he assures his readers that all later writers who have made Macías their subject have drawn their inspiration from these two authorities.

      From the pen of Macías himself, “the martyr to Cupid,” we have only four poems that can be authenticated. Rennert has examined these with extreme care, and says that the dialect (or language) in which they are written differs in no particular from the language of the early Portuguese poets.

      As we have seen, the language of Galicia separated itself gradually from that of Portugal, as a result of the union of Galicia with the rest of Spain. Each of the four poems of Macías contains