56 



WILD SPAIN. 



was finally driven from Spanish soil, they left behind them 

 their passion for these conflicts, as they left many of their 

 industries and many words of their language. Wherever 

 the expelled Arabs may now be, it, is at least certain that 

 the bull-fight has taken root in no other land outside of 

 Spain.* During the interludes of war, when the opposing 

 forces of Moor and Christian made peace for a while, the 

 inauguration of a truce was celebrated by a bull-fight, 

 whereat knights of both sides rivalled each other in the 

 tauromachian fray.. The heroic Cid, el Campeador (obiit, 

 a.d. 1098) signalized the contests of the eleventh century, 

 himself taking the chief part. His graceful horsemanship 

 in the arena was as favourite a theme for song and sonnet 

 as even his redoubtable deeds in the field. The ever- 

 popular ballad of Don Rodrigo de Bivar is still heard in the 

 mountain villages. 



So frequent and of such importance had these fiestas 

 become that, after the termination of Moorish dominion, 

 Queen Isabel I. of Castile prohibited them by edict in all 

 her kingdoms : but the edict proved waste paper. Alarmed 

 by witnessing a corrida at which human blood was shed, 

 her Catholic majesty made strenuous efforts to put down 

 bull-fighting throughout the land : but the national taste 

 was too deeply implanted in the breasts of a warlike and 

 powerful nobility, whom she was too prudent to offend. In 

 a letter to her Father Confessor in 1493, she declares her 

 intention never again to witness a corrida, and adds : — 

 " Y no digo defenderlos (esto es prohibirlos) porque esto 

 no era para mi a solas " — which is to say, that her will, 

 which could accomplish the expulsion of the Moor and the 

 Jew, was powerless to uproot the bull-fight. 



* On this point, Sanchez de Nieva writes (" El Tor^o," published 

 at Madrid, 1879) : — " The Arabs were much given to bull-fighting, 

 and highly skilled in the lidia, whether mounted or on foot. , It must, 

 however, be borne in mind that these encounters took place in Spain, 

 and that the so-called Arabs were in reality Spaniards — the Moorish 

 domination having then lasted for seven centuries. It may be 

 stated, without fear of error, that nearly all the inhabitants of this 

 country, after the first two centuries, were, thoiigh born in Spain, 

 Arabs in origin." 



