194 Unexplored Spain 
The actual origin in Spain of the Corrida de Toros must 
thus be traced to the Spanish Arabs, who, to exercise them- 
selves and their steeds during intermittent periods of peace, 
adopted this dangerous pastime with the view of fortifying and 
invigorating personal valour, so necessary in times of constant 
strife. 
The Arab’s spear and charger were opposed to the wild bull of 
the Spanish plain under conditions many of which are analogous 
to these in vogue to-day. 
In those earlier ages it was permitted to an unhorsed cavalier 
to accept protection from the horns of his enemy at the hands of 
his personal retainers, who not infrequently sacrificed their own 
lives in devotion to their chief. 
At this period (during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries) 
the knight who, lance in hand, had been hurled from the saddle 
might draw his sword and kill the bull, his vassals being allowed 
to assist in placing the animal (by deft display of coloured cloaks) 
in a position to facilitate the death-stroke. Here, doubtless, 
originated the art of ¢playing®’ the bull, and incidentally sprang 
the professional bull-fighter. 
For as these servants became experts, and by reason of their 
prowess gained extra wages, so proportionately such skill became 
of pecuniary value. Mercenaries of this sort were, nevertheless, 
despised—to risk their lives in return for money was regarded as 
an infamous thing. But at least they had inaugurated the regime 
of the highly paid matador of to-day. 
During the first century after the Reconquest bull-fighting 
was opposed by several powerful influences, but each in turn it 
survived and set at naught. Isabel la Catdlica, horrified by the 
sight of bloodshed at a bull-fight which she personally attended, 
decided to prohibit all corridas; but that, she found, lay beyond 
even her great influence. Next, in 1567, the power of the Papacy 
was invoked in vain. 
Pope Pius V., by a bula of November 20, forbade the spectacle 
under pain of excommunication, the denial of Christian burial, 
and similar ecclesiastical penalties; but he and his bula had like- 
wise to go under in face of the national sentiment of Spain. 
A noble bull fell to the lance of Isabel’s grandson, H.M. 
the Emperor Charles V., in the Plaza Mayor of Valladolid amidst 
acclamation of countless admirers. This occurred during the 
