Introduction
Although the following Chronicle bears the name of the venerable
Fray Antonio Agapida, it is rather a superstructure reared upon the
fragments which remain of his work. It may be asked, Who is this
same Agapida, who is cited with such deference, yet whose name is
not to be found in any of the catalogues of Spanish authors? The
question is hard to answer. He appears to have been one of the
many indefatigable authors of Spain who have filled the libraries of
convents and cathedrals with their tomes, without ever dreaming
of bringing their labors to the press. He evidently was deeply and
accurately informed of the particulars of the wars between his
countrymen and the Moors, a tract of history but too much overgrown
with the weeds of fable. His glowing zeal, also, in the cause of the
Catholic faith entitles him to be held up as a model of the good
old orthodox chroniclers, who recorded with such pious exultation
the united triumphs of the cross and the sword. It is deeply to
be regretted, therefore, that his manuscripts, deposited in the
libraries of various convents, have been dispersed during the late
convulsions in Spain, so that nothing is now to be met of them but
disjointed fragments. These, however, are too precious to be
suffered to fall into oblivion, as they contain many curious facts
not to be found in any other historian. In the following work,
therefore, the manuscript of the worthy Fray Antonio will be adopted
wherever it exists entire, but will be filled up, extended, illustrated,
and corroborated by citations from various authors, both Spanish
and Arabian, who have treated of the subject. Those who may
wish to know how far the work is indebted to the Chronicle of Fray
Antonio Agapida may readily satisfy their curiosity by referring to
his manuscript fragments, carefully preserved in the Library of
the Escurial.
Before entering upon the history it may be as well to notice the
opinions of certain of the most learned and devout historiographers
of former times relative to this war.
Marinus Siculus, historian to Charles V., pronounces it a war to
avenge ancient injuries received by the Christians from the Moors,
to recover the kingdom of Granada, and to extend the name and
honor of the Christian religion.*
*Lucio Marino Siculo, Cosas Memorabiles de Espana, lib. 20.
Estevan de Garibay, one of the most distinguished Spanish historians,
regards the war as a special act of divine clemency toward the Moors,
to the end that those barbarians and infidels, who had dragged out
so many centuries under the diabolical oppression of the absurd sect
of Mahomet, should at length be reduced to the Christian faith.*
*Garibay, Compend. Hist. Espana, lib. 18, c. 22.
Padre Mariana, also a venerable Jesuit and the most renowned
historian of Spain, considers the past domination of the Moors a
scourge inflicted on the Spanish nation for its iniquities, but the
conquest of Granada the reward of Heaven for its great act of
propitiation in establishing the glorious tribunal of the Inquisition!
No sooner (says the worthy father) was this holy office opened
in Spain than there shone forth a resplendent light. Then it was
that, through divine favor, the nation increased in power, and
became competent to overthrow and trample down the Moorish
domination.*
*Mariana, Hist. Espana, lib. 25, c. 1.
Having thus cited high and venerable authority for considering this
war in the light of one of those pious enterprises denominated
crusades, we trust we have said enough to engage the Christian
reader to follow us into the field and stand by us to the very issue
of the encounter.
NOTE TO THE REVISED EDITION.
The foregoing introduction, prefixed to the former editions of this
work, has been somewhat of a detriment to it. Fray Antonio Agapida
was found to be an imaginary personage, and this threw a doubt
over the credibility of his Chronicle, which was increased by a vein
of irony indulged here and there, and by the occasional heightening
of some of the incidents and the romantic coloring of some of the
scenes. A word or two explanatory may therefore be of service.*
*Many of the observations in this note have already appeared in
an explanatory article which at Mr. Murray’s request, the author
furnished to the London Quarterly Review.
The idea of the work was suggested while I was occupied at Madrid
in writing the Life of Columbus. In searching for traces of his early
life I was led among the scenes of the war of Granada, he having
followed the Spanish sovereigns in some of their campaigns, and been
present at the surrender of the Moorish capital. I actually wove
some of these scenes into the biography, but found they occupied an
undue space, and stood out in romantic relief not in unison with the
general course of the narrative. My mind, however, had become so
excited by the stirring events and romantic achievements of this war
that I could not return with composure to the sober biography I had
in hand. The idea then occurred, as a means of allaying the
excitement, to throw off a rough draught of the history of this war,
to be revised and completed at future leisure. It appeared to me
that its true course and character had never been fully illustrated. The world had received a strangely perverted idea of it through
Florian’s romance of “Gonsalvo of Cordova,” or through the legend,
equally fabulous, entitled “The Civil Wars of Granada,” by Ginez
Perez de la Hita, the pretended work of an Arabian contemporary,
but in reality a Spanish fabrication. It had been woven over with
love-tales and scenes of sentimental gallantry totally opposite to
its real character; for it was, in truth, one of the sternest of those
iron conflicts sanctified by the title of “holy wars.” In fact, the
genuine nature of the war placed it far above the need of any
amatory embellishments. It possessed sufficient interest in the
striking contrast presented by the combatants of Oriental and
European creeds, costumes, and manners, and in the hardy and
harebrained enterprises, the romantic adventures, the picturesque
forays through mountain regions, the daring assaults and surprisals
of cliff-built castles and cragged fortresses, which succeeded each
other with a variety and brilliancy beyond the scope of mere
invention.
The time of the contest also contributed to heighten the interest.
It was not long after the invention of gunpowder, when firearms and
artillery mingled the flash and smoke and thunder of modern warfare
with the steely splendor of ancient chivalry, and gave an awful
magnificence and terrible sublimity to battle, and when the old
Moorish towers and castles, that for ages had frowned defiance to
the battering-rams and catapults of classic tactics, were toppled
down by the lombards of the Spanish engineers. It was one of the
cases in which history rises superior to fiction.
The more I thought about the subject, the more I was tempted to
undertake it, and the facilities at hand at length determined me.
In the libraries of Madrid and in the private library of the
American consul, Mr. Rich, I had access to various chronicles and
other works, both printed and in manuscript, written at the time by
eyewitnesses, and in some instances by persons who had actually
mingled in the scenes recorded and gave descriptions of them from
different points of view and with different details. These works
were often diffuse and tedious, and occasionally discolored by the
bigotry, superstition, and fierce intolerance of the age; but their
pages were illumined at times with scenes of high emprise, of
romantic generosity, and heroic valor, which flashed upon the reader
with additional splendor from the surrounding darkness. I collated
these various works, some of which have never appeared in print,
drew from each facts relative to the different enterprises, arranged
them in as clear and lucid order as I could command, and endeavored
to give them somewhat of a graphic effect by connecting them with
the manners and customs of the age in which they occurred. The
rough draught being completed, I laid the manuscript aside and
proceeded with the Life of Columbus. After this was finished and
sent to the press I made a tour in Andalusia, visited the ruins of
the Moorish towns, fortresses, and castles, and the wild mountain-
passes and defiles which had been the scenes of the most
remarkable events of the war, and passed some time in the ancient
palace of the Alhambra, the once favorite abode of the Moorish
monarchs. Everywhere I took notes, from the most advantageous
points of view, of whatever could serve to give local verity and
graphic effect to the scenes described. Having taken up my abode
for a time at Seville, I then resumed my manuscript and rewrote it,
benefited by my travelling notes and the fresh and vivid impressions
of my recent tour. In constructing my chronicle I adopted the
fiction of a Spanish monk as the chronicler. Fray Antonio Agapida
was intended as a personification of the monkish zealots who hovered
about the sovereigns in their campaigns, marring the chivalry of the
camp by the bigotry of the cloister, and chronicling in rapturous
strains every act of intolerance toward the Moors. In fact, scarce
a sally of the pretended friar when he bursts forth in rapturous
eulogy of some great stroke of selfish policy on the part of Ferdinand,
or exults over some overwhelming disaster of the gallant and devoted
Moslems, but is taken almost word for word from one or other of the
orthodox chroniclers of Spain.
The ironical vein also was provoked by the mixture of kingcraft and
priestcraft discernible throughout this great enterprise, and the
mistaken zeal and self-delusion of many of its most gallant and
generous champions. The romantic coloring seemed to belong to
the nature of the subject, and was in harmony with what I had seen
in my tour through the poetical and romantic regions in which the
events had taken place. With all these deductions the work, in all
its essential points, was faithful to historical fact and built upon
substantial documents. It was a great satisfaction to me,
therefore, after the doubts that had been expressed of the
authenticity of my chronicle, to find it repeatedly and largely used
by Don Miguel Lafuente Alcantara of Granada in his recent learned
and elaborate history of his native city, he having had ample
opportunity, in his varied and indefatigable researches, of judging
how far it accorded with documentary authority.
I have still more satisfaction in citing the following testimonial of
Mr. Prescott, whose researches for his admirable history of
Ferdinand and Isabella took him over the same ground I had
trodden. His testimonial is written in the liberal and courteous
spirit characteristic of him, but with a degree of eulogium which
would make me shrink from quoting it did I not feel the importance
of his voucher for the substantial accuracy of my work:
“Mr. Irving’s late publication, the ‘Chronicle of the Conquest of
Granada,’ has superseded all further necessity for poetry and,
unfortunately for me, for history. He has fully availed himself of
all the picturesque and animating movement of this romantic era,
and the reader who will take the trouble to compare his chronicle
with the present more prosaic and literal narrative will see how
little he has been seduced from historic accuracy by the poetical
aspect of his subject. The fictitious and romantic dress of his work
has enabled him to make it the medium of reflecting more vividly the
floating opinions and chimerical fancies of the age, while he has
illuminated the picture with the dramatic brilliancy of coloring
denied to sober history.”*
*Prescott’s Ferdinand and Isabella, vol. ii. c. 15.
In the present edition I have endeavored to render the work more
worthy of the generous encomium of Mr. Prescott. Though I still
retain the fiction of the monkish author Agapida, I have brought my
narrative more strictly within historical bounds, have corrected and
enriched it in various parts with facts recently brought to light by
the researches of Alcantara and others, and have sought to render
it a faithful and characteristic picture of the romantic portion of
history to which it relates.
W. I.
Sunnyside, 1850.
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