ART. III. 1. La Armeria real de Madrid. Livraison I.-VIII. Paris, 1838. 2. Noticia de las Ordenes de Caballeria en España. 4 tom. 12mo. Madrid, 1835. THE royal armoury at Madrid is one of the most complete and splendid in Europe. The spacious saloon glitters with knightly figures, armed cap-a-pie in richly inlaid suits, with horses equipped in all the gorgeous trappings of tilting, with banners, pennons, shields, crests, casques, badges, blazonings, and cognizances, and all the heraldic pomp of gentle deeds of arms and tournament. This collection has too long remained comparatively unknown to the antiquarians and genealogists of Europe. It has been shrouded in the murky atmosphere of apathy and ignorance, which hangs like a moral malaria over the Peninsula. The magnificent work to which we call the attention of our readers, is destined to describe the most remarkable of these authentic and interesting relics of art and antiquity. The objects have been accurately designed by Gaspard Sensi; the engravings are coloured to imitate the originals; and the text is supplied by Monsieur Achille Jubinal-a very appropriate name for a writer on the arms and Othello 'swords of Spain.' The first number opens with the imperial standard of Castille, such as was unfurled by the haughty Charles V., a banner worthy, indeed, of an emperor, and the sovereign of a country where pride has so long been proverbial. The Spaniard glories in the antiquity of his pedigree; he boasts that his illustrious blood has flowed down in a direct stream unpolluted by Hebrew or infidel infusion; he defines himself to be a real old follower of Christ, thorough bred and warranted sound; 'Christiano viejo, rancio, limpio de toda mala raza y mancha '— 'A true hidalgo, free from every stain Of Moor or Jewish blood, he traced his course He has asserted this birthright of superior nobility so long, in word, deed, and bearing, that other nations have tacitly admitted a claim, which the great political power of Spain, at the time when it was most eagerly maintained, rendered it inconvenient to question or investigate. The interest which everything connected with the Peninsula continues to excite induces us to offer an abstract of this title, with a few remarks on some of the heraldic peculiarities of that singular country, the connecting link between Europe and Africa, antiquity and the present. Spain, the El Dorado of the old world, the bone of contention and battle-field of mer, can ere view. Pred from the smpai bope that ter sek; a pure me fe peculiar in vis feemed absoSINTA End honour. 2. enter into 1 mar a bizy. The I vs nody appealed ZEGA Is the mass is rs are perished.† O V LI CAN Josephus ence to s pedigree, one This in Game, that St. Paul (when nama : less important) wrote repeatedly against 'foolish questions,' and 'endless genealogies.' (Tim. i. 4; Tit. iii. 9.) The Spaniards derive their hatred of the Jews from the Goths. It is both religious and political; the former objection was based on the sin of having denied Christ, and urged the crucifixion. These accusations have long been indignantly repelled by the Spanish Jew, whose ancestors at the conquest of Toledo, in 1085, produced documents (which, whether genuine or forged, were then admitted as authentic), to prove that they were the descendants of Hebrews who had emigrated, flying from the persecution of Nebuchadnezzar, to Spain, a country commercially connected with the seaports of Palestine, and, being pleased with their new station, did not return to Jerusalem at the termination of the captivity. These documents, so late as 1494, existed in the archives of Toledo, where they were destroyed through the influence of the Inquisition. The Spanish Jews not only denied any share in the guilt of the crucifixion, but claimed the merit of having protested against it. Sandoval* has preserved the correspondence which was purported to have passed between the synagogues of Jerusalem and Toledo. It embraces the account transmitted to the Spanish brethren of our Saviour, with the request of their opinion whether he was deserving or not of death; together with the Toledan reply, which strongly advocated the propriety of an acquittal. Alphonso VI., from a necessity of conciliating the rich and influential Jews of the newly-conquered capital of the Goths, appeared to acquiesce in these statements, and forewent his hereditary thirst for revenge, and his remembrance of the assistance given by the Jews of Spain to the Moors, which so mainly contributed to their success and the destruction of the Gothic dominion. The Jews had always been persecuted by the Goths, to whom their wealth was the motive, their creed the pretence for pillage and ill-treatment. The earliest councils of Illiberis and Toledo breathe hatred in every line, insomuch that many Jews emigrated from Spain. Dr. Buchanan† found in Cochin China a tribe who preserved memorials of their flight in the fifth century; otherspassed into Africa, where the prevalence of the Spanish language is an evidence of their number and importance. They took kindly to the Moors as their deliverers. A common oriental origin, and companionship in disbelief of Christianity, formed some bond of union between the two nations, while the Moors were unable to dispense with their services and financial intelligence. The supple Jews, although treated with contempt for a long time, engrossed the wealth and management of state affairs in Spain, * Sandoval, Historia de los Reyes, 72. Buchanan, Christian Researches in Asia, 223. precisely |