PRELATE OF SPAIN

Southland Times, Issue 24227, 10 September 1940, Page 3

PRELATE OF SPAIN

Cardinal Ximenez and His Tinies

GRAND INQUISITOR. By Walter Starkie. Hodder and Stoughton, London, through W. S. Smart, Sydney.

Price 18/- net.

Cardinal Ximenez was one of the great ecclesiastical figures of old Spam. His early years were spent in the obscurity which surrounded a Franciscan cleric: the man’s character can be judge'd from the willingness with which he remained outside worldly affairs, and the reluctance with which he answered (in middle life) a call to service in the household of a queen. But the qualities which made him a great statesman can be detected in his behaviour during critical periods of his early life. After a stay of some years in Rome he returned to Castile _ armed with a deed from the Pope which entitled him to the first benefice to fall vacant in his own diocese. The opportunity was long in coming and when at last a vacancy occurred his pretensions were denied by the choleric Archbishop of Toledo. Ximenez at once visited the Archbishop and persisted so strongly in his suit that he was thrown into prison, where he remained for several years. During this enforced retirement the ascetic side of his nature was strengthened by constant meditation, and when his deliverance came he would have been glad to devote himself entirely to religious austerities. As a priest, however, he showed such, a quick understanding of public affairs that he was later taken into the service of Cardinal Mendoza. He retired from this busy life to a small Franciscan community, and it was here that the summons came when Mendoza recommended him for the post of confessor to Queen Isabel.

COLOURFUL PERIOD Ximenez took up his new work in the most interesting and colourful period of Spanish history. Under Ferdinand and Isabel the kingdoms of Castile and Arragon were united, and the nation rapidly became a Great Power. The conquest of Granada made an end of the Moorish occupation, and the spectacular voyage of Columbus opened a new world for Spanish enterprise. About the same time the Inquisition was becoming a formidable instrument of repression under the direction of Torquemada. Ximenez did not become Grand Inquisitor until near the end of his life; but as Archbishop of Castile he had already shown his proselytizing ardour during the wholesale conversion of Moors in Granada. This was one of the least creditable phases of Ximenez’s career. Although he acted strictly in the spirit of the age, and of his environment, the humane methods of Talavera provided a contrast which did not favour the Cardinal. This was also,the period of the great expulsion of the Jews from Spain, a dark chapter which provokes comparisons with the anti-Semitism of recent years. Indeed, no more sinister commentary on human progress can be found than in the return to a mass cruelty which disturbed the conscience of a world just emerging from the middle ages. ■ HISTORICAL BACKGROUND Walter Starkie develops his study of Ximenez against a wide historical panorama. As confessor to Isabel, and later as the adviser of Ferdinand, and a powerful figure in the political scene during the madness of Juana la Loca and the minority of Charles V, he was constantly in the midst of great events. The author takes pains to depict the times as well as the central character, and there are frequent excursions into the by-paths of history. From the viewpoint of the general reader, one of the most interesting things about this book is the way it is written. Mr Starkie is an exponent of the new method which makes history a half-sister to fiction. In the early chapters the chronicle moves forward like a historical novel, and through all its pages there is a tendency to enter the minds of the characters and to strive for a subjective as well as an objective realismL The weakness of this method is that the student of history finds the facts slipping through his consciousness as if they were images of the cinema. Where no effort is required to grasp the facts it may be doubted if the mind assimilates them, or retains them tenaciously. But the book is obviously intended for the general reader, who will find it easy and attractive. One criticism should be made. Mr Starkie is entitled to mix history with fiction; but he would have been wise to avoid propaganda. The epilogue is a piece of special pleading which brings the reader with a sharp jolt from the hazy past to political controversies that have survived the recent Civil War. There could have been no more unsuitable way of ending an othei-wise impressive achievement.