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Updated: June 12, 2025
"Ferdinand," observes Fray Antonio Agapida, "was a man of his word; they were shut up in the enclosure at the Alcazaba with the people of Malaga and shared their fate." The unhappy captives remained thus crowded in the courtyards of the Alcazaba, like sheep in a fold, until they could be sent by sea and land to Seville.
"Never," exclaims the worthy Fray Antonio Agapida in one of his usual bursts of zeal and loyalty, "never has there been recorded a more adroit and sagacious arrangement than this made by the Catholic monarch, by which he not only secured all the property and half of the ransom of these infidels, but finally got possession of their persons into the bargain.
In the midst of the bustle of warlike affairs the worthy chronicler Fray Antonio Agapida pauses to note, with curious accuracy, the distinguished reception given to the count de Cabra and his nephew, the alcayde de los Donceles, at the stately and ceremonious court of the Castilian sovereigns, in reward for the capture of the Moorish king Boabdil.
He brought with him a hundred archers, all dextrous with the longbow and the cloth-yard arrow; also two hundred yeomen, armed cap-a-pie, who fought with pike and battle-axe men robust of frame and of prodigious strength. The worthy padre Fray Antonio Agapida describes this stranger knight and his followers with his accustomed accuracy and minuteness.
Instead of taking with them holy monks to aid them with their prayers, they were followed by a train of trading-men to keep alive their worldly and sordid ideas, and to turn what ought to be holy triumphs into scenes of brawling traffic. Such is the opinion of the excellent Agapida, in which he is joined by that most worthy and upright of chroniclers, the curate of Los Palacios.
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.
"Hamet el Zegri," says Fray Antonio Agapida, "stood on the top of the high tower of Gibralfaro and beheld this injury wrought upon the Christian force, and his proud heart was puffed up. And the Moorish nigromancer stood beside him.
The earl, however, made light of his disfiguring wound, saying that 'our blessed Lord, who had built all that house, had opened a window there, that he might see more readily what passed within; whereupon the worthy Fray Antonio Agapida is more than ever astonished at the pregnant wit of this island cavalier.
* The account given by Fray Antonio Agapida of this ceremonial, so characteristic of the old Spanish court, agrees in almost every particular with an ancient manuscript made up from the chronicles of the curate of los Palacios and other old Spanish writers. The valiant Roderigo Ponce de Leon, marques of Cadiz, was one of the most vigilant of commanders.
They ranged themselves in order of battle on the left of the road by which the queen was to pass. The worthy Agapida is loyally minute in his description of the state and grandeur of the Catholic sovereigns. The queen rode a chestnut mule, seated in a magnificent saddle-chair decorated with silver gilt.
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