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Updated: May 12, 2025
It is entitled "De Legatione Babylonica." It has been the custom to laud the conduct and address of King Ferdinand in this most arduous and protracted war, but the sage Agapida is more disposed to give credit to the counsels and measures of the queen, who, he observes, though less ostensible in action, was in truth the very soul, the vital principle, of this great enterprise.
'The reverend prelates and holy friars, who always surrounded the queen, looked with serene satisfaction, says Fray Antonio Agapida, 'at this modern Babylon, enjoying the triumph that awaited them, when those mosques and minarets should be converted into churches, and goodly priests and bishops should succeed to the infidel alfaquis.
As to the Moors who had composed the garrison, Cid Hiaya remembered that they were his countrymen, and could not prevail upon himself to deliver them into Christian bondage. He set them at liberty, and permitted them to repair to Granada "a proof," says the pious Agapida, "that his conversion was not entirely consummated, but that there were still some lingerings of the infidel in his heart."
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.*
The description is put into the mouth of Fray Antonio Agapida, a fictitious chronicler invented by Irving, an unfortunate intervention which gives to the whole book an air of unveracity: They were a comely race of men, but too fair and fresh for warriors, not having the sunburnt, warlike hue of our old Castilian soldiery.
The portly prior of the Franciscan convent was full and round and oratorical in his replies, and the king expressed himself much pleased with the eloquence of his periods; but the politic monarch was observed to lend a close and attentive ear to the whispering voice of the lowly companion, "whose discourse," adds Agapida, "though modest and low, was clear and fluent and full of subtle wisdom."
The earl, however, made light of his disfiguring wound, saying that your 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.
Thus ended also the dominion of the Moors in Spain, having endured seven hundred and seventy-eight years from the memorable defeat of Roderick, the last of the Goths, on the banks of the Guadalete. The authentic Agapida is uncommonly particular in fixing the epoch of this event.
He also embraced his daughter the princess; and, making the sign of the cross, he blessed her, and kissed her on the lips. "The good Agapida seems scarcely to have been more struck with the appearance of the sovereigns than with that of the English earl. He was mounted 'a la guisa, or with long stirrups, on a superb chestnut horse, with trappings of azure silk which reached to the ground.
Agapida comforts himself, however, with the reflection that this visitation was meant in mercy to try the Castilian heart, and to extract from its present humiliation the elements of future success, as gold is extracted from amidst the impurities of earth; and in this reflection he is supported by the venerable historian Pedro Abarca of the Society of Jesuits.*
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