Almorox is a village with three hundred houses formed in irregular streets and an open square. The church of San Cristoval has a fine north door. The place belonged to the Duke of Escalona. Its vineyards produce wine like Valdepeñas. It is about twelve miles from the town of Escalona. ↩
The Duke of Escalona was the maternal grandfather of the author. The town of Escalona is on the right bank of the river Alberche, and about one hundred feet above it. Escalona is twenty-five miles northwest of Toledo. It was surrounded by a wall ten feet thick and thirty feet high, with two gates. In the principal square there were arcades and a stone cross. Juan II gave Escalona to the Constable Alvaro de Luna in , who built a great palace there, which was demolished by the French under Marshal Soult. King Henry IV gave Escalona to Juan Pacheco, the Master of Santiago. In Lazarillo’s time it belonged to Don Diego Lopez de Pacheco, second Duke of Escalona and Marquis of Villena. He distinguished himself in the last Moorish war in Granada, and died in . He resided in the old palace built by the Constable Alvaro de Luna, where he dispensed hospitality, among many others to Don Alonzo Enriquez de Guzman (see translation of that young adventurer’s life and acts, p. 71, Hakluyt Society, ). Madoz states that, in his time, Escalona consisted of 190 houses, population 580. ↩
Nabo, called colewort in the Neuman and Baretti dictionary. More likely what Gervase Markham (Country Farm, p. 185) calls “navet,” a sort of small turnip. ↩
The “pillar” was a stone cross which still stands in the plaza of Escalona. ↩
Torrijos is sixteen miles northwest of Toledo, and eight miles from the Tagus, in a valley on the road from Maqueda to Toledo. It was walled, and still has two old gateways. Madoz gives it 480 houses, and in the plaza is the palace of the Count of Altamira, built of stone. The church is dedicated to San Gil. Here Beatriz, the daughter of King Pedro by Maria de Padilla, was born in . The country round yields abundant oil, and the place is sometimes called Torrijos de los Olivares. ↩
Maqueda is six leagues northwest of Toledo, built on a hill, on the margin of a stream of the same name which falls into the Alberche, a tributary of the Tagus. It has 112 houses, scattered along badly paved dirty streets. There is an old castle, and two churches, San Juan Bautista and San Domingo. Water is abundant. Maqueda was taken from the Moors by Alfonso VI in , and in it was granted to the knights of Calatrava. Ferdinand and Isabella made Diego de Cardenas Duke of Maqueda. ↩
Small loaves made of the finest flour, offered to the Church. The Dictionary of the Spanish Academy quotes Lazarillo de Tormes as the authority for the meaning of this word. ↩
Escudero. The English equivalent is esquire; Latin, armiger. Selden says that the original of this title was the office or function of armiger or scutifer. Our esquire and the French escuyer are derived from Scutarius. In Froissart we have knights and esquires, in Spain cavalleros (knights) and escuderos (esquires). ↩
The Duke of Arcos was a very grand nobleman. The title belonged to the family of Ponce de Leon, but before this was written the head of the family had become Duke of Cadiz, a title which was afterwards changed to that of Duke of Arcos. The second Duke was flourishing at this time, and died in . Count, in the text, is a mistake. It should be Duke. ↩
The “Pardoner,” or seller of Indulgences, was also caricatured in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, a century and a half earlier. ↩
A pardoner always had a sergeant or constable with him, to help him in such houses as refused to pay for their pardons at the appointed time. ↩
Formerly there were two kinds of parishes in Toledo. Those of the Muzarabes, founded by the Gothic King Athanagild, the grandfather of St. Ildefonso, continued through Moorish times. They were existing when Alfonso VI took Toledo in . Their number was six, reduced to two. The others were called Latinas, formed afterwards, of which there were twenty reduced to nine. St. Saviour’s was one of the latter. It has been joined to that of San Pedro since Lazarillo’s time. ↩
In , at the time when Francis I arrived as a prisoner at Madrid, Charles held a General Cortes of Castille at Toledo. There were present most of the Grandees, and all the foreign Ambassadors. The Viceroy Carlos de Lannoy arrived at Toledo, and was cordially received by the Emperor, after having brought Francis to Madrid. The Cortes petitioned Charles to marry Isabel, the Infanta of Portugal; while the English Ambassadors proposed to him his cousin, Mary Tudor. The Cortes sat until the end of August. —Sandoval, i. 664 (2) ↩
Colophon
The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes
was published in .
It was translated from Spanish in by
Clements Markham.
This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Robin Whittleton,
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