“This city has everything which can make people distinguished. It has an Archbishop, Chancery, Inquisition and Income Courts whose head is the Kingdom governor and many other particular courts which usually make justice administration difficult”, relates the manuscript “A brief and truthful description of the city of Granada, the capital of the Kingdom of Granada. One of the five which make up the Andalusias”, which has been ha sido revealed by Cristina Viñes Millet, lecturer of the University of Granada, and has just been published by the journal of Modern History of the University of Granada, “Chronica Nova”.
However, when the manuscript refers to the people of Granada, goes as follows: “The inhabitants are skilful and amusing liars, but they are liars in bad faith when dealing and generally inclined to every kind of vice. Women are not the home-loving sort and they are not decent at all, surpassing in this matter all the others in the Kingdom”. The manuscript, composed of eight quarto usable sheets, without author or date, is kept in the National Library; it is written in XVIII-century writing.
According to the author of the study and transcription of this text of the middle of the XVIII century, “the aim of this manuscript was not to send it for printing, fundamentally because it is too brief to justify an edition.” The lecturer and researcher of the University of Granada is inclined to think that it is a first draft or a scribbled-down writing which only intended to make some remarks and put some personal opinions on record. Cristina Viñes says that “she has tried to be absolutely faithful to the original” in the transcription of the manuscript
The anonymous author, a possible traveller, refers to streets and avenues too: “The avenues are beautiful and leafy, but narrow and wild; the poverty of the country is apparent in them, even in the principals, because the entiled estataes are short, not exceding eight thousand ducats, except for the marquis of Algarinejo, who does not live in the city; most or all of them are in debt.”
It also refers to the cars:
“There are eighty-six continuous cars in this city, and some alternate days there are some more, although they can not turn in most of the city and when they do it is uncomfortable because of the narrowness of the streets.”
About the Corpus and the carocas:
“The function of the Corpus is very particular as it is the only one in the Kingdom, but it is not magnificent and it does not deserve such a Blessed Sacrament. They just decorate the main square with cardboard frameworks or carocas, forming an idea which nobody understands, allusive to the Sacrament, to some stone or glass spiders and other pieces. It lights up at night, and for this reason there is a big attendance of strangers and natives, who cause many scandals and offences to the God they are celebrating. The rest of the procession has not ornaments or awning, so the sun and the rain bother those who go with the monstrance. They spend a mere three thousand ducats, which could serve to organize the most solemn celebration all over the world.”
Reference: Lecturer Cristina Viñes Millet
Dpt: Contemporary History.
Phone number: 958 244126 / 243637.
E-mail: cvines@ugr.es