The rescue of Jesús de Medinaceli from the fortress of La Mamora according to the accounts of events and the Trinitarian chronicles (17th-18th centuries). [i]

On 30 April 1681, after a gruelling siege that had lasted several months, the Spanish governor Francisco de Peñalosa handed over the fortress of La Mamora to Captain Ali Benaudala, lieutenant to the king of Meknes, Muley Ismael. The Jerife became the owner of all the inhabitants of the presidio, both military and civilian, and also of the images and objects of sacred worship that were there. Among them was the venerated image of Jesús de Medinaceli, then known as Jesús Cautivo or Jesús del Rescate, the latter title alluding to the negotiations that were to begin shortly afterwards to negotiate his release from captivity and his repatriation to Spain.

In the following pages we will recall the history of this episode, but not with the aim of reconstructing the details of the rescue in detail, a task that would require a specific monograph and which, in the current state of our knowledge, is not feasible, but as a necessary script in which to set the subject that interests us, which is none other than the formation of the legend about the origin and destiny of the image of Jesus, a story that many of his devotees know through oral tradition or by having read it in informative books. The legend is organised around three main themes: the betrayal of the governor of the square, the sacrilege committed against the Holy Christ and the rescue of the sacred simulacrum. These themes are common to a tradition of writings that was very abundant at the time when the legend was written: the event relationshipsThe "La Rioja", that is, the loose sheets that circulated, before the existence of the periodical press, to report on the political, diplomatic and military events of the Monarchy. It also appeared later in the chronicles of the Trinitarian order, the institute that played a leading role in the rescue of the Lord and was responsible for its safekeeping in Madrid in the first century of its long history. The accounts of events and the Trinitarian chronicles are the sources that inform this work and also the ones that delimit it. Because of their informative nature, they shed light on the circumstances surrounding the rescue of the image and its transfer to Spain. But at the same time they fulfil an evaluative and narrative function that seeks to move the reader about a painful and traumatic episode. In this second sense, the accounts (and later the chronicles) not only inform, but also rework the information obtained, incorporating real or fictitious passages that contributed to forging the legend that has been passed down to us.

But to understand the meaning of the 1681 rescue, in its social and historical context, it is necessary to look back. To go back to the beginnings of the fortress of La Mamora, the setting in which later events unfolded.

1. The conquest and early times of the fortress of La Mamora or San Miguel de Ultramar in the accounts of events of the time.

The conquest of the ports of Larache (1610) and La Mamora (1614), located on the western coast of North Africa, meant the closing of the Strait and the beginning of a period of relative security in the Monarchy's policy in the Mediterranean. Guarding the Strait had been a state objective since the siege of Cadiz in 1596 revealed the defencelessness of many Spanish ports, which were subject to the annual attacks of the Anglo-Dutch squadron.[ii] Added to this was the traditional problem of privateering, which experienced a second peak between 1580 and 1630, coinciding with the activation of Algiers as the main focus of Barbary piracy, now emancipated from the plans of the Grand Turk.[iii]

The populations of the Andalusian and Levantine coast were the main ones affected by this situation of misgovernment and anarchy, which contributed to the proliferation of private activities of economic depredation, favoured by the displacement of the great war efforts of the Monarchy to other fronts. It was not, however, the peninsular cities that were the only ones to suffer. From the beginning of the 17th century, the Algerian privateers, and many other foreigners, moved their bases of operations to the Atlantic in order to circumvent Philip III's diplomatic policy in the Maghreb, which was aimed at counteracting the power of Algiers by means of agreements with its enemies.[iv] In Larache, the Dutch and the English were also trying to intercept Spanish ships heading for the overseas dominions, which is why Philip III expressly assigned a squadron to the defence of the Strait, entrusting General Juan Álvarez de Dávila and Admiral Pablo de Aramburu with the task of clearing the coasts of West Africa of Nordic and Barbary corsairs.[v] In 1610, the time was ripe for the conquest of the port that was causing so many headaches for the administration of the Duke of Lerma. The death of Ahmad al-Mansur in 1603 had ushered in a period of uncertainty for the future of the Sa'dí dynasty. The division of the territories of Morocco among his three sons did not satisfy any of them, who sought international alliances to fulfil their personal ambitions. The Spanish monarchy, which followed the situation closely, supported the cause of Muley Xeque, who went to Spain to agree on a mutually beneficial solution. Staying in Carmona with his family, al-Mansur's son agreed to surrender Larache in exchange for substantial economic aid and several shipments of arms that lasted until 1613, the date of the Sultan's death.[vi]

The conquest of Larache, the result of skilful diplomatic negotiation, was presented, in any case, as a great military victory in the accounts of events that appeared in the Andalusian press that same year.[vii] A climate of optimism that was soon overshadowed by the reappearance of the privateering problem which, far from having disappeared, had simply adapted to the new situation, moving its activity further south: to the port of Salé, connected to Rabat, and to the old Portuguese fortress of San Miguel de Ultramar, which overlooked the estuary of La Mamora. The development of Salé must be linked to the facilities provided by Sultan Muley Zidan, Muley Xeque's rival brother, to bring the Moors from Hornachos, exiled from Spain, to settle there. With them came new warfare techniques and a better knowledge of the enemy which, perhaps out of resentment, the exiled Moors put at the service of the sultan's plans, although the town eventually acquired the status of an independent republic. The corsairs established in La Mamora also received the backing of Muley Zidan, who also negotiated with the Dutch to establish themselves in the strategic port. It was precisely this fact that raised the alarm in the Council of State, which reacted by entrusting D. Luis Fajardo with the siege of the fortress.[viii]

The Summary report sent to His Majesty on the victory... of the Mamora. published by Alonso Rodríguez Gamarra is the first printed account we have of the event. It is a transfer of the original letter dated 7 August 1614 from the estuary of the same name.[ix] He describes the Portuguese-Castilian fleet of eight galleys that left the Gulf of Cadiz on 1 August and the contacts that took place on the coast before defining the best strategy. The journalist distinguishes a Dutchman, General Juan Cursén, who receives His Majesty's fleet with salvos and courtesies, as was logical in times of truce, although, sent by Muley Zidán, he awaited orders from Count Mauricio "to take up the post". Taking advantage of the night, more men embarked in Salé and, after a few days, on Tuesday 5 August to be precise, Pedro de Legorreta managed to disembark with a flying squadron protected by the artillery of the galleys that "swept the whole beach and the Moors on horseback".[x] While this was going on, Admiral Miguel de Vilazávar fought with artillery against the neighbouring city of Salé, located high up on the mountain, to prevent reinforcements from leaving. General Don Luis Fajardo, who had distinguished himself the previous year in the sack of Tunis,[xi] took over the square and that morning "mass was said on earth, giving thanks to our Lord". Still, of course, without the image of the Cautivo that would later protect the square.[xii]

The success of the capture of La Mamora, which came on top of the recent cession of Larache, encouraged Miguel Serrano de Vargas y Ureña to print, a year later, in Madrid a Historical account of the damming of the port of Maamora by the Royal Armada.[xiii] It is a pamphlet that goes beyond the pretensions of immediate notification of the account of events to become an extensive report on the event intended to inform a courtly and civic public that is supposed to be interested in the political situation of the neighbouring kingdom of Morocco. It would not make sense otherwise for the narrator, D. Agustín de Horozco, a resident of Cadiz, to recall the factions that tore the dynasty of the Sadids apart, before going on to discuss the geographical layout of the square and its history (including the Portuguese period), prolegomena that take up more than half of the print. The Journey itself is reserved for the second part of the text, which is divided into four chapters devoted to describing the armada, the battle, the entry into the port of La Mamora and the relief that was sent from Spain. In the latter case, it is worth mentioning the long list of knights "principal and important people" who, according to Horozco, offered to lend their services in the newly obtained fortress. Among them were probably many of the possible readers of the epic deed.[xiv]

Life in the fortress in the first years after the conquest must not have been comfortable, given the frequent pirate raids that continued to operate from the southern bases, which made it difficult to supply the garrison. The True account of the victory that two hundred soldiers of the fort of San Felipe de la Mamora had against more than two thousand Arabs.published in 1616, describes the skirmishes of Captain Bernardino Arpón in search of firewood and fajina, which ended with the captivity and conversion of the son of a Moorish governor.[xv] Despite the happy ending that readers had hoped for, such activities aimed at ensuring mere survival hint at a daily reality marked by harshness and constant harassment in an inhospitable environment. As much as the The story of the great victory In 1618, he praised the excellence of the fort's companies, but at the same time warned that "the whole of Barbary is in the worst state it has ever been in, full of work and misery, after the wars of the past there was the plague, which also passed, and now famine has destroyed the whole land".[xvi]

The situation did not change much in the following decade. On the contrary, the resumption of the war with the Protestant powers and the definitive suspension of the ambitious project to conquer Algiers, which was, let us not forget, the main focus of privateering, put an end to the possibility of a consistent solution to the problem of piracy, which would continue to be a threat echoed in the accounts of events. However, the merit of the captains and field masters of the fortress is praised in them, a function that contributes to raising the spirits of their families and countrymen, the most likely recipients of these printed documents, together with the military and noble circles of the great Andalusian families who directed the operations from Seville, Madrid or Naples. Captain Cristóbal Lechuga is the protagonist and author of the Very real relationship which he sent to the cosmographer Antonio Moreno on 12 May 1620 to recount the heroic liberation of the siege to which the square was subjected by fourteen Moors, commanding a troop of 8,000 Moors, which caused considerable damage to the besiegers. Along with Lechuga are the captains Martín de Ibarra, Gonzalo Pizaño, Alonso Cornejo, Gabriel de Brito, Gabriel Fernández de Ávila, Luis Pinedo and Nicolás de Armunia.[xvii] And in a sheet that came out the previous year, the famous exploits of the Duke of Maqueda, of Captain Juan del Castillo, in the defence of La Mamora, together with the successes of Francisco Carrillo de Santoyo, governor of Larache, were recalled.[xviii] The image of the governor of La Mamora is even more blurred in the Famous Victoriaa pamphlet published by Juan Cabrera in 1625, which nevertheless still recalls the glory of its winner, the Marquis of San Germán.[xix] While Tomás de la Raspura is the name that heads the list in capital letters. Letter... about the great prey he made on the artillery, gunpowder and ammunition of the enemy that was on the Mamora. (1628), thanks to the collaboration of another hero, Don Juan de Toledo, who discovered the cache thanks to the revelation of a Moorish spy.[xx]

Relación sumaria... de la victoria... de la Mamora. Seville, Alonso Rodríguez Gamarra, 1614.

La Mamora's gallery of military heroes came to an abrupt halt in the 1630s, when the interest of the occasional press turned to the episodes of war in central and northern Europe.[xxi] This information impasse coincided with the rapprochement of the Salé Moriscos with the Spanish monarchy in an attempt to counteract the pressure that Muley Zidan was putting them under, a circumstance that could have given the La Mamora prison some breathing space. It was cheaper for the Spanish authorities to finance this occasional ally than to wall up the presidios and reinforce their garrisons. In any case, it was a situation that could not last long. The lukewarm reception of the Spanish authorities and the possibility of the Barbary republic collaborating with the British once again distanced the Salé oligarchy from their former overlords. At this precise juncture, with the fortress in a state of progressive abandonment and once again exposed to the danger of the Barbary corsairs, a danger that came to be added to the strong presence, since 1640, of the Dutch armadas, we record the first news about the spiritual assistance of the garrison of La Mamora and also some indications about the image of the Christ of Medinaceli.

 

2. The Capuchin friars and the soldiers of the fort of San Miguel de Ultramar: a frontier history.

Shortly after their conquest, the Capuchin fathers must have arrived at the La Mamora prison if we are to believe the few lines that Fray Ambrosio de Valencina dedicates in his Historical overview to the beginnings of the spiritual assistance of the Capuchins in the Moroccan stronghold. The first document cited by this author is a letter sent by King Philip IV to the Provincial of Andalusia in which he explains the need for continuity in the spiritual care of the soldiers who occupied the square and to resolve the problems that had arisen between the Vicar and the paymaster of the prison, from which it can be deduced that the friars had been carrying out this apostolate for some time. The letter, dated 31 October 1645, was collected by Fr. Nicolás Córdoba in his Brevis Notitia and is reproduced by Valencina in the aforementioned work.[xxii] On the other hand, a Memorial printed that the secretary D. Sebastián de Tobar sent to Philip IV in 1643 extolling the excellences of his brother Fray Severo, founder of the observant Franciscan branch, gives us reason to suppose that the link between the Capuchins and the coastal presidio went back to its very origin, since in a letter that Fray Severo addressed to King Philip III on 9 September 1614, that is to say, barely a month after the taking of the fortress (and which is included in the aforementioned form) he postulated the dedication of the fortress to the archangel St. Michael, Severo addressed to King Philip III on 9 September 1614, barely a month after the capture of the fortress (and which is included in the aforementioned form), he postulated the dedication of the fortress to the archangel Saint Michael, a request which apparently did not succeed in the Council of War (the name of San Felipe de la Mamora, which was soon spread in the printed material, must have been chosen instead), which justified the recourse to the memorial that his brother promoted years later and which has come down to us. The petition also suggested that the bishop of Cádiz, to whose diocese the square was added, be ordered to "dedicate it and its church and port to the holy Archangel and vow to fast its eve and celebrate its day and that of its appearance with a procession and Octave (...) and in all the dispatches, titles, orders, decrees and letters of V. M. that square and port of S. Miguel Vltramar be named and titled. And the officers of the salary of the same shall be adduced in the same style in theirs".[xxiii]

We do not know whether this request was heeded, nor to what extent the subsequent fall from grace of the Valide may have influenced the decisions taken regarding the spiritual care of the soldiers serving at La Mamora.[xxiv] Gaspar de Sevilla who, in compliance with the wishes of Philip IV, sent six religious to La Mamora who were received by the sergeant major and governor D. Francisco Ibáñez de Herrera. In 1646, the Observant Order also received the official decree of the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, which assigned them the mission of all the western coasts of Africa, appointing the aforementioned Provincial as Prefect of the missions for 10 years.[xxv] Subsequent events highlight the precarious situation that continued to exist in that position, so far from the main interests of the Monarchy. The burning of the hospital and the church caused by the carelessness of a soldier when he was preparing the gunpowder ammunition was the reason, according to the account given by Father Valencina, for the return of disagreements between the religious and the new governor D. Antonio de Medina, which ended with the dismissal of the soldier.[xxvi]

Philip IV would maintain the trust he had placed in the religious order during the successive decades of 1650 and 1660, a period which, as is well known, brought serious financial problems to the Monarchy, which would translate into extreme military vulnerability, even more pronounced in the remote presidios on the western coast. Precisely to alleviate this situation of abandonment suffered by the North African fortresses, the monarch insisted on the need for there to always be a sufficient number of chaplains serving in La Mamora, extending the obligation to the fortresses of Peñón de la Gomera and Melilla. The resistance of the provincial, Fray Leandro de Antequera, can be explained by the shortage of friars after the successive crises of mortality that Andalusia had suffered since 1649, but they did not prevent the royal will from being fulfilled with the appointment from 1660 onwards of Father José de Granada as Vicar of the Rock and Father Basilio de Antequera in Melilla.[xxvii]  

However, the feeling of abandonment and the permanent threat suffered by the friars was not solved with the aforementioned measures. A few years later, Father Isidoro de Sevilla reflected in his chronicle: "in the years of 1676, the work, displeasure and persecution of the religious increased to such an extent that the Provincial, who was then Fr. José de Campos, tried to remove them from there and bring them to the province, which the king opposed, formally ordering them to remain in the presidios until something else was decided".[xxviii] The quotation is only an expression of the indirect unease that was causing a much wider phenomenon: the Crown's impossibility of keeping up fortresses that were too far from the Peninsula and therefore had serious difficulties in landing men and supplying goods. With the exception of the Oran presidio governed by the Marquis of Los Vélez, the restoration of the fortresses was delayed due to lack of money during the years of the regency of Mariana of Austria, despite the danger posed by the presence of the English in Tangiers, a base from which they carried out disturbing destabilisation operations with the participation of some local factions.[xxix] The belligerent policy of the new King Mulei Ismail did not make things any easier either. His expansionist pretensions failed to gain ground in the north, mainly because of the firm opposition of Algiers, but they were much less hampered on the west coast, where he would eventually subdue La Mamora, Larache and Arcila.[xxx]

This receding scenario, sacrificed by the Regent in order to concentrate efforts on the area around the Strait of Gibraltar, with the aim of counteracting the growing English and French influence,[xxxi] is staged in the accounts of events in the early 1670s published by the Cadiz presses, which were undoubtedly the most affected by the consequences of this unstoppable retreat. The first text is the True account of what happened in the Mamora, which narrates, in the form of a letter, the revelations that reached the ears of the Duke of Veraguas, captain general of the fleet in the Strait of Gibraltar, about the preparations being made from Salé to attack La Mamora. The first testimony came from a "renegade Neapolitan" who claimed to be repentant and offered information about the intentions of Muley Arzi, King of Tafilete, one of the Sudanese sheikhs who served the Moroccan monarch. This was confirmed by another renegade, this time an Englishman, who provided interesting details about the German and French engineers involved in the operation. It is interesting to note the internationalisation of the world of North African privateering in 1671, when the events narrated take place, portrayed in characters of different origins who, with a certain denigratory intention, the writer describes as renegades, i.e. people of little moral probity but useful as spies for the enemy. Likewise, for the first time in the corpus of texts reviewed, "vn Padre Capuchino de los que allí [en La Mamora] sirven de Curas" [a Capuchin priest among those who serve as priests there [in La Mamora] is mentioned.[xxxii] In a later form, the Second real relationship... which describes the hurricane that hit Cadiz that winter, continues the story of the rescue of the Mamora, the solution adopted to deal with the imminent invasion: 

Admiral Iacinto López recalls the opposition of many Moors on foot and on horseback, who with their long shotguns wanted to block the entrance of the Barra in the Mamora, but they succeeded, playing on our side with all the effort of the artillery of the frigate and of the square (...) Be careful if one of the barges, in which there were more than thirty thousand rations for the sustenance of the square has been lost with such rigorous weather... King Tafilet is very formidable (who is Black and bellicose) and is five leagues from the square with two hundred thousand Moors on foot, and on horseback, who follow him for the conquest of it, and for that of Larache, Ceuta and Tangier, and thus he has offered it to his own, that he will win them; and for this he brings a great renegade German engineer soldier, and other Frenchmen, and Englishmen, and all that is necessary to mine...[xxxiii]

The square was spared this time. But the Monarchy did not know how, or was unable, to remedy this situation of frank deterioration in the following years. Larache had no buildings to house the troops, nor blankets for the soldiers to sleep on when it fell into enemy hands. And La Mamora had a simple palisade and a trench dug in the earth as its only defensive bulwarks. Under these conditions, the loss of the Philippine positions in the Atlantic was only a matter of time.[xxxiv]

 

3. The surrender of La Mamora and the captivity of the image of Jesus the Nazarene according to the Notice True and Regrettable Relationship (1681)

The surrender of the presidio of La Mamora finally took place on 30 April 1681. The conditions of abandonment and military deterioration of the frontier settlement described above must have worsened even more in the last years of the Spanish regency of the presidio and is an example, moreover, of the evolution of the Spanish possessions in North Africa which, from being outposts of a policy of expansion in the Maghreb, became, with the passage of time, doubly isolated frontier enclaves: from the metropolis and from their own environment. It has rightly been said that Spanish soldiers posted to these latitudes suffered, in the end, a worse kind of imprisonment or captivity than that of prisoners in the hands of infidels. And the testimonies of flight and desertion increase in the final decade of the Spanish history of these fortified cities.

If we assume all these imponderables, it is not surprising that Don Juan de Peñalosa, the last governor of the fortress of San Miguel de Ultramar, threw down the flag of peace one spring morning in the year 81. However, the printed testimonies we have collected make him the scapegoat for all the evils that afflicted the Monarchy's defence system in the presidios, as well as a vile and abominable figure from the point of view of moral responsibility. In short: the portrait of a traitor, ready to sell his troops to save his own skin; and of a sacrilegious man who gave the sacred effigy of the Nazarene to the infidels, without caring for the salvation of his soul, nor for the offence caused to God. The terms of the True noticedated 14 May in Fez, are so harsh that they suggest spurious motives, perhaps exculpatory or personal enmity, on the part of the letter's subscriber, Captain Francisco de Sandoval y Rojas, who confesses to being a servant of Don Pedro Antonio de Aragón, to whom the letter is addressed.[xxxv] The Duke of Segorbe and Cardona, who had been Captain General of Catalonia at the time of the war and later Viceroy of Naples, appears in capital letters at the head of the list.[xxxvi]

Aviso verdaderdo y lamentable relación... de las sacrílegas acciones que han obrado los pérfidos Mahometanos con las Santas Imágenes. Madrid [n.d.], 1681.

The tone of the Notice is situated, within the conventions of the genre of event reports, between the informative and the pitiful case report, which is bound to arouse the readers' sympathy. From unfortunate relationship the anonymous printer calls it. And the feeling of affliction and unhappiness permeates each and every one of its pages. This is not surprising considering that it is a transfer of a possible original written from Fez by Captain Rojas, who had been held captive for years in that city and was therefore inclined to seek a ransom, for which it was essential to find support in Spain by creating a climate of receptivity to the painful event. The publication of this printed letter was a fundamental vehicle for attracting the pity of the readers, especially if it circulated under the protection of the reputed military and liberal lord Don Pedro de Aragón. From this second point of view, the story seems to have an instrumental purpose (to arouse the compassion of readers in order to raise funds for the ransom) and the particular emphasis placed on the mistreatment of images and objects of worship would serve the same purpose.

The drama that pervades the entire relationship is not, however, unusual in other captive narratives, which constitute a sub-genre with its own personality after more than a century of narrative experiences centred on Mediterranean ventures.[xxxvii] There is, if anything, a special acrimony, a latent tension, in every sentence, between the denigration (of the nefarious Peñalosa) and the vindication of his former comrades, handed over as prisoners to the enemy. And this black accentuation, this veiled regret, can only be understood if we bear in mind that the loss of La Mamora, because of its strategic and symbolic significance, was a painful defeat and gave name to a feeling of opprobrium in which nested an unspeakable shame. That is why Don Juan de Peñalosa is not only the loser of the square, but the symbol of a collective failure (that of the Spanish Monarchy in its Africanist project) which is channelled in the figure of the captain-traitor where all the negative semantic valences that have sunk the character of the Spanish hero are synthesised: 

In short, sir, if the sorrow, which puts a noose round my neck, to deprive me of my vital breath, gives place to my tongue to utter the most sacrilegious fault, the most abominable error, that the born have seen, neither the Histories count; for neither that of the Greek Sinon, nor that of Phocas, nor those of other traitors, equal that which Don Juan de Peñalosa, unworthy of such a Name, and more unworthy of the Christian Character, has committed. This Spanish abortion; this untamed Beast, has surpassed in wickedness all the wicked.[xxxviii] 

On the other hand, the writer does not ask what had happened to Spain to produce offspring of this kind. The perfidious character is, rather, in the text, the individual culprit of an infamous treatment, an opprobrious capitulation and a vile surrender (that of the sacred images). How not to see in him, however, the catalytic mask of collective fears? Incidentally, "a French fugitive from La Mamora", who provides Muley Isman with the information he needs to attack the fortress, collaborates in his singular affront, at least as a trigger for the drama. The Frenchman represents the figure of the renegade that frontier literature (especially the accounts of events) tends to stigmatise by the moral levity of someone who has abjured his faith out of interest and convenience, describing from that moment onwards a defeat of moral debasement that will lead him to commit the greatest atrocities, developing a cold and ruthless character.[xxxix] The French sectarian was certainly unscrupulous in his moral scruples, telling the Moorish court that in La Mamora "there were very few people, and they were very unhappy, due to the bad government of the chiefs", reasons that encouraged the Muslim monarch to besiege the square.[xl]

The episode of the betrayal is, however, the dramatic heart of the story. Fajardo, who claims to have witnessed the humiliating surrender against his will but in obedience to the orders of the king of Fez, conveys a scene that seems to us to be the antithesis of the famous resistance of Don Alonso de Pérez de Guzmán el Bueno in the tower of the Alcazar of Tarifa, a story, by the way, very much present in the training of nobles and soldiers. Guzmán's loyalty to the king, personalised in the ultimate act of sacrificing his son before surrendering the fortress, has turned in La Mamora into disloyalty to the Monarchy and betrayal of the troops themselves. The infamous deal consisted of handing over the soldiers and civilians of the fortress as captives in exchange for the guarantee of freedom for the prison officials, their families and their property: the Overseer Bartolomé de Larrea, Captain Juan Rodríguez, Cristóbal de Cea and Juan Antonio del Castillo, as well as Governor Peñalosa himself.[xli] While this fact in itself is extremely serious, as it violates the obligation of exemplarity for subordinates and, above all, the obedience due to the king and the fulfilment of his orders, the text nevertheless gives precedence over all these faults and errors to the sin of sacrilege committed by handing over, without the slightest hesitation, the holy images and sacred vessels to the Agarenes: 

and what we have more to cry and to feel (I do not know how to declare what my eyes saw, without losing my life at the hands of pain!) to have seen the Sacred Portrait IESVS Nazareno second time given to Moors, and Jews, and to the Sovereign Image of that Chaste Dove, that being Mother of God, is also of Sinners, with the Title of Rosary. O Guzman Family! As if you had seen this spectacle, you would have sacrificed the lives of your Sons in defence of your Protectress! The images of the Prince of the Apostles; that of the Archangel Warrior, and Great General of the Celestial Armies Michael; that of the Bright Mirror of Beautiful Luzia, St. Benedict, and the First Christian Andrew, were with great vituperation and scorn those sacrilegious Barbarians dragging them through the Streets to martyr the Hearts of so many miserable Christians.[xlii] 

The scene acquires a mythical and universal incarnation insofar as it presents itself as a SECOND DELIVERY of the Innocent One, of the Nazarene (the first, of course, was the one recounted in the Gospels). A parallelism that brings to mind the vileness of the new Judas who now, as before, betrayed the Lord (in his image of the Captive) for a handful of coins. The anti-Semitic sentiment is no coincidence, at a time when anti-Jewish demonstrations are being revived in Spain. Nor is the association of the Moors with the barbarity of the gentiles who dragged the sacred images through the streets (a veiled allusion to the Lord's suffering on the road to Calvary). We would thus be in a narrative transposition of the Passion of the Jesus of the Scriptures to this new tribulation of the Captive (and his unredeemed people: the captives, prisoners of the fortress of La Mamora).

It is possible that the final editor of the text, who could well have been the printer or a nearby ecclesiastical figure, may have expanded the content of Captain Fajardo's original notice, now lost in this second part of the account. We cannot provide factual evidence to support this assertion, but we can observe indications in the account itself, which halfway through the printing process abandons the informative format of the notices (presentation of the events in small paragraphs) to give way to an extensive narrative, with a notable tremendist charge and resources akin to sacred rhetoric.[xliii] On the other hand, the mention of the Trinitarian Fray Pedro de los Ángeles, a personality who was known for his qualities in negotiating the ransom of the captives, could point to a reworking of the original material in Trinitarian circles, especially if we bear in mind that the reports published the following year came out of this institute. In any case, the laconic nature of the notices is recovered in the final part of the account, which reports on the state of the captives, the spoils of the square and, finally, the just punishment that awaits the traitors who (according to Fajardo's knowledge) are already imprisoned and have been sent by the governor of Tangiers to Spain.[xliv]

In the midst of this complex process of narrative elaboration (which it is possible, we insist, is due to two hands) the image of the Captive of Medinaceli, which the text calls "the Sacred Portrait IESVS Nazareno", unexpectedly emerges as the true centre of the story of the surrender of the fortress, even displacing the captives, who should have been the protagonists of the story. As we shall see later on, this narrative approach will have important consequences for the transmission of the legend of Christ. But now it is interesting to note the obvious fact that the True Notice is the first printed text (as far as we know) in which the Lord of Medinaceli is mentioned (although not yet under the invocation of the Captive). It is a text of great value because, as the Capuchin historiography that has dealt with its history has been able to see, it marks a sure chronological point for being able to date its origin and first place of worship.[xlv] Thanks to this account we know that the image of the Captive Jesus, which arrived in Madrid in 1682, was already in the fortress of La Mamora when it was handed over by Governor Peñalosa in 1681 and that it is likely that it had been there for quite some time, although not so long that it was affected by the fire in the church and hospital mentioned above, which the Capuchin sources tell us about, because nothing is said in them about the loss of the image of a Nazarene. In other words, the venerated carving must have arrived at La Mamora at some point between 1645 and 1681, and must have begun to be worshipped immediately in the chapel of the fortified castle, which was large enough to house, as stated in the list, a Virgin of the Rosary, the Archangel Saint Michael (which would demonstrate that the request of Fray Severo de Tovar was finally granted), a Saint Benedict, also in bulk, and an image of Saint Andrew. These are the same images that we later find inventoried in the Trinitarian chronicles.

What we cannot know from the succinct information provided by our Notice is the date, even approximate, of the making of the image of the Lord. From its stylistic features, art historians date it to the second or third decade of the 17th century. Its author is unknown (although there have been various attributions).[xlvi] nor who commissioned it, nor for what function of worship. In a late text quoted by Fray Domingo Fernández Villa in his History of the Christ of Medinaceli,[xlvii] mentions a lawsuit between the Capuchins and the Trinitarians over the ownership of the image, in which it is stated that "it belonged to the Capuchin Fathers of Seville". This statement is not conclusive proof of its original owner, although it does indicate that the Capuchins, who were in charge of the worship of the La Mamora garrison, had custody of it in the mid-17th century. But when did they take charge of it, and from which Andalusian convent did it arrive at the fortress? We should also remember that the Capuchins themselves were in charge of the spiritual care of Spanish soldiers in other North African forts: had the devout image previously been in other forts? Many open questions that will have to be answered by future researchers.

As for the role played by the Capuchins at the time of the seizure of the square, the information provided by the Regrettable Relationship is insufficient to draw any further conclusions. We do know, at least, that two chaplains remained in the prison despite the insecurity it had suffered since the attempted siege of 1671. And that they were released, along with the commanders of the square, as part of the deal negotiated by the Governor. According to the historiographical tradition of the Capuchin order, the two friars, Andrés de la Zubía and Jerónimo de Baeza, did not want to abandon the images, despite having been freed, and accompanied them, together with the other captives, to Mequinez where they were given a gift by the Muley who was pleased to listen to the talks of the religious.

At this point we lose track of the relationships and chronicles of these chaplains who had to return to Spain. And the Discalced Trinitarians, who were in charge of rescuing the images and objects of worship, came to the fore. Pedro de los Ángeles, a simple lay brother who lived in Mequínez, who offered the Moors the conditions of a redemption: "that for the seven images he would offer seven Moors, those he asked for from the captives of Spain, within three months", giving himself as a pledge: "that he would be burnt alive if he did not fulfil his promise". The terms were accepted by the mayor of Meknes. And so we know that the image of the Captive was deposited, together with the other images and sacred ornaments, in the hospital of the order.

On the fate of the captives, finally, the True Notice He tells us that "They left in hard prisons 250 soldiers and 45 women and children; and with agassajos, threats and punishments, he urges them to break the Catholic faith that they profess". A task which, from what we know of the world of the African frontier, was not without effect, but not so much for the reasons that Christian propaganda tells us about (interest or fear) but for very human and everyday motivations that ranged from mere survival to the need for professional integration (especially for captives who had useful professions for the Muslims), not to mention family affinity or neighbourly relations, not to mention the paths that a timely conversion opened up for social advancement.[xlviii] Be that as it may, among the group of captives of La Mamora, conversions soon began: "Three innocent children have returned to their accursed sect" who, according to Fajardo, were added to the many others who resided there: "and with them today there are 80 who have failed in the Sacred Character of Baptism". And always in accordance with the polarity that governs the whole discourse, the hardships of the prisoners were opposed by the ease of the traitors who made a triumphal entry into the Moorish capital and received all kinds of entertainment before leaving for Tangiers: "calling them the King [of Fez] Friends".[xlix]                                              

4. Historical relations promoted by the Discalced Trinitarians

The two reports published in the year following the events of the seizure and surrender of La Mamora have a very different character to that of the True Notice which we have just examined. And not only because they are published several months after the fall of the fortress, which had as an immediate consequence the captivity of the Christians who defended it and the holy images that were guarded there, but above all because they are based on a different editorial initiative. The initiative of the Discalced Trinitarian Order, which was the protagonist of the redemption of 1682 and later the promoter of what we could call the first official history to be published, approved with the order's licence, on the redemption of these sacred simulacra, among which, let us not forget, was the image of Christ, which became known, for this very reason, as Jesús del Rescate.

Although the observant Trinitarians had already brought other North African redemptions into print on occasion, as a way of publicising and propagating the successes of their Redemptorist ministry (e.g. the famous one of 1660 by which they saved 136 captives of Arcila, Salé and Fez from the hands of the infidels),[l] However, the redemption of 1682 had, with respect to the previous ones, the singularity of the rescue of the holy images, something that did not go unnoticed by the authorities of the Order when they expressed, in the first paragraph of the First True Relationship the particular sign that they received from the Most High in this enterprise, for "it seems that the Divine Providence, as well as the zeal and fervour that this enlightened Family has for the fulfilment of its heavenly Insitutto, stand out more than anything else".[li]

Relación primera verdadera... de los singulares sucesos que han tenido los... Padres Redemptores del Orden de Descalços de las Santíssima Trinidad en la Redempción de Cautivos Christianos en el Reyno de Fez [Madrid?, 1682].

The value they attributed to this particular situation is even reflected in the length of the two accounts of the ransom, which is double the usual length of the accounts we have seen so far (half a sheet), allowing a more detailed and elaborate discourse to be developed, with frequent recourse to curious and anecdotal cases. On the other hand, the tone is also different from that of the military and historical accounts of the fort at La Mamora. Both texts are dominated by a providentialist account, which is logical given that they are based on a religious order, and they abound in miraculous events that are taken as proofs verifying the path traced by the argument, which is none other than the one indicated by Providence from heaven. In this way, there is a succession of prodigious cases and miracles that amplify the mystical sense of the narrative itself, or, in other words, without failing to inform, these accounts also pursue a pious aim that seeks to awaken devotion. Lastly, the propagandistic purpose of these Trinitarian works for the greater glory of the Trinitarian house is evident. From the middle of the 17th century, the discalced branch of the order had joined vigorously in the missionary activity in North Africa and had a strong presence in the hospitals for captives in several cities of Barbary. Although the relatives of the prisoners and other private individuals were generally the ones who collected the sums for the redemption, nothing is said about this in the texts so as not to overshadow the prominence of the friars. But let us look at all this in detail.

The first relationship to be qualified real already announces on its title page the main motif of the story: the singular events that have taken place among the barefoot in the kingdom of Fez, and in particular the Images of Christ, of his Most Holy Mother and of other Saints that they have taken out of the power of the Barbarians, the affronts and insults that they did with them.... [y] the labours that the Redemptorist Fathers have endured in this Redemption. So: the images first, and then their liberators.

The images provide a much more complete and also more detailed list than that provided by the True Notice. This is the first time that we find a description, albeit brief, of the making of the Nazarene, a testimony of great value as it is the oldest we possess of the venerated carving: "First of all the Moors captivated a figure of the Nazarene, of natural stature, very beautiful, with his hands folded in front of him". It is in fact the Captive who is already depicted in his characteristic pose, handcuffed, just as he is also represented in the oldest iconographic testimony we have preserved of the Lord: an anonymous canvas preserved in the church of San Martín de Trujillo, which shows him wearing the scapular of the Trinitarian order.[lii] Along with it, 16 other images were saved: the Virgin of the Rosary, already mentioned in the 1681 account, which is described with a Child in her arms and to which the ancient title of Gracia is assigned, as well as adding a detail that we find interesting: she was "Foundress of the Christiandad en la Mamora", which could indicate that she was in the fortress from the early years, certainly before the Nazarene. It also mentions "another image of Our Lady... which was lost with the Moorish costumes and is of the Most Pure Conception", a Virgin with a Child in her arms whose name is not given, a St. Joseph a rod high with a Child Jesus on the pedestal, a slightly larger St. Francis of Assisi, other small images of St. Diego and St. Anthony of Padua and a St. Lucy "almost two rods high". None of these were mentioned in the Notice, nor was there any mention of an angel of half a rod that came to the Christians mistreated like the others. The valuable description also gives us news of the Archangel Saint Michael, patron saint of the prison, which we already knew, although we now know that he was two rods high, carried a rapier in his right hand and a devil at his feet and "who stayed among the Moors". Finally, there is mention of a Crucified Christ "with Our Lady of Solitude at his feet, two thirds high".[liii]

Undoubtedly the image of the Captive "of natural stature", its technical perfection ("very beautiful") and its gesture of surrender ("with hands folded in front of him") stand out above the small images of bulk, from half a rod to two rods at the most. Other details alluding to his tunic, crown or scapular will appear in later texts, but they are probably not mentioned here because they were not of any value or were missing. However, in his simplicity in the chapel of La Mamora and later in the hostile environment of Meknes, he already had (and transmitted) the power of the sacred image. Apart from these images from the maritime prison, the report mentions a Crucified Christ, the second of the list, "whose material is marble", two thirds high and well finished. It was an image that had been mistreated and amputated by the Moors of Salé and then rescued by the Trinitarians serving in Fez.

Altogether 17 images, not counting the ornaments and sacred vessels (jewellery, chasubles, corporals, reliquaries, rosaries "and some small crosses and plates". A precious treasure of devotion which, according to the religious tone of the story, "was the main concern of the Redemptorists".[liv] Probably, therefore, in order to enhance the work of the religious institute, the text does not spare any detail about the affronts and insults suffered by the sacred images, incorporating details that did not exist in the True Notice. The main one: the scene of the lions' circus, which is also reproduced in the Trujillo painting mentioned above: 

They took them to the King, who, saying affronting words to them and mocking them, ordered them to be dragged and thrown to the Lions to be thrown away as if they were made of human flesh. The King ordered the most beautiful bust of Jesus of Nazareth to be dragged up and thrown into a dunghill below, mocking and scorning the beautiful portrait.... 

The merciless outrage recalls the barbarity that the Jews and Gentiles committed against the Lord with an animosity and viciousness that could only be of diabolical inspiration. This episode, that of the sacrilegious act on his true portrait (vero icon), which, together with the episode of the governor's betrayal that appeared earlier, was to become a common theme in later elaborations of the legend of the Captive, whether in religious poetry or in the comedy of saints.

Some of the Christian captives were hurt and indignant, as we continue to read in the account, and they interposed themselves, begging the king for a ransom and offering the intermediation of the religious. A friar "who was in the city" was finally the one who went out to save them "at his own risk", convincing the king of his offer and thus recovering the sacred bundles, which came to rest in his house. The end of this Way of the Cross of the Nazarene in the land of the Moors (reviled, mocked, brought before the tribunal of a gentile power and sent to death) must necessarily be the Trinitarian redemption (another hypostasis of the major symbol of human redemption) which is to be found in the long adventure of the ransom which occupies the rest of the First True Relationship and all the Second. A journey punctuated with obstacles that are overcome thanks to the ultra-terrestrial help of a merciful God who appears at the right moment and makes the seemingly impossible easy. The march of the holy images in crates from Meknes to Tetouan is described, according to this principle of superior intervention, as a flight of "such lightness... that they do not seem to tread the earth, according to the brevity and acceleration with which they arrived in Tetouan".[lv] The city, by the way, opened free passage for them as soon as its mayor heard "that they were bringing the images", a case of such admiration - the storyteller notes - that it could only be the work of Divine Providence. Accordingly, the retinue continued on its way to Ceuta where it was received by the knights and soldiers of the square who carried the images to the convent of the Discalced Trinitarians where a Te Deum was sung. This was a cause for joy that was repeated in Jerez and Seville. But let us move on to the difficulties, which is where the composer of the story finds reasons to ponder the celestial force that pushed these crates. In Gibraltar the images remained in the house of a priest, a brother of the Religion. There they were to remain until a religious was sent to accompany them to Seville. But the notification with this order arrived late and the priest sent the statues to their destination without further delay. The danger was obvious, the text reasons, since they were also carrying many valuable objects and jewels of such esteem that the whole enterprise could be lost. Once again, however, God's design safeguarded the sacred embassy with no more protection than that of an ignorant muleteer, and so it arrived in Seville, through which it passed, once again, without a word with the vigilance of the city gates.[lvi]

Meanwhile, the redeeming fathers had also negotiated the ransom of the more than 200 captives who arrived, led by the mayor of Tetuan, at the walls of Ceuta. There, an incident occurred that put an end to part of the operation. It was about a Moorish captive who passed as a renegade in order to enter the city, who soon recanted and returned, by Christian law, to his captive status. The case (one of so many pilgrim cases that delighted the reader of these corded sheets of paper) reached the ears of the mayor of Tetouan who had already freed 183 prisoners of those who had come in the retinue, including the people of La Mamora and some from Meknes, in compliance with the pacts. Knowing this, he held back the others (20 prisoners remained to be delivered) until the Morito was released. The deal was not consummated and "what had been joy... turned to tears". The frustrated end of the ransom led to a second liberation, which justified the printer's interest in publishing a second instalment of the ransom story. 

Antonio Téllez de Acevedo, Glorias de Jesús Cautivo y prodigios del rescate [Madrid], s. i. [Librería de Juan Moya, 1732].

This second small work, also of 6 sheets like its first half, is entitled Second true report in which the singular cases continue... this present year of 1682.and bears the licence of the order as a colophon, so it can be assumed to be of identical editorial quality.[lvii] It begins in an unexpected way, telling the story of a Jew from Tetuan, Aaron Benataz, and that of a Moorish slave, stubborn in his beliefs, who in the end embraced baptism with the name of Gonzalo. The author of the story shows them as trophies of God who wanted to wound "with his divine light" the most lost souls. It is undoubtedly a good beginning, so spectacular within the canons of the genre that all the writers who will later write about the famous rescue will return to these two stories. But for the moment let's leave it at that and follow the thread of the chronicle of the redemption that had been interrupted, in the First True Relationshipat the foot of the walls of Ceuta. This is exactly where the narrator of this Second relationshipalthough the specifications are already advanced: 

Auiendo retirando el Alcayde de tetuán los veinte Christianos, como se dixo en la relación primera, con tanto dolor de los Padres Redemptores que estauan tan a la vista. Angered with the presumed grievance of not having been handed over by the Moor, he tried, full of anger, to take his revenge in the Redemption... 

Once again, we have the approach of the drama which, moreover, develops in two actions, with opposite signs, which run in parallel: the diabolical machinations of the mayor of Tetuan who will try by all means to derail the redemption and, on the positive side, the performances of Friar Martín de la Resurrección and Friar Juan de la Visitación, the two religious charged with bringing the new mission to a successful conclusion. It goes without saying who was behind each of these antagonistic forces, which, by the way, anticipate the principles of good and evil that would confront each other in the plays that were composed in the 18th century based on the story of the ransom. For the playwright, of course, there is not the slightest shadow of doubt that the evil mayor was acting out of "diabolical intent". Under the protection of this sinister protector, he concocted a lie in order to make the king ill-tempered with the friars, consisting of convincing him that little had been paid for jewels of such esteem for the Christians as the images, and that it was obligatory to compensate the damage by asking for the delivery of fifteen Moors from Spain, in exchange for the fifteen images, or else they would have to be returned.[lviii] The redeeming fathers had no choice but to accept this bargaining chip, buying the Moors in the market of Ceuta, and even going to Malaga, until they had gathered the right number after much hardship. But that was not the end of the tribulations, for when they were about to close the deal, the avaricious agent demanded 1,000 pesos from the money deducted from the Segovia cloths that had been used to pay for the release of the captives. A new deception and another obstacle to the longed-for end of the redemption. Nothing was enough for the greed of the mayor who, as the text progresses, more and more resembles those characters of the farcical comedy so extremely bad that they make fun of him. When he finally saw that his plans were uncovered, he resorted in anger to violence, locking the friars in the dungeons and subjecting them to all sorts of humiliations and torments. The redemption will culminate, after preventing the insidious aedile from burning a painting with the image of the Virgin, thanks to the providential intervention of two Christian merchants, the loan of the Jews of Tétouan and the unbreakable will of the friars.[lix]

All these passages would later be taken up and exploited with the resources of the dramatic genre in the two comedies dedicated to the history of the rescue: Glories of the Captive Jesus by Antonio Téllez de Acevedo[lx] and the later and little known The redeemed redeemer of the Trinitarian Fray Juan de Jesús María.[lxi] These works unfold a world of characters that is also inspired by some of the miracles that the composer depicts in this second account. Particularly striking is the short story of the Jew Aaron quoted above. This Hebrew, "well read and knowledgeable in Holy Scripture", served as a trujiman in the dealings between the Redeemers and the Muslim authorities. Frequent conversations with the Trinitarians ended up sowing doubts in him "until, having overcome the thick darkness of his deceit, with the supernatural lights of Heaven, he surrendered to the yoke of Jesus Christ, wishing for a moment to wash his faults in the fountain of Baptism". Leaving his wife, brothers and estate, he then went to Ceuta where the redeeming fathers were and communicated his intention to embrace the law of Christ: "all the Cavaliers and Soldiers attended the day of his Baptism, which was in the Cathedral Church, on the ninth of March 1682, his godfather being the Most Excellent Lord Don Francisco de Velasco, Governor and Captain General of the said Square, and at the Baptism he was called Francisco Antonio".[lxii] His haughty and conceited figure passed into the aforementioned comedy by Téllez de Acevedo Glories of the Captive Jesus where he appears, at the end of Day I, in the scene of the seraglio. There he confesses that for "native reason" he detests the Christian scoundrels, a conviction he will regret at the end of the play.[lxiii] 

The second portentous case that is worth remembering (second of the two earnings of God in the words of the writer of this account) is that of the Moorish slave who, being very ill, cried out "to call a Religious of the Order of those who were going to redeem him, who wanted to be a Christian". The latter came and the boy, who was very sick, then asked to be given the waters of baptism, giving him the name of Gonzalo, before he died: "A very honourable burial was held with the great joy of the whole city".[lxiv] A miraculous event, the narrator hastens to say, aroused the zeal of the devil "who began to leuantar to avenge his anger in the Redemption", as we have seen here. This Gonzalo will return in the later Trinitarian chronicles with few differences with respect to the original passage and not so much in the tables since the authors of comedies cited above prefer to assign to the Moors the roles of fools or jokers like the Hamete of the Glories.

The inheritance of characters that transcends from the reports of events of the 1680s to the aforementioned plays, which are already from the 18th century, is extended, on the other hand, by the spiritual characters that acquire dramatic life from the captive images that were rescued by the Trinitarians. The third day of Téllez de Acevedo's work takes place in a heavenly setting. Rosaura, the captive, has a mystical dream in which Jesus of Nazareth sends her an archangel to bring justice against the infidel Agarene. She offers to convert. The second angel then stops St. Michael's sword and the Virgin intercedes before her Son who, in the end, forgives. As can be seen, the sacred effigies of the fortress of La Mamora, transmitted by the chronicles, had come to life through the representation of the theatre of saints.[lxv]

5. The transmission of the story of the ransom in the chronicles of the Trinitarian Order

The next link in the process of the transmission of the memory of the image of Jesus of Nazareth (the last one we are going to deal with in this work) corresponds to the Trinitarian chronicles that were composed in the decades following the events studied. The first work that interests us, still very close to the famous redemption of 1682, is the historical and apologetic discourse composed by Father Fray Rafael de San Juan with the title On the Redemption of Captives (Madrid, 1686). It is dedicated to: TO IESVS NAZARENE; REDEEMER OF THE/ World, in Worship, veneration, and reverence due to his Most Holy,/ and Most Devoted Image, redeemed from the tyrannical power of Infidel Saracens... and placed in his Convent in the Crowned Village of Madrid,/ year 1682.which is an epitome of the famous fact that is already acquiring a mythical aura.[lxvi]

The extraordinary redemption of 1681-82 thus becomes, in the work of Brother Raphael, an epiphenomenon. The opportunity to compose a history of the redemptions of the Trinitarians, taking advantage of the notoriety of the event and the echo of the portentous cases that have surrounded it and of which the previous reports (let us not forget, also cooked in Trinitarian cloisters) have given a good account. Finally, the very image of Jesus del Rescate, who had arrived in Madrid wrapped in the mystery of his affronts and prodigious liberation, must have contributed to rekindling the attachment to the redeeming fathers. All these ingredients gave wings to the occasion which presented itself as an ideal opportunity to recover, from the vantage point of the new fame, the glories of a relatively recent order in its discalced branch but which had already found the time to make eminent memory of its ministry, exalting the principles of the institute, its privileges and revitalising, at the same time, in the novices of the order, the correct guide to the use of the good redeemer. We must not forget that the work was composed at a time of acute dispute with the Mercedan religion over the antiquity echoed by the words of Father Altamirano, a Jesuit who in the Approval of the book justifies the author's defence of the ancient origins of his religion against those who have challenged it. If the 362 redemptions that the Trinitarians had made from the time of St John de Mata and St Felix de Valois, the founders, up to 1627, were not enough of a badge of honour, here were the eight General Redemptions, the last that the Discalced had made to prove their worth.[lxvii] The one in Tetuan and Salé alone, in the recent year of 1674, had reported 128 captives and what is more important: "an image of the Most Holy Virgin, our Lady, very much trafficked by the Moors...".[lxviii]

The speciality of rescuing sacred images is, in the Trinitarian discourse, a strategy of distinction, a sort of renewed vocation of the old military ministry of the order, which the unexpected success of the fourteenth Redemption, that of Meknes, has brought as if from heaven. The writer of the order sums it up for us: "it was carried out in the cities of Meknes, Fez and Tétouan, in the year 1682 by our Father Fray Miguel de Iesvs María, Fray Juan de la Visitación and Fray Martín de la Resurrección, and seventeen Holy Images were redeemed, with all the Ornaments, Crosses and Sacred Vessels, which the Moors had taken in the prison of the Mamora, called San Miguel de Vltra-Mar...".[lxix]  There can be no mistake: the images are the preferred object of the Redemption, far ahead of the captives, who are blurred in the story. We read on: 

For the Moors having taken possession of the holy images, they made many vltraxes and mockeries with them, and taking them as the spoils of their triumph to the city of Meknes, they placed them before their King Muley Ismaín. He ordered them to be dragged through the streets, in hatred of the Christian Religion, and then to be thrown to the Lions, as if they were made of human flesh, to be torn to pieces by them. On this occasion Fray Pedro de los Angeles, a lay religious of our Discalced Religion, and one of those who continually reside in those parts, for the relief and consolation of the Christian Captives, found himself in the said city: and seeing the Holy Images so mistreated, among so many injuries and affronts, with tears of pain he came to the Moorish King, offering himself to their rescue and assuring him, trusting only in Divine mercy and providence; they allowed him to collect and guard them; but with a warning and threat, that if he did not fulfil his promise, they would burn him alive.... 

The theme of sacrilege, amplified with details that did not appear in the previous accounts, is the focus of the Trinitarian historian's attention. The account of the mockery in the streets of Meknes, scarcely sketched in the True Notice. And allusion is made to the order for them to be handed over to the lions as plunder, a passage that was incorporated into the Relationship First. On the other hand, Fray Pedro de los Ángeles takes on a leading role as mediator, a figure referred to simply as the "lay brother" or "a Trinitarian" in the loose sheets. It is he who advises the prelates of the Order to arrange the redemption. As for the images, which we already knew about from the Relationship FirstThe changes that can be seen are related to the dressing and decorum that they received when they arrived in Madrid: 

Vna Imagen de Jesvs Nazareno, de cuerpo natural, con su tunicela de tafetán morado (...) Vna Nuestra Señora del Rosario de talla, y estofada, con su peana, y manto de tela (...) Mas vna hechura de cuerpo natural y entero del Archangel San Miguel, Patrón de la Plaça de la Mamora con su peana.[lxx] 

The virtues of the Captive are glossed over, the origin of a properly theological discourse that will be repeated in the first novenas and prayers: "You are the Most Mighty, the King over all Majesty; the Lord over all Dominations and Powers; the Holy of Holies... and finally you are JESUS NAZARENE, beautiful Flower of the Field, fragrant Lily of the Valley, vn Supposed in two Natures, True God, and True Man... [the one who leaves] the Captive free and the Tyrannus imprisoned... Painful witness is your Sacred Image of having passed to the insensible the wrath".

An image that had reached Spain, as we know, after a journey full of prodigies and remarkable things. The author remains faithful, on this point, to the literal nature of the Relationship First which he uses as material for his chronicle. He adds, however, that the final part of the journey and the entry into the town of Madrid were not included in the reports of 1682. The first thing that was done on the arrival of the images at the Court was a procession in atonement and the images were placed with great apparatus in the church of the Convent. Later, a triduum was held, which was the occasion to spread, now from the pulpit, the story of the injuries: 

With the attendance of the town and its council at all the sermons in which with great erudition the whole tragic history and captivity of the said holy images was represented, with lamentable and tender passages, mixed with the voices and concepts of the orators, which moved tears of devotion and compassion, they [the images] were distributed among the royal persons and other great lords, who were prepared to ask for them. The Archangel St. Michael, Patron of the Mamora was given to the King... Our Lady of the Rosary was given to the Queen... And St. Joseph was given to the Lady King Mother Doña Mariana of Austria. With the JESVS NAZARENO, our Convent of Madrid was kept 

Other events that made the Redemption famous, such as the conversion of the Jew Aaron and the Moorish boy who was about to lose his soul and was baptised as Gonzalo, are also present in the Redemption. chronicle of redemptions which takes the reader by the hand to the paroxysm of the Redemption of images. The source is now the Second True Relationshipto which some theological digressions are added, such as the one about the convert Gonzalo who "God took him to Heaven to display the riches of his glory, in the vessels of mercy which he prepared for glory, as the Apostle says".[lxxi]

Although focused on praising the life of Father Juan Bautista de la Concepción, The Trinitarian Diamond and Oreto's best goldMelchor del Espíritu Santo, a native of Cienpozuelos, is a second milestone in the historiography of the discalced Trinitarians that we should bear in mind.[lxxii] Written almost thirty years after the work of Fray Rafael, it includes an addition: "Los pingues frutos que ha dado en la Santa Iglesia la Descalçez Trinitaria" which takes up the eight great redemptions already epilogued by Father San Juan, and naturally cites the one of 1682.[lxxiii] Before going into them, however, Fray Melchor settles accounts with the discalced mercede who was opposed to this new observant branch exercising this institute of redemption in Africa and recalls the judgement in favour that the Council of Castile made on 7 January 1621.

Of the last three redemptions, centred on the kingdom of Fez, the figure of Fray Diego de Jesús "who later wrote a volume of the Annals of the Order" and Don Pedro Antonio de Aragón stand out as the true maintainer of the Order's hospitaller activity in the provinces, especially from the redemption of 1677 when the hospitals of Fez and Tétouan were founded: "with the assistance of three Religious in each (...) And everything is maintained with the income provided by His Excellency Don Pedro Antonio de Aragón, Patron of the said hospitals".[lxxiv] Without this platform of assistance, from which came the first mediations in the business of the ransom of Christ, the redemption of 1682 would have been unfeasible. On it 211 captives are counted, but "the most precious thing... is shown in having redeemed two souls from the captivity of Satan...", and what else could they be but those of the Jew Aaron Benataz and the Moor Gonzalo?

The continuity of the historiographical transmission is evident in many other passages of the eighteenth-century work of Fray Melchor del Espíritu Santo, especially in the description of the sacrilege of the images, a picture of great narrative power that crossed the centuries: "he ordered them to be dragged through the streets of the City of Meknes and then thrown into the lake of lions so that they would be trampled and destroyed, in contempt and mockery of our holy Religion. The hatred and fury of this Barbarian King reached such a point". Although he adds a tinge of pre-Enlightenment judgement that the previous texts lacked: "some Christians saw it with great sorrow, but as it was a Royal mandate they did not dare to hinder it, and in truth it was damnable pusillanimity, as they should have given their lives to prevent it".[lxxv] By contrast, the arrival in Madrid and the solemn procession is more detailed than in the previous accounts and denotes a courtly air that is already that of the noble brotherhood that had been founded in 1710:[lxxvi] 

The Holy Images were carried in their order on the shoulders of the Nobles, adorned to the thousand wonders, and with the Trinitarian Scapular, as a sign that they had been rescued: presiding over them all was the most devout Image of Jesus of Nazareth... those who looked at him in pain and insulted, burst into acts of contrition, demonstrated in tender sobs...[lxxvii] 

The description of the pious image itself has changed, enriched by donations from these same families: "Vna Imagen devotíssima de Jesvs Nazareno, de statura natural, con su tunicela de tafetán morado, ligadas manos, y cuello con vn gruesso cordón, texido de seda y oro" (A most devout image of Jesus of Nazareth, of natural stature, with its tunic of purple taffeta, bound hands, and neck with a thick cord, texido de seda y oro). As has the Virgin of the Rosary, who now appears "with her pedestal and mantle of silk from Milan".[lxxviii] The Saint Lucia, who was also among those rescued, "remains in my convent in Torrejón de Velasco with a singular cult".

Father Melchor concludes by saying of the Nazarene: "my Convent in Madrid has kept it and has built a sumptuous Chapel where it is venerated with the applause and entourage of the whole Court". He goes on to report on the copies that had been taken from an original of which there was already a miraculous fame: one is in Visna (Lithuania), another in Vienna, another in Valencia, another in Alcázar and another in Alcalá de Henares; also in Valdepeñas under the patronage of the Marquis of Santa Cruz and another in the convent of the Benedictines of Santo Domingo el Antiguo in Toledo. Of the one in Seville he will say "that it is a magnet for the hearts of the whole of that city".[lxxix]

[i] This article is part of the R&D Project Memory of the origins and legitimisation strategies of ecclesiastical-religious historical discourse in Spain. Sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (HAR 2009-13514), funded by the Subdirección General de Proyectos de Investigación del Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación.

[ii] García García, Bernardo José, The Pax Hispanica. Foreign policy of the Duke of LermaLeuven, Leuven University Press, 1996, pp. 97-103.

[iii] García Arenal, Mercedes and De Bunes, Miguel Ángel, The Spanish and North Africa. 15th-18th centuriesMadrid, Mapfre, 1992.

[iv] In particular with the Berber kingdom of Cuco, located in the mountainous massif of Greater Kabylia. Cf. Rodriguez Joulia and Saint-Cyr, C., Philip III and the King of CuckooMadrid, 1953.

[v] García García, Bernardo José, The Pax Hispanica... p. 98.

[vi] Alonso Acero, Beatriz, Sultans of Barbary in the lands of Christendom. Muslim exile, conversion and assimilation in the Hispanic Monarchy (16th and 17th centuries).Barcelona, Bellaterra, 2006, pp. 102-106.

[vii] RELACION/ DE LA FELICISSIMA EN/ trada de Larache, por el señor Marques de San/ German, con todo lo que el caso suce-/ dido, a veynte de Nouiembre de/ mil y seyscientos y/ diez años.. Seville, Alonso Rodríguez Gamarra, 1610.

[viii] García Arenal, Mercedes and De Bunes, Miguel Ángel, The Spanish and North Africa...., pp. 134-136.

[ix] RELACION/ SVMARIA, QVE SE EMBIA A SV MAGESTAD,/ de la vitoria que Dios nuestro Señor á dado en la empressa de la/ fuerça, y puerto de la Mamora, a su Real Armada, y exercito del/ mar Occeano, Capitan General don Luis Faxardo,/ Y en que an concurrido cinco Galeras de España,/ a cargo del Duque de Fernandina, y tres/ de Portugal, Capitan General/ el Conde de Elda./ SevillaAlonso Rodriguez Gamarra, 1614.

[x] Ibidem, n.p. [2nd s.].

[xi] García Arenal, Mercedes and De Bunes, Miguel Ángel, The Spanish and North Africa..., p. 130.

[xii] RELACION/ SVMARIA, QVE SE EMBIA A SV MAGESTAD...., s/p [h. 2vo].

[xiii] Horozco, Agustín de, DISCVRSO/ HISTORIAL DE LA/ presa que del puerto de la/ Maamora hizo el Armada Real/ de España en el año 1614. Madrid, Miguel Serrano de Vargas, 1615. Collected in: Bauer and Landauer, African Relations (Morocco)Madrid, Editorial Ibero-Africo-Americana, [1923], p. 301.

[xiv] Ibid, p. 334.

[xv] RELACION/ TRUE REPORT OF THE VITO-/ RIA THAT TWO HUNDRED SOLDIERS/ of the fort of San Felipe de la Mamora, had against/ more than two thousand Alarabes, who came out of an ambush/ each one, the Christians going to make a faxina. The conversion of a principal Moor/ son of an Alcayde, with the other things/ worthy of being known, is also given.s.l., s.i., [1616]. Collected in: Bauer and Landauer, Africa Relations..., p. 285.

[xvi] RELACION/ DE LA GRAN VITORIA/ QVE LOS SOLDADOS DEL FVERTE/ de San Felipe de la Mamora, tuuieron contra mas de qua-/ tro mil moros, y de como les mataron mas de trezientos,/ y les tomaron quatro estandartes. Dase cuenta de/ las grandez auenidas que este año avi-/ do en aquellas partes.. Seville, Francisco de Lyra, 1618. Collected in: Bauer and Landauer, Africa Relations..., p. 275.

[xvii] RELACION/ very true, that the same Capitan Chris-/ toual Lechuga, Gouernador de la Mamora, sent to this city of/ Seuilla to the licentiate Antonio Moreno Cosmografp de su Magestad/ vezino della, of everything that happened in the said Fuerça contra/ moros, desde doze de Myo aora, en esste pre-/ sente año de mil y seiscientos y veinte.. Seville, Juan Serrano de Vargas, 1620. On this account and others published by Serrano de Vargas, see: Espejo Cala, Carmen, "Juan Serrano de Vargas, impresor y mercader de noticias" in López Poza, Sagrario, Las noticias en los Siglos de la Imprenta Manuel, A Coruña, Sielae & Sociedad de Cultura Valle Inclán, 2006, pp. 37-48.

[xviii] RECOPILA-/ CION DE LAS HEROYCAS HAZAÑAS/ y famosos hechos del Excelentissimo Duque de Maqueda,/ Virrey de Oran. And of Captain Iuan del Castillo, in the Ma-/ mora: And of the Governor Francisco Carrillo de Santoyo/ in Alarache, all in this year of one thousand and six hundred and ten/ and new.. Seville, Juan Serrano de Vargas y Ureña, 1619. Bauer and Landauer, Africa Relations..., p. 227.

[xix] VITORIA/ FAMOUS QVE EL/ GOVERNADOR DELA [sic] [sic MAMORA TVVO/ with the Morabito General of the Moors of Salè. Dase/ quenta de la sangrienta batalla q uvo entre los/ dos Campos, y los despojos q los nuestros/ les quitaron, hasta el Estandarte q/ trayan. Year of 1625. Seville, Juan Cabrera, 1625.

[xx] CARTA/ DE TOMAS DE LA RAS-/ PURA, GENERAL DE LOS GALEONES/ de tierra firme, en que da quenta de la gran presa que hizo/ en la Artilleria, polvora y municiones del enemigo que/ estava sobre la Mamora, y de cómo le mató mu-/ chos Moros, y obligó por fuerça a desecar/ aquella plaça. Dase quenta de lo que descubrio una espia mora, que cau-/ tivo Don Iuan de Toledo ayudante de Sar-/ gento mayor.. Seville, Francisco de Lyra, 1628. Collected in: Bauer and Landauer, Africa Relations..., p. 289.

[xxi] González Fandos, Pilar, "Gloria Mundi. Las relaciones de sucesos políticos y militares", in Espejo Cala, Carmen, Peñalver Gómez, Eduardo and Rodríguez Brito, María Dolores, Events Relations in the BUS, before the press existed...Seville, University of Seville and BUS, 2008, pp. 56-71.

[xxii] Fray Ambrosio de Valencina [OFM Cap,] History of the Capuchin Province of AndalusiaSeville, Imprenta Divina Pastora, 1906, III, p. 146, apud. Nicolao CordubensiBrevis Notitia Almae Capuccinorum S.P.N.N.S. Francisci Baethicae Provinciae in HispaniaMediolani, 1889, pp. 2-73.

[xxiii] QVIEN AS GOD?/ MEMORIAL/ GIVEN TO THE CATHOLIC MAJESTY OF THE KING OUR/ Lord Philip III. Sobre la Inuocacion del Glo-/ rioso Arcangel San Miguel Capitan Ge-/ neral de los Exercitos de/ el Cielo.. Madrid, Juan Sánchez and Seville, Juan Gómez de Blas, 1643. The account incorporates the Chapter of the Letter of Father Severo: "dízese que los Moros han muerto tres mil hombres a don Luis Faxardo y que nuestra gente mató veinte mil dellos... y aduierta v. m. que se le quitar el nombre de la Mamora y se le ponga de S. Miguel o el Puerto de S. Miguel y se encomiende al Angel en custodia que le guardará y conservará y su día será cébrebrebre allí.... Miguel and entrust it to the Angel in custody who will guard and preserve it and its day will be famous there... I affirm to you that I know in confession of a person to whom the Archangel communicated that he was jealous of his Majesty because being in his Tutelage, Protection and Guardianship of his Kingdoms, he had so little memory of it" (Granada, 9 September 1614).. CHAPTER OF THE LETTER FROM THE FATHER/ Seuero quoted in this memorial, h. 2vo.

[xxiv] Native of Lucena and founder of the observant Capuchin branch. He was in close contact with Juan Fernández de Velasco y Tobar, Constable of Castile, Duke of Frías, and with Juan de Zúñiga Avellaneda y Bazán, Count of Miranda. The Duke of Lerma took him to Lerma when he left the court. He predicted his death and burial in the convent of Antequera, his own foundation. Cfr. EPITOME DE LA VIDA Y DICHOSO TRANSITO/ del Sieruo de Dios el Venerable Padre Fray Seuero de Tobar; por el/ Illustrissimo, y Reuerendissimo señor don Fray Antonio de Biedma, de la/ Orden de santo Domingo, Obispo de la santa Iglesia de Almeria,/ de el Consejo de su Magestad.in Ibid., h. 3.

[xxv] Decretum Sacrae Congregationis (1646). Cfr. Ambrosio de Valencina, Historical overview..., p. 149.

[xxvi] The Capuchins wrote to the Council of War, which decided that the church should occupy the houses of Governor Antonio de Medina. The governor did not cease, from that moment on, to bother the friars who complained to the bishop of Cadiz who in turn made a plea to the king. The quarrel ended with the dismissal of the aforementioned Medina.. Letter from the bishop of Cadiz to the king complaining about the offences suffered by the religious. (4 November 1646). Cfr. Valencina, Historical overview...p. 152: "although he has a royal letter from Your Majesty in which he orders and commands him to give the Father passages of benevolence; not only does he not do them, but he annoys them as much as he can...".

[xxvii] Both were appointed commissioners of the Holy Office in those places (Granada, 5 November 1660). The king wrote to the governors of those places royal decrees, 26 October 1660). Fray Ambrosio de Valencia (OFM Cap.), Historical overview...III, chapter XLVIII, pp. 347-356.

[xxviii] P. Isidoro of Seville [OFM Cap,] Book of the foundation of the convents of the Capuchin Province of Andalusia.. Manuscript preserved in the Archives of the Provincial Curia of the Capuchins in Andalusia, p. 660, Historical overview...see supra.

[xxix] Sánchez Belén, Juan Antonio, "Las relaciones internacionales de la Monarquía Hispánica durante la regencia de Doña Mariana de Austria", Studi Historica. Modern History, 20 (2000), p. 152.

[xxx] García Arenal, Mercedes and De Bunes, Miguel Ángel, The Spanish and North Africa...., p. 141.

[xxxi] Where they managed to keep Ceuta and conquer Al Hoceima (1673). Cf. Sánchez Belén, Juan Antonio, "Las relaciones internacionales....", pp. 153-154 and 167.

[xxxii] RELACION/ VERDADERA DE LO SVCEDIDO EN/ en la Mamora, como entró en nuestro socorro, y las preuen-/ ciones que el Excelentissimo Señor Duque de Veraguas/ hizo con toda breuedad, donde se declara el tiempo que/ se peleó con el enemigo, y como se le se le puso/ en huida, dexando muchas escopetas, con/ muerte de mil y setecientos/ Moros. [Cadiz, s. i., 1671]. Collected in: Bauer and Landauer, Africa Relations..., p. 297.

[xxxiii] SEGVNDA/ RELACION VERDADERA, EN QUE/ se dá quenta de muchas particularidades sucedidas con el/ Huracán, que sobrevino a la Ciudad de Cadiz; y de como/ se metio succor en la Mamora, sitiada actualmente por el/ Rey Tafilete, y los Nombres de los Nauios y embarcacio-/ nes que se perdieron, y los muertos que se han en-/ terrado hasta el dia veintinueve de Março/ de mil y seiscientos y setenta y uno.. Cadiz, [s. n.], 1671. Collected in: Bauer and Landauer, Africa Relations...There is also a Sevillian print of the same event which, however, does not give news of the relief: COPIA DE CARTA/ REMITIDA DE LA CIV-/ DAD DE CADIZ A ESTA DE SEVILLA, EN QVE/ da cuenta de lo sucedido en dicha Ciudad de Cadiz, con/ el Huracan que e sobrevino en 15 de Março/ deste presente año de 1671. Seville, [s. n.], 1671.

[xxxiv] García Arenal, Mercedes and De Bunes, Miguel Ángel, The Spanish and North Africa...., pp. 262-269.

[xxxv] TRUE/ AND SORROWFUL REPORT, WHICH THE CAPTAIN DON FRANCISCO DE SANDOVAL Y/ Roxas, Captive in Fez, MAKES/ TO THE EXCELLENT SIR Don Pe-/ dro Antonio de Aragón, giving him an account of the sacrilegious/ actions that the perfidious Mohammedans have carried out with/ the Holy Images and Sacred things that they found/ in the Mamora: Entrega de dicha Plaça:/ Trato que hizo el Governador della/ con los Moros; y lo demas/ qve verá el Curioso.. Madrid, [s. n.] 1681. Collected in: Bauer and Landauer, Relaciones de África..., p. 93.

[xxxvi] He was also a person of great culture, the owner of an excellent library and a patron of the arts. Cfr. Carrió-Invernizi, Diana, The government of images. Ceremonial and patronage in 17th century Spanish Italy.. Frankfurt/Madrid, Vervuert, 2008, chapter III, "The Viceroyalty of Naples".

[xxxvii] Fernández Chaves, Manuel F., "Entre Quality Papers y prensa amarilla: turcos, moriscos y renegados...", in Espejo Cala, Carmen, Peñalver Gómez, Eduardo and Rodríguez Brito, María Dolores, Events Relationships in the BUS...pp. 72-81.

[xxxviii] NOTICE TRUE/ AND UNFORTUNATE RELATIONSHIP...in: Bauer and Landauer, Africa Relations..., p. 93.

[xxxix] Begrand, Patrick, "Las figuras del renegado y del mártir, metáforas del infierno y del paraíso", in Civil, Pierre, Crémoux, Françoise and Sanz, Jacobo (eds.), Spain and the Mediterranean World through event reports (1500-1700)Salamanca, Salamanca, Universida de Salamanca, 2008, p. 26. For more information on frontier literature see: sola.archivodelafrontera.com.

[xl] NOTICE TRUE/ AND UNFORTUNATE RELATIONSHIP...in: Bauer and Landauer, Africa Relations..., p. 94.

[xli] The knights who opposed the surrender and convinced the king of Fez to ransom them are exonerated of this treason: Don Antonio Correa, knight of Ceuta, Don Domingo Grande de los Coleos, captain of infantry and Lucas de Zúñiga, a native of Madrid.

[xlii] NOTICE TRUE/ AND UNFORTUNATE RELATIONSHIP...in: Bauer and Landauer, Africa Relations..., p. 95.

[xliii] García de Enterría, Mª Cruz, "Retórica menor", Spanish Studies1990, pp. 271-291.

[xliv] NOTICE TRUE/ AND UNFORTUNATE RELATIONSHIP...in: Bauer and Landauer, Africa Relations...pp. 95-96.

[xlv] Fernández Villa, Fray Domingo (OFM Cap.), History of the Christ of MedinaceliEverest, 2007, bibliography cited in note 7.

[xlvi] Hernández Díaz, José, "La imagen del Santo Cristo de Medinaceli", Archive of SevilleXVIII (1953), pp. 221-222. Roda Peña, José, "Iconografía escultórica de Jesús Cautivo y Rescatado en Sevilla y su provincia", in Ibid, VIII Symposium on Brotherhoods of Seville and its provinceSeville, 2007, pp. 235-263.

[xlvii] Fernández Vila, Fray Domingo (OFM Cap.), History of the Christ of Medinaceli...footnote 7.

[xlviii] García Arenal, Mercedes and De Bunes, Miguel Ángel, The Spanish and North Africa..., pp. 239-255.

[xlix] NOTICE TRUE/ AND UNFORTUNATE RELATIONSHIP...in: Bauer and Landauer, Africa Relations..., p. 96.

[l] RELACION/ NEW OF THE MOST NOTABLE/ THINGS/, WHICH HAVE BEEN MADE TO THE Fathers Redemptors of the Order of the Holy Trinity Calçados of the Provinces of Castile,/ and Andalusia, in the Redemption they have made in Arcila,/ Alzaçar, Zalé, Fez, and other Cities of Africa, saving 136 Christian captives from/ the power of the infidels.. Valencia, Geronimo Vilagrasa, 1661, in: Bauer and Landauer, Africa Relations..., p. 253.

[li] FIRST/ TRUE RELATION, IN WHICH IS AN ACCOUNT OF THE/ singular successes, which the Very Reverend/ Redemptor Fathers, of the Order of the Discalced of the Holy Trinity, Redemption of Christian Captives, have had in the/ Redemption which they have made in the Kingdom of Fez this year/ of 1682 in fulfilment of their celestial Institute. Refie-/ renseign the Images of Christ, of his Most Holy Mother, and/ of other Saints, which they have taken out of the power of the Barba-/ ros; the affronts and insults which they have done with them;/ begin by referring to the labours which the/ Redemptorist Fathers have suffered/ in this Redemption. [s. l., s. i., 1682]. Collected by: Bauer and Landauer, Africa Relations..., p. 101.

[lii] Fernández Vila, Fray Domingo (OFM Cap.), History of the Christ of Medinaceli..., p. 13.

[liii] FIRST/TRUE RELATIONSHIP..., in: Bauer and Landauer, Africa Relations..., p. 108.

[liv] Ibid, p. 109.

[lv] Ibid, p. 110.

[lvi] Ibid, p. 112.

[lvii] SECOND REAL RELATION/, IN WHICH THE SINGU-/

The most Reverend Father// Redemptorists of the Sacred and Enlightened Order of/ Discalced of the Most Holy Trinity, Redemption of Cau-/ tives, in fulfilment of their heavenly Institute, in the Kingdom/ of Fez, have made this present year of 1682. An account is given of the labours that they, as well as/ other Religious of the said Order have suffered, and of the conuersions that God our Lord has worked through/ them, and of the number of Captives/ of Christians rescued. [s. l., s. i., 1682], in: Bauer and Landauer, Africa Relations..., p. 108.

[lviii] The legend of the thirty silver coins that supported the saucer until it equalled the weight of the image of the Nazarene, as Fernández Villa was able to see, may have its origin in this complicated ruse of the mayor of Tetuán that fills a few pages in the Second Relationship and, of course, expanded in successive dramatic reworkings of the story.

[lix] SECOND/ REAL RELATIONSHIP..., Bauer and Landauer, Africa Relations..., p. 123.

[lx] Téllez de Acevedo, Antonio, COMEDIA NUEVA./ GLORIAS DE JESUS/ CAUTIVO,/ Y PRODIGIOS/ DEL RESCATE./ HISTORIA DE LA MILAGROSISSIMA/ Imagen de Jesvs Nazareno, que se venera en su Casa,/ y Convento de Religiosos Descalzos de la Santissi-/ ma Trinidad, Redencion de Cautivos,/ de esta Corte.. Madrid, s. i.,, s. a., [1732].

[lxi] Fray Juan de Jesús María (O.SS.T), Comedia Famosa el Redemptor Redimido/ Jesus Nazareno, rescued from the power of Mo-/ ros in the year 1682. By the R.R.mos P.P./ Discalced Trinitarians: Redemptores de Cau-/ tivos Xrnos. National Library, Ms. 16.057.

[lxii] SECOND/ REAL RELATIONSHIP..., Bauer and Landauer, Africa Relations...pp. 116-117.

[lxiii] Téllez de Acevedo, Antonio, NEW COMEDY/ GLORIES OF JESUS/ CAPTIVE..., p. 10.

[lxiv] SECOND/ REAL RELATIONSHIP..., Bauer and Landauer, Africa Relations..., p. 118.

[lxv] Téllez de Acevedo, Antonio, NEW COMEDY/ GLORIES OF JESUS/ CAPTIVE..., pp. 36-37.

[lxvi] Fray Rafael de San Juan, (O.SS.T.), Of the Redencion de Cautios Sagrado Instituto del Orden de la SSma. Trinidad: of its antiquity, quality and privileges that it has and of the contradictions that it has had.. Madrid, Antonio González de Reyes, 1686.

[lxvii] CHAPTER XIV/ OF THE MANY, AND COPIOUS/ Redemptions made by the Order of the Most Holy/ Trinityin: Fray Rafael de San Juan, (O.SS.T.), Of the Redemption of Captives, p. 92.

[lxviii] It was led by the fathers Fray Miguel de la Virgen, Fray Juan de San Bernardo and Fray Diego de Jesús. The thirteenth was in the year 1677, in Fez, Tetuan and Salé, redeeming 132 captives the same Fray Miguel, Fray Juan de la Visitación and Fray Francisco de los Reyes "and in it the hospitals were founded". Ibidem, p. 99-101.

[lxix] Ibid, pp. 104-105

[lxx] Ibidem, p. 106.

 

[lxxi] Ibidem, pp. 108-109.

[lxxii] Fray Melchor del Espíritu Santo, EL DIAMANTE/ TRINITARIO/ Y MEJOR ORO DE ORETO... F. Juan Baptista de la Concepcion.... Madrid, by the widow of Juan García Infanzón, 1713.

[lxxiii] Ibid, CHAPTER VII./ EPILOGANSE LAS REDENCIONES DE/ Cautivos, que ha hecho mi Descalçez Trinitaria...., p. 431]

[lxxiv] In addition, another hospice was founded in Ceuta, which later became the Royal Convent, Ibidem, p. 440.

[lxxv] Ibidem, p. 444.

[lxxvi] Sánchez de Madariaga, Elena, "Fundación y primera época de la Cofradía de Jesús Nazareno en Madrid" Juan Aranda Doncel (Coord.), Proceedings of the International Congress Cristobal de Santa Catalina and the Brotherhoods of Jesús NazarenoCordoba, 1991, volume I, pp. 385-392.

[lxxvii] Fray Melchor del Espíritu Santo, THE DIAMOND/ TRINITARIAN/ AND BEST GOLD OF ORETUS...., pp. 446-47.

[lxxviii] Ibidem, p. 443.

[lxxix] Ibidem, pp. 448-449.