All truly religious men who read the foregoing remarks, and in which there is not the least exaggeration or departure from the truth, will imagine, doubtless, that the modern ecclesiastical authorities of the peninsula have, at least, attempted to rectify all that is absurd and irreverent in those practices, and to strip a ceremony so august and imposing as that of the mass of all that a want of true devotion, and that ignorance and neglect on the part of the clergy, has introduced to that ceremony,—nevertheless it is not so; the clergy themselves appear to co-operate in those attempts to pervert the ideas of the nation. The proof of it is, that being ordered by all the councils, especially that of Trent, to preach a sermon, during the high mass, explaining the gospel for the day, as is done in all other Roman Catholic countries, yet in Spain no such practice is observed, except in poor and small towns; so that the Spaniard is not only wanting of that spiritual aliment which the reading of the Bible is able to furnish, but also of a person to explain those parts of Scripture which he has been hearing read, and in a strange language, during the mass. Preaching, as has already been stated in our introductory chapter, is in Spain reduced to panegyrics on the saints, and to Lent-sermons,—which, in truth, have only reference to the gospel for the day; and although this spiritual food is administered but seldom and in small quantities, that is to say, eight or ten times from Ash-Wednesday until Palm-Sunday, there is no doubt whatever of its beneficial effects, and that by its means some temporal improvement in the habits of the people evidently results from it. But, that season over, the flock is abandoned by the shepherd, these slight impressions wear off, and the people return to the same godless and mundane system of life.
In the cathedral church of Toledo there is a particular chapel in which the mass is celebrated, according to the rite called Mozárabe, introduced, as its name indicates, in the time of the occupation by the Moors, by the Christians who lived under their yoke in that city. The Roman Catholic ritual having been made prevalent all over the peninsula by the Great Isabella, and adopted in all the churches, the faithful of Toledo still wished to preserve that form of ritual which they had practised for many centuries. Although this portion of Spain’s ecclesiastical history is wrapt in great obscurity, and has given rise to many disputes among learned men, yet it is certain that in order to decide between that authority which wished to extinguish those remains of antiquity, and the people who desired to preserve them, recourse was had to what then went by the name of “the judgment of God,” viz., a formal duel, attended with all the ceremonies which the feudal system had imported into Europe. The partisans of the Roman ritual placed their defence of it in the hands of one knight-errant, and those of the opposite party confided theirs to the care of another. He who defended the Roman rite was conquered in the fight; and although the conditions of the combat were not entirely observed, because the cathedral and the other churches of Toledo were, after all, reduced to the authority of the Pope, yet a chapter of canons was instituted, to whom was conceded the privilege of saying mass according to the ritual of the conquerors.