9 - The spirit of the clan

Summary

The stars influence the character of a people, wrote Bermúdez de Pedraza in 1609, while being a native of a noble city like Granada was itself a kind of guarantee of nobility. Above all there were the spiritual benefits to be found in a great city, where there were ‘many convents of friars and devout women, virtuous priests and laity of good life’, such that God bears with the majority of the citizens who are sinners, ‘waiting for their change of heart (penitencia)’. A little later Henríquez de Jorquera charted for his readers the topography of a Granada whose landmarks were essentially religious. There were not only the twenty-three parish churches, but the plethora of wayside shrines, images of the Virgin and above all crosses of alabaster or wood which littered the urban landscape, erected by the local neighbourhoods or artisan guilds. The shoemakers had their icon in the Street of Al-Hamar (founder of the Nasrid dynasty), the second-hand clothes dealers theirs in the Street of the Inns, the carpenters one of Saint Joseph strategically situated at the entrance used by women to get into the theatre. At many of these shrines were placed oil lamps which were kept burning night and day, and here would come throngs to celebrate with merrymaking on the anniversary of the image.

Another focus of devotion was the tombs of the holy men. There had been reports of miracles at that of the first archbishop of the reconquered city, Hernando de Talavera.