What does a historical novel do with an omen, an apparition, or an accusation of witchcraft? The question forces us to distinguish three things that are often confused: the wonderful thing that the characters believe is possible, the extraordinary effect that the narrative produces on the reader, and the supernatural event that the story confirms as real. In the eight historical novels brought together by Alba Longa, these three possibilities do not have the same intensity nor do they fulfill the same function. Precisely for this reason they offer a privileged laboratory to compare Spanish romanticism with its European contemporaries.

A Middle Ages believed, observed and reconstructed

The romantic historical story inherits from Walter Scott the encounter between particular destinies and collective conflicts. To this framework he adds castles, crypts, omens, alchemists and knowledge attributed to women, Jews or foreigners. Its presence is not equivalent to a declaration by the narrator about the existence of magic: it often reconstructs what a community from another era believe see. The prodigy can organize the action even if it is later explained by a secret door, a substance or a covert identity.

In The sides of Castile (1830), Ramón López Soler brings the Scottian model to the Castilian struggles. The consultation with the gypsy Merlín about the fate of Álvaro de Luna turns divination into an instrument of political suspense. The figure of the supposed magician, attentive to the weaknesses of those who listen to him, is interesting both for his social effectiveness and for his powers. In The conquest of Valencia by El Cid, Estanislao de Cosca Vayo works on another subject: an epic figure surrounded by legendary memory. It is convenient to read the providential and heroic resonance there as part of the Cidian tradition, without automatically converting each turn of the adventure into a narratively demonstrated miracle.

The manufactured secret: Larra and Espronceda

The young man of Don Enrique the Suffering (1834) offers a precise example of the stage “ghost.” Don Enrique de Villena seems to vanish before the eyes of others, but the spring of a hidden door explains the disappearance. Larra gets the amazement and, at the same time, shows off her technology. The spectral climate serves the intrigue of the court; The fatality of Macías and Elvira arises from human passions, loyalties and coercion, not from a verifiable intervention from beyond the grave.

In Sancho Saldaña (1834), José de Espronceda gives greater space to sorcery. Aunt Gila utters spells and prophecies; Zoraida is exposed to suspicion and a religious procedure; Zechariah’s healing knowledge seems prodigious to other characters. The castle corridors turn Zoraida’s entrances and exits into apparent supernatural manifestations. The story matters less as a catalog of miracles than as a study of the distance between what happens, what someone perceives, and what an interested accusation manages to make people believe. The outcome of certain apparent deaths returns the episode to human causes. The mixture of horror, melodrama and explanation also reveals an aesthetic tension: the text desires Gothic shock without completely abandoning historical causality.

From prophecy to political rumor

Neither king nor Roque (1835), by Patricio de la Escosura, shifts astonishment towards Sebastianism. The hope that Don Sebastián has survived transforms Madrigal’s pastry chef into a possible returned king. This is not proven magic, but rather a political belief capable of giving value to similarities, testimonies and contradictory signs. Its central question—who has the authority to decide that someone is the sovereign—shows that the “prodigy” can also be a fact of collective interpretation.

Juan Cortada chooses Sangumí’s heir (1835) a reconstruction of medieval Catalonia more contained in matters of magic. The chivalric adventures and sentimental fatalism do not authorize the work to be classified alongside witch novels. In The hit in vago (1835), José García de Villalta does incorporate alchemists, intrigues and the protector Turbot, to whom extraordinary powers are attributed. But the fantastic episode coexists with a satire of credulities and interests: the reading must keep open the difference between the voice that it believes, the mask that a character adopts and the critical position of the story.

The false dead and the templars

In The Lord of Bembibre (1844), Enrique Gil y Carrasco refines this game of perspectives. The supposed death of Don Álvaro, favored by a preparation from the Jewish doctor Ben-Samuel, precipitates irreparable decisions: Beatriz believes she has lost her loved one and accepts another marriage. When he reappears, the scene is charged with spectral language, although the novel has provided an earthly explanation. In the same way, the accusations of necromancy against the Temple show how an institution can be turned into an object of fear by popular ignorance and by power interests. El Bierzo, its ruins and its landscapes surround tragedy in an atmosphere of transcendence; emotion does not require that a supernatural force intervene effectively in the story.

Scott, Hugo and the difference in degree

The European comparison prevents a simplistic opposition between a “rational” Spain and a “fantastic” Europe. In The Bride of Lammermoor, Scott uses family prophecies, folk tales, and the possible appearance of Alice: he maintains an uncertainty that accompanies the social ruin of the Ravenswoods. In Ivanhoe, the accusation of witchcraft against Rebecca denounces prejudice rather than proves occult powers. Victor Hugo, in Notre-Dame de Paris, gives the alchemy of Claude Frollo and the building itself a symbolic breadth that dominates the vision of the city. None of these procedures necessarily involve a literal miracle.

The Spanish trait is not, therefore, the absence of the marvelous, but the variable combination of Gothic motifs with national legend, dynastic intrigue, religious conflict and retrospective explanation. Espronceda intensifies the spectacle of sorcery; Larra reveals the artifice; Gil y Carrasco turns the alleged prodigy into the cause of a sentimental tragedy; Cut restricts the resource. The diversity of the corpus prevents converting a critical tendency into an absolute rule.

Read the corpus and its sources

The eight readings of the collection: The sides of Castile, The conquest of Valencia by El Cid, The young man of Don Enrique the Suffering, Sancho Saldaña, Neither king nor Roque, Sangumí’s heir, The hit in vago y The Lord of Bembibre. He general dossier offers the overall tour. Each individual study refers to the available editions.

For a direct reading of the relationship between belief and power, you can purchase Neither king nor Roque in Bubok, print edition or in Payhip, e-book.

Sources and critical orientation

• Enrique Rubio Cremades, «Romanticism and occult sciences in the Spanish historical novel», Miguel de Cervantes Virtual Library.
• Enrique Rubio Cremades, «The historical novel of Spanish romanticism», Miguel de Cervantes Virtual Library.
• Walter Scott, The Bride of Lammermoor; Victor Hugo, Notre-Dame de Paris, full texts in Project Gutenberg.

Automatic translation of the original article. The language of this page does not determine the language of the book: purchase links lead to the editions indicated, including editions in their original language.