Tag: gerald of wales creative

In the closing days of the last year, being the year 1623 of our Lord, a truly strange event occurred in this city. Reports of a strange and fearsome creature appearing in the forest began circulating in the markets. It was unlike anything we had ever seen before. Half-man, half-beast, it was a terrifying sight that filled us all with unease. Some described it as having the horns of a goat, with the strength and claws of a lion, but having a face of an Indian and walking upright like a man.ⁱⁱⁱ The creature was, of course, a sign of impending doom and misfortune. That it appeared is no wonder, for we are surrounded by heathens, from the Mohammedans to the Protestant heretics.^iv Its presence was surely a test from God, a test of our faith and loyalty to Him.

The creature, not content with putrefying the forests near our city, began to wander closer by. We began to see this creature on the outskirts of town, where the Chinese lived and farmed.^v It was then that we began to worry with seriousness. Several people from the town appeared before me, requesting my help and advice. I told them that it was sin that brought this great evil upon our doorstep. It is no wonder that they appeared within the ranks of the Chinese first. After all, it was they who brought their idols onto our shores. Worryingly, several of the townspeople told me it appeared as if the creature began fraternizing with some of the townsfolk. As it became more and more entrenched in our society, I prepared to see for myself this debased creature.

However, the creature would elude me. Time and time again, when I would try to weed out this beast-man, it would go into hiding, no doubt returning to the Chinese who were unfriendly to priests or to the depths of the forest. Yet its influence continued to grow. I feared it was only a matter of time before it struck, having made some of the townspeople warm up to him. Things became unbearable when a young Christian boy lay dead a month after the creature’s arrival, his blood drained in an obvious ritual.^vi With this in mind, I wrote to the Inquisition Commissar don Francisco de Estrada y Escovedo. It was my hope that the creature might be brought to trial in Mexico, where the Inquisition’s headquarters in his Majesty’s colonies were.^vii By the Grace of God, he agreed with me and promised to lead a city-wide hunt for it the following year.

On one quiet night with no moonlight, forty armed friars and many soldiers accompanied don Francisco and I to find the creature.^viii After several hours of ransacking homes and rounding up conspirators, I heard some shouting and a shot of musket from several houses down the street from where I was. Soon, a soldier by the name of Pedro ran to us. His breastplate of steel was scratched deeply by three claws. The creature, said Pedro, was trying to suck the blood out of him. But by God’s grace, he escaped death by firing a shot from his musket. The creature, scared by this foreign noise, ran off into the darkness. Nevertheless, the shot hit one of the creature’s horns. Shards of bone lay in the house in which Pedro had met the creature. Don Francisco and I decided that this was enough proof that it existed and was a clear threat to the sanctity of our city.

We returned to the town square where we had rounded up about thirty who conspired with the creature, helping him to enter our city. The person whose house we found the creature in, one mestizo called de Castro, was promptly taken away to the dungeons, where he remains today, awaiting his transportation to Mexico where he will face trial.^ix We threatened the rest with banishment. Most immediately repented when we showed them the shards of horn that we had gathered from Pedro’s shot. They cited the magic that was cast upon them, which made the creature present itself as a normal man. We let those go, with a warning and a probation period in which they were to report to me weekly at the church.^x

However, there was a strange man with a wild appearance who stood defiantly in our presence. Hateful words spewed out of his bearded mouth, and he said that we may have destroyed the creature, but not what it stood for, for that can never be replied. Before I could question him, however, don Francisco ordered a soldier to take him away in chains. When I had asked don Francisco the next day his thoughts on the man, he said that the ramblings of a wild man should not be heard by the good population of the city.^xi

Thus ends this strange relation of a half-creature, and half-man. But let us not forget the lesson that this creature has taught us. It is a reminder of the dangers of sin and the influence of the heathens among us. May God have mercy on de Castro, who conspired with the beast, and for the wild man who dared to speak against the holy men of the Inquisition. May this city of Manila be spared from further trials and tribulations, and that it continues to thrive under the protection of God.^xii

_FOOTNOTES

ⁱ _{Gerard of Wales, The History and Topography of Ireland. Translated and edited by J. O’Meara (Penguin Publishing Group, 1983), 73.}

ⁱⁱ _{Name taken from an Inquisition trial. See Ryan Dominic Crewe, A Moluccan Crypto-Muslim before the Transpacific Inquisition (1623–1645) in The Spanish Pacific, 1521-1815: A Reader of Primary Sources, ed. Lee Christina Hyo Jung, Ricardo Padrón (Amsterdam University Press, 2020), pp. 171-187.}

ⁱⁱⁱ _{Inspiration drawn from the Chimera description of Thomas de Cantimpré, Liber de natura rerum, Quadrupeds 4.23. Accessed on https://bestiary.ca/beasts/beastsource107209.htm}

^iv _{See Joseph Fayol, “Affairs in Filipinas, 1644-1647,” 1647, BR 35: 272.}

^v _{Charles J. McCarthy, “Slaughter of Sangleys in 1639,” Philippine Studies 18, no. 3 (1970): 659.}

^vi _{E. Carlebach, Divided Souls: Converts from Judaism in Germany, 1500-1750 (Yale University Press, 2008), 141.}

^vii _{Charles H. Cunningham, “The Inquisition in the Philippines: The Salcedo Affair,” The Catholic Historical Review 3, no. 4 (1918): 419.}

^viii _{Cunningham, 426.}

^ix _{Ryan Dominic Crewe, A Moluccan Crypto-Muslim before the Transpacific Inquisition (1623–1645), 185-186.}

^x _{Ryan Dominic Crewe, A Moluccan Crypto-Muslim before the Transpacific Inquisition (1623–1645), 180.}

^xi _{Sara T Nalle, “Insanity and the Insanity Defense in the Spanish Inquisition,” 1992.}

^xii _{Raymundo Magisa, Succeso Raro de Tres Volcanes, Dos de Fuego, y Uno de Agua, Que Rebentaron a 4 de Enero Deste Año de 641 a vn Mismo Tiempo En Diferentes Partes de Estas Islas Filipinas Con Grande Estruendo Por Los Ayres Como de Artillería, y Mosqueteria (Manila: Por Raymundo Magisa, 1641).}

^xiii _{Ethan Hawkley, Reviving the Reconquista in Southeast Asia: Moros and the Making of the Philippines, 1565–1662 in Journal of World History 25, no. 2-3 (2014): 286.}

^xiv _{Ethan Hawkley, Reviving the Reconquista in Southeast Asia, 287.}

^xv _{Gerard of Wales, The History and Topography of Ireland, 74.}

^xvi _{Carlebach, Divided Souls: Converts from Judaism in Germany, 1500-1750, 141.}

^xvii _{De Castro was not an innocent victim, and he was reported to the inquisition by his wife in part due to sexual transgressions including rape. See Ryan Dominic Crewe, A Moluccan Crypto-Muslim before the Transpacific Inquisition (1623–1645) for a full account.}

^xviii _{Ryan Dominic Crewe, A Moluccan Crypto-Muslim before the Transpacific Inquisition (1623–1645), 179.}

^xix _{Gerard of Wales, The History and Topography of Ireland, 74.}

^xx _{Amitav Ghosh, “The Nutmeg’s Curse,” in The Nutmeg’s Curse (University of Chicago Press, 2021), 73.}

^xxi _{Line 331 in Chrétien de Troyes, Burton Raffel, and Joseph J. Duggan, “Yvain: The Knight of the Lion,” in Yvain, The Knight of the Lion (Yale University Press, 1987), 12.}

^xxii _{Carlo Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller (New York, N.Y: Penguin Books, 1982), 126, https://search.library.wisc.edu/catalog/999673861902121.}

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