A history of Spanish literature - Cristo Raul

THE TRIUMPH OF CASTILIAN 23
people will not willingly let die. The classification of
other characteristic sub-genera Andalucian, Aragonese,
Leonese belongs to philology, and would be, in any
event, out of place in the history of a literature to which,
unlike Catalan and unlike Galician, they have added
nothing of importance. What befell in Italy and France
befell in Spain. Partly through political causes, partly
by force of superior culture, the language of a single
centre ousted its rivals. As France takes its speech
from Paris and the lie de France, as Florence dominates
Italy, so Castile dictates her language to all the
is the
Spains. The dominant type, then, of Spanish
Castilian, which, as the most potent form, has outlived
its brethren, and, with trifling variations, now extends,
not only over Spain, but as far west as Lima and Val-
Islands : in
paraiso, and as far east as the Philippine
effect, "from China to Peru." And the Castilian of
to-day
differs little from the Castilian of the earliest
monuments.
The first allusion to any distinct variety of Romance
is found in the life of a certain St. Mummolin who
was Bishop of Noyen, succeeding St. Eloi in 659.
A reference to the Spanish type of Romance is found
as far back as 734 ; but the authenticity of the document
is very doubtful. The breaking-up of Latin in
Spain is certainly observable in Bishop
Odoor's will
under the date of 747. The celebrated Strasburg Oaths,
the oldest of Romance instruments, belong to the year
842 ; and, in an edict of 844, Charles the Bald mentions,
as a thing apart, " the customary language "
usitato
vocabulo of the Spaniards. There is, however, no exist-
ing Spanish manuscript so ancient, nor is there any
monument as old, as the Italian Carta di Capua (960).
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