agans have
occupied it, it still belongs to the same master." The King of Castile
was not bold enough to deny this papal claim of overlordship, and
Gregory demanded as first proof of his submission that he should
substitute throughout his realm the Roman liturgy for the national or
Mozarabic ritual then in general use. Queen Constance and Bernard were
in favor of this reform, and they prevailed upon the king to accept it;
but it was a far different matter to secure its actual use at the hands
of the national clergy, who were strongly opposed to the change. In
spite of all her efforts the queen could do nothing, and finally, as a
compromise, it was decided to submit the question to the ordeal of trial
by battle. Two champions were duly appointed who fought before a most
august assembly over which the queen presided. The Knight of the Gothic
Missal, Don Juan Ruiz de Matanzas, killed the Champion of Rome, and was
not only victorious, but unscathed, much to the disgust of Constance and
her followers. The manifest disinclination to accept this result as
final made another ordeal necessary, and this time, in truly Spanish
style, a bull fight was resolved upon. The great arena at Toledo was
selected as the place where this ecclesiastical combat was to take
place, and on the appointed day the great amphitheatre was crowded with
an expectant multitude. The queen, the king, and the archbishop, backed
by black-robed monks, looked on with evident interest, hoping that this
time the scales would turn in their favor; but the people, expert in
contests of this kind, had already picked the Castilian bull as the
winner and had begun to wager their small coin as to the probable
duration of the fight. The people were right, the Roman _toro_ was
promptly slain, and once more the cause of Spain was triumphant. But the
queen was persistent, and in spite of the fact that the result of each
of these ordeals was popularly considered as a direct sign from heaven,
she refused to accept them as final, because her pet project had been
rejected. If the results had been different, there is little doubt but
that the ordeals would have been received as infallible. However, it was
not possible to cast a slight upon this time-honored procedure by any
act which might tend to throw it into disrepute, so the whole question
was dropped for the space of seven years. Queen Constance, in this
interval, carried on a quiet campaign which she hoped would lead
event