sal
amended and purged by St. Isidore, archbishop of Sevil, and
ordered by the Council of Toledo to be used in all churches;
every one of which before that time had a missal peculiar to
itself. The Moors afterwards committing great ravages in
Spain, destroying the churches, and throwing every thing
there, both civil and sacred, into confusion, all St.
Isidore's missals, excepting those in the city of Toledo,
were lost. But those were preserved even after the Moors had
made themselves masters of that city; since they left six of
the churches there to the Christians, and granted them the
free exercise of their religion. Alphonsus the Sixth, many
ages afterwards, expelled the Moors from Toledo, and ordered
the Roman missal to be used in those churches where St.
Isidore's missal had been in vogue, ever since the council
above-mentioned. But the people of Toledo insisting that
their missal was drawn up by the most ancient bishops,
revised and corrected by St. Isidore, proved to be the best
by the great number of saints who had followed it, and been
preserved during the whole time of the Moorish government in
Spain, he could not bring his project to bear without great
difficulty. In short, the contest between the Roman and
Toletan missals came to that height that, according to the
genius of the age, it was decided by a single combat,
wherein the champion of the Toletan missal proved
victorious. But King Alphonsus, say some of the Spanish
writers, not being satisfied with this, which he considered
as the effect of chance only, ordered a fast to be
proclaimed, and a great fire to be then made; into which,
after the king and people had prayed fervently to God for
his assistance in this affair, both the missals were thrown;
but the Toletan only escaped the violence of the flames.
This, continue the same authors, made such an impression
upon the king that he permitted the citizens of Toledo to
use their own missal in those churches that had been granted
the Christians by the Moors. However, the copies of this
missal grew afterwards so scarce, that Cardinal Ximenes
found it extremely difficult to meet with one of them: which
induced him to order this impression, and to build a chapel,
in which this service was chanted every day, as it had