CHAPTER V.
THE INVASION FROM AFRICA.
Within ninety years after El Hijra—the “flight of Mohammed”—which occurred a.d. 622, Syria, Persia, and North Africa were brought under the control of his fanatical followers. The city of Damascus was taken in 634; in 640, Alexandria, when six million Copts are said to have embraced the religion of their conquerors. Moslem bigotry, ignorance, and fanaticism are well illustrated in the burning of the famous Alexandrian Library, according to the decree of Omar the Califa: “If these writings of the Greeks agree with the Koran, they are useless and need not be preserved; if they disagree, they are pernicious and ought to be destroyed!”
North Africa at that time was known by the names of its Roman provinces, such as Numidia, Mauritania, and Tingitania, and these were successively overrun and subjugated by the trusted general Musa (or Moses), who was made Emir of Africa and supreme commander. One of his six noble sons captured the coast city of Tangier, command of which was given to a veteran of Damascus named Tarik Ibn Zeyad, who had lost an eye in the wars and was known as el Tuerto, or “Tarik the One-eyed.” His force was small, but composed mainly of Berbers, or natives of North Africa recently converted to the Moslem faith, and as fierce and fanatical as himself.
At that time the chief Gothic stronghold in Africa was Ceuta, the ancient Abyla of the Greeks, and forming, with Gibraltar, or Calpa, on the European side of the straits, the famed “Pillars of Hercules”—mentioned in our account of the Phœnician voyages. In command of the forces at Ceuta was Count Julian, who for reasons not known, but probably because he was a relative of the late King Witica and wanted to punish Don Roderick, offered to lead the Moslems to conquest in Spain if they would reward him as his treason deserved. So, under his directions, Tarik the One-eyed was sent across the Straits of Hercules and landed with a small force at Tarifa, the southernmost town in Spain as well as in all Europe. It is said to have derived its name from the Moslem commander Tarif, or Tarik, and this name also is perpetuated in our word “tariff.” But however it was, Tarik saw enough to convince him that Spain could be easily invaded, if not readily conquered, and so went back with a report to that effect to Musa the emir, laden with the spoils of his ravage.
Having received permission from the Califa at Bagdad to invade the country across the straits, Musa gathered an army of twelve thousand men and sent it over under the command of the fierce Tarik, who landed this time at Calpa, since named, after him, Gebel el Tarik, or Gibraltar, and made that the base of his operations against the unfortunate country. The apostate Count Julian joined him and served as a guide in this the first real invasion of Spain by a Moslem army. In short, the invaders were strongly re-enforced by the discontented masses of that section of Spain, the maltreated Jews and the debased agricultural classes, who saw, or thought they saw, freedom from a yoke that had galled them for generations and had grown heavier with succeeding years. Besides, they did not think that the Moslems would more than ravage the country and perhaps attempt to destroy the military power of the Goths, and then would retire to the land from which they had come. There are two things, at least, we should note: first, that the army of Tarik was composed mainly of native Africans, then called Moors or Berbers; and that they had come with the settled purpose of conquest and plunder. In order to enforce upon his men the desperate nature of their task, Tarik caused his ships to be burned, and thus impressed them with the fact that they must either conquer or be destroyed—for they could not retreat.
Meanwhile, the gallant but unfortunate King Roderick had done his best to arouse the disunited kingdom to a sense of its impending danger, and had gathered an army of one hundred thousand men to resist the approaching infidels. The opposing forces met on a plain near Xeres, on the banks of the river Guadalete, and, after two days of desperate fighting, victory crowned the efforts of Tarik and his traitorous allies. Owing to the defection of Bishop Oppas, a brother of King Witica, and the latter’s two sons, at a most critical moment, when they and all their followers went over to the enemy, the field was lost to King Roderick, who vanished from the scene completely, and was never seen or heard of more.
The base Julian, the bishop, and the two princes were rewarded for their perfidy, it is related, by a gift of the three thousand farms pertaining to the crown. Thus, after three centuries of dominion, extending from about 410 to 711 a.d., the Goths were driven from the throne they had won by the sword and held by force; for the battle of Guadalete was a decisive blow to the disintegrating kingdom, and after that the advance of the Moorish armies was almost unopposed. It may well be imagined that the warlike Tarik was not satisfied to rest here, when before him was all Spain, with wealthy cities to sack, fertile regions to be possessed, and a numerous population to be converted to Islamism or to escape only by paying tribute.
Although the conquerors professed the same religion, bowed to the same prophet, and waged war for the same great calif in the East, yet they were not all of the same nationality, for in the army of invasion were not only Arabs, but Moors, Egyptians, and Syrians. In time, however, all came to be called by the name of Moors, though their differences of birth and divergence of views led to serious quarrels among them. The first estrangement was when Musa, the emir, finding that Tarik had disobeyed his orders, and, instead of returning to Africa after defeating the Goths in battle and acquiring vast plunder, had pursued his conquests toward the north, hastily gathered another army and followed on his tracks.
Musa found, however, that though Tarik had followed up his victory by effectually scattering the defeated Goths, and even taking the capital city, Toledo, there was yet room for another conqueror to operate; so, instead of immediately pursuing Tarik, after he had landed he made a detour through Andalusia and took Medina Sidonia and the rich Roman city of Seville. Then, though gorged with plunder enough to have satisfied a king, he pushed on after and overtook the recreant Tarik at the city of Toledo. “I gave thee orders to make a foray only, then return to Africa,” he said to the veteran, “yet thou hast marched through all this territory without my permission.” The warrior received this reproof in silence, and for a time a truce was made between them; they pushed on their conquests, the one into the northwest, the other into the north and east, until only the Pyrenees separated them from the country of the Gauls.
Between them they brought all Spain under subjection, with the exception of certain remote districts, which they thought too small or too distant to be attacked. But it was within the confines of these small mountain valleys of the northwest that, protected by their rugged barriers, the defeated Goths halted and found a home, and gathered as a nucleus for future forays upon their enemies; as we shall see.
When the country had been practically conquered, the quarrel between Musa and Tarik was renewed; finally it reached the ears of the Calif at Bagdad that his most valiant generals were fighting like jackals over their prey, and he summoned them both to the Orient, there to give account of themselves. It would seem that gratitude was a sentiment entirely foreign to the Arab character, as instanced not only on this occasion, but on many another during the conquest and continuance of the Moors in Spain; for, in spite of his inestimable services to the califate, notwithstanding he had given to the Moslems a new country as their own, and had extended the sway of Islam westward to the Atlantic, Musa was degraded, even sentenced to death, and finally ended his life in poverty.
But despite the severity of Oriental rule, Spain continued a tributary to the Eastern califs until about the middle of the century in which it was conquered, when (as we shall see in due course) an independent califate was established in Cordova. Musa had left as emir in his absence his favourite son Abdalasis, who governed the conquered territory wisely, but had the misfortune, during his father’s absence, to see and fall in love with beautiful Exilona, the unhappy widow of the departed King Roderick. They were married; but as he was a Moslem and she a Christian, soon there began murmurs among their subjects, notwithstanding the generous nature of Abdalasis, who had ever in mind their well-being. These rumours reached the ears of the Calif, cruel and bloodthirsty Suleiman, and he sent orders that the devoted pair should be murdered. His commands were obeyed: both were basely killed while at morning prayers, and the head of Abdalasis was embalmed and sent in a casket to Syria, to the court of the Calif. The unfortunate Musa was in attendance at the court, and when the casket arrived the Calif took out the head of Abdalasis and held it up before his victim:
“Dost thou know this head?” he demanded. Musa gazed in anguish. “Yes,” he murmured, “well do I know it; and may the curse of God light upon him who has destroyed a better man than himself!” The stricken father did not long survive this terrible stroke; but the wrath of Suleiman was not appeased until the other sons of Musa, whom he had left at important posts in Africa, were also numbered with the dead.
Still, despite the ingratitude and cruelty of the Califas, able generals were found to carry on the war for Islam, until even the Pyrenees were leaped and the Moslem hosts invaded France. It seemed as though all Europe would become subject to the bonds of the Arabs, and soon be brought to acknowledge the “one God and Mohammed his prophet.” But in the year 732, twenty-one years after the invasion of Spain, the tide was turned at Tours, when Charles Martel slew thirty thousand Moslems and turned back the remainder, eventually to retreat to the land whence they had come. No other country suited them so well, and here they lived, they and their descendants, from first to last, more than eight hundred years.
CHAPTER VI.
THE WESTERN CALIFATE.
Within three years after their first appearance in Spain the Moors had subjected nearly the entire territory, save only a restricted region in the north and west. For about fifty years thereafter they were governed by emirs sent from the califate of Damascus, and the last of some twenty emirs was one Yusef, an Abbasside. To understand the Arab terms which we are now compelled to use in relating this portion of Spain’s history, we must transport ourselves once again to the Orient, and glance at the line of califs, or caliphs, successors to Mahomet, or Mohammed, which had carried on his conquests for many years.
The Prophet left no direct heirs, and this led to continual wrangling among the various tribes; even the succession of Abu-bekr, father of Mohammed’s favourite wife Ayeshah, did not settle anything, for at his death the question was reopened. Not right, but might, however, prevailed with the Arabs, and about the year 661 the first calif of the Ommiades seated himself at Damascus. One of this line was in power when Spain was invaded, but about the middle of the eighth century three brothers came forward to dispute his rights. The calif was killed, and eighty Ommiades of influence, invited to a feast at Damascus, were murdered in cold blood. Thus arose the line of Abbassides, so called from alleged descent from Abbas, uncle of Mohammed. Like most of the Arab rulers, the Abbassides signalled their rise to power by deeds of blood, their first effort being toward the entire obliteration of the house of Ommiades. But two of this noble house escaped: one fled to Arabia, where his descendants ruled a while; and the other to Africa, where, among the devoted adherents of his line, the Bedouins and the Berbers, he passed several years under their protection.
It happened that most of the Moslem chiefs in Spain were also allied to the house of Ommiades, and when they learned that the young Syrian Abderrahman was wandering in Africa a fugitive, with a price upon his head, they earnestly entreated him to come over and become their ruler. Yusef, the last emir of the Abbassides, was routed in battle and sent away, and Spain at last made independent of Eastern influence under a king of her own—the first of a line which governed, in the main wisely, for nearly three hundred years.
Prince Abderrahman made the city of Cordova the seat of the Western califate, and under him it became a centre of learning as well as prosperity, rivalling all other cities of the peninsula. Magnificent palaces were built, hospitals and mosques, one of the last named being the glorious mosque of Cordova, its site four acres in extent, renowned throughout the world for its beauty. This was begun by Abderrahman in the year 786, and has lasted to our time, with its unrivalled mosaics, tiles, and arabesques, and its thousand columns of porphyry and alabaster.
Then were begun those vast irrigation works which reclaimed the desert plains of the country and made them flourish with vegetation; the immense aqueducts, the bridges, towers, and walls of defence. And yet the reign of Abderrahman was by no means a peaceful one, as he had to placate the many different sects and tribes of his own countrymen on the one hand, and the Jews and Christians on the other. In the north was a turbulent Christian population, ever at war; in the south, a Mohammedan population always quarrelling over the division of spoils, and particularly of the conquered territory.
Toward the last of his reign there appeared in the north a mightier than he—no less than the magnificent Charlemagne, Emperor of the French, who, about the year 778, having been invited thither by a disaffected Arab captain, crossed the Pyrenees and captured several towns. He did not stay long, however, for a rising of the Saxons called him back, after he had taken Saragossa and razed the walls of Pampeluna. Perhaps his brief campaign in Spain might never have been chronicled had it not been for his disastrous rout in the Pyrenean Pass of Roncesvalles, and the death of that hero of early song, the gallant Roland, a semi-mythical figure in history. It was for a long time believed that they were infidel Saracens who attacked and destroyed Charlemagne’s rear guard in the Pass of Roncesvalles; but later investigations show them to have been Basques, descendants of the primitive Iberians, who resented this invasion of their territory, even by a grandson of the great Charles Martel, who had beaten back the Moslems in 732 and 737.
Abderrahman died in 788, and was succeeded by Hicham I, and he by others of the line, whose moral tone may be indicated by the remark of one Mohammed, eldest of forty-five brothers, who, when congratulated by a favourite upon his elevation, exclaimed: “What an absurd idea to say this world would be beautiful if there were no death! If there were no death, should I be reigning? Death is a good thing; my predecessor is dead; that is why I reign.” Another calif before him, who refused to treat Christian and Mussulman alike in the eyes of the law, invited seven hundred citizens of Toledo to a banquet, admitting each one separately within the doorway of his castle, when he was seized and taken to the parapet, where his head was lopped off and thrown into the fosse. But this was only a playful manifestation of power, which caused the calif to be regarded as eccentric, rather than cruel or bloodthirsty.
During the reign of Abderrahman II the Spanish coast was ravaged by the Norman sea-robbers, who even sailed up the river Guadalquivir as far as Seville, and with whom the Arab navy is said to have had a great sea fight; though this is doubtful. One hundred years later—the interim being filled with three inconsequential rulers—another, Abderrahman III, carried Cordova and the califate to the summit of power. He held the government for nearly fifty years, from 912 to 961, and came to be one of the wealthiest rulers in the then known world. The city contained half a million inhabitants, one hundred thousand houses, and twenty-eight suburbs, and the surplus population was urged to dwell in a new city outside the walls, which was called Zahra, after one of Abderrahman’s six thousand wives, and which rivalled the finest city of the Orient in the beauty of its palaces.
Material and intellectual growth kept even pace, and Cordova was a torch of enlightenment during that time which in Europe was known as the “Dark Ages.” The son of Abderrahman III, who reigned fifteen years as Hacam II, was a gifted bibliophile, if not a scholar, for he collected, read, and annotated (it is said) a library of four hundred thousand volumes. From distant Cairo, Bagdad, and Damascus he drew the precious books which went to swell his great catalogue of forty-four volumes; and among them, at one time, was the veritable copy of the Koran stained by the blood of Othman, who was beheaded in the year 650. The University of Cordova was known abroad, and hither flocked scholars, poets, and Arab singers, while thousands of students listened to eloquent teachers of theology and law. Of all the cities of Spain, none rivals in interest golden Cordova, on the banks of the Guadalquivir—though Seville, Granada, and Toledo press it close—either in the list of famous Arabs or Romans, born and educated here.
Skilled in astrology and astronomy we know they were, and from Cordova, in the latter half of the tenth century, were obtained the Arabic numerals, which were carried to Rome by Pope Sylvester II, it is said, soon after he had studied at the university; and where, doubtless, he acquired those attainments in mathematics, chemistry, and philosophy which caused it to be said of him that he was in league with the devil.
From the name Cordova, also, we get the term “cordwainer,” out of “cordovan,” the celebrated leather manufactured there. Many arts and a few sciences flourished in this noble city; and we should not forget our indebtedness to the Spanish Arabs, who kept alight the lamp of learning, and who have left in their architecture, if in nothing else, a memorial of their greatness.
Under another calif, Hicham II, the Moors in Spain reached the zenith of their prosperity; but not through any act of the calif himself, except negatively, when he resigned all power to his hadjib, or vizier, Abou-Amir Mohammed, who under the surname of Almansor Billah—“victorious by help of God”—nearly destroyed the rising Christians of the north. The renowned hero of more than fifty battles, Almansor carried death and destruction to all parts of rebellious Spain. He marched upon and captured the cities of Leon, Barcelona, Pampeluna, Salamanca, and Zamora; but the greatest of his achievements—that upon which he most prided himself—was the sacking of the sacred shrine of Campostella, and the hanging of its bells of bronze in the great mosque at Cordova, where they were used as lamps.
Campostella, or the Field of the Star, was the holy spot where, according to early Christian legend, the body of Saint James the apostle was found, having been brought here by his disciples. Its discovery, after having been for centuries buried here, was owing to the shining of a star of exceeding lustre above the sacred spot, and hence the name applied to the church subsequently erected here, and which became a shrine for pilgrims from all parts of Christian Spain. As scallop shells are found here imbedded in the rock, a shell of this sort was the pilgrim’s badge; but was not, it need hardly be said, respected by the fierce Almansor.
Calif in all save name, Almansor ruled supreme; whenever he went to battle—and which always ended in victory for the Moslem—he took with him forty poets to chant his praises and sing his greatness. Yet he too died, at last; with his departure began the decline of Moorish and the consequent rise of Christian power. But for more than two centuries longer the Moors were to dwell—
“Where Cordova is hidden among
The palm, the olive, and the vine;
Gem of the South, by poets sung,
And in whose mosque Almansor hung
As lamps the bells that once had rung
At Campostella’s shrine.”
CHAPTER VII.
SPAIN’S HEROIC AGE.
We have followed the Moors in Spain through the first three hundred years of their history. Let us now retrace our steps and pursue the fleeing Goths, when, after their defeat on the banks of the Guadalete, they left all southern Spain in the hands of the invaders. “At the time of the general wreck of Spain by the sudden tempest of Arab (African) invasion,” says Washington Irving, “many of the inhabitants took refuge in the mountains of the Asturias, burying themselves in narrow valleys difficult of access, wherever a constant stream of water afforded a green bosom of pasture land and scanty fields for cultivation. For mutual protection they gathered together in small villages, called castros or castrellos, with watch-towers and fortresses on impending cliffs, in which they might shelter and defend themselves in case of sudden inroad. Thus arose the kingdom of the Asturias, of Pelayo and the king’s successors, who gradually extended their dominion, built towns and cities, and after a time fixed their seat of government at the city of Leon. An important part of the region over which they bore sway was ancient Cantabria, extending from the Bay of Biscay to the Duero, and called Castile, from the number of castles with which it was studded.”
By referring to a map of Spain you will find the Asturias in the far north, all of four hundred miles from the scene of the disastrous battle; and here it was, in the mountain valleys, surrounded by frowning peaks and gloomy gorges, that Pelayo the Cave King, first ruler of the Goths after their defeat, established his little kingdom. Living at first in caves, then in rude habitations of earth and stone, the hardy mountaineers gradually gathered in hamlets and villages, and in a few years were strong enough to resist the forces that finally penetrated to their abode. With their backs against the mountain walls, from the brinks of dizzy precipices, they hurled down rocks and trees upon the invading Africans, and drove them back to ravage the more fertile plains below.
Pelayo the Cave King is said to have been the son of a noble Goth who was banished by Witica, but who returned to serve Roderick as sword-bearer on the fatal field of Guadalete. Little is known of his career, and by some he is treated as a myth; but the Spaniards believe in his existence, and in recent years one of Spain’s most powerful battleships received the name of this first king who stemmed the tide of Moorish conquest.
To the Asturias was later united Galicia, in the extreme northwest of Spain, then Leon farther south; the Moslems soon encountered opposition in Navarra, to the east of Leon, in Aragon, still farther toward the eastern coast, and finally in Catalonia, where the Counts of Barcelona fought the Saracens in their ancient seaport founded by the father of Hannibal. The story of the reconquest of Spain—in its first stages at least—is long and complicated, involving the development of no less than six separate provinces: Aragon, Catalonia, Navarra, Asturias, Castile, and Leon, stretching across the country from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. But, without descending to wearisome detail in the narration of the feuds and fights of petty kings and chiefs, we should note, first of all, that the first stand against the Moslems was in the north. There, with their castled towns and hamlets defended by the almost inaccessible mountain ranges, the Goths drew valour and might from the difficulties of their situation, and soon were developed scores and hundreds of heroes, whose sole occupation was war; fighting often among themselves, but always ready to unite against the common enemy, the hated Moslem.
We have already had a glimpse of this unhappy country during the reign of the Ommiades, and have seen that, while the Moor might be victorious in one direction, the Christian would prevail in another. But, with the mountains behind them ever, as places of refuge and retreat, the growing hosts of the Christians became more and more annoying to the Moors. Under the first Alfonso, between the years 739 and 756, the territory of Leon was greatly extended, while during the reign of Alfonso II (791-842) this king, who had allied himself with the great Charlemagne, founded the cities of Oviedo and Compostella, and raided the region southward to Portugal. There are so many and various Alfonsos, Ferdinands, Sanchos, Pedros, Don Juans, Ordoños, etc., rulers over different kingdoms and over the same territory at different times, that it will be impossible to narrate the doings of them all. But, however they might quarrel among themselves, they were persistent in their opposition to the Moors, through decades and centuries, until finally the detested infidels were expelled from Spain.
We can, however, merely glance at those most conspicuous for gallantry, for deeds of daring, and mention only those great battles that were decisive in their effect upon the general welfare of Spain and the progress of the hosts engaged in its reconquest. During the reign of Alfonso the Victorious, one of his Moorish neighbours invaded his territory and ravaged his fields, until he was met and defeated by that gallant hero, Bernardo del Carpio, who cut off the Moslem’s head and took it to Alfonso as a precious gift. Having performed such a service for his sovereign, it might be supposed that Bernardo would be richly rewarded; but, far from that being the case, his father was kept in prison, upon some pretext, by Alfonso, and Bernardo’s great services were ignored. At last, wearied by the injustice of which he was the victim, Bernardo resolved to leave Alfonso’s court and go over to the Moors. He shut himself up in his castle of Carpio, from which he made many a pillaging raid into the territory of his king, until at last Alfonso besieged him there. But Bernardo’s defence was so valiant that the king offered to give him possession of his father if he would yield up his castle. This was a great price to pay, but the devoted son at once agreed to it. The treacherous Alfonso sent assassins who murdered Count Sancho in prison, then seated his corpse upon a horse, richly attired, and led him to meet Bernardo. When the latter saw him coming he went to meet him, and not until he had taken his father’s hand to kiss it did he discover the cruel deception. Then he turned his face aside and cried: “Ah my father, Don Sancho Diaz, in an evil hour didst thou beget me. Thou art dead, and I—I have given my stronghold for thee, and now indeed have lost all!”
Some time later reigned one Alfonso III (from 866-909), who gained many a victory over the Moors, but who unwisely divided his kingdom, at his death, among several sons, and thus brought about the disunion of territory already united, and retarded the general advance of Christian power so amply extended by the prowess of his arms. Before him, however, came King Ramiro, whose short reign was made memorable by his refusal to pay to Abderrahman the customary tribute, which had been agreed upon by some of his predecessors, of one hundred beautiful maidens annually. In the patio of the Alcázar of Seville is shown to-day the spot where these disconsolate maidens, abandoned by their friends to the savage mercies of the Moors, were gathered when this base bargain was carried out. But Ramiro refused to pay this tribute, and so Abderrahman sent an army against him which, after two days of terrible fighting, the Christians destroyed.
In the noble city of Burgos stands the statue of another hero of that age, Fernan Gonzalez, grandson of one of the first judges of Castile, after that province had thrown off its allegiance to Leon. When Fernan Gonzalez was but seventeen years old he was elected to rule, under Alfonso the Great, with the title of count. A Moorish captain was ravaging the territory of Castile at that very time, and Count Fernan placed himself at the head of a small body of troops and set out to meet him. He was successful, and returned to Burgos with immense booty, part of which he used for the endowment of a convent. After that he kept the field almost continually, widening the range of his conquests until Castile was freed from the Moors. But his great successes gained for him the ill will of other Christian kings and leaders, notably of Sancho, King of Navarre, with whom he was obliged to fight, and whom he killed in single combat.
A son of Sancho the Fat (who was cured of obesity by a Moorish physician), Don Garcia, surnamed “the Trembler,” finding himself unable to cope with Count Fernan in the open field, resorted to treachery, and, having proposed that he should marry his sister, when Fernan went to claim her, with but a feeble guard, he was captured by the wily Garcia and thrown into a dungeon. The Princess Sancha, the lady in question, wondered why her lover did not come to take her away as his bride, and when she finally learned the truth—heard that an honourable cavalier was languishing in chains for her sake, in a dismal dungeon—she bribed the guards, appeared before the count an angel of beauty, and led him forth to liberty, after first exacting an oath that he would make her his wife as soon as they were safe within the confines of his domains.
And, after many perilous adventures, they arrived safely in the city of Burgos, where the princess was welcomed with acclamation as the future “first lady of the land,” and their marriage was followed by feastings, tilts, and tournaments. Garcia the Trembler followed hard after them with his army, but in the battle that eventuated he was taken prisoner, though subsequently sent home laden with honours, at the intercession of his sister; which shows what a noble gentleman Count Fernan was, and what a jewel he got for a wife.
Such are the stories told of the heroic days of early Spain, chiefly of Castile, when continual fighting between Moors and Christian had wrought the warriors to the highest state of efficiency. They were not happy unless engaged in warfare, and this accounts for the many feuds among the Goths themselves; and it was owing to their continual dissensions that the reconquest of all Spain was so long delayed. And yet, among the Moors there was still greater dissension, on account of the hatred that existed between the Arabs and the Berbers.
CHAPTER VIII.
DECLINE OF THE MOORS.
The eleventh and twelfth centuries were momentous ones to Spain, and in the hundred years between 1000 and 1100 more battles were fought, perhaps, and more victories gained by the Christians, than in any equal period before. The great Almansor of Cordova, who had inflicted upon the Goths defeat after defeat, himself lost a battle, at Catalañazor, in the year 1001 or 1002, which caused his death. A rebellion in Morocco had compelled him to send an army thither, and the Christians had taken advantage of this weakening of his forces and fallen upon him at the Leon and Castile frontier.
Almansor’s death weakened the Ommiade dynasty, and Cordova fell a prey to discord; in place of one strong ruler now were many petty chiefs, each one anxious to make himself supreme, but only succeeding in adding to the confusion then prevailing among the Moors. Before the middle of the century the crowns of Leon and Castile had been united under Ferdinand the Great, and in the year 1082 his son and successor, Alfonso VI, went down and besieged the ancient city of Toledo (which had been in Moorish possession four hundred years), taking it three years later. It was never recovered by the Moors, and the Moslems became alarmed at this signal instance of Gothic bravery and effrontery, and for a time ceased their dissensions. But, in their alarm at the aggressions of the Christian forces, they placed their necks within a yoke of slavery far worse than would have been forced upon them by the Goths. They conferred together, and, realizing their own weakness, sent over into Africa for assistance. There then reigned in Morocco the fierce Yussef, a fanatical Bedouin, who hated all Arabs almost as much as he hated the “Christian dogs.” But he hastened to the relief of his fellow-Moslems with a great army of fanatics as fierce and uncouth as himself. He had hardly landed and learned of the fall of Toledo, when he summoned King Alfonso either to embrace the faith of Mohammed, consent to pay tribute, or prepare for battle. Flushed with his successes, Alfonso chose to fight, and the two great armies met in the battle of Zallaca, in the month of October, 1086, when the Spanish army was utterly overthrown. Yussef pursued his advantage vigorously, and eventually all southern Spain was subjected to him, including the city of Seville, which was taken in 1091; and not only were the Christians themselves the object of his fury, but the Moslem chiefs who had sent for him to come to their aid, who were all either murdered or transported to Africa. Thus was the Almoravid dynasty established, with its capital at Cordova, and which lasted until 1147. Yussef died about twenty years later, leaving the kingdom to his son Ali, and the Spanish Moslems were oppressed by the Bedouin chiefs, who were as savage and illiterate as the Ommiades were gentle and refined. Cordova soon lost its libraries, its schools and universities, and became a place to be shunned, rather than sought, by scholars and men of letters.
Meanwhile the Gothic provinces, called kingdoms (sometimes united, sometimes divided), had not been blind to their advantage in pressing the Moors on every side, and the latter steadily, though slowly, shrank within more restricted confines, until the Tagus and the Guadiana were their most northern boundaries. Grim Yussef died in 1104, and the great Alfonso in 1109. The latter, under whom Castile had risen steadily to the first rank among the kingdoms of the north, and who was known as the “Buckler of the Faith,” had been victor in thirty-nine battles, and had but twice suffered defeat.
The year 1104 saw the crown of Aragon pass to Alfonso I, who was married to a daughter of Alfonso VI of Castile. It has been said that if the two Alfonsos had but united their forces, while holding their respective kingdoms, the Moors might have been expelled from Spain three hundred years sooner than they were.
About this time rose to power in Morocco a fanatical Moslem known as Mohammed ben Abdullah, the son of a lamplighter in the mosque of Cordova. He was educated in Cordova and in Bagdad, but later went to Morocco, where he made his home in the Atlas Mountains and proclaimed himself the Mahdi, or leader of the faithful. He soon had many followers, who called themselves Almohades, or followers of the one God. Raising an immense army, Mohammed came down from the mountains and besieged the city of Morocco, which was defended by Ali the son of Yussef. Both Ali and Mohammed died during the siege, and one Abdelmummen succeeded the Mahdi in command. He took the city, driving out and killing the inhabitants, and repeopling it with Bedouins from the desert and the mountains.
Proclaimed sovereign of all Africa and Moslem Spain, Abdelmummen invaded the peninsula with an army so vast that two months were consumed in crossing the straits, and an alarm spread throughout all Europe; but the men of the new sect were more anxious, apparently, for converts to their creed than victories over the Christians, for in the end the Almoravides were either expelled or converted, and the Almohades reigned supreme. Their dominion extended from the Atlantic to the Nile in Africa, and in Spain over all that the Christian arms had not wrested from their predecessors.
Abdelmummen died in 1162, leaving the kingdom to his son Cid Yussef, who built the mosque of Seville, the great aqueduct that brought water to that city, and the bridge across the Guadalquivir. He was killed in 1184 and his son Yacoub succeeded, who in the year 1195 won a great victory over Alfonso VIII, at the battle of Alarcos. A little more than a century previously the Moslems had gained another victory, at Zallaca; but these two, vast as were their results, were to be avenged by an overwhelming defeat which the God of the Christians was preparing for them.
The chronicles of the eleventh century (to turn back a moment) would not be complete without mention of the doughty deeds of the great Cid Campeador, who, like Count Fernan Gonzalez, was descended from Nuño Rastro, one of the first judges of Castile.
His real name was Rodrigo or Ruy Diaz, and he was born at Bivar, near the city of Burgos, about the year 1040, although so much of myth envelops him that the exact date of his birth is uncertain. At all events, he was a Castilian of noble birth, who at an early age commanded the forces of Sancho II of Castile, when that ruler deprived his brothers of their kingdoms of Leon and Galicia. According to the numerous “Ballads of the Cid,” which were written and sung as early as the twelfth century, no hero of history ever performed more valiant deeds than he, though he can hardly be held up to the world as a model of constancy and patriotism: for he fought, first on the side of his native Castile, then, becoming offended at a slight put upon him by King Alfonso (though he had led the army into Toledo), he went over to the Emir of Saragossa and battled stoutly for the Moors.
His first appearance seems to have been as the avenger of his father’s death, when he challenges his slayer, Count Lozeno, to mortal combat, and leaves him dead on the field. Then at the command of the king he marries the count’s daughter, the lovely Ximena, who has prayed her sovereign to avenge this deed; and yet when Rodrigo proposes, she consents to be his wife. The king argued, with true kingly logic, that “he whose hand had made her an orphan should of a right be her protector”; but the ballads do not tell us what Ximena thought about it. Still, they inform us often that he was in every respect a model husband, and that, more than all else in the world, he loved his gallant steed Babieca, his good sword Tizona, and his faithful wife Ximena—probably the order named being their rank in his affections.
Although he had fought against his king, yet in his latter years he made amends, became a terror to the Moors, and took the Moorish province of Valencia in 1088, which he held until his death in the year 1099. And, that we may be sure his devoted wife was faithful to the last, we are told that she held the city of Valencia for two years after her husband died, though surrounded by enemies, and then carried his embalmed body to Burgos, where for ten years it sat in state beside the high altar of a convent church.
The empty tomb, to which the Cid was borne upon his charger, and in which he and his wife rested for many years, may yet be seen in the old convent of San Pedro de Cardena, near to Burgos; and in that old Castilian city, preserved in a glass case in the town hall, are shown the veritable “bones of the Cid and his wife Ximena.” Here also is the “solar del Cid,” or the site of the house he lived in, now indicated by three obelisks of stone, which stand not far from a memorial arch erected to Count Fernan Gonzalez. And, moreover, in one of the cathedral cloisters is still preserved an ancient iron-clasped trunk, which belonged to the Cid, and which, tradition states, he once filled with sand and pledged to some wealthy Jews for an enormous sum, as full of priceless jewels. It is also stated, to his credit, that he afterward redeemed his pledge and paid his debts in full.
The renowned Cid Campeador may or may not have performed all the valorous feats ascribed to him, but it is certain that Spain yet holds his name in grateful remembrance. When his end drew nigh (knowing that a battle was imminent), he ordered that his corpse should be placed erect upon his war horse, his sword in hand, and taken forth to fight a last battle for his country:
“‘Bring in my Babieca’—the Cid a-dying lay—
‘That I may say farewell to him before I pass away.’
The good horse, strong and gentle, full quiet did he keep,
His large soft eyes dilating, as though he fain would weep.
‘I am going, dear companion, thy master rides no more,
Thou well deservest high reward, I leave thee this in store:
Thy master’s deeds shall keep thy name until earth’s latest day;’
And speaking not another word, the good Cid passed away.”
The ruined castle still stands, on a hill above the city of Burgos, in which Don Garcia was imprisoned in 958; where Alfonso of Leon was confined by the Cid, and where Edward I of England was married to Eleanor of Castile.
CHAPTER IX.
KINGS OF CASTILE AND ARAGON.
We have been hitherto tracing the course of several streams which, rising in various parts of Africa and Spain in the south and in the north, yet have mingled their currents somewhat; but we shall soon find that the stream which had its source in the north became eventually a resistless torrent that swept all before it.
At or near the close of the twelfth century we find three Alfonsos on as many thrones: Alfonso VIII, surnamed the Noble, in Castile; Alfonso IX in Leon and Oviedo; and Alfonso II ruling in Portugal, which had become separated from Spain in 1095. Navarre was under Sancho VII, while Aragon and the greater portion of Catalonia acknowledged Pedro II. At the same time the Moslems were governed by Mohammed abu Abdallah, the son of Yacoub, who had won the great battle of Alarcos. These are names merely, some of which have hardly survived, in connection with great deeds, the lives of those who bore them. But it was permitted Alfonso VIII, in the year 1212, to inflict a defeat upon the Moors from which they never recovered. This was at the great battle of Navas de Tolosa, when, according to the statements of the victors, at least one hundred thousand Moslems fell, victims to Christian prowess, and, sad to relate, after the victory was assured, objects of Christian bigotry; for they treated with shameful barbarity those who survived.
The battlefield of Tolosa was the turning point of Moslem fortunes, for from the date of that great event the followers of Mahommed lost steadily in Spain, retreating ever nearer the southern coast, whence their ancestors had invaded the peninsula five hundred years before.
Alfonso the Noble survived this achievement but two years, and died in 1214, leaving a reputation not only as a great warrior, but as a lover of learning, having established, it is said, the first university in Spain in the year 1209. He left his throne to his son Henry I, and under the regency of his daughter Berenguela, who, when Henry was accidentally killed, secured the kingdom for her own son Ferdinand. Two momentous events came to pass at this time—the battle of Tolosa, which drove back the Moslems, and the union of the kingdoms of Castile and Leon under one ruler; for at the death of Alfonso IX of Leon the kingdom passed to Ferdinand III, who was thus placed in possession of resources and armies which he could unite toward the expulsion of the Moors.
He was later canonized for his great services to Christendom, and is known to history as St. Ferdinand. It is a curious fact that his cousin, Louis of France, son of his mother’s sister, and likewise a grandson of Alfonso VIII of Castile, was also canonized; and the grandmother of both was Eleanor of England, daughter of Henry II.
Well, St. Ferdinand, to call him by the title bestowed upon him three hundred years after his death, was a flaming sword as toward the Moors. He captured their capital, Cordova, in 1236, the city of Jaen in 1246, and at last the “Queen of the Guadalquivir,” beautiful Seville (ancient port of the Phœnicians, the Roman Hispalis), where he died in 1252, and where his tomb and many precious relics of his time may be seen in the great cathedral there.
Almost equally renowned was Jayme I, the King of Aragon, who took the Balearic Isles from the Moors in 1229, Valencia in 1237, the province of Murcia in 1266, and who, before he died in 1276, had gained thirty pitched battles with the enemy, and had founded, some say, more than two thousand Christian churches. But he has the credit of having introduced into Spain the terrible Inquisition (in 1232), and that goes far toward counterbalancing his meritorious work for the freedom of his country.
Alfonso X, called “the Wise,” because he was more a scholar than soldier, succeeded St. Ferdinand, and under him, it is recorded, the Castilian became the national language. Slowly but steadily the ancient Gothic had been changing, and it was now in a sense crystallized when Alfonso caused the Bible to be translated into the Castilian, as well as works on chemistry and philosophy, and wrote a chronicle of Spain down to the time of Ferdinand, his father and predecessor. The “Fuero Juzgo, or Forum Judicum,” the ancient Visigothic code of laws, which he translated and codified, became the law of the land and the model of yet existing laws in Spain.
But, though quite learned, Alfonso was not morally much in advance of his time, for he caused his brother to be strangled, and provoked a rebellion of his sons, by which he was driven from his throne two years before his death. His son, Sancho IV, who was as vigorous as his father was feeble, drove the Emir of Morocco back to Africa in 1291, and after a short reign left the kingdom to his son, Ferdinand IV, who, dying in 1312, was succeeded by Alfonso XI of Castile. He was the last of that name to sit on the throne until Alfonso XII, father of the boy king of our time, Alfonso XIII, after an interval of five hundred and sixty years.
Ferdinand IV was an infant too young to reign at the death of his father, but affairs of the kingdom were ably managed by the queen regent, his mother, and when he reached man’s estate he nobly devoted himself to the great work bequeathed him by his ancestors. Under him the Castilian frontiers were extended to Gibraltar, the fortress of which he took, in the year 1302. But his reign was likewise short, and at his death he left the kingdom to an infant son, and the regency to his mother, Maria, who a second time assumed the cares of royalty without its remunerations.
Alfonso XI showed the lack of parental guidance during youth by the errors of his early manhood, among other indiscretions forming an illegitimate alliance with a lady who became the mother of Don Enrique of Trastamara, who later slew his half-brother Pedro “the Cruel.” By the great victory of the Rio Salado, in 1340, Alfonso retrieved his damaged reputation in the eyes of the people and firmly established the kingdom upon an impregnable basis. The combined hosts of Spanish Moors and Africans had assembled and laid siege to Tarifa, the southernmost town in Spain. The Christian armies, under the lead of Alfonso and the king of Portugal, met and overthrew them near the plains of Algeciras, inflicting such slaughter that the dead lay piled in heaps, the slain, it was estimated, amounting to two hundred thousand.
This was the last invasion from Africa, which had been so prolific in barbarian and semi-barbarian conquerors; and if any other was in contemplation it was prevented the following year, when Alfonso’s fleet destroyed that of the Moors in the Straits of Gibraltar. King Alfonso besieged the fortress of Gibraltar itself—which had been in Moorish possession since 1333—but failed to dislodge the enemy, and it was not until more than a hundred years later, in 1462, that it again fell into the hands of the Spaniards. Alfonso doubtless held the ambitious project of ridding the peninsula entirely of the Moors; but his country was not sufficiently united, and one hundred and fifty years were to elapse before the consummation of this object, under King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. That he was a valiant warrior, despite his many failings, is shown by his death in the field, while besieging Gibraltar, when he fell a victim to the terrible pestilence known as the “black death,” in the year 1350.
His son and successor, Don Pedro of Castile, is known to history as “Pedro the Cruel,” which name well illustrates his character. Cruel and licentious to a degree never before shown in any occupant of the throne, Pedro followed his father’s pernicious example, his amour with Doña Maria de Padilla being maintained while his lawful wife was a prisoner by his command. Though for a time popular with the masses, owing to his inclination rather toward the people than the nobility, his lust, covetousness, and cruelty caused a revolt. He overcame his opponents, but signalled his return to power by the murder of his half-brother, Don Fadrique, his mother, many of his relatives, and his wife. It is charged against him that he cut the throats of the Emir of Granada and fifty of his nobles, while they were his guests under a flag of truce, and committed other atrocious deeds. His half-brother, Henry, having escaped to France, returned with an army, but Pedro appealed to the son of the English Edward III, the “Black Prince,” and that gallant adventurer, then fighting in France, came to his assistance. By his aid he discomfited his enemies, but his cruelty to prisoners so disgusted his noble ally that he retired and left him to his fate. Henry then appeared with a small force, around which the people eagerly gathered, and Pedro was defeated and taken prisoner.
The last act of this terrible drama took place in a tent where the half-brothers, sons of the same father, met in deadly combat, which ended by Pedro’s being stabbed in the back, and pouring out his life-blood at the fratricide’s feet. Thus were the sins of Alfonso XI quickly visited upon his children, and the kingdom which he had founded threatened with disruption.
Pedro the Cruel was killed in 1369, and as Henry II his half-brother, the regicide, assumed his place, claimants arose to contest his dubious title to the throne, and among them John of Gaunt, the English Duke of Lancaster, Pedro’s son-in-law. At the same time, as enemies, he could count the Kings of Moorish Granada, Aragon, and Navarre. But he defeated the machinations of all these opponents and eventually reduced the kingdom to a state of peace, in which it continued till his death, in 1379, which was occasioned by a pair of poisoned boots, sent him as a present by the treacherous Emir of Granada.
His son, John I, reigned eleven years, or from 1379 to 1390, though in 1385 the Duke of Lancaster, John of Gaunt, assumed the title of king, with the arms of Castile, Leon, and France. He was, however, dissuaded by the promise that his daughter Catherine (whose mother was Constance, daughter of Pedro the Cruel and Maria de Padilla) should marry Henry III, who succeeded to the throne of Castile in 1390, and reigned until 1406. The heir of this union was John II, who was King of Castile from 1406 to 1454, and whose chief claim to distinction is as the father of Isabella, who, after her brother, Henry IV, had died, in 1474, became Queen of Castile. Thus in the veins of the woman who was to become the greatest of her line ran the blood, not only of Pedro the Cruel, but of his bastard brother, Henry of Trastamare.
But the resultant issue of her marriage with Ferdinand of Aragon, in 1469, was to be yet more deeply tinctured with the blood of the regicide; for the son of Henry of Trastamare had married a daughter of Pedro of Aragon, who was almost as cruel and implacable as Pedro of Castile. Ferdinand, son of John I, and grandson of Henry, became King of Aragon, and was succeeded by his son, John II of Aragon, through whom at his death the throne passed to Ferdinand, later called the Catholic, and who became the royal consort of Isabella.