1. Islam, after the conquest of the countries bordering on Arabia, spread rapidly throughout the north of Africa, Spain, the south of France and southern Italy, and extended its dominion over the Balearic Isles and Sicily. The effect of war in imparting to the belligerents an intimate knowledge of each other is notorious; but in times of peace, too, contact between the two civilisations of Christianity and Islam was established across their eastern and western frontiers through the medium of commerce.

From the eighth to the eleventh century an active trade was carried on between Moslem countries of the East and Russia and other countries of northern Europe. Expeditions left the Caspian regularly and, ascending the Volga, reached the Gulf of Finland and so through the Baltic to Denmark, Britain, and even as far as Iceland. The quantities of Arabic coins found at various places in this extensive commercial zone bear witness to its importance.⁠[587] In the eleventh century trade was conducted by the easier sea route across the Mediterranean, chiefly by means of Genoese, Venetian or Moslem vessels. Large colonies of Italian traders settled in all the Moslem ports of the Mediterranean, and merchants, explorers, and adventurers sailed at will across its waters. Benjamin of Tudela has left us trustworthy evidence, in his “Itinerary” of the twelfth century, of the busy intercourse between Christians and Moslems at that time.

To the stimulus of trade must be added the impulse of the religious ideal. Pilgrimages to the Holy Land, which had been suspended owing to the early conquests of Islam, were renewed and, with the establishment under Charlemagne of the Frank Protectorate over the Christian churches of the East, were assured by conventions and assisted by the foundation of hostels and monasteries in Moslem lands. During the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries the number of pilgrims grew, until some of the expeditions comprised as many as twelve thousand; these expeditions were the forerunners of the Crusades.⁠[588]

The influence of the Crusades in bringing Islam and Christian Europe together need hardly be insisted upon. The Christian States founded after the first Crusade may be likened to a European colony implanted in the heart of Islam, between the Euphrates and Egypt. The civil administration and the army of these States were formed on the Moslem model, and even the habits, food, and dress of the Orientals were adopted by the Frankish knights, who poured into Syria in Crusades from all parts of Europe even as far distant as Scandinavia.⁠[589]

The failure to destroy Islam by the sword begot in its turn the idea of the pacific conquest of souls, and led in the thirteenth century to the establishment of the Missions to Islam. The Franciscan and Dominican Friars who formed this new tie of spiritual communication were obliged to make a thorough study of the language and religious literature of Islam, and to reside for many years amongst Moslems.⁠[590]

2. More important and more interesting, however, from our point of view than any of these general channels of communication, is the contact of the two civilisations in Sicily and Spain. Beginning in the ninth century with piratical raids upon the coasts of the Atlantic and Mediterranean, the Normans gradually formed settlements in Moslem towns of the Peninsula (such as Lisbon, Seville, Orihuela and Barbastro) and in Sicily.⁠[591] The latter island, indeed, which had become permeated with Islam, was conquered in the eleventh century and ruled by a dynasty of Norman Kings until the thirteenth century. Throughout that period the Sicilian population was composed of a medley of races professing different religions and speaking several languages. The court of the Norman King, Roger II, at Palermo, was formed of both Christians and Moslems, who were equally versed in Arabic literature and Greek science. Norman knights and soldiers, Italian and French noblemen and clergy, Moslem men of learning and literature from Spain, Africa, and the East lived together in the service of the King, forming a palatine organisation that in all respects was a copy of the Moslem courts. The King himself spoke and read Arabic, kept a harem in the Moslem manner, and attired himself after the Oriental fashion. Even the Christian women of Palermo adopted the dress, veil, and speech of their Moslem sisters.

But the time when Palermo most resembled a Moslem court was the first half of the thirteenth century, during the long reign of Frederick, King of Sicily and Emperor of Germany. A philosopher, free-thinker and polyglot, the Emperor, even as his predecessors had done in war and peace, surrounded himself with Moslems. They were his masters and fellow-students, his courtiers, officers and ministers; and he was accompanied by them on his travels to the Holy Land and throughout Italy. His harems, one in Sicily and the other in Italy, were under the charge of eunuchs; and even the tunic in which he was buried bore an Arabic inscription. The Popes and other Kings of Christendom raised public outcry against the scandal of the court of such an Emperor, who, though representing the highest civil authority of the Middle Ages, was Christian only in name.

This patron of literature and learning formed a unique collection of Arabic MSS. at the University of Naples, which he founded in 1224; and he had the works of Aristotle and Averrhoes translated, and copies sent to Paris and Bologna. Not only did he gather to his court Hebrew and Moslem philosophers, astrologers and mathematicians, but he corresponded with men of learning throughout Islam.

It was at the court of Frederick that the Sicilian school of poetry, which first used the vulgar tongue and thus laid the foundations of Italian literature, arose. The Arab troubadours assembled at his court were emulated by the Christians; and the fact is significant inasmuch as it affords an instance of contact between the two literatures, Christian and Moslem.⁠[592]

3. Important as Norman Sicily was as a centre of Islamic culture, it is nevertheless eclipsed in this respect by mediæval Spain. Here were to be found the same phenomena as in Sicily, but on a much larger scale and with the precedence of centuries. For Spain was the first country in Christian Europe to enter into intimate contact with Islam. For 500 years, from the eighth to the thirteenth century, when the Florentine poet came into the world, the two populations, Christian and Mahometan, lived side by side in war and peace.

The Mozarabs formed the first link between the two peoples. As early as the ninth century the Christians of Cordova had adopted the Moslem style of living, some even to the extent of keeping harems and being circumcised. Their delight in Arabic poetry and fiction, and their enthusiasm for the study of the philosophical and theological doctrines of Islam, are characteristically lamented by Alvaro of Cordova in his Indiculus luminosus.

The contact thus established in the early centuries of the Islamic conquest became, as may be imagined, more pronounced in the course of time. With intervals of intermittent strife, the intermingling of the two elements of the population steadily continued. And thus we find the Mozarabs of Toledo, the ancient capital of the Visigoths, using the Arabic language and characters in their public documents as late as the twelfth century, after the reconquest of the city. The suggestion that these Christians, who had become half Arabs, communicated to their brethren in the north of Spain, and even in other parts of Europe a knowledge of Islamic culture, may, therefore, be readily accepted. The hypothesis is strengthened by the fact of the constant emigration of Mozarabs northwards from Andalusia.⁠[593]

To the Mozarab influence must be added another factor in the communication of Moslem culture—that of the slaves of Christian origin. Drawn from northern Spain and all parts of Europe, even as far as Russia, large numbers of slaves served in the court and in the army of the Emirs of Cordova. Many, no doubt, remained in their adoptive country where they had acquired both rank and fortune; but some, it may well be believed, would return to their native country in their old age.⁠[594]

To attempt to enumerate the many other channels of communication between Christian Europe and Moslem Spain, we should require to re-create in our imagination the wonderful picture of Moslem society in Spain. As the centre of Western culture, Moslem Spain irresistibly attracted the semi-barbarous peoples of Christian Europe. From all parts came travellers, bent on study as well as trade, and eager to behold the wonders of this new classic civilisation of the Orient.

To paint the picture in detail it would be necessary to include the Jewish traders as other instruments of communication. With their flourishing international trade and their aptitude for languages and the sciences, they knit ties both material and spiritual between Moslem Spain and the chief cities of Christian Europe. Nor should we omit the part played by prisoners of war returning often after many years’ absence to their native country; nor the effects of the frequent visits of Christian Ambassadors to the Moslem courts of the Peninsula.⁠[595]

4. With the gradual reconquest of Spain by the armies of the Christian kings, the Mudejars, their subdued Moslem subjects, took the place of the Mozarabs in transmitting Islamic culture. The undeniable superiority of this culture commanded the respect of the Christians, and the kings were prompt to adopt the policy of attracting the Mudejar element, thereby contributing to the more rapid and easy assimilation of Moslem civilisation. Further political alliances through marriage between the royal houses of Castile or Aragon and the reigning Moslem families were frequent.

Thus Alphonso VI, the conqueror of Toledo, married Zaida, the daughter of the Moorish King of Seville, and his capital resembled the seat of a Moslem court. The fashion quickly spread to private life; the Christians dressed in Moorish style, and the rising Romance language of Castile was enriched by a large number of Arabic words. In commerce, in the arts and trades, in municipal organisation, as well as in agricultural pursuits, the influence of the Mudejars was predominant, and thus the way was prepared for literary invasion, that was to reach its climax at the court of Alphonso X or the Wise.⁠[596]

Toledo had throughout the twelfth century been an important centre for the dissemination of Arabic science and belles-lettres in Christian Europe. In the first half of that century, shortly after the city had been captured from the Moors, Archbishop Raymond began the translation of some of the more celebrated works of Arabic learning. Thus, the whole encyclopædia of Aristoteles was translated from the Arabic, with the commentaries of Alkindius, Alfarabius, Avicenna, Algazel and Averrhoes; as also the master works of Euclid, Ptolemy, Galen, and Hippocrates, with the comments upon them of learned Moslems, such as Albatenius, Avicenna, Averrhoes, Rhazes, and Alpetragius. Translated into the Romance language of Castile with the help of learned Mudejars and Hebrews, these works were in turn rendered into Latin by Christian doctors drawn from all parts of Christendom.⁠[597]

5. Alphonso the Wise, who had been educated in this environment of Semitic culture, on ascending the throne personally directed the work of translation, and gathered to his court as collaborators wise men of the three religions, an instance demonstrative of the tolerance of his time. Besides contributing new works on physics and astronomy, he also devoted considerable attention to subjects that would appeal more to the popular mind. His father, Ferdinand the Saint, had encouraged the compilation of the Libro de los doce sabios and Flores de filosofia, in which Oriental influence is first seen; and Alphonso caused similar books, such as Calila y Dimna, Bocados de Oro, and Poridad de poridades to be translated and works on Oriental pastimes compiled. From Arabic sources he wrote his Grand e General Estoria, and he ordered the translation of Talmudic and cabbalistic works, and, lastly, of the Koran.⁠[598]

The advance of the Reconquest opened up a new field of action, and Murcia and Seville, after their recapture, became centres of philosophy and literature that rivalled Toledo. During the lifetime of his father, Alphonso had been Governor of Murcia, where he had a school built specially for Muhammad ar-Riquti, in which the Moslem sage lectured to Moors, Jews, and Christians alike.⁠[599] Before 1158, another learned Moslem, Abd Allah ibn Sahloh, had taught mathematics and philosophy to Moors and Christians at Baeza, and in his school discussed theological questions with the Christian clergy.⁠[600] Encouraged, no doubt, by these precedents, the king decided to give official sanction to the fusion of the two civilisations, of Christendom and Islam. He founded at Seville a general Latin and Arabic college, at which Moslems taught medicine and science side by side with Christian professors.⁠[601] This in itself is eloquent of the close relationship between the two elements of the population in the first half of the thirteenth century.