whole people or even a city; and we are now coming to the career of a
man who approached as few have ever done the high ideal of kingly
greatness. A great king is the result of a great need. When the nation
is sore beset, when the times are full of presage of disaster, and ruin
hangs ominously on the horizon; then the great king comes to rescue his
people from danger, to restore order and well-being, and to reign over a
realm once more made happy and prosperous by his efforts. The need of
such a ruler was anxiously felt at the beginning of the tenth century in
Spain. The excited conduct of the Christians of Cordova had been
followed by a still more dangerous and widespread rebellion in the
provinces. The throne was occupied by incapable sovereigns; for the
energetic policy of Mundhir, who had succeeded his father Mohammed in
886, was arrested by his assassination in 888, and his brother Abdallah,
who had instigated the murder, was incapable of dealing courageously
with the numerous sources of danger which then menaced the kingdom. His
policy was shifty and temporizing; he alternately tried the effects of
force and conciliation, with the usual consequence that both policies
failed; and he was personally so despicable, cruel, and vile, that all
parties in his dominions seemed for once to be agreed in their
detestation of him, and their resolve to cast off his rule. He had
hardly been reigning three years when the greater part of Andalusia was
virtually independent. All the various factions of the State were now
again in active opposition to the central power. Every nobleman or
chief, were he Arab, Berber, or Spaniard, seized the opportunity of a
bad and weak sovereign, and general anarchy, to appropriate a portion of
the land for his own exclusive benefit, and from behind his ramparts
to defy the Sultan. The old Arab aristocracy, the descendants of the
Arab tribes who completed the conquest of Spain, were few and greatly
outnumbered by the other races; but though their weakness should have
kept them loyal to the Arab kingdom of Cordova, they too turned against
it, and established themselves in independent princedoms, especially at
Seville, which now became a formidable rival to Cordova. In other
cities, though the Arabs were not strong enough to break openly with the
Sultan, they gave him but a nominal homage; and the governors of Lorca
and Zaragoza were really quite independent of their feeble king. In no
place, outside Cordova, where the mercenary guards of the Sultan
compelled a certain outward submission, were the Arabs to be counted
upon for the defence of the Omeyyad power.
[Illustration: THE GOLDEN TOWER, SEVILLE.]
The Berbers were more numerous than the Arabs, and at least equally
disaffected. They had abandoned any pretence of submission to the
Sultan's authority, and had returned to their old political system of
clan government. The western provinces of Spain, such as Estremadura,
and the south of Portugal, were now the independent possessions of the
Berbers; and they also held various important posts, such as Jaen, in
Andalusia itself. The Berber family of Dhu-n-Nun, consisting of the
father M[=u]sa, "a great scoundrel and an abominable thief," and his three
sons, who resembled him in their physical strength and their unrivalled
brutality, carried fire and sword through the land, and burnt, sacked,
and massacred wherever they went.
The Mohammedan Spaniards, who had put on something of Arab civilization
along with their new faith, were by no means barbarians like the
Berbers; but they were not the less hostile to the central power. The
province of Algarve, at the south-west corner of the peninsula, was
entirely in their power; and they held numerous independent cities and
districts throughout Andalusia. Indeed all the most important cities
were in secret or open revolt. Arab governors, Berber chiefs, Spanish
renegades, alike joined in repudiating or disregarding the sovereign
authority of Abdallah; and most powerful of all, Ibn-Hafs[=u]n, a
Christian, who had raised the mountaineers of the province of Elvira
(Granada), reigned in perfect security in his rocky fastness, Bobastro,
and gave laws to the regions around. Again and again had the Sultan
attacked him, and each time suffered defeat; now he was disposed to try
the ignominious policy of conciliation, only to find Ibn-Hafs[=u]n quite
ready to trick him at that. Murcia, the "land of Theodemir," was
independent under a mild and cultivated renegade prince, who governed
his subjects wisely, and was beloved by them; who was devoted to poetry,
but did not neglect to keep up a considerable army, which included five
thousand horsemen. Toledo was, as usual, in revolt, and nothing but the
jealousies and divisions of the Christians of the north prevented them
from reconquering their long lost territory. Split up as it was into
numberless little seigniories, resembling rather the estates or counties
of feudal barons than portions of a once powerful realm, Andalusia could
have offered but an ill-directed resistance to a determined
invader.[16]
[Illustration: DOOR OF THE MAIDEN'S COURT, ALCAZAR OF SEVILLE.]
There were of course some gleams of light amidst all this anarchy. We
have said that the province of Murcia was ruled by an enlightened and
benevolent prince. The lord of Cazlona was also distinguished for his
patronage of poets and the arts; his halls were raised upon marble
pillars, and the walls were encrusted with marble and gold; all that
makes life enjoyable was to be found within his palace. Ibn-Hajj[=a]j, too,
the Arab king--for he was nothing less--of Seville, who had compelled
the Sultan to come to terms with him and make him his friend, exercised
his unbounded authority in the noblest manner. His city was admirably
governed, order reigned there undisturbed, and evil-doers were sternly
but justly punished. He kept his state like an emperor; five hundred
cavaliers formed his escort, and his royal robe was of brocade, with his
name and titles embroidered on it in gold thread. Kings from over the
sea sent him presents: silken stuffs from Egypt, learned doctors of the
law from Medina, and matchless singers from Baghdad. The beautiful lady
"Moon," renowned for her lovely voice, her eloquence, and poetic fire,
sang of him thus: "In all the west I find no right noble man save
Ibrahim, but he is nobility itself. When one has known the delight of
living with him, to dwell in any other land would be misery." The very
poets of Cordova were attracted to his brilliant court, where they were
sure of a princely welcome. Once only did a poet receive a cold greeting
from Ibrahim the son of Hajj[=a]j. This was one who thought to please the
prince by reciting a scurrilous poem on the nobles of Cordova, to whom
the ruler of Seville was not well disposed. "You are mistaken," was
Ibn-Hajj[=a]j's comment, "if you think that a man like myself can find any
gratification in listening to these base calumnies."
Yet these occasional flashes of enlightenment cannot make amends for the
general condition of anarchy to which Andalusia had become a prey, by
the weakening of the central power, and the aggrandisement of countless
petty rulers and brigand chiefs. The country was in a deplorable state,
and Cordova itself, now threatened even with conquest at the hands of
Ibn-Hafs[=u]n and his bold mountaineers, was given over to mournful
sadness. "Without being yet actually besieged, she was already suffering
all the ills of beleaguerment." "Cordova," said the Arab historians,
"was in the condition of a frontier town exposed to all the attacks of
the enemy." Time after time the inhabitants were startled from their
sleep, in the midst of night, by the cries of distress raised by the
wretched peasants across the river, when the horsemen of Polei were
setting the sword to their throats. "The State is menaced with total
dissolution," wrote a contemporary witness; "disasters follow one
another ceaselessly; thieving and pillaging go on; our wives and
children are dragged into slavery." There were universal complaints of
the Sultan's want of energy, of his weakness, and his baseness. The
troops were grumbling because they were not paid. The provinces had
stopped the supplies, and the treasury was empty.
What money the Sultan had been able to borrow, he spent to bribe the few
Arabs who still affected to support him in the provinces. The deserted
markets showed how trade had been destroyed. Bread had reached a
fabulous price. Nobody believed any longer in the future; despair had
sunk into all hearts. The bigots, who regarded all public misfortunes as
the chastisement of God, and called Ibn-Hafs[=u]n the scourge of the divine
wrath, afflicted the city with their doleful prophecies. "Woe to thee,
Cordova!" they cried, "woe to thee, sink of defilement and decay, abode
of calamity and anguish, thou who hast neither friend nor ally! When the
Captain, with his great nose and ugly face, he who is guarded before by
Moslems and behind by idolaters--when Ibn-Hafs[=u]n comes before thy gates,
then will thy awful fate be accomplished!"
When things were at the worst, a gleam of hope shone upon the miserable
inhabitants of the royal city. Abdallah, who was quite as despairing as
his subjects, tried for once a bold policy, and in spite of the
discouragement of his followers, and, the overwhelming numbers of the
enemy who surrounded him on every side, he contrived to win a few
advantages. Then he did the best thing that he could do for his country:
he died on October 15, 912, aged sixty-eight, after a reign of
twenty-four unhappy years. His life had seen the fall of the Omeyyad
power, a fall sudden and apparently irremediable. The reign of his
successor was destined to see as sudden, as complete, a restoration of
that power.
The new Sultan was Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n III., a grandson of Abdallah. He was
only twenty-one when he came to the throne, and there were several
uncles and other kinsmen who might be expected to oppose the succession
of a mere youth at so troublous a time. Yet no one made any resistance;
on the contrary, his accession was hailed with satisfaction on all
sides. The young prince had already succeeded in winning the favour of
the people and the court. His handsome presence and princely bearing,
joined to a singular grace of manner and acknowledged powers of mind,
made him generally popular, and it was with a feeling of renewed hope
that the Cordovans, who were almost the only subjects he had left,
watched the first proceedings of the new Sultan. Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n made no
attempt to disguise his intentions. He abandoned once and for all the
policy of his grandfather, which, in its alternate weakness and cruelty,
had worked such injury to the State; and in its place he announced that
he would permit no disobedience throughout the dominions of the
Omeyyads; he summoned the disaffected nobles and chieftains to submit to
his authority; and he let it be clearly understood that he would leave
no portion of his kingdom under the control of rebels. The programme was
bold enough to satisfy the most sanguine; but there seemed every
probability that it would unite all the rebels in all parts in one great
league to crush the dauntless young prince. But Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n knew his
countrymen, and his boldness was well founded. Nearly a generation had
passed since Ibn-Hafs[=u]n and the other rebels had raised the standard of
insurrection, and every one had come to feel that there had been enough
of it. The early zeal that had prompted the Spaniards, Moslem and
Christian alike, to strike a blow for their national independence, had
now cooled,--such movements never last unless they achieve a complete
success at the first white heat of enthusiasm; the leaders were either
dead or aged, and a calmer spirit had come over their followers. People
had begun to ask themselves what was the good that they had obtained by
their fine revolutions? They had not freed Andalusia from the "infidel,"
but had contrariwise given her over to the worst members of the infidel
ranks--to brigand chiefs and adventurers of the vilest stamp. The
country was harried from end to end by bands of lawless robbers, who
destroyed the tilled fields and vineyards, and turned the land into a
howling wilderness. Anything was better than the tyranny of brigandage.
The Sultan of Cordova could not make matters worse than they were, and
there was a general disposition to see whether he might not possibly
improve them.
Consequently, when Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n began to lead his army against the
rebellious provinces, he found them more than half willing to submit.
His troops were inspirited to see their gallant young sovereign at their
head--a sight that Abdallah had not permitted them for many years--and
they followed him with enthusiasm. The rebels, already tired of their
anarchic condition, opened their gates after a mere show of resistance.
One after another the great cities of Andalusia admitted the Sultan
within their walls. The country to the south of Cordova was the first to
submit; then Seville opened her gates; the Berbers of the west were
reduced to obedience; and the prince of Algarve hastened to offer
tribute. Then the Sultan advanced against the Christians of the province
of Regio, where for thirty years the mountain fastnesses had protected
the bold subjects of Ibn-Hafs[=u]n, and where no one knew better than
Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n that no speedy victory was to be won. Yet step by step
this difficult region was subdued. Seeing the scrupulous justice and
honour of the Sultan, who kept his treaties with the Christians in
perfect good faith, and observed the utmost clemency to those who
submitted to him, fortress after fortress surrendered. Ibn-Hafs[=u]n
himself, in his fastness, remained unconquered and defiant as ever, but
he was old, and soon he died, and then it was only a matter of time for
the arms of the Sultan to penetrate even into Bobastro. When the Sultan
stood at last upon the ramparts of this redoubtable fortress, and looked
down from its dizzy heights upon the cliffs and precipices that
surrounded the rebel stronghold, he was overcome with emotion, and fell
upon his knees to render thanks to God for the great victory.[17] Then
he turned to acts of mercy and pardon, and all the days he stayed in the
fort he observed a solemn fast. Murcia had now given in its allegiance
to the Sultan, and Toledo alone remained unsubdued. The proud city on
the Tagus haughtily rejected Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n's offer of amnesty, and
confidently awaited the siege. But it had to do with a different
assailant from the feeble generals who had from time to time reaped
disgrace beneath the walls of the Royal City. To prove to its defenders
that his siege was no transitory menace, the Sultan quickly built a
little town, which he called El-Feth ("Victory"), on the opposite
mountain, and there he resided in calm anticipation of the result.
Pressed by famine, the city surrendered, and Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n III. entered
the last seat of rebellion in the dominions which he had inherited from
his namesake, the first Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n, which now (930) once more reached
to their full extent.
[Illustration: AQUEDUCT NEAR GRANADA.]
It had taken eighteen years to recover the whole breadth of dominion
which his predecessors had lost; but the work was done, and the royal
power was firmly established over Arabs, Berbers, Spaniards, Moslems and
Christians alike. Henceforward Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n permitted no special
prominence to any party; he kept the old Arab nobility in severe
repression; and the Spaniards, who had always been treated by them as
base _canaille_, rejoiced to see their oppressors brought low.
Henceforth the Sultan was the sole authority in the State; but his
authority was just, enlightened, and tolerant. After so many years of
confusion and anarchy, the people accepted the new despotism cheerfully.
There were no more brigands to destroy their crops and vines; and if the
Sultan was absolute in his power, at least he did not abuse it. The
country folk returned to the paths of peace and plenty; they were at
last free to get rich and to be happy after their own way.
[Illustration]
VII.
THE HOLY WAR.
Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n III.'s principle of government consisted in retaining the
sovereign power entirely in his own hands, and administering the kingdom
by officers who owed their elevation wholly to his favour. Above all, he
took care to leave no power in the hands of the old Arab aristocracy,
who had so ill served previous rulers. The men he appointed to high
places were parvenus, people of mean birth, who were the more attached
to their master because they knew that but for him they would be
trampled upon by the old Arab families. The force he employed to sustain
the central power was a large standing army, at the head of which stood
his select body-guard of _Slavs_, or purchased foreigners. They were
originally composed chiefly of men of Slavonian nationality, but came by
degrees to include Franks, Galicians, Lombards, and all sorts of people,
who were brought to Spain by Greek and Venetian traders, and sold while
still children to the Sultan, to be educated as Moslems. Many of them
were highly cultivated men, and naturally attached to their master. They
resembled in many respects the corps of Maml[=u]ks which Saladin's
successors introduced into Egypt as a body-guard, and which
subsequently attained such renown as Sultans of Egypt and Syria. Like
that body of purchased Turkish and Circassian slaves, they had their own
slaves under them, were granted estates by the Sultan, and formed a sort
of feudal retainers, prepared to serve their lord at the head of their
own followers whenever he might call upon them. Like the Egyptian
Maml[=u]ks, too, they came after a while to such a pitch of influence that
they took advantage of the decay of the central power, which followed
upon the death of Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n III. and his successor, to found
independent dynasties for themselves, and thus contribute to the final
overthrow of the Moslem domination in Spain.
With the aid of his "Slavs," the Sultan not only banished brigandage and
rebellion from Spain, but waged war with the Christians of the north
with brilliant success. The Mohammedan realm was menaced by more dangers
than those of internal anarchy. It was pressed between two threatening
and warlike kingdoms, each of which required to be kept in watchful
check. To the south the newly-founded empire of the F[=a]timite Khalifs in
North Africa was a standing menace. It was natural that the rulers of
the Barbary coast should remember that the Arabs before them had used
Africa as a stepping stone to Spain; the traditional policy of the
African dynasties was to compass, if possible, the annexation of the
fair provinces of Andalusia. It was only by skilfully working upon the
sectarian schisms, and consequent insurrections, which divided the
Berbers of Africa, that the Sultan succeeded in keeping the F[=a]timites
at a distance. He did succeed, however, so well, that at one time a
great part of the Barbary coast paid homage to the ruler of Spain, who
also obtained possession of the important fortress of Ceuta. A great
part of the Spanish revenue was devoted to building a magnificent fleet,
with which Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n disputed with the F[=a]timites the command of the
Mediterranean.
On the opposite side, on the north, the Moslem power had to deal with an
even more threatening enemy. The Christians of the Asturias had sprung
from very small beginnings, but they were now increasing in strength,
and they had the stimulating thought to spur them on, that they were
reconquering their own land. When first they had felt the shock of the
Moslem invasion, their rout had been utter and complete. They had fled
to the mountains of the Asturias, where their trifling numbers and the
inaccessibility of their situation gave them safety from the Mohammedan
attack. Pelagius, the "old Pelayo" of the ballad, had but thirty men and
ten women with him in the cave of Covadonga, which became the refuge of
the Gothic Christians; and the Arabs did not think it worth while to
hunt down the little remnant of refugees. Here, in the recesses of the
cave, which was approached through a long and narrow mountain pass, and
entered by a ladder of ninety steps, a handful of men might have set an
army at defiance.
The Arab historian[18] thus contemptuously describes the origin of the
Christian kingdom: "During Anbasa's administration a despicable
barbarian, whose name was Pelayo, rose in the land of Galicia, and,
having reproached his countrymen for their ignominious dependence and
their cowardly flight, began to stir them up to avenge their past
injuries and to expel the Moslems from the land of their fathers. From
that moment the Christians of Andalus began to resist the attacks of the
Moslems on such districts as had remained in their possession, and to
defend their wives and daughters. The commencement of the rebellion
happened thus: there remained no city, town, or village in Galicia but
what was in the hands of the Moslems, with the exception of a steep
mountain on which this Pelayo took refuge with a handful of men; there
his followers went on dying through hunger, until he saw their numbers
reduced to about thirty men and ten women, having no other food for
support than the honey which they gathered in the crevices of the rock
which they themselves inhabited like so many bees. However, Pelayo and
his men fortified themselves by degrees in the passes of the mountain,
until the Moslems were made acquainted with their preparations; but,
perceiving how few they were, they heeded not the advice conveyed to
them, and allowed them to gather strength, saying, 'What are thirty
barbarians, perched up on a rock? They must inevitably die!'" "Would to
God!" adds another historian--"Would to God that the Moslems had then
extinguished at once the sparks of a fire which was destined to consume
the whole dominions of Islam in those parts!"
The little band of refugees was strengthened from time to time by fresh
accessions, and, by degrees waxing more confident, came forth from their
stronghold, and began to harass the Berbers who formed the frontier
settlers. The Moors were at length compelled to seek out the intrepid
raiders in their cavern; but the result was discouraging; they were
driven back pell-mell with great loss. In 751 Alfonso of Cantabria
(where the Moslems had never penetrated), having married the daughter of
Pelayo and thus united the Christian forces, roused the northern
provinces against the Moors, and, joined by the Galicians of the west,
began a series of brilliant campaigns, by which the enemy was driven
step by step further south. One after the other the cities of Braga,
Porto, Astorga, Leon, Zamora, Ledesma, Salamanca, Saldana, Segovia,
Avila, Osma, Miranda, were recovered from the Moslems, and the Christian
frontier was now pushed as far as the great Sierra, and Coimbra, Coria,
Talavera, Toledo, Guadalaxara, Tudela, and Pamplona became the Moslem
border fortresses. Alfonso had in fact recovered the provinces of Old
Castile, Leon, Asturias, and Galicia; but the scanty band of Christians
had neither money nor serfs wherewith to build fortifications and
cultivate the fields over so immense an area: they contented themselves
with leaving the conquered country as a debatable land between them and
the Moors, and retired to the districts bordering the Bay of Biscay
until such time as their numbers should justify the occupation of a
wider area.
In the ninth century they were in a position to advance upon the
territory they had already in part recovered from the Moors. They
spread over Leon, and built the fortresses of Zamora, San Estevan de
Gormaz, Osma, and Simancas, to overawe the enemy. The debatable land was
now much narrower, and the hostile forces were almost in contact at
various places along the frontier. At the beginning of the tenth century
the Moors of the borders made a strenuous effort to regain their lost
dominions; but the Christians, aided by the men of Toledo, and by
Sancho, King of Navarre, who had become the bulwark of Christianity in
the north, defeated them severely, and began to harry the country over
the border. The forays of the Christians were a terrible curse to their
victims; they were rude, unlettered people, and few of them could even
read; their manners were on a par with their education; and their
fanaticism and cruelty were what might be expected from such uncouth
barbarians. Seldom did the soldiery of Leon give quarter to a
defenceless foe, and we may look in vain for the fine chivalry and
toleration of the Arabs; where the latter spared nobly, the rough
robbers of Leon and Castile massacred whole garrisons, cities full of
inhabitants, and those whom they did not slaughter they made slaves.