Ordono II. of Leon carried a devastating foray to the walls of Merida;
and so affrighted were the people of Badajoz that they hastened to
conciliate him with blackmail. These cities are not very far from
Cordova; only the lofty heights of the Sierra Morena separated the
capital of the Omeyyads from the companies of Ordono. The situation was
fraught with danger. The young Sultan, had he been a coward, might have
excused himself from instant action on the plea that Merida had not yet
recognized his authority, and that it was not his affair if the
Christians harried rebellious provinces. This, however, was not
Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n's policy or temper. He collected his troops and sent an
expedition to the north, which made a successful raid into the Christian
territories; and the following year, 917, he ordered a second attack.
This was defeated with heavy loss by Ordono before the walls of San
Estevar de Gormaz, and the brave Arab general, seeing that the fight was
lost, threw himself among the enemy, and died sword in hand. The King of
Leon had the pitiful cowardice to nail the head of this gallant soldier
to the gate of the fortress, side by side with that of a pig. Encouraged
by this success, the armies of Leon and Navarre ravaged the country
about Tudela in the following year, but not with equal impunity, for
they were twice beaten by the Cordovan troops. Seeing, however, that it
took a good deal of defeat to daunt the Christians, Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n
resolved upon stronger measures. In 920 he took command of the army
himself, and by rapid marches and skilful strategy surprised Osma, and
razed the fortress to the ground; destroyed San Estevan, which he found
deserted by its garrison; and then turned towards Navarre. Twice did he
drive Sancho from the field, and when the forces of Navarre were
reinforced by those of Leon, and the Christians had the best of the
natural position, the Sultan delivered battle with them in the Val de
Junqueras (Vale of Reeds), and totally routed their combined array.
Incensed by the obstinate defence of the borderers, the Moslems put the
garrison of Muez to the sword; and it is unfortunately true that in some
of these campaigns the Moors imitated the barbarities of their
antagonists, especially when their armies included a considerable
admixture of African troops, who were notoriously savage.
Nothing could exceed the heroic determination of the defeated
Christians; barbarous they were, but they had the courage of men: routed
again and again, they ever rose with fresh heart from the disaster. The
very year after the fatal battle in the Valley of Reeds, Ordono, who was
the soul of the Christian resistance, led his men on another raid over
the borders; and in 923 Sancho of Navarre, not to be behindhand,
recaptured some strong castles. Thus roused once more, the Sultan set
out for the north, filled with a stern resolve; he sacked and burned all
that came in his way; the cities emptied as he approached, so terrible
was the dread he inspired; and he entered the deserted capital of
Pamplona, driving Sancho away in confusion as he approached. The
cathedral and many of the houses of the capital were ruthlessly
destroyed, and Navarre was at his feet. About the same time Ordono of
Leon died, and the civil war which arose between his sons gave the
Sultan time to attend to other matters.
On his return from this triumphant campaign, Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n III. assumed
a new title. Hitherto the rulers of Andalusia had contented themselves
with such titles as _Em[=i]r_ (governor), _Sultan_ (dominator), "son of
the Khalifs." Although they were the heirs of the Omeyyad Khalifs, and
never recognized the Abb[=a]sides who had overturned them, the Andalusian
Sultans had not hitherto asserted their claim to the spiritual title:
they had considered that the name of Khalif should not be held by those
who had no authority over the Holy Cities of Islam, Mekka and Medina,
and had been content to leave the Abb[=a]sides in undisputed possession of
the name. Now, however, when it was known in Spain that the Abb[=a]side
Khalifs no longer exercised any real authority outside the city of
Baghdad, and were little better than prisoners even there, in
consequence of the growing independence of the various local dynasties,
Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n, in 929, assumed his title of Khalif with the style of
_En-N[=a]sir li-d[=i]ni-ll[=a]h_, "The Defender of the Faith of God."[19]
The Khalif had still thirty years more to reign when he adopted this new
name; and they were filled chiefly with wise and cultivated
administration at home, and with constant, even annual, expeditions
against the Christians, against whom he was indeed a "Defender" of his
religion. The civil war, which had for a time neutralized the power of
the Leonese, had now given place to the authority of a worthy successor
of the great Ordono. Ramiro II. succeeded in 931, and his warlike
character soon asserted itself in resolute opposition to the Khalif's
armies. Not long afterwards a formidable league was formed in the north
between the Christians and the Arab governor of Zaragoza, and
Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n hastened to demolish the coalition. In 937 he reduced
Zaragoza, and, marching on Navarre, spread such terror around his way
that the Queen Regent, Theuda, hastily paid him homage as her suzerain.
Ramiro, however, was no party to this surrender. He gathered his men
together, and inflicted a tremendous defeat on the Moslems in 939 at
Alhandega. Fifty thousand Moors fell upon the field: the Khalif himself
barely escaped with his life, and found himself flying through the
country with less than fifty horsemen. That disastrous year was long
known in Andalusia as the "Year of Alhandega."
Had the Christians pressed their advantage, a different history of Spain
would perhaps have had to be written; but, as usual, internecine
jealousies among the Christian princes came to the help of the Khalif,
and while his foes quarrelled among themselves he repaired his disaster,
recruited his army, and made ready for another campaign. The civil war
which thus aided him had its origin in the revolt of Castile from the
Leonese supremacy. The Count of Castile at this time was the celebrated
Fernando Gonzalez, of whom many minstrels have sung. He is one of the
great Spanish heroes, and was mated to a heroine. Twice did his wife
rescue him from the prison into which he had been cast by his jealous
neighbours of Navarre and Leon, and the second time she did it by
exchanging clothes with her husband and exposing herself to the fury of
his jailers. The earlier occasion was before their marriage, when he was
on his way to her father Garcia's court at Navarre, to ask her hand in
marriage, and the perfidious king laid hands upon him. A ballad tells
the story of his release:
They have carried afar into Navarre the great Count of Castille,
And they have bound him sorely, they have bound him hand and heel....
And there is joy and feasting because that lord is ta'en,
King Garci in his dungeon holds the doughtiest lord in Spain.
The poet goes on to tell how a Norman knight was riding through
Navarre--
For Christ his hope he came to cope with the Moorish scimitar:
and how he told Garcia's daughter of the captivity of Gonzalez, and how
grievous an injury it was to the cause of Christian Spain--
The Moors may well be joyful, but great should be our grief,
For Spain has lost her guardian, when Castile has lost her chief;
The Moorish host is pouring like a river o'er the land--
Curse on the Christian fetters that bind Gonzalez' hand!
And the Norman knight prayed the princess to set the prisoner free.
The lady answered little, but at the mirk of night,
When all her maids are sleeping, she hath risen and ta'en her flight:
She hath tempted the Alcayde with her jewels and her gold,
And unto her his prisoner that jailor false hath sold.[20]
So the princess took the Count out of his dungeon, and together they
rode to Castile.
At the time we have now reached, this is an old story, for Gonzalez had
been married many a year, and had determined that Castile should be a
separate kingdom, no longer under the suzerainty of Leon. For this he
was again captured and imprisoned by Ramiro, and only released when it
was apparent that the people of Castile would have no other lord but
him, and would even pay their homage to a mere statue of their Count
sooner than recognize a Leonese governor. Then the king let him out,
after making him swear to remain subject to the kingdom of Leon and to
give his daughter in marriage to Ordono the son of Ramiro. After this
humiliation, Fernando Gonzalez was less eager to fight beside the men of
Leon against the Moors; he resolved to let the Leonese take their share
of humiliation. But this was not to be in the days of the great Ramiro;
for he won another victory over the Moslems, near Talavera, in 950, and
the next year he died in undiminished glory.
On his death, Gonzalez began to play the part of king-maker. He espoused
the cause of Sancho against his brother, Ordono III., and when Sancho
succeeded the latter, in 957, Gonzalez turned about and expelled the new
king from Leon, and set up a wretched cripple, Ordono IV., surnamed the
Wicked, in his stead. Sancho took refuge with his grandmother, Theuda,
the Queen of Navarre, and they presently appealed to the Khalif of
Cordova to help them in their difficulties. Sancho was a martyr to
corpulency; he could not even walk without being held up. He resolved to
consult the eminent doctors of Cordova, whose skill was famous over all
the world. So Queen Theuda sent ambassadors to Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n, who in
return despatched the great Jewish physician, Hasdai, to undertake the
cure of Sancho the Fat. But he laid down certain conditions, among which
was the surrender of a number of castles, and the personal appearance of
Sancho and the Queen Theuda at Cordova. It was a hard thing to make the
long journey to the Moorish Court, and to feel that she was there as a
sort of show, in witness to the Khalif's power; but the Queen went, with
her son, the King of Navarre, and her grandson, the exiled King of Leon.
Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n received them with all the gorgeous ceremony and all the
native courtesy which belonged to him; and not only did Sancho speedily
get rid of his fatness under the care of Hasdai, but he returned to the
north, supported by the armies of the Khalif, who restored him to the
throne of Leon in 960.
In the following year the great Khalif died. He was seventy years old,
and his reign, of nearly fifty, had brought about such a change in the
condition of Spain as the wildest imagination could hardly conjure up.
When he came to the throne, a youth of twenty-one, his inheritance was
the prey to a thousand brigand chiefs or local adventurers; the
provinces had set up their own rulers; the many factions into which the
population was divided had each and all defied the authority of the
Sultan; and anarchy and plunder devastated the land. On the south the
African dynasty of the F[=a]timites threatened to engulf Spain in their
empire; on the north the Christian princes seemed ready to descend upon
their ancestral dominions and drive the Moors from the land. Out of this
chaos and vision of imminent destruction Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n had evolved order
and prosperity. Before half his reign was over he had restored peace and
good government throughout the length and breadth of the Moslem
dominions; he had banished the authority of parties, and established the
absolute power of the Sultan over all classes of his subjects. In the
second half he maintained the dignity and might of his State against
outside foes; held the African despots at a distance, planted a garrison
at Ceuta to withstand their advance, and contended with them on equal
terms on the sea; and in the north he curbed the growing power of the
Christians of Leon, Castile, and Navarre, and so convinced them of his
superiority that they even came to him to settle their differences and
restore them to their rights. He had rescued Andalusia both from herself
and from subjection by the foreigner.[21] And he had not only saved her
from destruction; he had made her great and happy. Never was Cordova so
rich and prosperous as under his rule; never was Andalusia so well
cultivated, so teeming with the gifts of nature, brought to perfection
by the skill and industry of man; never was the State so triumphant over
disorder, or the power of the law more widely felt and respected.
Ambassadors came to pay him court from the Emperor of Constantinople,
from the kings of France, of Germany, of Italy. His power, wisdom, and
opulence, were a byword over Europe and Africa, and had even reached to
the furthest limits of the Moslem empire in Asia. And this wonderful
change had been wrought by one man, with everything against him: the
restoration of Andalusia from the hopeless depths of misery to the
height of power and prosperity had been effected by the intellect and
will alone of the Great Khalif Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n III.
The Moorish historians describe this resolute man in colours that seem
hardly consistent with his strong imperious policy: nevertheless, they
describe him faithfully as "the mildest and most enlightened sovereign
that ever ruled a country. His meekness, his generosity, and his love of
justice became proverbial. None of his ancestors ever surpassed him in
courage in the field and zeal for religion; he was fond of science, and
the patron of the learned, with whom he loved to converse." Many
anecdotes are told of his strict justice and impartiality.
The Arab historian tells us that after his death a paper was found in
the Khalif's own handwriting, in which he had carefully noted those days
in his long reign which had been free from all sorrow; they numbered
only fourteen. "O man of understanding, wonder and observe how small a
portion of unclouded happiness the world can give even to the most
fortunate!"[22]
[Illustration]
VIII.
THE CITY OF THE KHALIF.
"Cordova," says an old Arab writer, "is the Bride of Andalusia. To her
belong all the beauty and the ornaments that delight the eye or dazzle
the sight. Her long line of Sultans form her crown of glory; her
necklace is strung with the pearls which her poets have gathered from
the ocean of language; her dress is of the banners of learning, well
knit together by her men of science; and the masters of every art and
industry are the hem of her garments." So did the Oriental historian
clothe the city he loved with the far-fetched imagery of the East.
Cordova, under the rule of the Great Khalif, was indeed a capital to be
proud of; and except perhaps Byzantium, no city of Europe could compare
with her in the beauty of her buildings, the luxury and refinement of
her life, and the learning and accomplishments of her inhabitants. When
we remember that the sketch we are about to extract from the records of
Arabian writers, concerning the glories of Cordova, relate to the tenth
century, when our Saxon ancestors dwelt in wooden hovels and trod upon
dirty straw, when our language was unformed, and such accomplishments as
reading and writing were almost confined to a few monks, we can to some
extent realize the extraordinary civilization of the Moors. And when it
is further recollected that all Europe was then plunged in barbaric
ignorance and savage manners, and that only where the remnants of the
Roman Empire were still able to maintain some trace of its ancient
civilization, only in Constantinople and some parts of Italy, were there
any traces of refinement, the wonderful contrast afforded by the capital
of Andalusia will be better appreciated.
Another Arab writer says that Cordova "is a fortified town, surrounded
by massive and lofty stone walls, and has very fine streets. It was in
times of old the residence of many infidel kings, whose palaces are
still visible within the precincts of the walls. The inhabitants are
famous for their courteous and polished manners, their superior
intelligence, their exquisite taste and magnificence in their meals,
dress, and horses. There thou wouldst see doctors shining with all sorts
of learning, lords distinguished by their virtues and generosity,
warriors renowned for their expeditions into the country of the
infidels, and officers experienced in all kinds of warfare. To Cordova
came from all parts of the world students eager to cultivate poetry, to
study the sciences, or to be instructed in divinity or law; so that it
became the meeting-place of the eminent in all matters, the abode of the
learned, and the place of resort for the studious; its interior was
always filled with the eminent and the noble of all countries, its
literary men and soldiers were continually vying with each other to gain
renown, and its precincts never ceased to be the arena of the
distinguished, the racecourse of readers, the halting-place of the
noble, and the repository of the true and virtuous. Cordova was to
Andalus what the head is to the body, or what the breast is to the
lion."[23]
Oriental praise is apt to be somewhat high flown; but Cordova really
deserved the praise that has been lavished upon it. In its present state
it is impossible to form any conception of the extent and beauty of the
old Moorish capital in the days of the Great Khalif. Its narrow streets
of whitewashed houses convey but a faint impression of its once
magnificent extent; the palace, Alcazar, is in decay, and its ruins are
used for the vile purpose of a prison; the bridge still spans the
Guadalquivir, however, and the noble mosque of the first Omeyyad is
still the wonder and delight of travellers. But in the time of
Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n III., or perhaps a little later, when a great minister
added a new faubourg, it was at its best. Historians are divided as to
its extent, but a length of at least ten miles seems to be the most
probable dimension. The banks of the Guadalquivir were bright with
marble houses, mosques, and gardens, in which the rarest flowers and
trees of other countries were carefully cultivated, and the Arabs
introduced their system of irrigation, which the Spaniards, both before
and since, have never equalled. The first Omeyyad Sultan imported a date
tree from Syria, to remind him of his old home; and to it he dedicated a
sad little poem to bewail his exile. It was planted in the garden which
he had laid out in imitation of that of his grandfather Hish[=a]m at
Damascus, where he had played as a child. He sent agents all over the
world to bring him the rarest exotics, trees, plants, and seeds; and so
skilful were the Sultan's gardeners that these foreign importations were
speedily naturalized, and spread from the palace over all the land. The
pomegranate was thus introduced by means of a specimen brought from
Damascus. The water by which these numerous gardens were supplied was
brought from the mountains (where vestiges of hydraulic works may still
be seen) by means of leaden pipes, through which it was conducted to
numerous basins, some of gold or silver, others of inlaid brass, and to
lakes, reservoirs, tanks, and fountains of Grecian marble.
[Illustration: EXTERIOR OF THE GREAT MOSQUE AT CORDOVA.]
The historians tell us marvellous things about the Sultan's palaces,
with their splendid gates, opening upon the gardens or the river, or
again giving entrance to the Great Mosque, whither the Sultan betook
himself on Fridays, over a path covered from end to end with rich
carpets. One of these palaces was called the Palace of Flowers, another
the Palace of Lovers, a third the Palace of Contentment, and another the
Palace of the Diadem, and so forth, while one retained the name of the
old home of the Omeyyads and was called "Damascus." Its roofs rested
upon marble columns, and its floors were inlaid with mosaics; and so
beautiful was it, that a poet sang, "All palaces in the world are
nothing when compared to Damascus, for not only has it gardens with the
most delicious fruits and sweet-smelling flowers, beautiful prospects
and limpid running waters, clouds pregnant with aromatic dew, and lofty
buildings; but its night is always perfumed, for morning pours on it her
grey amber, and night her black musk." Some of the gardens of Cordova
had tempting names, which seem to invite one to repose beside the
trickling waters and enjoy the sweet scent of the flowers and fruit. The
"Garden of the Water-wheel" gives one a sense of lazy enjoyment,
listening to the monotonous creaking of the wheel that pumped up the
water to the level of the garden beds; and the "Meadow of Murmuring
Waters" must have been an entrancing spot for the people of Cordova in
the hot weather. The quiet flow of the Guadalquivir was a constant
delight to the inhabitants; for the Eastern (and the Moors of Spain were
Easterns in everything but longitude) loves nothing better than a view
over a rippling stream. It was spanned by a noble bridge of seventeen
arches, which still testifies to the engineering powers of the Arabs.
The whole city was full of noble buildings, among which were counted
more than fifty thousand houses of the aristocracy and official classes,
more than a hundred thousand dwellings for the common people, seven
hundred mosques, and nine hundred public baths. The last were an
important feature in all Moslem towns, for among the Mohammedans
cleanliness is not "next to godliness," but is an essential preparation
for any act of prayer or devotion. While the mediaeval christians forbade
washing as a heathen custom, and the monks and nuns boasted of their
filthiness, insomuch that a lady saint recorded with pride the fact that
up to the age of sixty she had never washed any part of her body, except
the tips of her fingers when she was going to take the Mass--while dirt
was the characteristic of Christian sanctity, the Moslems were careful
in the most minute particulars of cleanliness, and dared not approach
their God until their bodies were purified. When Spain had at last been
restored to Christian rulers, Philip II., the husband of our English
Queen Mary, ordered the destruction of all public baths, on the ground
that they were relics of infidelity.
[Illustration: GATE OF THE MOSQUE OF CORDOVA.]