A great change had been wrought in Europe. The Crusades had opened a
channel through which flowed from the East reviving streams of ancient
knowledge and culture over the arid waste of mediaevalism. France and
England had awakened from their long mental torpor, Paris was become
the center of an intellectual revival. In England, Roger Bacon, in his
"Opus Majus," was systematizing all existing knowledge and laying a
foundation for a more advanced science and philosophy for the people,
who had only recently extorted from their wicked King John the great
charter of their liberties.
It was just at this period, when the door had suddenly opened ushering
Europe into a new life, that the Christian cause in Spain triumphed;
and, excepting in the little kingdom of Granada, the Cross waved from
the Pyrenees to the sea. After more than four centuries of steadfast
devotion to that object, the descendants of the Visigoth Kings had
come once more into their inheritance.
They found it enriched, and clothed with a beauty of which their
ancestors could never have dreamed. These Spaniards had learned their
lesson of valor in the north, and they had learned it well. Now in the
land of the Moor, dwelling in the palaces they had built, and gazing
upon masterpieces of Arabic art and architecture which they had
left, they were to learn the subtle charm of form and color, and the
fascination which music and poetry and beauty and knowledge may
lend to life. As they drank from these Moorish fountains the rugged
warriors found them very sweet; and they discovered that there were
other pleasures in life beside fighting the Moors and nursing memories
of the Cid and their vanished heroes.
The territory of Fernando III., King of Castile (1230-52), extended
now from the Bay of Biscay to the Guadalquivir. The ancient city of
Seville was chosen as his capital. It was a far cry from the "Cave
of Covadonga" to the Moorish palace of the "Alcazar," where dwelt
the pious descendant of Pelayo! The first act of Fernando III. was
to convert the Mosque at Seville into a cathedral, which still stands
with its Moorish bell-tower, the beautiful "Giralda." There may also
be seen to-day over one of its portals a stuffed crocodile, which was
sent alive to King Ferdinand by the Sultan of Egypt. And within the
cathedral, in a silver urn with glass sides, the traveler may also
gaze to-day upon the remains of this "Saint Ferdinand" clothed in
royal robes, and with a crown upon his head.
Spain had begun to lift up her head among the other nations of Europe.
To defeat the Crescent was the highest ideal of that chivalric age.
Spain, longer than any other nation, had fought the Mahommedan. It
had been her sole occupation for four centuries, and now she had
vanquished him, and driven him into the mountains of one of her
smallest provinces, there to hide from the Spaniards as they had once
hidden from the Moors in the North. This was a passport to the
honor and respect of other Christian nations. She was Spain "the
Catholic"--the loved and favorite child of the Church--and great
monarchs in England, France, and Germany bestowed their sons and
daughters upon her kings and princes. Poor though she was in purse,
and somewhat rude yet in manners, she held up her head high in
proud consciousness of her aristocratic lineage, and her unmatched
championship of Christianity.
We realize how close had become the tie binding her to other nations
when we learn that King Fernando III. was the grandson of Queen
Eleanor of England (daughter of Henry II.), and that Louis IX. of
France, that other royal saint, was his own cousin; and also that his
wife Beatrix, whom he brought with him to Seville, was daughter of
Frederick II., Emperor of Germany.
The deep hold which Arabic life and thought had taken upon their
conquerors was shown when Alfonso X., son of Ferdinand, came to the
throne. So in love was he with learning and science that he let his
kingdom fall into utter confusion while he busied himself with a set
of astronomical tables upon which his heart was set and in holding up
to ridicule the Ptolemaic theory. If he had given less thought to
the stars, and more to the humble question as to who was to be his
successor, it would have saved much strife and suffering to those who
came after him.
While the Moslems were building up their kingdom and making of their
capital city a second and even more beautiful Cordova, there was a
partial truce with the Moors in Granada. Moors and Christians were
enemies still; the hereditary hatreds were only lulled into temporary
repose. But Christian knights who were handsome and gallant might
love and woo Moorish maidens who were beautiful; and, as a writer
has intimated, love became the business and war the pastime of the
Spaniard in Andalusia. Spain was unconsciously inbibing the soft,
sensuous charm of the civilization she was exterminating; and the
peculiar rhythm of Spanish music, and the subtle picturesqueness
which makes the Spanish people unique among the other Latin nations
of Europe, came, not from her Gothic, nor her Roman, nor her Phenician
ancestry, but from the plains of Arabia; and the guitar and the dance
and the castanet, and the charm and the coquetry of her women, are
echoes from that far-off land of poetry and romance. Not so the
bull-fight! Would you trace to its source that pleasant pastime, you
must not go to the East; the Oriental was cruel to man, but not to
beast. He would have abhorred such a form of amusement, for the origin
of which we must look to the barbarous Kelt; or perhaps, as is more
probable, to the mysterious Iberians, since among the Latin peoples
of Europe bull-fighting is found in Spain alone. Well was it for Spain
that her rough, untutored ancestors were kept hiding in the mountains
for centuries, while that brilliant Oriental race planted their
Peninsula thick with the germs of high thinking and beautiful living.
As the spider, after his glistening habitation has been destroyed by
some ruthless footstep, goes patiently to work to rebuild it, so the
Moor in Granada, with his imperishable instinct for beauty, was making
of his little kingdom the most beautiful spot in Europe. The city of
Granada was lovelier than Cordova; its Alhambra more enchanting than
had been the palaces in the "City of the Fairest." This citadel,
which is fortress and palace in one, still stands like the Acropolis,
looking out upon the plain from its lofty elevation. Volumes have been
written about its labyrinthine halls and corridors and courts, and the
amazing richness of decoration, which still survives--an inexhaustible
mine for artists and a shrine for lovers of the beautiful. But Granada
cultivated other things besides the art of beauty. Nowhere in Europe
was there in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries such advanced
thinking, and a knowledge so akin to our own to-day, as within the
borders of that Moorish kingdom.