Influence of Mohammedanism--Circumcision of Christians--Even of a
bishop--Customs retained for contrast--Cleanliness rejected as peculiar
to Moslems--Celibacy of clergy--Chivalry--Origin--Derived from
Arabs--Favoured by state of Spain--Spain the cradle of chivalry--Arab
chivalry--Qualifications for a knight--Rules of knighthood--The
Cid--Almanzor--His generosity--Justice--Moslem military orders--Holy
wars--Christianity Mohammedanized--The "Apotheosis of
chivalry"--Chivalry a sort of religion--Social compromise--Culminates
in the Crusades 149-156
APPENDICES.
APPENDIX A.
Jews persecuted by Goths--Help the Saracens--Numbers--Jews in
France--Illtreated--Accusations against--Eleazar, an apostate--Incites
the Spanish Moslems against the Christians--Intellectual development of
Jews in Spain--Come to be disliked by Arabs--Jews and the
Messiah--Judaism deteriorated--Contact with Islam--Civil position--Jews
at Toledo--Christian persecution of
Jews--Massacre--Expulsion--Conversion--The "Mala Sangre"--The
Inquisition 156-161
APPENDIX B.
Spain and the papal power--Early independence--Early importance of
Spanish Church--Arian Spain--Orthodox Spain--Increase of papal
influence--Independent spirit of king and clergy--Quarrel with the
pope--Arab invasion--Papal authority in the North--Crusade
preached--Intervention of the pope--St James' relics--Claudius of
Turin--Rejection of pope's claims--Increase of pope's power in
Spain--Appealed to against Muzarabes--Errors of Migetius--Keeping of
Easter--Eating of pork--Intermarriage with Jews and Moslems--Fasting on
Sundays--Elipandus withstands the papal claims--Upholds intercourse
with Arabs--Rejects papal supremacy--Advance of Christians in the
North--Extension of power of the pope--Gothic liturgy
suspected--Suppressed--Authority of pope over king--Appeals from the
king to the pope--Rupture with the Roman See--Resistance of sovereign
and barons to the pope--Inquisition established--Victims--Moriscoes
persecuted--Reformation stamped out--Subjection of Spanish Church 161-173
LIST OF AUTHORITIES 175-182
CHAPTER I.
THE GOTHS IN SPAIN.
Just about the time when the Romans withdrew from Britain, leaving so
many of their possessions behind them, the Suevi, Alani, and Vandals, at
the invitation of Gerontius, the Roman governor of Spain, burst into
that province over the unguarded passes of the Pyrenees.[1] Close on
their steps followed the Visigoths; whose king, taking in marriage
Placidia, the sister of Honorius, was acknowledged by the helpless
emperor independent ruler of such parts of Southern Gaul and Spain as he
could conquer and keep for himself. The effeminate and luxurious
provincials offered practically no resistance to the fierce Teutons. No
Arthur arose among them, as among the warlike Britons of our own island;
no Viriathus even, as in the struggle for independence against the Roman
Commonwealth. Mariana, the Spanish historian, asserts that they
preferred the rule of the barbarians. However this may be, the various
tribes that invaded the country found no serious opposition among the
Spaniards: the only fighting was between themselves--for the spoil. Many
years of warfare were necessary to decide this important question of
supremacy. Fortunately for Spain, the Vandals, who seem to have been the
fiercest horde and under the ablest leader, rapidly forced their way
southward, and, passing on to fresh conquests, crossed the Straits of
Gibraltar in 429: not, however, before they had utterly overthrown their
rivals, the Suevi, on the river Baetis, and had left an abiding record
of their brief stay in the name Andalusia.
[1] "Inter barbaros pauperem libertatem quam inter Romanos tributariam
sollicitudinem sustinere."--Mariana, apud Dunham, vol i.
For a time it seemed likely that the Suevi, in spite of their late
crushing defeat, would subject to themselves the whole of Spain, but
under Theodoric II. and Euric, the Visigoths definitely asserted their
superiority. Under the latter king the Gothic domination in Spain may be
said to have begun about ten years before the fall of the Western
Empire. But the Goths were as yet by no means in possession of the whole
of Spain. A large part of the south was held by imperialist troops; for,
though the Western Empire had been extinguished in 476, the Eastern
emperor had succeeded by inheritance to all the outlying provinces,
which had even nominally belonged to his rival in the West. Among these
was some portion of Spain.
It was not till 570, the year in which Mohammed was born, that a king
came to the Gothic throne strong enough to crush the Suevi and to reduce
the imperialist garrisons in the South; and it was not till 622, the
very year of the Flight from Mecca, that a Gothic king, Swintila,
finally drove out all the Emperor's troops, and became king in reality
of all Spain.
Scarcely had this been well done, when we perceive the first indications
of the advent of a far more terrible foe, the rumours of whose
irresistible prowess had marched before them. The dread, which the Arabs
aroused even in distant Spain as early as a century after the birth of
Mohammed, may be appreciated from the despairing lines of Julian,[1]
bishop of Toledo:--
"Hei mihi! quam timeo, ne nos malus implicet error,
Demur et infandis gentibus opprobrio!
Africa plena viris bellacibus arma minatur,
Inque dies victrix gens Agarena furit."
Before giving an account of the Saracen invasion and its results, it
will be well to take a brief retrospect of the condition of Christianity
in Spain under the Gothic domination, and previous to the advent of the
Moslems.
[1] Migne's "Patrologie," vol. xcvi. p. 814.
There can be no doubt that Christianity was brought very early into
Spain by the preaching, as is supposed, of St Paul himself, who is said
to have made a missionary journey through Andalusia, Valencia, and
Aragon. On the other hand, there are no grounds whatever for supposing
that James, the brother of John, ever set foot in Spain. The "invention"
of his remains at Ira Flavia in the 9th century, together with the story
framed to account for their presence in a remote corner of Spain so far
from the scene of the Apostle's martyrdom, is a fable too childish to
need refutation.
The honour of first hearing the Gospel message has been claimed (but, it
seems, against probability) for Illiberis.[1] However that may be, the
early establishment of Christianity in Spain is attested by Irenaeus, who
appeals to the Spanish Church as retaining the primitive doctrine.[2]
The long roll of Spanish martyrs begins in the persecution of Domitian
(95 A.D.) with the name of Eugenius, bishop of Toledo. In most of the
succeeding persecutions Spain furnished her full quota of martyrs, but
she suffered most under Diocletian (303). It was in this emperor's reign
that nearly all the inhabitants of Caesar Augusta were treacherously
slaughtered on the sole ground of their being Christians; thus earning
for their native city from the Christian poet Prudentius,[3] the proud
title of "patria sanctorum martyrum."
[1] Florez, "Espana Sagrada," vol. iii. pp. 361 ff.
[2] Bk. I. ch. x. 2 (A.D. 186).
[3] 348-402 A.D.
The persecution of Diocletian, though the fiercest, was at the same time
the last, which afflicted the Church under the Roman Empire. Diocletian
indeed proclaimed that he had blotted out the very name of Christian and
abolished their hateful superstition. This even to the Romans must have
seemed an empty boast, and the result of Diocletian's efforts only
proved the truth of the old maxim--"the blood of martyrs is the seed of
the Church."
The Spanish Christians about this time[1] held the first ecclesiastical
council whose acts have come down to us. This Council of Illiberis, or
Elvira, was composed of nineteen bishops and thirty-six presbyters, who
passed eighty canons.
[1] The date is doubtful. Blunt, "Early Christianity," p. 209,
places it between 314 and 325, though in a hesitating manner.
Other dates given are 300 and 305.
The imperial edict of toleration was issued in 313, and in 325 was held
the first General Council of the Church under the presidency of the
emperor, Constantine, himself an avowed Christian. Within a quarter of a
century of the time when Diocletian had boasted that he had extirpated
the Christian name, it has been computed that nearly one half of the
inhabitants of his empire were Christians.
The toleration, so long clamoured for, so lately conceded, was in 341
put an end to by the Christians themselves, and Pagan sacrifices were
prohibited. So inconsistent is the conduct of a church militant and a
church triumphant! In 388, after a brief eclipse under Julian,
Christianity was formally declared by the Senate to be the established
religion of the Roman Empire.
But the security, or rather predominance, thus suddenly acquired by the
church, resting as it did in part upon royal favour and court intrigue,
did not tend to the spiritual advancement of Christianity. Almost
coincident with the Edict of Milan was the appearance of Arianism,
which, after dividing the Church against itself for upwards of
half-a-century, and almost succeeding at one time in imposing itself on
the whole Church,[1] finally under the missionary zeal of Ulphilas found
a new life among the barbarian nations that were pressing in upon all
the northern boundaries of the Empire, ready, like eagles, to swoop down
and feast upon her mighty carcase.
[1] At the Council of Rimini in 360. "Ingemuit totus orbis,"
says Jerome, "et Arianum se esse miratus est."
Most of these barbaric hordes, like the Goths and the Vandals, adopted
the semi-Arian Christianity first preached to them by Ulphilas towards
the close of the fourth century. Consequently the nations that forced
their way into Southern Gaul, and over the Pyrenees into Spain, were,
nominally at least, Christians of the Arian persuasion. The extreme
importance to Spain of the fact of their being Christians at all will be
readily apprehended by contrasting the fate of the Spanish provincials
with that which befell the Christian and Romanized Britons at the hands
of our own Saxon forefathers only half-a-century later.
Meanwhile the Church in Spain, like the Church elsewhere, freed from the
quickening and purifying influences of persecution, had lost much of its
ancient fervour. Gladiatorial shows and lascivious dances on the stage
began to be tolerated even by Christians, though they were denounced by
the more devout as incompatible with the profession of the Christian
faith.
Spain also furnishes us with the first melancholy spectacle of Christian
blood shed by Christian hands. Priscillian, bishop of Avila, was led
into error by his intercourse with an Egyptian gnostic. What his error
exactly was is not very clear, but it seems to have comprised some of
the erroneous doctrines attributed to Manes and Sabellius. In 380, the
new heresy, with which two other bishops besides Priscillian became
infected, was condemned at a council held at Saragoza, and by another
held five years later at Bordeaux. Priscillian himself and six other
persons were executed with tortures at the instigation of Ithacius,[1]
bishop of Sossuba, and Idacius, bishop of Merida, in spite of the
protests of Martin of Tours and others. The heresy itself, however, was
not thus stamped out, and continued in Spain until long after the Gothic
conquest.
There is some reason for supposing that at the time of the Gothic
invasion Spain was still in great part Pagan, and that it continued to
be so during the whole period of Gothic domination.[2] Some Pagans
undoubtedly lingered on even as late as the end of the sixth century,[3]
but that there were any large numbers of them as late as the eighth
century is improbable.
Dr Dunham, who has given a clear and concise account of the Gothic
government in Spain, calls it the "most accursed that ever existed in
Europe."[4] This is too sweeping a statement, though it must be allowed
that the haughty exclusiveness of the Gothic nobles rendered their yoke
peculiarly galling, while the position of their slaves was wretched
beyond all example. However, it is not to their civil administration
that we wish now to draw attention, but rather to the relations of
Church and State under a Gothic administration which was at first Arian
and subsequently orthodox.
[1] See Milman, "Latin Christianity," vol. iii. p. 60.
[2] Dozy, ii. 44, quotes in support of this the second canon of
the Sixteenth Council of Toledo.
[3] Mason, a bishop of Merida, was said to have baptized a
Pagan as late as this.
[4] Dunham's "Hist. of Spain," vol. i. p. 210.
The Government, which began with being of a thoroughly military
character, gradually tended to become a theocracy--a result due in great
measure to the institution of national councils, which were called by
the king, and attended by all the chief ecclesiastics of the realm. Many
of the nobles and high dignitaries of the State also took part in these
assemblies, though they might not vote on purely ecclesiastical matters.
These councils, of which there were nineteen in all (seventeen held at
Toledo, the Gothic capital, and two elsewhere), gradually assumed the
power of ratifying the election of the king, and of dictating his
religious policy. Thus by the Sixth Council of Toledo (canon three) it
was enacted that all kings should swear "not to suffer the exercise of
any other religion than the Catholic, and to vigorously enforce the law
against all dissentients, especially against that accursed people the
Jews." The fact of the monarchy becoming elective[1] no doubt
contributed a good deal to throwing the power into the hands of the
clergy.
Dr Dunham remarks that these councils tended to make the bishops
subservient to the court, but surely the evidence points the other way.
On the whole it was the king that lost power, though no doubt as a
compensation he gained somewhat more authority over Church matters. He
could, for instance, issue temporary regulations with regard to Church
discipline. Witiza, one of the last of the Gothic kings, seems even to
have authorized, or at least encouraged, the marriage of his clergy.[2]
The king could preside in cases of appeal in purely ecclesiastical
affairs; and we know that Recared I. (587-601) and Sisebert (612-621)
did in fact exercise this right. He also gained the power of nominating
and translating bishops; but it is not clear when this privilege was
first conceded to the king.[3] The Fourth Council of Toledo (633)
enacted that a bishop should be elected by the clergy and people of his
city, and that his election should be approved by the metropolitan and
synod of his province: while the Twelfth Council, held forty-eight years
later, evidently recognizes the validity of their appointment by royal
warrant alone. Some have referred this innovation back to the despotic
rule of Theodoric the Ostrogoth, at the beginning of the sixth century;
others to the sudden accumulation of vacant sees on the fall of Arianism
in Spain. Another important power possessed by the kings was that of
convoking these national councils, and confirming their acts.
[1] In 531 A.D.
[2] Monk of Silo, sec. 14, who follows Sebastian of Salamanca;
Robertson, iii. 6. We learn from the "Chron. Sil," sec. 27,
that Fruela (757-768) forbade the marriage of clergy. But these
accounts of Witiza's reign are all open to suspicion.
[3] Robertson, "Hist. of Christian Church," vol. iii. p. 183.
The sudden surrender of their Arianism by the Gothic king and nobles is
a noticeable phenomenon. All the barbarian races that invaded Spain at
the beginning of the fifth century were inoculated with the Arian
heresy. Of these the Vandals carried their Arianism, which proved to be
of a very persecuting type, into Africa. The Suevi, into which nation
the Alani, under the pressure of a common enemy, had soon been absorbed,
gave up their Arianism for the orthodox faith about 560. The Visigoths,
however, remained Arians until a somewhat later period--until 589
namely, when Recared I., the son of Leovigild, held a national council
and solemnly abjured the creed of his forefathers, his example being
followed by many of his nobles and bishops.
The Visigoths, while they remained Arian, were on the whole remarkably
tolerant[1] towards both Jews and Catholics, though we have instances
to the contrary in the cases of Euric and Leovigild, who are said to
have persecuted the orthodox party. The latter king, indeed, who was
naturally of a mild and forgiving temper, was forced into harsh measures
by the unfilial and traitorous conduct of his son Ermenegild. If the
latter had been content to avow his conversion to orthodoxy without
entering into a treasonable rebellion in concert with the Suevi and
Imperialists against his too indulgent father, there is every reason to
think that Leovigild would have taken no measures against him. Even
after a second rebellion the king offered to spare his son's life--which
was forfeit to the State--on condition that he renounced his
newly-adopted creed, and returned to the Arian fold. His reason--a very
intelligible one--no doubt was that he might put an end to the risk of a
third rebellion by separating his son effectually from the intriguing
party of Catholics. To call Ermenegild a martyr because he was put to
death under such circumstances is surely an abuse of words.
[1] Lecky, "Rise of Rationalism," vol. i. p. 14, note, says
that the Arian Goths were intolerant; but there seem to be
insufficient grounds for the assertion.
With the fall of Arianism came a large accession of bigotry to the
Spanish Church, as is sufficiently shewn by the canon above quoted from
the Sixth Council of Toledo. A subsequent law was even passed forbidding
anyone under pain of confiscation of his property and perpetual
imprisonment, to call in question the Holy Catholic and Apostolic
Church; the Evangelical Institutions; the definitions of the Fathers;
the decrees of the Church; and the Sacraments. In the spirit of these
enactments, severe measures were taken against the Jews, of whom there
were great numbers in Spain. Sisebert (612-621) seems to have been the
first systematic persecutor, whose zeal, as even Isidore confesses, was
"not according to knowledge."[1] A cruel choice was given the Jews
between baptism on the one hand, and scourging and destitution on the
other. When this proved unavailing, more stringent edicts were enforced
against them. Those who under the pressure of persecution consented to
be baptised, were forced to swear by the most solemn of oaths that they
had in very truth renounced their Jewish faith and abhorred its rites.
Those who still refused to conform were subjected to every indignity and
outrage. They were obliged to have Christian servants, and to observe
Sunday and Easter. They were denied the _s connubii_ and the _ius
honorum_. Their testimony was invalid in law courts, unless a Christian
vouched for their character. Some who still held out were even driven
into exile. But this punishment could not have been systematically
carried out, for the Saracen invasion found great numbers of Jews still
in Spain. As Dozy[2] well says of the persecutors--"On le voulut bien,
mais on ne le pouvait pas."
[1] Apud Florez, "Esp. Sagr.," vol. vi. p. 502, quoted by
Southey, Roderic, p. 255, n. "Sisebertus, qui in initio regni
Judaeos ad fidem Christianam permovens, aemulationem quidem
habuit, sed non secundum scientiam: potestate enim compulit,
quos provocare fidei ratione oportuit. Sed, sicut est scriptum,
sive per occasionem sive per veritatem Christus annunciatur, in
hoc gaudeo et gaudebo."
[2] "History of Mussulmans in Spain," vol. ii. p. 26.
Naturally enough, under these circumstances the Jews of Spain turned
their eyes to their co-religionists in Africa; but, the secret
negotiations between them being discovered, the persecution blazed out
afresh, and the Seventeenth Council of Toledo[1] decreed that relapsed
Jews should be sold as slaves; that their children should be forcibly
taken from them; and that they should not be allowed to marry among
themselves.[2]
[1] Canon 8, de damnatione Judaeorum.
[2] For the further history of the Jews in Spain, see Appendix
A.
These odious decrees against the Jews must be attributed to the dominant
influence of the clergy, who requited the help they thus received from
the secular arm by wielding the powers of anathema and excommunication
against the political enemies of the king.[1] Moreover the cordial
relations which subsisted between the Church and the State, animated as
they were by a strong spirit of independence, enabled the Spanish kings
to resist the dangerous encroachments of the Papal power, a subject
which has been more fully treated in an Appendix.[2]
[1] The councils are full of denunciations aimed at the rebels
against the king's authority. By the Fourth Council (633) the
deposed Swintila was excommunicated.
[2] Appendix B.
CHAPTER II.
THE SARACENS IN SPAIN.
The Gothic domination lasted 300 years, and in that comparatively short
period we are asked by some writers to believe that the invaders quite
lost their national characteristics, and became, like the Spaniards,
luxurious and effeminate.[1] Their haughty exclusiveness, and the fact
of their being Arians, may no doubt have tended to keep them for a time
separate from, and superior to, the subject population, whom they
despised as slaves, and hated as heretics. But when the religious
barrier was removed, the social one soon followed, and so completely did
the conquerors lose their ascendency, that they even surrendered their
own Teutonic tongue for the corrupt Latin of their subjects.
[1] Cardonne's "History of Spain," vol. i. p. 62. "Bien
differens des leurs ancetres etoient alors enerves par les
plaisirs, la douceur du climat; le luxe et les richesses
avoient amolli leur courage et corrompu les moeurs." Cp.
Dunham, vol. i. 157.
But the Goths had certainly not become so degenerate as is generally
supposed. Their Saracen foes did not thus undervalue them. Musa ibn
Nosseyr, the organiser of the expedition into Spain, and the first
governor of that country under Arab rule, when asked by the Khalif
Suleiman for his opinion of the Goths, answered that "they were lords
living in luxury and abundance, but champions who did not turn their
backs to the enemy."[1] There can be no doubt that this praise was well
deserved. Nor is the comparative ease with which the country was
overrun, any proof to the contrary. For that must be attributed to
wholesale treachery from one end of the country to the other. But for
this the Gothic rulers had only themselves to blame. Their treatment of
the Jews and of their slaves made the defection of these two classes of
their subjects inevitable.
The old Spanish chroniclers represent the fall of the Gothic kingdom as
the direct vengeance of Heaven for the sins of successive kings;[2] but
on the heads of the clergy, even more than of the king, rests the guilt
of their iniquitous and suicidal policy towards the Arians[3] and the
Jews. The treachery of Julian,[4] whatever its cause, opened a way for
the Arabs into the country by betraying into their hands Ceuta, the key
of the Straits. Success in their first serious battle was secured to
them by the opportune desertion from the enemy's ranks of the
disaffected political party under the sons of the late king Witiza,[5]
and an archbishop Oppas, who afterwards apostatized; while the rapid
subjugation of the whole country was aided and assured by the hosts of
ill-used slaves who flocked to the Saracen standards, and by the Jews[6]
who hailed the Arabs as fellow-Shemites and deliverers from the hated
yoke of the uncircumcised Goths.
[1] Al Makkari, vol. i. p. 297. (De Gayangos' translation).
[2] "Chron. Sil.," sec. 17, "recesserat ab Hispania manus
Domini ob inveteratam regum malitiam." See above, p. 7, note 2.
[3] Arianism lingered on till the middle of the eighth century
at least, since Rodrigo of Toledo, iii., sec. 3, says of
Alfonso I., that he "extirpavit haeresin Arianam."
[4] For Julian, or, more correctly, Ilyan, see De
Gayangos' note to Al Makkari, i. p. 537, etc.
[5] Called Ghittishah by the Arabs. For the Witizan party see
"Sebast. Salan," sec. 7; "Chron. Sil.," sec. 15. The daughter
of Witiza married a noble Arab. The descendants of the King,
under the name Witizani, were known in Spain till the end of
the eighth century at least. See Letter of Beatus and Etherius
to Elipandus, sec. 61; "Multi hodie ab ipso rege sumunt nomen
_Witizani_, etiam pauperes." See also Al Makkari, ii. 14.
[6] The Jews garrisoned the taken towns (Al Makkari, i. pp.
280, 282, and De Gayangos' note, p. 531). Even as late as 852
we find the Jews betraying Barcelona to the Moors, who slew
nearly all the Christians.
Yet in spite of all these disadvantages the Goths made a brave stand--as
brave, indeed, as our Saxon forefathers against the Normans. The first
decisive battle in the South[1] lasted, as some writers have declared,
six whole days, and the Arabs were at one time on the point of being
driven into the sea. This is apparent from Tarik's address to his
soldiers in the heat of battle: "Moslems, conquerors of Africa, whither
would you fly? The sea is behind you, and the foe in front. There is no
help for you save in your own right hands[2] and the favour of God." Nor
must we lay any stress on the disparity of forces on either side,
amounting to five to one, for a large proportion of Roderic's army was
disaffected. It is probable that only the Goths made a determined stand;
and even after such a crushing defeat as they received at Guadalete, and
after the loss of their king, the Gothic nobles still offered a stubborn
resistance in Merida, Cordova, and elsewhere.[3] One of them,
Theodomir, after defending himself manfully in Murcia for some time, at
last by his valour and address contrived to secure for himself, and even
to hand down to his successor Athanagild, a semi-independent rule over
that part of Spain.
[1] Generally called the battle of Guadalete (Wada Lek, see De
Gayangos on Al Makk. i. pp. 524, 527), fought either near Xeres
or Medina Sidonia.
[2] "Una salus victis nullam sperare salutem." See Al Makk. i.
p. 271; Conde i. p. 57 (Bohn's Translation).
[3] We must not forget also that the mild and politic conduct
of the Saracens towards the towns that surrendered, even after
resistance, marvellously facilitated their conquest.
But the great proof that the Goths had not lost all their ancient
hardihood and nobleness, is afforded by the fact that, when they had
been driven into the mountains of the North and West, they seem to have
begun at once to organize a fresh resistance against the invaders. The
thirty[1] wretched barbarians, whom the Arabs thought it unnecessary to
pursue into their native fastnesses, soon showed that they had power to
sting; and the handful of patriots, who in the cave of Covadonga
gathered round Pelayo, a scion of the old Gothic line, soon swelled into
an army, and the army into a nation. Within six years of the death of
Roderic had begun that onward march of the new Spanish monarchy, which,
with the exception of a disastrous twenty-five years at the close of the
tenth century, was not destined to retrograde, scarcely even to halt,
until it had regained every foot of ground that had once belonged to the
Gothic kings.
Let us turn for a moment to the antecedents of the Arab invaders.
History affords no parallel, whether from a religious or political point
of view, to the sudden rise of Mohammedanism and the wonderful conquests
which it made. "The electric spark[2] had indeed fallen on what seemed
black unnoticeable sand, and lo the sand proved explosive powder and
blazed heaven-high from Delhi to Granada!" Mohammed began his preaching
in 609, and confined himself to persuasion till 622, the year of the
Flight from Mecca. After this a change seems to have come over his
conduct, if not over his character, and the Prophet, foregoing the
peaceful and more glorious mission of a Heaven-sent messenger, appealed
to the human arbitrament of the sword: not with any very marked success,
however, the victory of Bedr in 624 being counterbalanced by the defeat
of Ohud in in the following year. In 631, Arabia being mostly pacified,
the first expedition beyond its boundaries was undertaken under
Mohammed's own leadership, but this abortive attempt gave no indications
of the astonishing successes to be achieved in the near future. Mohammed
himself died in the following year, yet, in spite of this and the
consequent revolt of almost all Arabia, within two years Syria was
overrun and Damascus taken. Persia, which had contended for centuries on
equal terms with Rome, was overthrown in a single campaign. In 637
Jerusalem fell, and the sacred soil of Palestine passed under the yoke
of the Saracens. Within three years Alexandria and the rich valley of
the Nile were the prize of Amru and his army. The conquest of Egypt only
formed the stepping-stone to the reduction of Africa, and the victorious
Moslems did not pause in their career until they reached the Atlantic
Ocean, and Akbah,[3] riding his horse into the sea, sighed for more
worlds to conquer. We may be excused perhaps for thinking that it had
been well for the inhabitants of the New World, if Fortune had delivered
them into the hands of the generous Arabs rather than to the cruel
soldiery of Cortes and Pizarro.
[1] Al Makk., ii. 34. "What are thirty barbarians perched upon
a rock? They must inevitably die."
[2] Carlyle's "Hero Worship" ad finem.
[3] Cardonne, i. p. 37; Gibbon, vi. 348, note.
In 688, that is, in a little more than a generation from the death of
Mohammed, the Moslems undertook the siege of Constantinople. Fortunately
for the cause of civilisation and of Christendom, this long siege of
several years proved unsuccessful, as well as a second attack in 717.
But by the latter date the footing in Europe, which the valour of the
Byzantines denied them, had already been gained by the expedition into
Spain under Tarik in 711. The same year that witnessed the crossing of
the Straits of Gibraltar in the West saw also in the East the passage of
the Oxus by the eager warriors of Islam.
There seems to be some ground for supposing that the Saracens had
attacked Spain even before the time of Tarik. As early as 648, or only
one year after the invasion of Africa, an expedition is said to have
been made into that country under Abdullah ibn Sa'd,[1] which resulted
in the temporary subjugation of the southern provinces. A second inroad
is mentioned by Abulfeda[2] as having taken place in Othman's reign
(644-656); while for an incursion in the reign of Wamba (671-680) we
have the authority of the Spanish historians, Isidore of Beja and
Sebastian of Salamanca, the former of whom adds the fact that the
Saracens were invited in by Erviga, who afterwards succeeded Wamba on
the throne--a story which seems likely enough when read in the light of
the subsequent treason of Julian. These earlier attacks, however, seem
to have been mere raids, undertaken without an immediate view to
permanent conquest.
By way of retaliation, or with a commendable foresight, the Goths sent
help to Carthage when besieged by the Arabs in 695; and, while Julian
their general still remained true to his allegiance, they beat off the
Saracens from Ceuta. But on the surrender of that fortress the Arabs
were enabled to send across the Straits a small reconnoitring detachment
of five hundred men under Tarif abu Zarah,[3] a Berber. This took place
in October 710; but the actual invasion did not occur till April 30,
711, when 12,000 men landed under Tarik ibn Zeyad. There seems to have
been a preliminary engagement before the decisive one of Gaudalete (July
19th-26th)--the Gothic general in the former being stated variously to
have been Theodomir,[4] Sancho,[5] or Edeco.[6]
[1] See De Gayangos' note on Al Makkari, i. p. 382.
[2] "Annales Moslemici," i. p. 262.
[3] The names of Tarif ibn Malik abu Zarah and Tarik ibn Zeyad
have been confused by all the careless writers on Spanish
history--_e.g._ Conde, Dunham, Yonge, Southey, etc.; but Gibbon,
Freeman, etc., of course do not fall into this error. For
Tarif's names see De Gayangos, Al Makk., i. pp. 517, 519; and
for Tarik's see "Ibn Abd el Hakem," Jones' translation, note
10.
[4] Al Makk., i. 268; Isidore: Conde, i. 55.
[5] Cardonne, i. 75.
[6] Dr Dunham.
It will not be necessary to pursue the history of the conquest in
detail. It is enough to say that in three years almost all Spain and
part of Southern Gaul were added to the Saracen empire. But the Arabs
made the fatal mistake[1] of leaving a remnant of their enemies
unconquered in the mountains of Asturia, and hardly had the wave of
conquest swept over the country, than it began slowly but surely to
recede. The year 733 witnessed the high-water mark of Arab extension in
the West, and Christian Gaul was never afterwards seriously threatened
with the calamity of a Mohammedan domination.
The period of forty-five years which elapsed between the conquest and
the establishment of the Khalifate of Cordova was a period of disorder,
almost amounting to anarchy, throughout Spain. This state of things was
one eminently favourable to the growth and consolidation of the infant
state which was arising among the mountains of the Northwest. In that
corner of the land, which alone[2] was not polluted by the presence of
Moslem masters, were gathered all those proud spirits who could not
brook subjection and valued freedom above all earthly possessions.[3]
Here all the various nationalities that had from time to time borne
rule in Spain,
"Punic and Roman Kelt and Goth and Greek," [4]
all the various classes, nobles, freemen, and slaves, were gradually
welded by the strong pressure of a common calamity into one compact and
homogeneous whole.[5] Meanwhile what was the condition of those
Christians who preferred to live in their own homes, but under the
Moslem yoke? It must be confessed that they might have fared much worse;
and the conciliatory policy pursued by the Arabs no doubt contributed
largely to the facility of the conquest. The first conqueror, Tarik ibn
Zeyad, was a man of remarkable generosity and clemency, and his conduct
fully justified the proud boast which he uttered when arraigned on false
charges before the Sultan Suleiman.[6] "Ask the true believers," he
said, "ask also the Christians, what the conduct of Tarik has been in
Africa and in Spain. Let them say if they have ever found him cowardly,
covetous, or cruel."
[1] Al Makkari, ii. 34.
[2] According to Sebastian of Salamanca, the Moors had never
been admitted into any town of Biscay before 870.
[3] Prescott, "Ferdinand and Isabella," seems to think that
only the lower orders remained under the Moors. Yet in a note
he mentions a remark of Zurita's to the contrary (page 3).
[4] Southey, "Roderick," Canto IV.
[5] Thierry, "Dix Ans d'Etudes Historiques," p. 346. "Reserres
dans ce coin de terre, devenu pour eux toute la patrie, Goths
et Romains, vainqueurs et vaincus, etrangers et indigenes,
maitres et esclaves, tous unis dans le meme malheur ... furent
egaux dans cet exil." Yet there were revolts in every reign.
Fruela I. (757-768), revolt of Biscay and Galicia: Aurelio
(768-774), revolt of slaves and freedmen, see "Chron. Albeld.,"
vi. sec. 4, and Rodrigo, iii. c. 5, in pristinam servitutem
redacti sunt: Silo (774-783), Galician revolt: also revolts in
reigns of Alfonso I., Ramiro I. See Prescott, "Ferd. and
Isab.," p. 4.
[6] Or his predecessor, Welid, for the point is not determined.
The terms granted to such towns as surrendered generally contained the
following provisions: that the citizens should give up all their horses
and arms; that they might, if they chose, depart, leaving their
property; that those who remained should, on payment of a small tribute,
be permitted to follow their own religion, for which purposes certain
churches were to be left standing; that they should have their own
judges, and enjoy (within limits) their own laws. In some cases the
riches of the churches were also surrendered, as at Merida,[1] and
hostages given. But conditions even better than these were obtained from
Abdulaziz, son of Musa, by Theodomir in Murcia. The original document
has been preserved by the Arab historians, and is well worthy of
transcription:
"In the name of God the Clement and Merciful! Abdulaziz and Tadmir make
this treaty of peace--may God confirm and protect it! Tadmir shall
retain the command over his own people, but over no other people among
those of his faith. There shall be no wars between his subjects and
those of the Arabs, nor shall the children or women of his people be led
captive. They shall not be disturbed in the exercise of their religion:
their churches shall not be burnt, nor shall any services be demanded
from them, or obligations be laid upon them--those expressed in this
treaty alone excepted.... Tadmir shall not receive our enemies, nor fail
in fidelity to us, and he shall not conceal whatever hostile purposes he
may know to exist against us. His nobles and himself shall pay a tribute
of a dinar[2] each year, with four measures of wheat and four of barley;
of mead, vinegar, honey, and oil each four measures. All the vassals of
Tadmir, and every man subject to tax, shall pay the half of these
imposts."[3]
These favourable terms were due in part to the address of Theodomir,[4]
and partly perhaps to Abdulaziz's own partiality for the Christians,
which was also manifested in his marriage with Egilona, the widow of
King Roderic, and the deference which he paid to her. This predilection
for the Christians brought the son of Musa into ill favour with the
Arabs, and he was assassinated in 716.[5]
[1] Conde i. p. 69. This was perhaps due to Musa's notorious
avarice.
[2] Somewhat less than ten shillings.
[3] Al Makkari, i. 281: Conde, i. p. 76.
[4] Isidore, sec, 38, says of him: "Fuit scripturarum amator,
eloquentia mirificus, in proeliis expeditus, qui et apud Amir
Almumenin prudentior inter ceteros inventus, utiliter est
honoratus."
[5] Al Makkari, ii. p. 30. He was even accused of entering into
treasonable correspondence with the Christians of Galicia; of
forming a project for the massacre of Moslems; of being himself
a Christian, etc.
On the whole it may be said that the Saracen conquest was accomplished
with wonderfully little bloodshed, and with few or none of those
atrocities which generally characterize the subjugation of a whole
people by men of an alien race and an alien creed. It cannot, however,
be denied that the only contemporary Christian chronicler is at variance
on this point with all the Arab accounts.
"Who," says Isidore of Beja, "can describe such horrors! If every limb
in my body became a tongue, even then would human nature fail in
depicting this wholesale ruin of Spain, all its countless and
immeasurable woes. But that the reader may hear in brief the whole story
of sorrow--not to speak of all the disastrous ills which in innumerable
ages past from Adam even till now in various states and regions of the
earth a cruel and foul foe has caused to a fair world--whatever Troy in
Homer's tale endured, whatever Jerusalem suffered that the prophets'
words might come to pass, whatever Babylon underwent that the Scripture
might be fulfilled--all this, and more, has Spain experienced--Spain
once full of delights, but now of misery, once so exalted in glory, but
now brought low in shame and dishonour."[1]
[1] Cp. also Isidore, sec 36. Dunham, ii. p. 121, note,
curiously remarks: "Both Isidore and Roderic may exaggerate,
but the exaggeration proves the fact."
This is evidently mere rhapsody, of the same character as the ravings
of the British monk Gildas, though far less justified as it seems by the
actual facts. Rodrigo of Toledo, following Isidore after an interval of
500 years, improves upon him by entering into details, which being in
many particulars demonstrably false, may in others be reasonably looked
upon with suspicion as exaggerated, if not entirely imaginary. His words
are: Children are dashed on the ground, young men beheaded, their
fathers fall in battle, the old men are massacred, the women reserved
for greater misfortune; every cathedral burnt or destroyed, the national
substance plundered, oaths and treaties uniformly broken.[1]
To appreciate the mildness and generosity of the Arabs, we need only
compare their conquest of Spain with the conquest of England by the
Saxons, the Danes, and even by the Christian Normans. The comparison
will be all in favour of the Arabs. It is not impossible that, if the
invaders had been Franks instead of Moors, the country would have
suffered even more, as we can see from the actual results effected by
the invasion of Charles the Great in 777. Placed as they were between
the devil and the deep sea, the Spaniards would perhaps have preferred
(had the choice been theirs) to be subject to the Saracens rather than
to the Franks.[2]
[1] Dunham, ii. p. 121, note.
[2] Dozy, ii. p. 41, note, quotes Ermold Nigel on Barcelona:
"Urbs erat interea Francorum inhospita turnis,
Maurorum votis adsociata magis."
To the down-trodden slaves, who were very numerous all through Spain,
the Moslems came in the character of deliverers. A slave had only to
pronounce the simple formula: "There is no God but God, and Mohammed is
his Prophet": and he was immediately free. To the Jews the Moslems
brought toleration, nay, even influence and power. In fact, since the
fall of Jerusalem in 588 B.C. the Jews had never enjoyed such
independence and influence as in Spain during the domination of the
Arabs. Their genius being thus allowed free scope, they disputed the
supremacy in literature and the arts with the Arabs themselves.
Many of the earlier governors of Spain were harsh and even cruel in
their administration, but it was to Moslems and Christians alike.[1]
Some indeed increased the tribute laid upon the Christians; but it must
be remembered that this tribute[2] was in the first instance very light,
and therefore an increase was not felt severely as an oppression.
Moreover, there were not wanting some rulers who upheld the cause of the
Christians against illegal exactions. Among these was Abdurrahman al
Ghafeki (May-Aug. 721, and 731-732), of whom an Arab writer says:[3] "He
did equal justice to Moslem and Christian ... he restored to the
Christians such churches as had been taken from them in contravention of
the stipulated treaties; but on the other hand he caused all those to be
demolished, which had been erected by the connivance of interested
governors." Similarly of his successor Anbasah ibn Sohaym Alkelbi
(721-726), we find it recorded[4] that "he rendered equal justice to
every man, making no distinction between Mussulman and Christian, or
between Christian and Jew." Anbasah was followed by Yahya ibn Salmah
(March-Sept. 726), who is described as injudiciously severe, and dreaded
for his extreme rigour by Moslems as well as Christians.[5] Isidore says
that he made the Arabs give back to the Christians the property
unlawfully taken from them.[6] Similar praise is awarded to Okbah ibn
ulhejaj Asseluli (734-740).[7] Yet though many of the Ameers of Spain
were just and upright men, no permanent policy could be carried out with
regard to the relations between Moslems and Christians, while the Ameers
were so constantly changing, being sometimes elected by the army, but
oftener appointed by the Khalif, or by his lieutenant, the governor of
Africa for the time being. This perpetual shifting of rulers would in
itself have been fatal to the settlement of the country, had it not been
brought to an end by the election of Abdurrahman ibn Muawiyah as the
Khalif of Spain, and the establishment of his dynasty on the throne, in
May 756. But even after this important step was taken, the causes which
threatened to make anarchy perpetual, were still at work in Spain. Chief
among these were the feuds of the Arab tribes, and the jealousy between
Berbers and Arabs.
[1] _E.g._, Alhorr ibn Abdurrahman (717-719); see Isidore, sec.
44, and Conde, i. 94: "He oppressed all alike, the Christians,
those who had newly embraced Islam, and the oldest of the
Moslemah families."
[2] Merely a small poll-tax (jizyah) at first.
[3] Conde, i. 105.
[4] Conde, i. p. 99. Isidore, however, sec. 52, says:
"Vectigalia Christianis duplicata exagitat."
[5] Conde, i. 102.
[6] Isidore, sec. 54. Terribilis potestator fere triennio
crudelis exaestuat, atque aeri ingenio Hispaniae Sarracenos et
Mauros pro pacificis rebus olim ablatis exagitat, atque
Christianis plura restaurat.
[7] Conde, i. 114, 115.
Most of the first conquerors of the country were Berbers, while such
Arabs as came in with them belonged mostly to the Maadite or Beladi
faction.[1] The Berbers, besides being looked down upon as new converts,
were also regarded as Nonconformists[2] by the pure Arabs, and
consequently a quarrel was not long in breaking out between the two
parties.
As early as 718 the Berbers in Aragon and Catalonia rose against the
Arabs under a Jew named Khaulan, who was put to death the following
year. In 726 they revolted again, crying that they who had conquered the
country alone had claims to the spoil.[3] This formidable rising was
only put down by the Arabs making common cause against it. But the
continual disturbances in Africa kept alive the flame of discontent in
Spain, and the great Berber rebellion against the Arab yoke in Africa
was a signal for a similar determined attempt in Spain.[4] The
reinforcements which the Khalif, Yezid ibn Abdulmalik, sent to Africa
under Kolthum ibn Iyadh were defeated by the Berbers under a chief named
Meysarah, and shut up in Ceuta.
[1] The two chief branches of Arabs were (1) Descendants of
Modhar, son of Negus, son of Maad, son of Adnan. To this clan
belonged the Mecca and Medina Arabs, and the Umeyyade family.
They were also called Kaysites, Febrites, and Beladi Arabs. (2)
Descendants of Kahtan (Joktan), among whom were reckoned the
Kelbites and the Yemenites. These were most numerous in
Andalus; see Al Makkari, ii. 24.
[2] Dozy, iii. 124. See Al Makk., ii. 409, De Gayangos' note.
Though nominally Moslem, they still kept their Jewish or Pagan
rites.
[3] See De Gayangos, Al Makk. ii. 410, note. He quotes Borbon's
"Karta," xiv. _sq._ Stanley Lane-Poole, "Moors in Spain," p.
55, says, Monousa, who married the daughter of Eudes, was a
leader of the Berbers. Conde, i. 106, says, Othman abi Neza was
the leader, but Othman an ibn abi Nesah was Ameer of Spain in
728.
[4] Al Makkari, ii. 40.
Meanwhile in Spain, Abdalmalik ibn Kattan[1] Alfehri taking up the cause
of the Berbers, procured the deposition of Okbah ibn ulhejaj in his own
favour, but, this done, broke with his new allies. He was then compelled
to ask the help of the Syrian Arabs, who were cooped up in Ceuta, though
previously he had turned a deaf ear to their entreaties that they might
cross over into Spain.
The Syrians gladly accepted this invitation, and under Balj ibn Besher,
nephew of Kolthum, crossed the Straits, readily promising at the same
time to return to Africa when the Spanish Berbers were overcome. This
desirable end accomplished, however, they refused to keep to their
agreement, and Abdalmalik soon found himself driven to seek anew the
alliance of the Berbers and also of the Andalusian Arabs against his
late allies.[2] But the latter proved too strong for the Ameer, who was
defeated and killed by the Yemenite followers of Balj.
[1] Cardonne, i. p. 135.
[2] The Syrian Arabs seem to have borne a bad character away
from home. The Sultan Muawiyah warned his son that they altered
for the worse when abroad. See Ockley's "Saracens."
These feuds of Yemenites against Modharites, complicated by the
accession of Berbers now to one side, now to the other, continued
without intermission till the first Khalif of Cordova, Abdurrahman ibn
Muawiyah, established his power all over Spain.
The successor of Balj and Thaleba ibn Salamah did indeed try to break up
the Syrian faction by separating them. He placed those of Damascus in
Elvira; of Emesa in Seville; of Kenesrin in Jaen; of Alurdan[1] in
Malaga and Regio; of Palestine in Sidonia or Xeres; of Egypt in Murcia;
of Wasit in Cabra; and they thus became merged into the body of
Andalusian Arabs.
These Berber wars had an important influence on the future of Spain;
for, since the Berbers had settled on all the Northern and Western
marches, when they were decimated by civil war, and many of the
survivors compelled to return to Africa,[2] owing to the famine which
afflicted the country from 750 to 755, the frontiers of the Arab
dominion were left practically denuded of defenders,[3] and the
Christians at once advanced their boundaries to the Douro, leaving
however a strip of desert land as a barrier between them and the
Moslems. This debateable land they did not occupy till fifty years
later.[4]
[1] _I.e._, Jordan. See Al Makkari, i. 356, De Gayangos' note.
[2] Dozy, iii. 24.
[3] Al Makkari, ii. 69.
[4] When they built a series of fortresses as Zarnora,
Simancas, San Estevan.
CHAPTER III.
THE MARTYRDOMS AT CORDOVA.
Abdurrahman Ibn Muawiyah landed in Spain with 750 Berber horsemen in May
756. The Khalifate of Cordova may be said to begin with this date,
though it was many years before the new sultan had settled his power on
a firm basis, or was recognised as ruler by the whole of Moslem Spain.
During the forty-five years of civil warfare which intervened between
the invasion of Tarik and the landing of Abdurrahman, we have very
little knowledge of what the Christians were doing. The Arab historians
are too busy recounting the feuds of their own tribes to pay any
particular attention to the subject Christians. But we may gather that
the latter were, on the whole, fairly content with their new
servitude.[1] The Moslems were not very anxious to proselytize, as the
conversion of the Spaniards meant a serious diminution of the
tribute.[2] Those Christians who did apostatize--and we may believe that
they were chiefly slaves--at once took up a position of legal, though
not social, equality with the other Moslems. It is no wonder that the
slaves became Mohammedans, for, apart from their hatred for their
masters, and the obvious temporal advantage of embracing Islam, the
majority of them knew nothing at all about Christianity.[3] The ranks of
the converts were recruited from time to time by those who went over to
Islam to avoid paying the poll-tax, or even to escape the payment of
some penalty inflicted by the Christian courts.[4] One thing is
noticeable. In the early years of the conquest there was none of that
bitterness displayed between the adherents of the rival creeds, to which
we are so accustomed in later times. Isidore of Beja, the only
contemporary Christian authority, though he rhapsodizes about the
devastations committed by the conquerors, and complains of enormous
tributes exacted, yet speaks more fairly about the Moslems[5] than any
other Spanish writer before the fourteenth century. "If he hates the
conquerors," says Dozy,[6] "he hates them rather as men of another race
than of another creed;" and the marriage of Abdulaziz and Egilona
awakens in his mind no sentiment of horror.
[1] This was not so when the fierce Almoravides and fiercer
Almohades overran Spain in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
See Freeman's "Saracens," p. 168.
[2] As happened in Egypt under Amru. See Cardonne, i. p. 168,
and Gibbon, vi. p. 370.
[3] Dozy, ii. 45, quotes a passage from Pedraca, "Histor.
Eccles. of Granada" (1638), in which the author points out that
even in his day the "old Christians" of Central Spain were so
wholly ignorant of all Christian doctrines that they might be
expected to renounce Christianity with the utmost ease if again
subjected to the Moors.
[4] Samson, "Apolog.," ii. cc. 3, 5.
[5] Speaking of Omar, the second Khalif of that name, Isidore,
sec. 46, says, "Tanta ei sanctimonia ascribitur quanta nulli
unquam ex Arabum gente."
[6] Dozy, ii. p. 42.
On the whole the condition of the mass of the people, Christian or
renegade, was certainly preferable to their state before the
conquest.[1] Those serfs who remained Christian, if they worked on State
lands, payed one-third of the produce to the State; if on private lands,
four-fifths to their Arab owners.[2] The free Christians retained their
goods, and could even alienate their lands. They paid a graduated tax
varying from thirteen pounds to three guineas.[3] In all probability the
Christians under Moslem rule were not worse off than their
coreligionists in Galicia and Leon. A signal proof of this is afforded
by the fact that, in spite of the distracted state of the country, which
would seem to hold out a great hope of success, we hear of no attempts
at revolt on the part of the subjected Christians in the eighth century,
except at Beja, where the Christians seem to have been led away by the
ambition of an Arab chief.[4] They were even somewhat indifferent to the
cause of their coreligionists in the North, and the attempts which
Pelayo and his successors made to induce them to rise in concert with
their brethren met with but scant success.[5]
[1] See especially Conde, Pref. p. vi.
[2] Dozy, ii. 39.
[3] Dozy, ii. 40.
[4] Dozy, ii. 42.
[5] Cardonne, i. 106.
There can be no doubt, however, that the good understanding, which at
first existed between the Moslems and their Christian subjects,
gradually gave place to a very different state of things, owing in no
small degree to the free Christians in the North, whose presence on
their borders was a continual menace to the Moslem dominion, and a
perpetual incentive to the subject Christians to rise and assert their
freedom.
Our purpose now is to trace out, so far as the scanty indications
scattered in the writers of the time will allow, the relations that
existed between the two religions during the 275 years of the Khalifate,
and the influence which these relations had upon the development of the
one and the other. It will be agreeable to the natural arrangement to
take the former question first.
With a view to the better understanding of the position of Christianity
and Mohammedanism at the very beginning of our inquiry, we have thought
it advisable to point out in a preliminary sketch the development of
Christianity in Spain previous to the period when the Moslems, fresh
from their native deserts of Arabia and Africa, bearing the sword in one
hand and the Koran in the other, possessed themselves of one of the
fairest provinces of Christendom. This having been already done, we can
at once proceed to investigate the mutual relations of Christianity and
Mohammedanism in Spain during the 300 years of the Khalifate of Cordova.
It was in fulfilment of a supposed prophecy of Mohammed's, and in
obedience to the precepts of the Koran itself, that the Arabs, having
overrun Syria, Egypt, and Africa, passed over into Spain, and the war
from the very first took the character of a jehad, or religious war--a
character which it retained with the ever-increasing fanaticism of the
combatants until every Mohammedan had been forced to abjure his creed,
or been driven out of Spain. But, as we have seen, the conquest itself
was singularly free from any outbursts of religious frenzy; though of
course there must have been many Christians, who laid down their lives
in defence of all that was near and dear to them, in defence of their
wives and their children, their homes and their country, their religion
and their honour. One such instance at least has been recorded by the
Arab historians,[1] when the Governor, and 400 of the garrison, of
Cordova, after three months' siege in the church of St George, chose
rather to be burnt in their hold than surrender upon condition either of
embracing Islam, or paying tribute.
Omitting the story of the fabulous martyr Nicolaus, as being a tissue of
errors and absurdities,[2] the first martyr properly so called was a
certain bishop, named Anambad, who was put to death by Othman ibn abi
Nesah (727-728)--a governor guilty of shedding much Christian blood, if
Isidore is to be believed.[3]
[1] Al Makkari, i. 279, says: "This was the cause of the spot
being called ever since the Kenisatu-l-haraki (the church of
the burnt), as likewise of the great veneration in which it has
always been held by the Christians, on account of the courage
and endurance displayed in the cause of their religion by those
who died in it."
[2] Florez, "Espana Sagr," xiv. 392.
[3] Isidore, sec. 58, "Munuza quia a sanguine Christianorum,
quen ibidem innocentem fuderat, nimium erat crapulatus, et
Anabadi, illustris episcopi,... quem ipse cremaverat, valde
exhaustus," etc. It is doubtful who this Munuza was, but
probably Othman ibn abi Nesah, Governor of Spain.
Fifteen years later a Christian named Peter, pursuing very much the same
tactics as the pseudo-martyrs in the next century, brought about his
own condemnation and death. He held a responsible post under Government,
that of receiver of public imposts, and seems to have stood on terms of
friendship with many of the Arab nobles. Perhaps he had been rather lax
in his religious observances, or even disguised his Christianity from
motives of interest. However, he fell sick, and thinking that his life
was near its end, he called together his Moslem friends, and thanking
them for showing their concern for him by coming, he proceeded, "But I
desire you to be witnesses of this my last will. Whosoever believeth not
on the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, the Consubstantial Trinity,
is blind in heart, and deserveth eternal punishment, as also doth
Mohammed, your false prophet, the forerunner of Antichrist. Renounce,
therefore, these fables, I conjure you this day, and let heaven and
earth witness between us." Though greatly incensed, as was natural, the
hearers resolved to take no notice of these and other like words,
charitably supposing the sick man to be light-headed; but Peter, having
unexpectedly recovered, repeated his former condemnation of Mohammed,
cursing him, his book, and his followers. Thereupon he was executed, and
we cannot be altogether surprised at it.[1]
Besides these two isolated cases of martyrdom, we do not find any more
recorded until the reign of Abdurrahman II. (May 822-Aug. 852). In the
second year of this king's reign, two Christians, John and Adulphus,
making public profession of their faith, and denouncing Mohammed, were
put to death on Sept 17, 824.[2]
[1] We give the account as Fleury, v. 88 (Bk. 42), gives it,
but with great doubts as to its genuineness, no other writer
that we have seen mentioning it.
[2] Florez, x. 358: Fleury, v. 487. They were buried in St
Cyprian's Church, Cordova. See "De translatione martyrum
Georgii etc.," sec. 7.
This is the first definite indication we have that the toleration shown
by the Moslems was beginning to be abused by their Christian subjects;
and there can be no reasonable doubt that this ill-advised conduct on
the part of the latter was the main cause of the so-called persecution
which followed. But besides this fanaticism on the part of a small
section of the subject Christians, there were other causes at work
calculated to produce friction between the two peoples. During the
century which had elapsed since the conquest, the Christians and
Mohammedans, living side by side under the same government, and one
which, considering the times in which it arose, was remarkable no less
for its equity and moderation than for its external splendour and
magnificence, had gradually been drawn closer together. Intermarriages
had become frequent among them;[1] and these proved the fruitful cause
of religious dissensions. Accordingly we find that the religious
troubles in the reigns of Abdurrahman II. (822-852) and Mohammed I.
(852-886) began with the execution of two children of mixed parents.
Nunilo and Alodia were the children of a Moslem father and a Christian
mother. Their father was a tolerant man, and, apparently, while he
lived, permitted his children to profess the faith of their mother. On
his death, the mother married again, and the new husband, being a
bigoted Mohammedan, and actuated, as we may suppose, by the _odio
vitrici_, immediately set about reclaiming his step-children to the true
faith of Islam, his efforts in this direction leading him to ill-treat,
even to torture,[2] the young confessors. His utmost endeavour to effect
their conversion failing, he delivered them over to the judge on the
charge of apostasy, and the judge to the executioner, by whom they were
beheaded on Oct. 21, 840.[3]
[1] Due in part no doubt to the marriage of captives. See also
below for "the maiden tribute," pp. 96, 97.
[2] So Miss Yonge.
[3] This date is given by Morales, apud Migne, vol. cxv. p.
886, and by Fleury, v. 487, who accuse Eulogius, "Mem. Sanct.,"
ii. c. 10, of being in error when he assigns the date 851. The
Pseudo-Luitprand gives 951, vouching for this date as an
eye-witness: "Me vivente, in castro Wergeti, id est Castellon,
etc."
Though there were some cases of martyrdom of this character, where the
sufferers truly earned their title of martyrs,--and we may believe that
all such cases have not been recorded--yet the vast majority of those
which followed in the years 851-860 were of a different type. They were
due to an outbreak of fanatical zeal on the part of a certain section of
the Christians such as to overpower the spirit of toleration, which the
Moslem authorities had so far shown in dealing with their Christian
subjects, and to raise a corresponding tide of bigotry in the less
enlightened, and therefore more intolerant, masses of the Mohammedans.
The sudden mania for martyrdom which manifested itself at this time is
certainly the most remarkable phenomenon of the kind that has been
recorded in the annals of the Christian Church. There had been
occasional instances before of Christians voluntarily offering
themselves to undergo the penalty of the laws for the crime of being
Christians. One such instance in the case of a Phrygian, named Quintus,
had caused grave scandal to the Church of Smyrna; for, having gone
before the proconsul and professed himself ready to die for the faith,
when the reality of the death, which he courted, had been brought home
to him by the sight of the wild beasts ready to rend him, the courage of
the Phrygian had failed, and he had offered incense to the gods. Africa
also had had her self-accused martyrs.
But the Spanish confessors have an interest over and above these, both
by reason of their number and the constancy which they displayed in
their self-imposed task. Not a single instance is recorded, though there
may have been some such, where the would-be martyr from fear or any
other cause forwent his crown. Moreover these martyrdoms, by dividing
the Church on the question of their merit, whether, that is, the
victims were to be ranked as true martyrs or not, and, giving rise to a
written controversy on the subject, has supplied us with ample, if
rather one-sided, materials for estimating the provocation given, and
received, on either side.
As time went on, and the Christians and Moslems mingled more closely
together in political and social life, the Church no doubt suffered some
deterioration. Every interested motive was enlisted in favour of
dropping as far as possible out of sight[1] those distinctive features
of Christianity which might be calculated to give offence to the
Moslems; of conforming to all those Mohammedan customs, which are not in
the Bible expressly forbidden to a Christian;[2] and, generally, of
emphasizing the points on which Christianity agrees with Mohammedanism,
and ignoring those (far more important ones) in which they differ. The
Moslems had no such reason for dissembling their convictions, or
modifying their tenets. Consequently a spiritual paralysis was creeping
upon the Church, which threatened in the course of time, if not checked,
to destroy the very life of Christianity throughout the peninsula. The
case of Africa, from which Islam had extirpated Christianity, showed
that this was no imaginary danger. But Spain had this advantage over
Africa: it contained a free Christian community which had never passed
under the Moslem yoke, where the fire of Christianity, in danger of
being swept away by the devouring flames of Mohammedanism, might be
nursed and cherished, till it could again blaze forth with its former
brilliancy.
[1] See below, p. 72, note 5.
[2] _E.g.,_ circumcision.
Yet in Mohammedan Spain religious fervour was not wholly vanished: it
was still to be found among the clergy, and specially among the dwellers
in convents. Monks and nuns, severed from all worldly influences, in the
silence of their cloisters, would read the lives of the Saints[1] of
old, and meditate upon their glorious deeds, and the miracles which
their faith had wrought. They would brood over such texts as, "Ye shall
be brought before rulers and kings for My sake;"[2] and, "Every one who
shall confess Me before men, him will I also confess before My Father,
which is in Heaven;"[3] till they brought themselves to believe that it
was their imperative duty to bring themselves before rulers and kings,
and not only to confess Christ, but to revile Mohammed.
[1] See Dozy, ii. 112.
[2] St Mark xiii. 9.
[3] St Matt. x. 32.
However, the reproach of fanatical self-destruction will not apply, as
the apologists of their doings have not failed to point out, to the
first two victims that suffered in this persecution.
Perfectus,[1] a priest of Cordova, who had been brought up in the school
attached to the church of St Acislus, on going out one day to purchase
some necessaries for domestic use, was stopped by some of the Moslems in
the street, and asked to give his opinion of their Prophet. What led
them to make this strange request, we are not told,[2] but stated thus
barely it certainly gives us the impression that it was intended to
bring the priest into trouble. For it was a well-known law in Moslem
countries that if any one cursed a Mohammedan, he was to be scourged,[3]
if he struck him, killed: the latter penalty also awaiting any one who
spoke evil of Mohammed, and extending even to a Mussulman ruler, if he
heard the blasphemy without taking notice of it.[4] Perfectus,
therefore, being aware of this law, gave a cautious[5] answer, declining
to comply with their request until they swore that he should receive no
hurt in consequence of what he might say. On their giving the required
stipulation, he quoted the words, "For there shall arise false Christs
and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch
that if it were possible they shall deceive the very elect,"[6] and
proceeded to speak of Mohammed in the usual fashion, as a lying impostor
and a dissolute adulterer, concluding with the words, "Thus hath he, the
encourager of all lewdness, and the wallower in his own filthy lusts,
delivered you all over to the indulgence of an everlasting sensuality."
This ill-advised abuse of one, whom the Moslems revere as we revere
Christ, and the ungenerous advantage taken of the oath, which they had
made, naturally incensed his hearers to an almost uncontrollable degree.
They respected their promise, however, and refrained from laying hands
on him at that time, with the intention, says Eulogius, of revenging
themselves on a future occasion.[7]
[1] Eulogius, "Mem. Sanct.," ii., ch. i. secs. 1-4: Alvar,
"Indic. Lum.," sec. 3.
[2] See, however, Appendix A, p. 158.
[3] Alvar, "Ind. Lum.," sec. 6. "Ecce enim lex publica pendet,
et legalis iussa per omnem regnum eorum discurrit, ut, qui
blasphematur, flagellatur, et qui percusserit occidatur."
Neander V., p. 464, note, points out that "blasphemaverit"
refers to cursing Moslems, not Mohammed. Eul., "Mem. Sanct.,"
Pref., sec. 5, "Irrefragibilis manet sententia, animadverti
debere in eos qui talia de ipso non vcrentur profiteri." On
hearing of Isaac's death the king published a reminder on this
law.
[4] See p. 91.
[5] Alvar, "Ind. Lum.," sec. 3, calls it a timid answer.
[6] Matt. xxiv. 24.
[7] "Accensum ultionis furorem in corde ad perniciem eius
reponunt." Eulogius, 1.1.
If this was so, the opportunity soon presented itself, and Perfectus,
being abroad on an errand similar to the previous one, was met[1] by his
former interrogators, who, on the charge of reviling Mohammed, and doing
despite to their religion, dragged him before the Kadi. Being
questioned, his courage at first failed him, and he withdrew his words.
He was then imprisoned to await further examination at the end of the
month, which happened to be the Ramadhan or fast month. In prison the
priest repented his weakness, and when brought again before the judge on
the Mohammedan Easter, he recanted his recantation, adding, "I have
cursed and do curse your prophet, a messenger not of God, but of Satan,
a dealer in witchcraft, an adulterer, and a liar." He was immediately
led off for execution, but before his death prophesied that of the
King's minister, Nazar, within a year of his own. He was beheaded on
April 18, 850.[2] The apologists, on insufficient evidence, describe the
death of two Moslems, who were drowned the same day in the river, as a
manifest judgement of Heaven for the murder of Perfectus.[3]
[1] "Dolo circumventum," says Alvar, "Ind. Lum.," sec. 4.
[2] Johannes Vasaeus places this persecution (by a manifest
error) in 950, under Abdurrahman III., stating at the same time
that some writers placed it in 850, but, as it appeared to him,
wrongly: "Abdurrahman Halihatan rex Cordobae movit duodecimam
persecutionem in Christianos."
[3] Eulog., "Mem. Sanct." ii., ch. i. sec. 5.
The example set by Perfectus did not bear fruit at once, but no doubt
the evidence which it gave of the ease and comparative painlessness,
with which a martyr's crown could be obtained, was not lost upon the
brooding and zealous spirits living in solitary retreats and trying by a
life of religious devotion to cut themselves off from the seductive
pleasures of an active life.
The next victim, a little more than a year later, was a petty tradesman,
named John,[1] who does not seem to have courted his own fate. He had
aroused the animosity of his Moslem rivals by a habit which he had
contracted of pronouncing the name of the Prophet in his market
transactions, taking his name, as they thought, in vain, and with a view
to attracting buyers.[2] John, being taxed with this, with ill-timed
pleasantry retorted, "Cursed be he who wishes to name your Prophet." He
was haled before the Kadi, and, after receiving 400 stripes,[3] was
thrown into prison. Subsequently he was taken thence and driven through
the city riding backwards on an ass, while a crier was sent before him
through the Christian quarters, proclaiming: "Such shall be the
punishment of those, that speak evil of the Prophet of God."
[1] Eugolius, "Mem. Sanct." i. sec. 9; and Alvar, Ind. Lum.
sec. 5.
[2] So Eulogius, 1. 1., and Dozy, ii., 129. Alvar's account (1.
1.) is not very intelligible: "Parvipendens nostrum prophetam,
semper eius nomen in derisione frequentas, et mendacium tuum
per iuramenta nostrae religionis, ut tibi videtur, falsa
auribus te ignorantium Christianum esse semper confirmas."
[3] Or, according to Eulogius, 500.
So far we have had cases, where the charge of persecution, brought by
the apologists of the martyrs against the Moslems, can be more or less
sustained, but the next instance is of a different character. Isaac,[1]
a monk of Tabanos, and descended from noble and wealthy ancestors, was
born in 824, and by his knowledge of Arabic, attained in early life to
the position of an exceptor, or scribe,[2] but gave up his appointment
at the age of twenty, in order to enter the monastery of Tabanos, which
his uncle and aunt, Jeremiah and Elizabeth, had founded near Cordova.
[1] Eulog., "Mem. Sanct.," ii. ch. ii. sec. 1, also Pref.,
secs. 2 ff. After his death Isaac was credited with having
performed miracles from his earliest years. He was said to have
spoken three times in his mother's womb (cp. a similar fable
about Jesus in the Koran, c. iii. verse 40), and when a child,
to have embraced, unhurt, a globe of fire from Heaven.
[2] Not, as Florez, a tax-gatherer.
Roused by the tale of Perfectus' death and John's sufferings, he
voluntarily went before the Kadi, and, pretending to be an "enquirer,"
begged him to expound to him the doctrines of Islam. The Kadi,
congratulating himself on the prospect of such a promising convert,
gravely complied; when Isaac, answering him in fluent Arabic, said: "He
has lied unto you--may the curse of Heaven consume him!--who full of all
wickedness has led astray so many men, and doomed them with himself to
the lowest deep of hell. Filled with Satan, and practising Satanic arts,
he hath given his followers a drink of deadly wine, and will without
doubt expiate his guilt with everlasting damnation." Hearing these, and
other like _chaste_[1] utterances, the judge listened in a sort of
stupor of rage and astonishment, feelings which even found vent in
tears; till, his indignation passing all control, he struck the monk in
the face, who then said, "Dost thou strike that which is made in the
image of God?"[2] The assessors of the Kadi also reproached him for
striking a prisoner, their law being that one who is worthy of death
should not suffer other indignities. The Kadi, having now recovered his
self-command, gave his decision, that Isaac, whether drunk or mad, had
committed a crime which, by an express law of Mohammed's, merited
condign punishment. He was accordingly beheaded, and, his body being
burnt, his ashes were cast into the river (June 3, 851). This was done
to prevent the Christians from carrying off his body, and preserving it
for the purpose of working miracles.[3]
Isaac's conduct and fate, Eulogius tells us, electrified the people, who
were amazed at the _newness_ of the thing.[4] It was at this point that
Eulogius himself began to shew his sympathy with these fanatical doings
by encouraging and helping others to follow Isaac's example.
[1] Eulogius, "Mem. Sanct.," Pref., sec. 5, "_Ore pudico_
summisque reverentiae ausibus viribusque."
[2] Cp. Acts xxiii. 3.
[3] Eulog., "Lib. Apolog.," sec. 35, mentions a proposed edict
of the authorities, visiting the seeker of relics with severer
penalties.
[4] See Eulog., Letter to Alvar, apud Florez., xi. 290.
The number of misguided men and women that now came forward and threw
their lives away is certainly remarkable, and seems to have struck the
Moslems as perfectly unaccountable. The Arabs themselves were as brave
men as the world has ever seen, and, by the very ordinances of their
faith, were bound to adventure their lives for their religion in actual
human conflict with infidel foes, yet they were unable to conceive how
any man in his senses could willingly deprive himself of life in such a
way as could do no service to the cause, religious or other, which he
had at heart. They were quite unable to appreciate that intense
antagonism towards the world and its perilous environment, which
Christianity teaches; that spirit of renouncement of the vanities, nay,
even of the duties of life, which prompted men and women to immure
themselves in cloisters and retreats, far from all spheres of human
usefulness. Life under these circumstances had naturally little to make
it worth the living, and became all the more easy to relinquish, when
death, in itself a thing to be desired, was further invested with the
glories of martyrdom.
The example of Isaac was therefore followed within two days by a monk
named Sanctius[1] or Sancho, who was executed on June 5th. Three days
later were beheaded Peter, a priest of Ecija; Walabonsus, a deacon of
Ilipa; Sabinianus and Wistremundus, monks of St Zoilus; Habentius, a
monk of St Christopher's Church at Cordova; while Jeremiah,[2] uncle of
Isaac, was scourged to death. Their bodies were burned, and the ashes
cast into the river.
Sisenandus of Badajos[3] found a similar fate on July 16th: four days
subsequently Paul, a deacon of St Zoilus, gave himself up; and the same
number of days later, Theodomir, a monk of Carmona: all of whom were
beheaded.
[1] Eulog., "Mem. Sanct.," ii. c. 3.
[2] _Ibid._, c. iv.
[3] After his martyrdom he procured the release from prison of
Tiberias, priest of Beja! Eulog., "Mem. Sanct.," ii. c. vi.
CHAPTER IV.
FANATICISM OF THE MARTYRS.
The next candidates for martyrdom were two young and beautiful girls,
whose history we learn from their patron, Eulogius, who seems to have
regarded one of these maidens, Flora, with a Platonic love mingled with
a sort of religious devotion.
Flora,[1] the daughter of a Moslem father and a Christian mother, was
born at Cordova. She is said to have practised abstinence even in her
cradle. At first she was brought up as a Moslem, and lived in conformity
with that faith, until, being converted to Christianity about eight
years before this time, and finding the intolerance of her father and
her brother unbearable, she deserted her home. But when her brother, in
his efforts to discover and reclaim her, persecuted many Christian
families, whom he suspected of conniving at her escape, she voluntarily
surrendered herself to him, saying, "Here am I whom you seek, and for
whose sake you persecute the people of God. I am a Christian. Do your
best to annul that confession: none of your torments will be able to
overcome my faith." Her brother, after trying in vain, by alternate
threats and blandishments, to bring her back from her error, finally
dragged her before the Kadi; and he, hearing her brother's accusation,
and her own confession, ordered her to be barbarously beaten, and then
given up nearly dead to her brother. She managed, however, to recover,
and escaped under angelic guidance.[2] Shortly afterwards, while praying
in a church, she was found by Maria, sister of Walabonsus
above-mentioned,[3] who had been martyred a few months previously.
Their father, being a Christian, converted his unbelieving wife. They
came to live at Froniano, near Cordova, and their daughter was educated
at the nunnery of Cuteclara, near the city, under the care of the
abbess, Artemia. Brooding over her brother's martyrdom, and perhaps, as
was so often the case, seeing his glorified spirit in a vision, she left
the cloister, determining to follow in his saintly footsteps. While on
her way to give herself up, she turned aside into a church to pray, and
found Flora there.
[1] "Life of Flora and Maria," by Eulogius, secs. 3 ff.
[2] _Ibid._, sec. 8. "Agelico comitante meatu."
[3] "Life of Flora and Maria," sec. 11. Lane Poole, "Moors in
Spain," says, "Sister of Isaac."
Together, then, did these devoted girls go forth[1] to curse Mohammed,
of whom they probably knew next to nothing, and lose their own lives.
The judge, however, pitying their youth and beauty, merely imprisoned
them. News of his sister's imprisonment being brought to Flora's
brother, he induced the judge to make a further examination of her, and
she was brought out of prison before the Kadi, who, pointing to her
brother, asked her if she knew him. Flora answered that she did--as her
brother according to the flesh. "How is it, then," asked the judge,
"that he remains a good Moslem, while you have apostatized?" She
answered that God had enlightened her; and, on professing herself ready
to repeat her former denunciations of the Prophet, she was again
remanded to prison. Here she and Maria are threatened with being thrown
upon the streets as prostitutes[2]--a punishment far worse than the
easy death they had desired. This shakes their constancy; when they
find an unexpected comforter in Eulogius himself, who is now imprisoned
for being an encourager and inciter of defiance to the laws. It is
strange that he should have been allowed to carry on in the prison
itself the very work for which he had been imprisoned. The support of
Eulogius enabled these tender maidens to stand firm through another
examination, and the judge, proving too merciful, or too good a Moslem,
to carry out the above-mentioned threat, they were led forth to die
(November 24, 851). Before their death they had promised Eulogius to
intercede before the throne of God for his release, which accordingly is
brought to pass six days after their own execution.[3]
An interval of only a little more than a month elapsed before
Gumesindus, a priest of the district called Campania, near Cordova, and
Servus Dei, a monk, suffered death in the same way (January 13, 852).[4]
[1] Eulog. to Alvar, i. sec. 2; "Life of Flora and Maria," by
Eulog., sec. 12.
[2] _Ibid._, sec. 13, and Eulog., "Doc. Mart.," sec. 4.
Eulogius tried to lessen the terror of this threat by pointing
out that "non polluit mentem aliena corruptio, quam non foedat
propria delectatis,"--a poor consolation, but the only one! He
does not seem to have known--or surely he would have quoted
it--the express injunction of the Koran (xxiv. verse
35):--"Compel not your maidservants to prostitute themselves,
if they be willing to live chastely ... but, if any shall
compel them thereto, verily God will be gracious and merciful
unto such women after their compulsion."
[3] Eulog., letter to Alvar, Florez, xi. 295. Fleury, v. 100.
[4] Eulogius, "Mem. Sanct.," ii. c. ix.
There was now a pause for six months in the race for martyrdom, and it
seemed as if the Church had come to its right mind upon this subject.
This, however, was far from being the case. Hitherto the victims had
been almost without exception priests, monks, and nuns; but the next
martyrs afford us instances of married couples claiming a share in this
doubtful honour. These were Aurelius, son of a Moslem father and a
Christian mother, and his wife Sabigotha (or Nathalia), the daughter of
Moslem parents, whose father dying, her mother married a Christian and
was converted; and Felix and his wife Liliosa.[1] It would seem that
with all the harm that was done by this outbreak of fanaticism, some
good was also effected in awaking the worldly-minded adherents of
Christianity from the spiritual torpor into which they were sinking; for
these new martyrs were of the class of hidden[2] Christians, who were
now shamed into avowing their real creed.[3] Yet surely it had been far
better if they had been content to live like Christians instead of dying
like suicides. In their case, indeed, we find no sudden irresistible
impulse driving them to defy the laws, but a slowly-matured conviction
that it was their duty, disregarding all human ties, to give themselves
up to death. In this resolution they were fortified by the advice and
encouragement of Eulogius and Alvar,[4] the latter of whom prudently
warns Aurelius to make sure that his courage is sufficient to stand the
trial.[5] Sabigotha is persuaded to accompany her husband in his
self-destruction, her natural reluctance to leave her children being
overcome by Eulogius,[6] who recommends that they should be given over
to the care of a monastery. A seasonable vision, in which Flora and
Maria appear to her, clenches her purpose.
[1] _Ibid._, ii. ch. x., secs. 1, 2.
[2] See below, p. 72.
[3] Aurelius was roused from his religious dissimulation by
seeing the sufferings of John. See Eulog., "Mem. Sanct.," ii.
c. x. sec. 5.
[4] _Ibid._, sec. 18.
[5] This would lead us to suppose that the courage of some
_had_ failed.
[6] Eulogius comments:--"O admirabilis ardor divinus, quo
filiorum affectus respuitur!" The parents not only desert their
children, but give away most of their goods to the poor,
thereby making their own children of the number.
Meanwhile a foreign monk from Bethlehem, who, being sent on business
connected with his monastery to Africa, had crossed over in Spain,
impelled by the wild enthusiasm there prevailing, determined to offer
himself as a candidate for martyrdom with the four persons above
mentioned.
They then take counsel together how they may best effect their purpose,
there being evidently enough difficulty in procuring martyrdom for
themselves to shew the statements of the apologists, that there was a
fierce persecution raging, to be at least much exaggerated, if not
entirely without foundation. The plan decided upon, which the devisers
audaciously attributed to the suggestion of God,[1] was that the women
should go forth unveiled and with hurried steps to the church, in the
hope that such an unwonted sight would direct attention to them, and
occasion the arrest of the whole number. It fell out as desired, and
they were all brought before the judge, and interrogated with the usual
result, except that the judge on this occasion dismissed them with
scornful anger.[2] But George, disappointed at his untoward clemency, as
they were being led away broke out with,[3] "Can you not go down to hell
without seeking to drag us also thither as your companions?"
This incoherent abuse naturally incensed the soldiers, as it was no
doubt intended that it should. Accordingly the prisoners were dragged
again before the Kadi, who asked them in a mild tone of remonstrance,
why they had abandoned the faith of Islam,[4] and refused to live,
promising them at the same time great rewards, if they would become
Moslems again. On their refusal they were remanded for two days, which
seemed a very long time, so eager were they to die. They pass the time
with singing hymns, and are blessed with visits of angels and miraculous
signs. Their chains drop off, and the gaolers dare not again bind those
whom Christ Himself had loosed.[5] The authorities, now as ever, anxious
if possible to avoid extreme penalties, determine to release George,
because they had not themselves[6] heard his blasphemy. He baulks their
merciful intention by repeating his words on the spot, and he is
accordingly led forth and beheaded with the others (July 27, 852).
Within a month Christopher,[7] a monk of Rojana, and of Arab lineage,
and Leovigild, a monk of Fraga, both being places near Cordova, are
executed for the same offence and in the same manner, their dead bodies
being nailed to stakes. While taking the air in his palace,[8] the king
saw these bodies, and ordered them to be burnt, and the ashes scattered
in the river. The same night Abdurrahman II. was struck down with
apoplexy, and the martyrs' friends hailed it as a manifest judgment from
Heaven.
[1] Eulog., "Mem. Sanct.," ii. sec. 27. "Omnes in cornmuni
coepimus _cogitare quomodo ad desideratum perveniremus
coronam:_ et ita _Domino disfiensante_ visum est nobis ut
fugerent sorores nostrae revelatis vultibus ad ecclesiam si
forte nos alligandi daretur occasio, et ita factum est."
[2] _Ibid._, sec. 29. "Exite quibus vita praesens taedium est,
et mors pro gloria computatur."
[3] _Ibid._, sec. 30. "An non poteritis vos infernalia claustra
adire, nisi nos comites habeatis? Numquid sine nobis aeterna
vos cruciamina non adurent?"
[4] _Ibid._, sec. 31.
[5] Eulog., "Mem. Sanct.," sec. 32.
[6] _Ibid._, sec. 33. "Ipsi optimates et priores palatii."
George, being a foreigner, could not be charged with apostasy
like the others.
[7] _Ibid._, ii. c. xi. Alvar's Life of Eul., iv. 12.
[8] On a "sublime solarium," Eul., "Mem. Sanct.," c. ii. sec.
2. See Ortiz, "Compendio," iii. 52 (apud Buckle, ii. 442,
note.) "En lo mas cruel de los tormentos subio Abderramen un
dia a las azutens o galerias de su Palacio. Descubrio desde
alli los cuerpos de los Santos marterizados en los patibulos y
atravesados con los palos, mando los quemasen todos paraque no
quedase reliquia cumpliose luego la ordsa; pero aquel impio
probo bien presto los rigores de la venganza divina que volvia
por la sangre derramada de sus Santos. Improvisamente se le
pego la lengua al paladar y fauces: cerrossle la boca, y no
pudo pronunciar una palabra, ni dar un gemido. Conduxeronle,
sus criados a la cama, murio aguella misma noche, y antes de
apagarse las hoqueras en que ardian los santos cuerpos, entro
la infeliz alma de Abderramen en los etemos fuegos del
infierno."
He was succeeded by Mohammed I. (852-886), a less capable and more
bigoted ruler than his father. No sooner was he on the throne than
Emila, a deacon, and Jeremiah a priest of St Cyprian's church, near
Cordova, following in the footsteps of so many predecessors, came
before the Kadi, and reviled Mohammed,--the former being enabled to do
this with the more point and effect, as he was to a remarkable degree
master of the Arabic language.[1] Emila and Jeremiah won the prize they
coveted, and were put to death (September 15, 852). The customary
prodigy occurred after the execution, in describing which the pious
Eulogius breaks into metre, saying, "Athletas cecidisse pios elementa
fatentur."
On the following day occurred an outrage which the most bigoted
partizans of the martyrs must have blushed to record. Two eunuchs,
Rogel, a monk of Parapanda, near Elvira, and Servio Deo, a eunuch of
foreign extraction, forced their way into a mosque, and by way of
preaching--as they said--to the assembled worshippers, they reviled
their Prophet and their religion. [2] Being set upon and nearly torn in
pieces by the infuriated congregation, they were rescued by the Kadi,
who imprisoned them till such time as their sentence should be declared.
They were condemned to have their hands and feet cut off, and be
beheaded; which sentence was carried into effect.[3]
[1] Eulog., "Mem. Sanct," ii. c. xii. Arabic boasts a larger
vocabulary of abuse than most languages: see the account of
Prof. Palmer's death in his Life by Besant.
[2] _Ibid._, c. xiii. secs. 1, 2.
[3] Eul. (1.1), adds: "Et ipsa gentilitas tali spectaculo
stupefacta nescio quid de Christianismo indulgentius
sentiebat."
Upon this fresh provocation the fury and apprehension of the king knew
no bounds. He might well be pardoned for thinking that this defiance of
the laws, and religious fanaticism, could only mean a widespread
disaffection and conspiracy against the Moslem rule. In fact, as we
shall see, the Christians of Toledo raised the banner of revolt in
favour of their Cordovan brethren at this very time. Mohammed therefore
seems to have meditated a real persecution, such as should extirpate
Christianity in his dominions.[1] He is said even to have given orders
for a general massacre of the males among the Christians, and for the
slavery, or worse, of the women, if they did not apostatize.[2] But the
dispassionate advice of his councillors saved the king from this crime.
They pointed out that no men of any intelligence, education, or rank
among the Christians had taken part in the doings of the zealots, and
that the whole body of Christians ought not to be cut off, since their
actions were not directed by any individual leader. Other advisers seem
to have diverted the king from his project of a wholesale massacre by
encouraging him to proceed legally against the Christians with the
utmost rigour, and by this means to cow them into submission.[3]
These strong measures apparently produced some effect, for no other
executions are recorded for a period of nine months; when Fandila, a
priest of Tabanos,[4] and chosen by the monks of St Salvator's monastery
to be one of their spiritual overseers, came forward and reviled the
Prophet: whereupon he was imprisoned and subsequently beheaded (June 13,
853). His fate awakened the dormant fanaticism of Anastasius,[5] a
priest of St Acislus' church; of Felix, a Gaetulian monk of Alcala de
Henares; and of Digna, a virgin of St Elizabeth's nunnery at Tabanos
(the latter being strengthened in her resolve by a celestial vision),
who, pursuing the usual plan, are beheaded the following day; their
example being followed by Benildis, a matron (June 15).[6]
[1] Eulog., "Mem. Sanct," ii. c. xii. "Non iam solummodo de
mortibus resistentium sibi excogitare coepenint, verum etiam
totam extirpare ecclesiam ruminarunt. Quoniam nimio terrore tot
hominim recurrentium ad martyrium concussa gentilitas regni sui
arbitrabatur imminere excidium, cum tali etiam praecinctos
virtute parvulos videret." A similar project is attributed
(mistakenly, without doubt) to Abdurrahman.
[2] _Ibid._, iii. c. vii. sec. 4. "Iusserat enim omnes
Christianos generali sententia perdere, feminasque publico
distractu disperdere." Cp. also Alvar, Life of Eul., iv. 12.
"Rex Mahomad incredibili rabie et effrenata sententia
Christicolum genus del ere funditus cogitabat."
[3] _Ibid._ "Multi insaniam modificare nitentes per trucem
voluntatis iniquae officium diversis et exquisitis occasionibus
gregem Christi impetere tentaverunt."
[4] _Ibid._ iii. c. vii. secs. 1, 2. Fleury, v. 520, says he
was a monk of Guadix.
[5] _Ibid._, ch. viii. secs. 1, 2.
[6] Eulog., "Mem. Sanct.," iii. ch. ix.
The cloisters of Tabanos had furnished so many fanatics that the
Government now suppressed the place, removing the nuns and shutting them
up to prevent others giving themselves up.[1] One of these however,
Columba,[2] sister of Elizabeth and of the abbot Martin, contrived to
escape. This Columba had persisted in remaining a virgin, in spite of
her mother's efforts to make her marry, which only ceased when the
mother died. She now gave herself up and was beheaded (September 17).
Just one month later Pomposa,[3] from the monastery of St Salvator,
Pegnamellar, suffered the same fate. Then there was a pause in these
executions, which was not broken till July 11th of the following year,
when Abundius, a priest, was martyred. He seems to have really deserved
the name of martyr, for he was given up to the authorities by the
treachery of others,[4] and did not seek martyrdom.
Another similar period elapsed before Amator, a priest of Tucci
(Tejada); Peter, a monk of Cordova; and Ludovic, a brother of Paul, the
deacon, beheaded four years before, shared the same fate (April 30,
855).[5]
After nearly a year Witesindus, a repentant renegade; Elias, an old
priest of Lusitania; and Paul and Isidore, young monks, gave themselves
up to execution[6] (April 17, 856.) In June of that year a more
venerable victim was, like Abundius, betrayed to his destruction. This
was Argimirus, an old monk, once Censor of Cordova (June 28).[7] Exactly
one month later Aurea, a virgin and sister of the brothers John and
Adulphus, whose martyrdom has been already mentioned, was brought before
the magistrate. Descended from one of the noblest Arab families,[8] she
had long been left unmolested, though her apostasy to Christianity was
well known. She was now frightened into temporary submission; but soon
repenting of her compliance, and avowing herself truly a Christian, she
gained a martyr's crown (July 29).
[1] So Miss Yonge.
[2] Eulog., "Mem. Sanct.," iii. c. x. secs. I, 2.
[3] _Ibid._, c. xi.
[4] _Ibid._, ch. xii. "Quorundam commento vel fraude gentilium
ad martyrium furore pertractum."
[5] _Ibid._, ch. xiii.
[6] _Ibid._, cc. xiv. xv.
[7] Eulog., "Mem. Sanct.," iii. c. xv., "Quorundam ethnicorum
dolo vel odio circumventus."
[8] _Ibid._, xvii. sec. I, "Grandi fastu Arabicae traducis
exornabatur."
The next example affords a similar instance of real persecution.
Ruderic,[1] a priest, whose brother was a Moslem, unadvisedly intervened
as a peacemaker, in a quarrel, in which his brother was engaged. With
the usual fate of peacemakers, he was set upon by both parties, and
nearly killed. In fact his brother supposed him to be quite dead, and
had the body carried through the town, proclaiming that his brother had
become a Mussulman before his death.[2] However, Ruderic recovered, and
made his escape, but being obliged to return to Cordova, met his
brother, who immediately brought him before the Kadi on a charge of
apostasy. His life and liberty were promised to him if he would only
acknowledge that Christ was merely man, and that Mohammed was the
messenger of God. On refusing, he is imprisoned, and finds in prison a
certain Salomon, also charged with apostasy from Islam. The two
fellow-prisoners contract a great friendship and are consequently
separated. After a third exhortation, they are condemned to death, but
not before the judge had done his best to bribe them to forego their
purpose by offers of honour and rewards.[3] They were executed March 13,
857, and their bodies thrown into the river--even the stones sprinkled
with their blood being taken up and cast into the water, lest the
Christians should preserve them as relics. Ruderic's body was washed on
shore, fresh as when killed; while Salomon, not being equally fortunate,
informed a devout Christian in a vision, where his body lay in a
tamarisk thicket near the town of Nymphianum.
Hitherto the aider and abettor of these martyrdoms had himself contrived
to escape the penalty, which he had urged others to brave. Whether this
was due to any unworthy fear of death on his part is not clear, but it
may have been owing to the respect in which he was held by the Moslem
authorities. To these he was well known as a man of irreproachable
character and unaffected piety, and several Arabs of high rank, who were
his personal friends, shewed themselves anxious to screen him from the
effects of his folly. Eulogius[4] was descended from a Senatorial family
of Cordova, and was educated at the Church of St Zoilus, where he
devoted himself to ecclesiastical studies, and soon surpassed his
contemporaries in learning. With his friend Alvar he sat at the feet of
Speraindeo, an eminent abbot in the province of Baetica. Besides a
sister Anulo, Eulogius had two brothers engaged in trade, and another
brother, Joseph, who seems to have been in government employ.[5]
[1] Eulog., "Lib. Apol.," sec. 21 ff.
[2] So the Inquisitors in Spain used to pretend that their
victims had abjured their errors before being burnt.
[3] Eul., "Lib. Apol.," sec. 27.
[4] Life by Alvar, c. i. sec. 2.
[5] Eul. ad Wiliesindum, sec. 8, "Joseph, quem saeva tyranni
indignatio eo tempore a principatu dejecerat:" unless this is a
metaphorical allusion to Joseph in Egypt.
Eulogius became early noted for his practice of asceticism, and his
desire for the life of a monk,[1] and for the glory of martyrdom. When
strong measures were taken by the authorities, in concert with
Reccafredus, Bishop of Seville, to stamp out the mania for martyrdom by
threats, stripes, and imprisonment, though many were frightened into
submission, Eulogius, Alvar tells us,[2] remained firm, in spite of his
being singled out as an "incentor martyrum" by a certain Gomez, who was
a temporising Christian in the king's service.[3]
[1] Life by Alvar, sec. 3, "Ne virtus animi curis Saecularibus
enervaretur, quotidie ad caelestia cupiens volare corporea
sarcina gravabatur."
[2] "Hic inadibilis (=firm) nunquam vacillare vel tenui est
visus susurro."--Life by Alvar, sec. 5.
[3] This man, says Alvar, sec. 6, by a divine judgment, lost
his hold on the Christian faith, which he thus scrupled not to
attack. See below, p. 72.
There is no doubt that Eulogius did all he could to interfere with and
check that amalgamation of the Christians and Arabs which he saw going
on round him. Believing that such close relations between the peoples
tended to the spiritual degradation of Christianity, he set himself
deliberately to embitter those relations, and, as far as he could, to
make a good understanding impossible. To discourage the learning of
Arabic by the Christians, he brought back with him from a journey to
Pampluna the classical writings of Virgil, Horace (Satires), Juvenal,
and Augustine's "De Civitate Dei."
At the time when these martyrdoms took place, Eulogius was a priest, but
for some reason he tried to abstain from officiating at the mass on the
ground that he was himself a great sinner.[1] However, his
ecclesiastical superior[2] (? Saul, Bishop of Cordova), soon made him
take a different view of the question by threatening him with anathema
if he neglected his duty any longer. Coming forward as a prominent
champion of the extreme party in the Church, he was imprisoned in 851,
where he wrote treatises in favour of the martyrs, and was released, as
we have seen, by the intercession of Flora and Maria on November 29th of
that year.
[1] He pleads his "delicti onera," ch. i. sec. 7. Perhaps he
was infected with one of the "Migetian errors" of the previous
century, which was that "priests must be saints." Saul, Bishop
of Cordova (850-861), in a letter to another bishop (Florez,
xi. 156-163), refers with disapproval to those (? Eulogius) who
held that "sacramenta tunc esse solum modo sancta, cum
sanctorum fuerint manibus praelibata;" and he quotes Augustine
and Isidore against the error.
[2] Pontifex proprius.
In 858,[1] on the death of Wistremirus, he was chosen by
the votes of the people[2] to succeed him as Bishop of Toledo;
but from some cause, perhaps by the intervention of the
Moslems, he was prevented from occupying his see. The
people then determined to have no bishop, if they might
not have him.[3] Yet, adds the pious Alvar, he got his
bishopric after all, for "all holy men are bishops, though
not all bishops holy men."
[1] "Life of Eul.," Alvar, ii. sec. 10.
[2] "Communis electio."
[3] Fleury, v. 547, says another bishop was elected in
Eulogius' lifetime; but Alvar's words are "Alium sibi eo
vivente interdixerunt eligere."
In the following year he was again imprisoned as being a disturber of
the public peace, but as on a former occasion he had been allowed to
support and encourage Flora and Maria, so now was he permitted to finish
in prison a book in defence of the martyrs,[1] which had the direct
tendency of inciting others to go and do likewise. The occasion of
Eulogius' second imprisonment was as follows:--Leocritia, a maiden of
Arab extraction and of noble birth,[2] had been secretly baptised by
Liliosa, the wife of Felix. Her parents, learning her apostasy, cruelly
ill-treated, and even beat her, in order to make her renounce Christ.
She naturally turned to Eulogius and his sister Anulo for advice in her
afflictions, expressing a wish to escape to a part of Spain where the
Christian worship was free. As a first step to this, she leaves her
parents under pretence of going to a wedding, and takes refuge with
Eulogius. Her parents, furious at her escape, get all sorts of people
imprisoned on the charge of aiding her; and she is at last betrayed and
surprised at the house of her protector. They are both dragged before
the Kadi, who asks Eulogius angrily why he persists in defying the laws
in this way.[3] The bishop defends himself by pleading that Christian
clergy are bound to impart a knowledge of their religion, if asked, as
he had been by Leocritia.[4] The judge then threatens to have him
scourged, but Eulogius, preferring death to so painful and degrading a
punishment, repeats the lesson which he had taught to so many others,
and reviles Mohammed. Even so the judge shows a disposition to treat him
with leniency, and he is remanded to prison with Leocritia.
When brought up again before the royal Council,[5] an influential friend
makes a last effort to save him, saying: "Fools and idiots rush on their
own destruction, but what induces you, a man of approved wisdom and
blameless character, in defiance of all natural instincts, to throw away
your life in this manner?" He urges Eulogius to say but one word of
concession in the hour of peril, promising that he should afterwards be
free to exercise his religion as he pleased, without let or hindrance.
But the bishop could hardly turn back now, and he rejected all such
offers with the ejaculation, "If they only knew the joy that awaits us
on high!"
[1] See Eulog., Letter to Alvar, Florez, xi. 295.
[2] Alvar, Life of Eulog., i. sec. 13.
[3] Alvar, "Life of Eulog.," i. secs. 14, 15.
[4] This kind of proselytism was not held to be a capital crime
by the Moslems. See Dozy, ii. 171.
[5] Alvar, "Life of Eul.," v. sec. 15. Fleury v. 548.
On his way to execution, when struck by one of the bystanders on one
cheek, he turned the other meekly to the striker. He was beheaded on
March 11, 859, and Leocritia four days later. Miraculous appearances
honoured the body of the martyred bishop, which was buried in the Church
of St Genesius, whence it was translated in the next year to his own
church of St Zoilus, and in 883 was given up, together with that of
Leocritia, to Alphonso III. (866-910) by express stipulation.
CHAPTER V.
CONTROVERSY CONCERNING THE MARTYRS.
With the death of Eulogius the series of voluntary martyrdoms comes to
an end, and it will be convenient at this point to consider the whole
question of the relation of the Church to the civil power, and how far
those "confessors," who were put to death under the circumstances
already related, were entitled to the name of martyrs. Unfortunately the
evidence we have on the subject is drawn almost entirely from the
apologists of their doings, and therefore may fairly be suspected of
some bias. Yet even from them can be shown conclusively enough that no
real persecution was raging in Mohammedan Spain at this time, such as to
justify the extreme measures adopted by the party of zealots.
If we except the cases of John and Adulphus, and of Nunilo and Alodia,
the date of which is doubtful, there is not a single recorded instance
of a Christian being put to death for his religion by the Arabs in
Spain before the middle of the ninth century. The Muzarabes,[1] as the
Christians living under the Arabs were called, enjoyed a remarkable
degree of freedom in the exercise of their religion--the services and
rites of the Church being conducted as heretofore.[2] In Cordova alone
we find mention of the following churches:[3] the Church of St Acislus,
a former martyr of Cordova; of St Zoilus; of the Three
Martyrs--Faustus, Januarius, Martialis; of St Cyprian; of SS. Genesius
and Eulalia; and of the Virgin Mary.
[1] De Gayangos on Al Makk., i. p. 420, says the word means
"those who try to imitate the Arabs in manners and language."
[2] Eulog. Letter to Alvar. After the death of Flora he says he
spent the ninth hour in prayer, then "auctis tripucliis,
vespertinum, matutinum, missale sacrificium consequenter ad
honorem (Dei) et gloriam nostrarum virginum celebravimus."
[3] Florez, x. 245.
Of the last of these there is an interesting account in an Arab writer,
who died in 1034.[1] "I once entered at night," he says, "into the
principal Christian Church. I found it all strewed with green branches
of myrtle, and planted with cypress trees. The noise of the thundering
bells resounded in my ears; the glare of the innumerable lamps dazzled
my eyes; the priests, decked in rich silken robes of gay and fanciful
colours, and girt with girdle cords, advanced to adore Jesus. Everyone
of those present had banished mirth from his countenance, and expelled
from his mind all agreeable ideas; and if they directed their steps
towards the marble font it was merely to take sips of water with the
hollow of their hands. The priest then rose and stood among them, and
taking the wine cup in his hands prepared to consecrate it: he applied
to the liquor his parched lips, lips as dark as the dusky lips of a
beautiful maid; the fragrancy of its contents captivated his senses, but
when he had tasted the delicious liquor, the sweetness and flavour
seemed to overpower him." On leaving the church, the Arab, with true
Arabian facility, extemporized some verses to the following effect: "By
the Lord of mercy! this mansion of God is pervaded with the smell of
unfermented red liquor, so pleasant to the youth. It was to a girl that
their prayers were addressed, it was for her that they put on their gay
tunics, instead of humiliating themselves before the Almighty." Ahmed
also says: "the priests, wishing us to stay long among them, began to
sing round us with their books in their hands; every wretch presented us
the palm of his withered hand (with the holy water), but they were even
like the bat, whose safety consists in his hatred for light; offering us
every attraction that their drinking of new wine, or their eating of
swine's flesh, could afford." This narrative is in many respects very
characteristic of an Arab writer, who would not feel the incongruity of
an illustration on such a theme drawn from "the lips of a maid," or the
irrelevancy of a reference to swine's flesh. But the account merits
attention on other grounds, for it shews how little even the more
intelligent Moslems understood the ceremonies of the religion which they
had conquered, though they might be pardoned for thinking that the
Christians worshipped the Virgin Mary, both because Mohammed himself
fell into the same error, and because probably the Roman Church and its
adherents had already begun to pay her idolatrous worship.
The chief church in Cordova at the conquest seems to have been the
church of St Vincent. On the taking of the town,[2] the Christians had
to give up half of it to the Arabs, a curious arrangement, but one
enforced elsewhere by the Saracens. In 784 the Christians were induced,
or compelled, to sell their half for 100,000 dinars, and it was pulled
down to make room for the Great Mosque.[3] In 894 we find that the
Cordovans were allowed to build a new church.
[1] Ahmed ibn Abdilmalik ibn Shoheyd, Al Makk., i. 246. I quote
De Gayangos' translation.
[2] De Gayangos on Al Makk., i. 368, says the cathedral was at
first guaranteed to the Christians. Some time later than 750
they had to surrender half of it; in 784 they were obliged to
sell the other half, and in return were allowed to rebuild the
destroyed churches. For the "church of the burnt" see above, p.
29, note 1.
[3] This was not finished till 793. The original structure cost
80,000 dinars. Several Khalifs added to it, and Hakem II.
(961-976) alone spent on it 160,000 dinars.
Besides these within the walls, there were ten or twelve monasteries and
churches in the immediate neighbourhood of Cordova: among them the
monastery of St Christopher, the famous one of Tabanos, suppressed as
above mentioned, in 854;[1] those of St Felix at Froniano, of St Martin
at Royana, of the Virgin Mary at Cuteclara, of St Salvator at
Pegnamellar; and the churches of SS. Justus and Pastor, and of St
Sebastian.
We have given the names of these churches and monasteries[2] at or near
Cordova, both to shew how numerous they were, and also because from one
or other of them came nearly all the self-devoted martyrs, of whom we
are about to consider the claims. Except in cases like that
above-mentioned, the Christians were not allowed to build new
churches,[3] but considering the diminution in the numbers of the
Christians owing to the conquest, and the apostasy of a great many, this
could not be reckoned a great hardship. Moreover the Christian churches,
it was ordained, should be open to Moslems as well as Christians, though
during the performance of mass it seems that they had to be kept closed.
The Mosques were never to be polluted by the step of an infidel.[4]
[1] Dozy, ii. 162.
[2] Monasteries were established in Spain 150 years before the
Saracen conquest. They mostly fared badly at the hands of the
Arabs, in spite of the injunctions of the Khalif Abubeker (see
Conde, i. 37, and Gibbon), but that of Lorban at Coimbra
received a favourable charter in 734 (Fleury, v. 89; but
Dunham, ii. 154, doubts the authenticity of the charter).
[3] Cp. the stipulation of Omar at the fall of Jerusalem.
[4] See Charter of Coimbra, apud Fleury, v. 89.
The religious ferment, which manifested itself so strongly at Cordova,
did not extend to other parts of Spain. For instance, at Elvira, the
cradle of Spanish Christianity, it was shortly after the Cordovan
martyrdoms (in 864) that the mosque, founded in the year of the
conquest, and left unbuilt for 150 years, was finally finished. What we
hear about the Christians at Elvira at this time is not to their credit,
their bishop, Samuel, being notorious as an evil liver.[1] It is in
Cordova that the main interest at this period centres; and to Cordova we
will for the present confine our attention.
There is abundant evidence to show that the party of enthusiasts, both
those who offered themselves for martyrdom, and those who aided and
abetted their more impulsive brethren, were a comparatively small body
in the Church of Spain; and that their proceedings awakened little short
of dismay in the minds of the more sensible portion of the Christian
community, both in the Arab part of Spain, and perhaps in a less degree
in the free North.[2] The chief leaders of the party of zealots--as far
as we find mention of them--were Saul, bishop of Cordova (850-861),
Eulogius, and Samson, abbot of the monastery of Pegnamellar; while
Reccafredus, bishop of Seville, and Hostegesis of Malaga, were the
prominent ecclesiastics on the other side.
[1] Ibn Khatib, apud Dozy, ii. 210.
[2] Yonge, p. 63.
Before relating what steps the latter took in conjunction with the
Moslem authorities to put down the dangerous outbreak of fanaticism, it
will be interesting to note what was the attitude of the different
sections of the Church towards the misguided men who gave themselves up
to death, and their claims to the crown of martyrdom. Those who denied
the validity of these claims, rested their contention on the grounds,
that the so-called martyrs had compassed their own destruction, there
being no persecution at the time; that they had worked no miracles in
proof of their high claims; that they had been slain by men who believed
in the true God; that they had suffered an easy and immediate death; and
that their bodies had corrupted like those of other men.
It was an abuse of words, said the party of moderation, to call these
suicides by the holy name of martyrs, when no violence in high places
had forced them to deny their faith,[1] or interfered with their due
observance of Christianity. It was merely an act of ostentatious
pride--and pride was the root of all evil--to court danger. Such conduct
had never been enjoined by Christ, and was quite alien from the meekness
and humility of His character.[2]
They might have added that such voluntary martyrdoms had been expressly
condemned,
(_a._) By the circular letter of the Church of Smyrna to the other
churches, describing Polycarp's martyrdom, in the terms: "We commend not
those who offer themselves of their own accord, for that is not what the
gospel teacheth us:"[3]
(_b._) By St Cyprian,[4] who, when brought before the consul and
questioned, said "our discipline forbiddeth that any should offer
themselves of their own accord;" and in his last letter he says: "Let
none of you offer himself to the pagans, it is sufficient if he speak
when apprehended:"
(_c._) By Clement of Alexandria: "We also blame those who rush to death,
for there are some, not of us, but only bearing the same name, who give
themselves up:"[5]
(_d._) Implicitly by the synod of Elvira, or Illiberis (_circa_ 305),
one of the canons of which forbade him to be ranked as a martyr, who
was killed on the spot for breaking idols:
(_e._) By Mensurius, bishop of Carthage, who, when consulted on the
question of reducing the immense lists of acknowledged martyrs, gave it
as his opinion that those should be first excluded who had courted
martyrdom.[6] One bishop alone, and he a late one, Benedict XIV. of
Rome,[7] has ventured to approve what the Church has condemned. Nor is
this the only instance in which the Roman Church has set aside the
decisions of an earlier Christendom.
[1] Eul., "Mem. Sanct.," i., sec. 18, "Quos nulla praesidalis
violentia fidem suam negare compulit, nec a cultu sanctae
piaeque religionis amovit:" sec. 23, "Quos liberalitas regis
suum incolere iusserat Christianismum."
[2] Quoting such texts as Matt. v. 44, "Bless them that curse
you, and pray for them that despitefully use you:" Pet. ii. 23,
"Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's
sake."
[3] Eusebius iv. 15. See Neander, i. p. 150. (A.D. 167.)
[4] Martyred 258.
[5] See Long's "M. Aurelius Antoninus," Introd., p. 21.
[6] Burton's "History of the Christian Church," p. 336.
[7] 1740-1748: in his "De Servorum Dei beatificatione et
beatorum canonizatione," Bk. iii. 16, sec. 7. Fleury, v. 541.
The charges against the zealots were twofold, that there had been no
persecution worthy of the name, such as to justify their doings, and
that those doings themselves were contrary to the teaching and spirit of
Christianity. The latter part of the charge has already been dealt with,
and may be considered sustained. As to the other part, the apologists,
it must be confessed, answer with a very uncertain sound. Sometimes,
indeed, they deny it point-blank:[1] "as if," says Eulogius, "the
destruction of our churches,[2] the insults heaped upon our clergy, the
monthly tax[3] which we pay, the perils of a hard life, lived on
sufferance, are nothing." These insults and affronts are continually
referred to. "No one," says the same author,[4] "can go out or come in
amongst us in security, no one pass a knot of Moslems in the street
without being treated with contumely. They mock at the marks[5] of our
order. They hoot at us and call us fools and vain. The very children
jeer at us, and even throw stones and potsherds at the priests. The
sound of the church-going bell[6] never fails to evoke from Moslem
hearers the foulest and most blasphemous language. They even deem it a
pollution to touch a Christian's garment." Alvar adds that the Moslems
would fall to cursing when they saw the cross;[7] and when they
witnessed a burial according to Christian rites, would say aloud, "Shew
them no mercy, O God," throwing stones withal at the Lord's people, and
defiling their ears with the filthiest abuse.[8] "Yet," he indignantly
exclaims, "you say that this is not a time of persecution; nor is it, I
answer, a time of apostles. But I affirm that it is a deadly time[9] ...
are we not bowed beneath the yoke of slavery, burdened with intolerable
taxes, spoiled of our goods, lashed with the scourges of their abuse,
made a byword and a proverb, aye, a spectacle to all nations?"[10]
[1] Eul., "Mem. Sanct.," i. sec. 21: Alvar, "Ind. Lum.," sec.
3.
[2] _Ibid._; and Alvar, "Ind. Lum.," sec. 7.
[3] Leovigild, "De habitu Clericorum." "Migne," 121, p. 565.
[4] Eul., l.l.
[5] Stigmata.
[6] Alvar, "Ind. Lum.," sec. 6, "Derisioni et contemptui
inhiantes capita moventes infanda iterando congeminant." He
adds: "Daily and nightly from their minarets they revile the
Lord by their invocation of Allah and Mohammed!" Eul., "Lib.
Ap.," sec. 19, confesses that hearing their call to prayer
always moved him to quote Psalm xcvi. 7: "Confounded be all
they that worship carved images"--a very irrelevant
malediction, as applied to the Moslems.
[7] Alvar, l.l., "Fidei signum opprobrioso elogio decolorant."
[8] "Spurcitiarum fimo."--_Ibid._
[9] "Mortiferum."--"Ind. Lum.," sec. 3.
[10] Alvar, "Ind. Lum.," sec. 31, gives us a very savage
picture of the Moslem character: "Sunt in superbia tumidi, in
tumore cordis elati, in delectatione carnalium operum fluidi,
in comestione superflui ... sine misericordia crudeles, sine
iustitia invasores, sine honore absque veritate, benignitatis
nescientes affectum ... humilitatem velut insaniam deridentes,
castitatem velut spurcitiam respuentes."
That there was a certain amount of social ill-treatment, and that the
lower classes of Moslems did not take any pains to conceal their dislike
and scorn of such Christian beliefs and rites as were at variance with
their own creed, and moreover regarded priests and monks with especial
aversion, there can be no doubt. But, on the other hand, there is no
want of evidence to show that the condition of the Christians was by no
means so bad as the apologists would have us suppose. Petty annoyances
could not fail to exist anywhere under such circumstances, as were
actually to be found in Spain at this time, and we may be sure that the
Christian priests in particular did not bear themselves with that
humility which might have ensured a mitigation of the annoyances.
Organised opposition to Christianity, unless the Moslem rule can itself
be called such, there was none, till it was called into being by the
action of the fanatics themselves. But apart from all the other facts
which point to this conclusion, we can call the apologists themselves in
evidence that there was no real persecution going on at the time of the
first martyrdoms.
Eulogius[1] admits that the Christians were not let or hindered in the
free exercise of their religion by saying that this state of things[2]
was not due to the forbearance (forsooth!) of the Moslems, but to the
Divine mercy. Alvar, too, in a passage which seems to contradict the
whole position which he is trying to defend, says[3]:--"Though many were
the victims of persecution, very many others--and you cannot deny
it--offered themselves a voluntary sacrifice to the Lord. Is it not
clear that it was not the Arabs who began persecuting, but we who began
preaching? Read the story of the martyrs, and you will see that they
rushed voluntarily on their fate, not waiting the bidding of
persecutors, nor the snares of informers; aye, and--what is made so
strong a charge against them--that they tired out the forbearance of
their rulers and princes by insult upon insult."[4]
[1] "Mem. Sanct.," i. sec. 29.
[2] Viz., "Quod inter ipsos sine molestia fidei degimus."
[3] "Ind. Lum.," sec. 3.
[4] "Fatigasse praesides et principes multis
contumeliis."--_Ibid._
As to the other part of the accusation, that voluntary martyrs were no
martyrs, Eulogius could only declaim against the Scriptures quoted by
his opponents,[1] and refer to the morally blind, who make evil their
good, and take darkness to be their light;[2] while he brought forward a
saying of certain wise men that "those martyrs will hold the first rank
in the heavenly companies who have gone to their death unsummoned."[3]
He also sought to defend the practice of reviling Mohammed by the plea
that exorcism was allowed against the devil, which is sufficiently
ridiculous; but Alvar goes further, and calmly assures us that these
insults and revilings of the prophet were merely a form of preaching[4]
to the poor benighted Moslems, naively remarking that the Scriptures
affirm that the Gospel of Christ must be preached to all nations.
Whereas, then, the Moslems had not been preached to, these martyred
saints had taken upon themselves the sacred duty of rendering them
"debtors to the faith."
The second count[5] against the martyrs was that they had worked no
miracles--a serious deficiency in an age when miracles were almost the
test of sanctity. Eulogius[6] could only meet the charge by admitting
the fact, but adding that miracles were frequent in the early ages, in
order to establish Christianity on a firm basis; and that the constancy
of the martyrs was in itself a miracle (which was true, but not to the
point). Had he been content with this, he had done wisely; but he goes
on: "Moreover, miracles are no sign of truth, as even the unbelievers
can work them."[7] Now, by trying to show why these martyrs did not
perform any miracles, he admits by implication that they were deficient
in this particular;[8] and yet in other parts of his work he mentions
miracles performed by these very martyrs, as, for instance, by Isaac,
and by Flora, and Maria.[9] So that the worthy priest is placed in this
dilemma: If miracles are really no sign of truth, why attribute them to
the martyrs, when, as is allowed elsewhere, they were unable to work
them? if, on the other hand, they did perform these miracles, why not
adduce them in evidence against the detractors?
[1] Eul., "Mem. Sanct.," i. sec. 19.
[2] Isaiah v. 20.
[3] Eul., "Mem. Sanct.," i. sec. 24. Taken from some "Acts of
the Saints," probably those of SS. Emetherius and Caledonius--a
book obviously of no authority.
[4] "Ind. Lum.," sec. 10, "In hac Israelitica gente nullus
hactenus exstitit praedicator, per quod debitores fidei
tenerentur. Isti enim (_i.e._, the martyrs) apostolatus vicem
in eosdem et evangelicam praedicationem impleverunt, eosque
fidei debitores reddiderunt."
[5] Eul., "Mem. Sanct.," i. 13.
[6] "Lib. Apol.," sec 7.