Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images available at The Internet Archive)
MOORISH REMAINS IN SPAIN
[Illustration: CORDOVA.
THE MOSQUE.
Vertical Section of the Dome and Cupola of the Mihrab.]
[Illustration:
MOORISH
REMAINS
IN SPAIN
BEING A BRIEF RECORD OF
THE ARABIAN CONQUEST OF THE
PENINSULA WITH A PARTICULAR
ACCOUNT OF THE MOHAMMEDAN
ARCHITECTURE AND DECORATION
IN CORDOVA, SEVILLE & TOLEDO
BY ALBERT F. CALVERT
LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD
NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY, MCMVI]
E. Goodman and Son, Phœnix Printing Works, Taunton.
DEDICATION
TO HIS MAJESTY KING ALFONSO XIII.
SIRE,
The great interest Your Majesty has evinced in the Moorish Monuments
which adorn Your Majesty’s loyal and noble country, and the gracious
appreciation with which You were pleased to regard my work on The
Alhambra, inspired me with the presumption to solicit the honour of Your
Majesty’s August Patronage for this volume, which is humbly dedicated to
Your Majesty agreeably to Your Majesty’s gracious permission, by
Your Majesty’s humble Servant,
ALBERT F. CALVERT.
PREFACE
The inception of my work on The Alhambra, to which this book is designed
to be the companion and complementary volume, was due to the
disappointing discovery that no such thing as an even moderately
adequate souvenir of the Red Palace of Granada, “that glorious sanctuary
of Spain,” was in existence. It was written at a time when I shared the
very common delusion that the Alhambra was the only word in a vocabulary
of relics which includes such Arabian superlatives as the Mosque at
Cordova, the Gates and the Cristo de la Luz of Toledo, and the Alcazar
at Seville. I had then to learn that while the Alhambra has rightly been
accepted as the last word on Moorish Art in Spain, it must not be
regarded as the solitary monument of the splendour and beauty with which
the Arabs stamped their virile and artistic personality upon Andalus.
In the course of frequent and protracted visits to Spain I came to
realise that the Moors were not a one-city nation; they did not exhaust
themselves in a single, isolated effort to achieve the sublimely
beautiful. Before the Alhambra was conceived in the mind of Mohammed the
First of Granada, Toledo had been adorned and lost; Cordova, which for
centuries had commanded the admiration of Europe, had paled and waned
beside the increasing splendour of Seville; and the “gem of Andalusia”
itself had been wrested from the Moor by the victorious Ferdinand III.
But each in turn had been redeemed from Gothic tyranny by the
art-adoring influence of the Moslem. Their dominion, their politics, and
their influence is a tale of a day that is dead, but it survives in the
monuments of their Art, which exist to the glory of Spain and the wonder
of the world. The Arabian sense of the beautiful sealed itself upon
Cordova, and made the city its own; it blended with the joyous spirit
of Seville; it forced its impress upon the frowning forehead of Toledo.
To see the Alhambra is not to understand the wonders of the Alcazar; the
study of Moorish wizardry in Toledo does not reveal, does not even
prepare one, for the bewildering cunning of the Mosque in Cordova.
In Cordova--this gay, vivacious overgrown village, which gleams serene
in a setting of vineyards and orange groves--the spirit of the Moors
still breathes. Rome wrested the city from Carthage; the Goths humbled
it to the dust. But, under the Moors, Cordova became the centre of
European civilisation, the rival of Baghdad and Damascus as a seat of
learning, the Athens of the West, and second only in sanctity to the
Kaaba of Mecca. Its Cathedral first came into being as a temple of
Janus; it has been both a basilica and a mosque. But the magic art of
the Mohammedan, which effaced the imprint of the Roman spear, has
survived the torch of the Holy Inquisition, and to-day Cordova is the
most exquisitely beautiful Moorish monument in Spain.
In Seville, on the spot where Roman, Visigoth, and Moslem have each in
turn practised their faith, the Cathedral bells now hang above the
Arabian tower of the mosque, and the spire of the temple of the faithful
has become the world-famous Giralda, which dominates the city. Moorish
fountains and patios are found at Malaga, and Granada, and Toledo, but
one comes to “La Tierra de Maria Santisima” to see them at their
loveliest, while the Alcazar is perhaps the best preserved and most
superbly-decorated specimen of the Moorish citadel-palace that Europe
has to show.
Menacing, majestic, and magnificent in its strength and splendid
isolation, Toledo, guarded by its Moorish masonry, a rock built upon a
rock, has been described by Padilla as “the crown of Spain, the light of
the world, free from the time of the mighty Goths.” The light of the
world has dwindled in the socket of modern progress, the Moor has left
his scars upon the freedom of the Goth; but Toledo, which was old when
Christianity was born, presents an epitome of the principal arts,
religions, and races which have dominated the world for the last two
thousand years.
In the three cities of Cordova, Seville, and Toledo, in which the hand
of the Moor touched nothing that it did not beautify, I have found the
supplement to the art wonders that I attempted to describe in my book
upon the Alhambra; and, encouraged by the cordiality of the welcome
extended to that volume in Spain and America, as well as in this
country, I have followed the course which I therein adopted, of making
the letterpress subservient to the illustrations. While immersed in
authorities, and tempted often by the beauties of the scenes to indulge
the desire to emotionalise in words, I have never permitted myself to
forget that my purpose has been to present a picture rather than to
chronicle the romance of Spanish-Morisco art.
For the historical data, and some of the descriptions contained in this
book, I have levied tribute on a large number of authors. Don Pascual de
Gayángos, the renowned translator of Al-Makkari; the _Handbook_ and the
_Gatherings_ of Richard Ford; William Stirling-Maxwell’s _Don John of
Austria_; _The History of the Conquest of Spain_, by Henry Coppeé;
Washington Irving’s _Conquest of Granada_; Miss Charlotte Yonge’s
_Christians and Moors in Spain_; Stanley Lane-Poole’s _The Moors in
Spain_; the writings of Dr. R. Dozy, of Leipsic; Muhammed Hayat Khan’s
_Rise and Fall of the Muslim Empire in Spain_; Hannah Lynch’s _Toledo_;
Walter M. Gallichan’s _Seville_; _The Latin-Byzantine Monuments of
Cordova_; _Monumentos Arquitectonicos de España_; Pedro de Madrazo’s
_Sevilla_--these, and many less important writers on Spain, have been
consulted.
But with this wealth of literary material to hand, I have remembered
that it is my collection of illustrations, rather than on the written
word, that I must depend. From the nature of Arabian art, and the
characteristic minuteness of the details of which Morisco decoration is
composed, lengthy descriptions of architecture, unaccompanied by
illustrations, become not only tedious but positively confusing to the
reader, while, on the other hand, a sufficiency of illustrations renders
exhaustive descriptions superfluous. I have striven to do justice to the
subject in this direction, not without hope of achieving my purpose, but
with a vast consciousness of the fact that, neither by camera, nor
brush, nor by the pen, can one reflect, with any fidelity, the effects
obtained by the Moorish masters of the Middle Ages. In their art we find
a sense of the mysterious that appeals to one like the glint of
moonlight on running water; an intangible spirit of joyousness that one
catches from the dancing shadows of leaves upon a sun-swept lawn; and an
elusive key to its beauty, which is lost in the bewildering maze of
traceries and the inextricable network of designs. The form, but not the
fantasy, of these fairy-like, fascinating decorations may be reproduced,
and this I have endeavoured to do.
A. F. C.
“ROYSTON,” HAMPSTEAD, N. W.
1905.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
CORDOVA
PAGE
THE MOSQUE--PRINCIPAL NAVE OF THE MIHRAB 9
THE MOSQUE--ENTRANCE TO THE MIHRAB 10
GATES OF PARDON 11
VIEW OF THE CITY AND BRIDGE SOUTH OF THE GUADALQUIVIR 12
GENERAL VIEW OF THE INTERIOR OF THE MOSQUE 12
FAÇADE AND GATE OF THE ALMANZOR 13
VIEW OF INTERIOR OF THE MOSQUE 961-967 14
THE MOSQUE--PLAN IN THE TIME OF THE ARABS 786-796, 961-967, 988-1001,
1523-1593 15
THE MOSQUE--PLAN IN ITS PRESENT STATE, 786-796, 961-967, 988-1001,
1523-1593 16
ANCIENT ARAB TOWER, NOW THE CHURCH OF ST. NICHOLAS DE LA VILLA 25
ORANGE COURT IN THE MOSQUE, MOORISH STYLE, BUILT 957, BY SAID BEN
AYOUT 26
EXTERIOR OF THE MOSQUE 27
THE MOSQUE--SECTION OF THE MIHRAB 28
THE MOSQUE--PORTAL ON THE NORTH SIDE, MOORISH STYLE, BUILT UNDER
HAKAM III., 988-1001 45
EXTERIOR VIEW OF THE MOSQUE 47
EXTERIOR ANGLE OF THE MOSQUE 49
THE EXTERIOR OF THE MOSQUE 51
THE BRIDGE 55
VIEW OF THE MOSQUE AND THE BRIDGE 57
SECTION OF THE MOSQUE OF CORDOVA ON THE LINE OF THE PLAN L. M. 59
SECTION OF THE MOSQUE OF CORDOVA ON THE LINE OF THE PLAN N. O. 59
THE GATES OF PARDON 61
A VIEW IN THE GARDEN BELONGING TO THE MOSQUE 65
THE MOSQUE--LATERAL GATE 67
INTERIOR OF THE MOSQUE, OR CATHEDRAL 69
INTERIOR OF THE MOSQUE, MOORISH STYLE, BUILT 961-967. UNDER HAKAM II. 71
THE MOSQUE 75
THE MOSQUE--INTERIOR VIEW 77
INTERIOR VIEW OF THE MOSQUE 79
THE MOSQUE--GENERAL VIEW OF THE INTERIOR 81
THE CENTRAL NAVE OF THE MOSQUE--961-967 85
THE MOSQUE--CHIEF ENTRANCE 87
INTERIOR VIEW OF THE CATHEDRAL 89
INTERIOR OF THE MOSQUE--LATERAL NAVE 91
INTERIOR OF THE MOSQUE--EAST SIDE 91
THE MOSQUE--DETAIL OF THE GATE 95
THE MOSQUE--FAÇADE OF THE ALMANZOR 95
VIEW IN THE MOSQUE--961-967 97
THE MOSQUE--A GATE ON ONE OF THE LATERAL SIDES 99
THE MOSQUE--SIDE OF THE CAPTIVE’S COLUMN 101
MOSQUE, NORTH SIDE--EXTERIOR OF THE CHAPEL OF ST. PEDRO 105
GENERAL VIEW OF THE INTERIOR OF THE CHAPEL OF THE MASURA AND ST.
FERDINAND 107
DETAIL OF THE CHAPEL OF MASURA 109
THE MOSQUE--ELEVATION OF THE GATE OF THE SANCTUARY OF THE KORAN 111
THE MOSQUE--GATE OF THE SANCTUARY OF THE KORAN 115
THE MOSQUE--MOSAIC DECORATION OF THE SANCTUARY, 965-1001 117
THE MOSQUE--RIGHT-HAND SIDE GATE WITHIN THE PRECINCTS OF THE
MAKSURRAH 119
THE MOSQUE--SECTION OF THE CUPOLA OF THE MIHRAB 121
THE MOSQUE--DOME OF THE SANCTUARY 125
THE MOSQUE--ROOF OF THE CHAPEL OF THE MASURA AND ST. FERDINAND 127
VILLAVICIOSA CHAPEL 129
THE MOSQUE--DETAIL OF THE HALL OF CHOCOLATE 131
ENTRANCE TO THE VESTIBULE OF THE MIHRAB 135
MIHRAB OR SANCTUARY OF THE MOSQUE 137
THE MOSQUE--ARCH AND FRONT OF THE ABD-ER-RAHMAN AND MIHRAB CHAPELS 139
ENTRANCE TO THE CHAPEL OF THE MIHRAB 141
VIEW OF THE INTERIOR OF THE MIHRAB CHAPEL 145
THE MOSQUE--DETAILS OF THE INTERIOR OF THE CHAPEL OF THE MIHRAB 147
THE MOSQUE--MARBLE SOCLE IN THE MIHRAB 149
BASEMENT PANEL OF THE FAÇADE OF THE MIHRAB 151
THE MOSQUE--FRONT OF THE TRASTAMARA CHAPEL 155
GENERAL VIEW OF THE CHAPEL OF VILLAVICIOSA 157
NORTH ANGLE OF THE CHAPEL OF VILLAVICIOSA 159
VILLAVICIOSA CHAPEL 161
THE MOSQUE--CHAPEL OF VILLAVICIOSA 165
ARAB TRIBUNE, TO-DAY THE CHAPEL OF VILLAVICIOSA, LEFT SIDE 167
ANCIENT INSCRIPTION OF THE TIME OF KHALIFATE, FOUND IN AN EXCAVATION 169
THE MOSQUE--CHAPEL OF TRASTAMARA, SOUTH SIDE 171
THE MOSQUE--DETAIL OF THE TRASTAMARA CHAPEL 171
THE MOSQUE--INTERIOR OF THE MIHRAB 175
THE MOSQUE--ARAB ARCADE ABOVE THE FIRST MIHRAB 175
THE MOSQUE--DETAILS, ARCHES OF THE MIHRAB 177
THE MOSQUE--DETAIL OF THE MIHRAB 177
THE MOSQUE--EXTERIOR OF THE CHAPEL OF THE MIHRAB 179
THE MOSQUE--GATE OF THE SULTAN 179
PRINCIPAL ENTRANCE TO THE MOSQUE 181
THE MOSQUE--DETAIL NEAR THE MIHRAB 181
THE GATES OF PARDON 185
THE BISHOP’S GATE 185
THE MOSQUE--PILASTERS AND ARABIAN BATHS 187
INSCRIPTIONS AND ARABIAN CHAPTERS 191
THE MOSQUE--A CUFIC INSCRIPTION IN THE PLACE APPROPRIATED TO THE
PERFORMANCE OF ABLUTIONS 193
ARABIC INSCRIPTIONS 195
A CUFIC INSCRIPTION ON THE ADDITIONS MADE TO THE MOSQUE, BY ORDER OF
THE KHALIF AL-HAKAM 197
THE BRIDGE ACROSS THE GUADALQUIVIR, WITH A VIEW OF THE CATHEDRAL
(MEZQUITA). THE SCENE AS IT APPEARED IN 1780. FROM _Antigüedades
Arabes de España_. MADRID, 1780, FOL. 201
VIEW OF CORDOVA CATHEDRAL (MEZQUITA), AS IT APPEARED IN 1780. FROM
_Antigüedades Arabes de España_. MADRID, 1780, FOL. 203
WALL OF THE MOSQUE 205
FAÇADE OF THE MIHRAB 207
THE MOSQUE--ARCH OF ONE OF THE GATES 211
THE MOSQUE--LATTICE 213
THE MOSQUE--ORNAMENTAL ARCHED WINDOW 217
THE MOSQUE--CAPITALS OF THE ENTRANCE ARCH 219
DETAILS OF THE FRIEZE 221
PLAN 221
KEYSTONE OF ORNAMENTAL ARCH 221
DETAILS OF THE CORNICE 223
CAPITAL OF ARCH 227
SIDE VIEW OF THE CORNICE 227
BASES 227
EAST FAÇADE, WITHOUT THE PORTICO 229
SEVILLE
FAÇADE OF THE ALCAZAR 241
ALCAZAR--GATES OF THE PRINCIPAL ENTRANCE 243
FAÇADE OF THE ALCAZAR 247
CHIEF ENTRANCE TO THE ALCAZAR, MOORISH STYLE, BUILT UNDER DON
PEDRO I. THE CRUEL, 1369-1379 249
ALCAZAR--PRINCIPAL FAÇADE 253
INTERIOR COURT OF THE ALCAZAR 255
ALCAZAR--ARCADE IN THE PRINCIPAL COURT 259
ALCAZAR--VIEW OF THE INTERIOR 261
ALCAZAR--COURT OF THE DOLLS 265
ALCAZAR--COURT OF THE DOLLS, MOORISH STYLE, BUILT 1369-1379 267
ALCAZAR--THE COURT OF THE DOLLS 271
ALCAZAR--RIGHT ANGLE OF THE COURT OF THE DOLLS 273
ALCAZAR--COURT OF THE DOLLS 277
ALCAZAR--UPPER PART OF THE COURT OF THE DOLLS 279
ALCAZAR--UPPER PORTIONS OF THE COURT OF THE DOLLS 283
ALCAZAR--COURT OF THE DOLLS 285
ALCAZAR--THE LITTLE COURT 289
ALCAZAR--VIEW IN THE LITTLE COURT 291
ALCAZAR--VIEW OF THE HALL OF AMBASSADORS FROM THE LITTLE COURT 295
ALCAZAR--HALL OF AMBASSADORS 297
ALCAZAR--INTERIOR OF THE HALL OF AMBASSADORS 301
ALCAZAR--THE HALL OF AMBASSADORS 303
ALCAZAR--THRONE OF JUSTICE 307
ALCAZAR--HALL OF AMBASSADORS 307
ALCAZAR--FAÇADE OF THE COURT OF THE VIRGINS 309
ALCAZAR--INTERIOR OF THE COURT OF THE VIRGINS, MOORISH STYLE, BUILT
1369-1379 313
ALCAZAR--GENERAL VIEW OF THE COURT OF THE HUNDRED VIRGINS 315
ALCAZAR--COURT OF THE HUNDRED VIRGINS 319
ALCAZAR--COURT OF THE VIRGINS 321
ALCAZAR--GALLERY IN THE COURT OF THE HUNDRED VIRGINS 325
ALCAZAR--THE SULTANA’S APARTMENT AND COURT OF THE VIRGINS 327
ALCAZAR--ENTRANCE TO THE SLEEPING SALOON OF THE MOORISH KINGS 331
ALCAZAR--DORMITORY OF THE KINGS 333
ALCAZAR--THE DORMITORY 337
ALCAZAR--FRONT OF THE SLEEPING SALOON OF THE MOORISH KINGS 339
ALCAZAR--SLEEPING SALOON OF THE MOORISH KINGS 339
ALCAZAR--ROOM OF THE INFANTA 343
ALCAZAR--COLUMNS WHERE DON FADRIQUE WAS MURDERED 345
ALCAZAR--GATE OF THE HALL OF SAN FERNANDO 349
ALCAZAR--GALLERY OF HALL OF SAN FERNANDO 349
ALCAZAR--HALL IN WHICH KING SAN FERNANDO DIED 351
ALCAZAR--ROOM OF THE PRINCE 355
ALCAZAR--VIEW OF THE GALLERY FROM THE SECOND FLOOR 357
TOWER OF THE GIRALDA 361
DETAILS OF THE GIRALDA TOWER 363
COURT OF THE HOUSE OF PILATOS 367
COURT OF THE HOUSE OF PILATOS 369
HOUSE OF PILATOS--VIEW IN THE COURT BY THE DOOR OF THE CHAPEL 373
HOUSE OF PILATOS--CHAPEL 375
GALLERY OF THE HOUSE OF PILATOS 376
GALLERY OF THE COURT OF THE HOUSE OF PILATOS 381
COURT OF THE PALACE OF MEDINA-CŒLI 385
TOLEDO
SANTA MARIA LA BLANCA--INTERIOR, 1100-1150 395
THE GATE OF BLOOD 399
INTERIOR OF SANTA MARIA LA BLANCA 405
GATE OF THE SUN 409
DOOR OF THE HALL OF MESA 413
EXTERIOR OF THE CHAPEL OF CHRISTO DE LA VEGA 413
ANCIENT GATE OF VISAGRA 419
CASTLE OF ST. SERVANDO 419
MOORISH SWORD 423
ARAB FRAGMENT AT TARRAGONA 429
ANCIENT ARABIAN BATHS AT PALMA, MAJORCA 435
MOORISH DESIGNS AND ORNAMENTS
DESIGNS AND ORNAMENTS 447-494
DESCRIPTION OF THE PLATES--HEXAGONAL FAMILY 495-586
LIST OF COLOURED PLATES
PLATE. DESCRIPTION.
FRONTISPIECE--VERTICAL SECTION OF THE DOME AND CUPOLA OF THE
MIHRAB. CORDOVA.
I. SHELL-LIKE ORNAMENTS IN THE CUPOLA OF THE MIHRAB. CORDOVA.
II. SHELL-LIKE ORNAMENTS IN THE CUPOLA OF THE MIHRAB. CORDOVA.
III. SHELL-LIKE ORNAMENTS IN THE CUPOLA OF THE MIHRAB. CORDOVA.
IV. PART OF THE ORNAMENTATION AND KEYSTONE OF ONE OF THE LOWER
ARCHES, WHICH GIVES LIGHT TO THE DOME. CORDOVA.
IV. RING OF THE CUPOLA.
V. CURVILINEAL TRIANGLES, RESULTING FROM THE INTERSECTION OF THE
ARCHES SUSTAINING THE DOME. CORDOVA.
V. SETTING OF THE ARCHES SUSTAINING THE DOME. CORDOVA.
V. SETTING OF THE ARCHES SUSTAINING THE DOME. CORDOVA.
VI. ORNAMENT RUNNING BELOW THE CUPOLA. CORDOVA.
VI. ORNAMENT RUNNING BELOW THE CUPOLA. CORDOVA.
VI. SETTING OF ONE OF THE LOWER ARCHES, WHICH GIVES LIGHT TO THE
DOME. CORDOVA.
VII. CURVILINEAL TRIANGLES, RESULTING FROM THE INTERSECTION OF THE
ARCHES SUSTAINING THE DOME.
VII. ARCHITRAVE OF ONE OF THE ARCHES SUSTAINING THE DOME. CORDOVA.
VIII. DETAILS OF THE GATE OF THE MAKSURRAH. CORDOVA.
IX. ARCHES OF THE PORTAL OF THE MIHRAB. CORDOVA.
X. DETAIL OF THE FRAMING OF THE SIDE GATE. CORDOVA.
X. DETAIL OF THE WINDOW PLACED OVER THE SIDE DOOR. CORDOVA.
X. DETAIL OF THE FRAMING OF THE ARCH OF THE MIHRAB.
XI. WINDOWS IN AN ALCOVE.
XII. ARAB VASE OF METALLIC LUSTRE.
XIII. DETAILS OF THE ARCHES.
XIV. CENTRE PAINTING ON A CEILING.
XV. DIVAN.
XVI. DETAIL OF AN ARCH.
XVII. GATE OF THE MURADA.
XVIII. DETAILS OF THE MIHRAB.
XVIII. DETAIL OF ONE OF THE ARCHES OF THE CUPOLA.
XVIII. MOSAIC KEYSTONES OF THE GREAT ARCH OF THE MIHRAB.
XIX. DETAILS, VILLAVICIOSA CHAPEL AND MIHRAB.
XX. DETAILS OF THE INTERIOR OF THE MOSQUE.
XXI. DETAILS OF THE INTERIOR OF THE MOSQUE.
XXII. DETAILS OF MOORISH WORK.
XXIII. DETAILS, VILLAVICIOSA CHAPEL AND MIHRAB.
XXIV. DETAILS OF MOORISH WORK.
XXV. FRIEZE IN THE HALL OF AMBASSADORS. SEVILLE.
XXV. STUCCO WORK IN THE HALL OF AMBASSADORS. SEVILLE.
XXV. MOSAIC IN THE LARGE COURT. SEVILLE.
XXV. MOSAIC IN THE LARGE COURT. SEVILLE.
XXVI. HALL OF AMBASSADORS--DETAILS. SEVILLE.
XXVII. HALL OF AMBASSADORS--DETAILS. SEVILLE.
XXVIII. HALL OF AMBASSADORS--DETAILS. SEVILLE.
XXIX. BLANK WINDOW.
XXX. SOFFIT OF ARCH.
XXXI. CORNICE AT SPRINGING OF ARCH OF DOORWAY AT ONE OF THE ENTRANCES.
XXXII. BORDERS OF ARCHES.
XXXIII. BORDERS OF ARCHES.
XXXIV. BORDER OF ARCHES.
XXXV. ORNAMENT IN PANELS ON THE WALL.
XXXVI. BANDS, SIDE OF ARCHES.
XXXVII. BANDS, SIDE OF ARCHES.
XXXVIII. ORNAMENTS ON PANELS.
XXXIX. ORNAMENTS ON PANELS.
XL. ORNAMENTS ON PANELS.
XLI. ORNAMENTS ON PANELS
XLII. FRIEZE IN THE UPPER CHAMBER, HOUSE OF SANCHEZ.
XLIII. CORNICE AT SPRINGING OF ARCHES IN A WINDOW.
XLIV. PANELS ON WALLS.
XLV. SPANDRILS OF ARCHES.
XLVI. SPANDRILS OF ARCHES.
XLVII. SPANDRILS OF ARCHES.
XLVIII. PLASTER ORNAMENTS, USED AS UPRIGHT AND HORIZONTAL BANDS
ENCLOSING PANELS ON THE WALLS.
XLIX. BLANK WINDOW.
L. RAFTERS OF A ROOF OVER A DOORWAY, NOW DESTROYED, BENEATH THE
TOCADOR DE LA REYNA.
LI. BAND AT SPRINGING OF ARCH AT THE ENTRANCE TO ONE OF THE HALLS.
LII. PANELLING OF A RECESS.
LIII. BLANK WINDOW.
LIV. ORNAMENTS ON THE WALLS, HOUSE OF SANCHEZ.
LV. ORNAMENT IN PANELS ON THE WALLS.
LVI. ORNAMENTS IN SPANDRILS OF ARCHES.
LVII. MOSAIC DADO IN A WINDOW, &C.
LVIII. MOSAIC DADOS ON PILLARS.
LIX. MOSAIC DADOS ON PILLARS.
LX. MOSAICS.
LXI. MOSAIC DADO ROUND THE INTERNAL WALLS OF THE MOSQUE.
LXII. PAINTED TILES.
LXIII. MOSAICS.
LXIV. MOSAICS.
LXV. ORNAMENTS IN PANELS.
LXVI. ORNAMENT OVER ARCHES AT ONE OF THE ENTRANCES.
LXVII. ORNAMENT ON THE WALLS.
LXVIII. ORNAMENT IN PANELS ON THE WALLS.
LXIX. SMALL PANEL IN JAMB OF A WINDOW.
LXX. SMALL PANEL IN JAMB OF A WINDOW.
LXXI. PANEL IN THE UPPER CHAMBER OF THE HOUSE OF SANCHEZ.
LXXII. SPANDRIL FROM NICHE OF DOORWAY AT ONE OF THE ENTRANCES.
LXXIII. LINTEL OF A DOORWAY.
LXXIV. CAPITAL OF COLUMNS.
LXXV. CAPITAL OF COLUMNS.
LXXVI. CAPITAL OF COLUMNS.
LXXVII. SOCLE OF THE ENTRANCE ARCH TO THE ANTE-CHAPEL.
LXXVIII. SOCLE OF THE ENTRANCE ARCH TO THE CHAPEL.
LXXIX. DETAIL OF THE TILES OF THE ALTAR.
LXXX. SOCLE IN THE INTERIOR OF THE CHAPEL.
LXXXI. SOCLE IN THE INTERIOR OF THE CHAPEL.
LXXXII. MOSAICS FROM VARIOUS HALLS.
LXXXIII. MOSAICS FROM VARIOUS HALLS.
LXXXIV. PART OF CEILING OF A PORTICO.
MOORISH REMAINS IN SPAIN
INTRODUCTORY
The conquest of Spain by the Moors, and the story comprised in the eight
centuries during which they wielded sovereignty as a European power,
forms a romance that is without parallel in the history of the world.
Under Mohammedan rule Spain enjoyed the first and most protracted period
of comparative peace and material prosperity she had ever known. She had
been plundered by Carthage and Phœnicia, ground beneath the iron heel of
Rome, devastated and enslaved by those Christianised but corrupt
barbarians, the Visigoths. All the evils and demoralisation arising from
successive waves of bloody conquest and decadent voluptuousness had been
sown in the breast of Spain. The squandered might of Carthage had left
the country a prey to the vigorous Roman; the degenerate Roman had been
banished by the rugged, victorious Goth, who, after two centuries of
security and sensual ease, was to be made subject to the warlike and
enlightened Moor. Once more the land was to be overrun and the face of
the country was to be scarred with fire and the sword; once more the
people were to learn to serve new masters and conform to new laws. Of a
truth the last state must have seemed worse than the first to the
Romanised Spaniards. Carthage had brought chains, but it had also
introduced artificers and a form of Government; the Roman eagles had
been accompanied by Roman engineers and road-builders; the Goths erected
upon the broken altars of mythology temples to the living God. But it
now seemed that the whips of ancient foes were to be replaced by the
scorpions of their new taskmasters; the Christianity which the East had
sent them was to be uprooted by the Eastern infidels.
Such must have been the prospect before Spain, and even before the rest
of Europe, when Tarik returned in 710 to Ceuta, from a marauding
expedition upon the coast of Andalusia, and reported to Musa, the son of
Noseyr, the Arab Governor of North Africa, that the country was ripe for
conquest and well worth the hazard of the cast. Twenty years later the
Moslems had overrun Spain, captured Bordeaux by assault and advanced to
the conquest of Gaul. It is passing strange to reflect that these
far-reaching, epoch-making events had not been undertaken as the result
of a deep-laid scheme of national expansion or religious enterprise.
According to tradition the foundation of the Moslem supremacy in Spain
was instigated by the hatred of a single traitor, Count Julian, the
Governor of Ceuta, and his treachery was inspired by the dishonour of
one young girl--Julian’s daughter, Florinda.
At the beginning of the eighth century, when the Moors had extended
their possessions up to the walls of Ceuta, which was held for Roderick,
King of Spain, by Count Julian, the Count, in accordance with the custom
among the Gothic nobility, had sent his daughter to the Court of
Roderick, at Toledo, to be educated among the Queen’s gentlewomen in a
manner befitting her rank and lineage. The rest is the old story of a
beautiful, unprotected girl, a lascivious guardian, and a father
thirsting for vengeance. So far Count Julian had defended Ceuta against
the Moors with unbroken success, now he came to Toledo to relieve the
king of the custody of his daughter, and repay the breach of trust which
Roderick had committed by making a compact with the king’s enemies. On
the eve of his departure from the capital, the king requested the Count
to send him some hawks of a special variety that he desired for hunting
purposes, and the vengeful noble pledged himself to supply his master
with hawks, the like of which he had never seen.
But Count Julian found the Saracenic hawks less keen for the hunting he
had in view than he expected. That old bird of prey, Musa, listened to
the alluring tales of the richness and beauty of Spain, but doubted the
good faith of his long-time enemy, who proposed that the Moors should
invade this promised land in Spanish ships, lent to them for the
purpose. But the love of conquest and the lust of loot, which had
inspired and sustained the Arab arms in all their territorial campaigns,
overcame the natural hesitancy of the Moorish Governor, and in 710 Musa
despatched Tarik with a small expedition to spy out the state of the
Spanish coast. So successful was the mission, and so rich the plunder
they brought back, that in the following year he adventured an army of
7,000 men under Tarik for the spoliation of Andalusia. Tarik, who landed
at the rock of Gibraltar--Gebal Tarik, which still bears his
name--captured Carteya, and encountered the army of Roderick, who had
hurried from the North of his dominions to repel the invaders, on the
banks of the Guadalete.
Washington Irving, in the _Conquest of Spain_, has related, in his
brilliantly picturesque style, the old legend of the prophecy of
Roderick’s overthrow and the mystery surrounding his death. The king was
proof against the solemn warnings of the old warders of the tower of
Hercules,--the tower of “jasper and marble, inlaid in subtle devices,
which shone in the rays of the sun,”--wherein lay the secret of Spain’s
future, sealed by a magic spell, and guarded by a massive iron gate, and
secured by the locks affixed to it by every successive Spanish king
since the days of Hercules. Roderick came not to set a new lock upon
the gate, but to burst the bolts of the centuries and reveal the mystery
that his predecessors had gone down into their graves without solving.
All day long his courtiers urged him vainly against his own undoing, and
the custodians laboured at the rusty locks, and at evening he entered
the mighty, outer hall, rushed past the bronze warder, penetrated the
inner chamber, and read the inscription attached to the casket, which
Hercules had deposited in the gem-encrusted tower. “In this coffer is
the mystery of the Tower. The hand of none but a King can open it; but
let him beware, for wonderful things will be disclosed to him, which
must happen before his death.” In a moment the lid is prized open, the
parchment, folded between plates of copper, is brought into the light of
day, and the king has read the motto inscribed upon the border: “Behold,
rash man, those who shall hurl thee from thy throne and subdue thy
Kingdom.”
Beneath the motto is drawn a panorama of horsemen, fierce of
countenance, armed with bows and scimitars. As the king gazes
wonderingly upon the picture, the sound of warfare rushes on his ear,
the chamber is filled with a cloud, and in the cloud the horsemen bend
forward in their saddles and raise their arms to strike. Amazed and
terrorised, Roderick and his courtiers drew back and “beheld before them
a great field of battle, where Christians and Moors were engaged in
deadly conflict. They heard the rush and tramp of steeds, the blast of
trump and clarion, the clash of cymbal, and the stormy din of a thousand
drums. There was the flash of swords and maces and battle axes, with the
whistling of arrows and hurling of darts and lances. The Christian
quailed before the foe. The infidels pressed upon them, and put them to
utter rout; the standard of the Cross was cast down, the banner of Spain
was trodden under foot, the air resounded with shouts of triumph, with
yells of fury, and the groans of dying men. Amidst the flying squadrons,
King Roderick beheld a crowned warrior, whose back was turned towards
him, but whose armour and device were his own, and who was mounted on a
white steed that resembled his own war horse, Orelia. In the confusion
of the fight, the warrior was dismounted and was no longer to be seen,
and Orelia galloped wildly through the field of battle without a rider.”
The vision he had witnessed in the Tower of Hercules must have recurred
to Roderick when he saw the Moorish army encamped against him by the
waters of the Guadalete, but he must have noted its numbers with
surprise, and contemplated his own host with complacency. For Tarik,
even with his Berber reinforcements, only counted 12,000 men, and nearly
four score thousand slept beneath the standard of Spain. If ever
prophecy was calculated to be found at fault it must have seemed to be
so that day, and Tarik published his estimate of the enormity of the
odds that were against him when he cried to his army of fatalists, “Men,
before you is the enemy, and the sea is at your backs. By Allah, there
is no escape for you, save in valour and resolution.” But valour and
resolution belonged to the Spaniards as well as to the Moors; and, but
for the action of the kinsmen of the dethroned King Witiza, who deserted
to the side of the Saracens in the midst of the seven day battle, the
Moorish conquest would have been delayed, if not even entirely
abandoned. But Witiza’s adherents turned the tide of battle against
Roderick, the Spaniards broke and fled, and Orelia galloped riderless
through the field. Tarik, in a single encounter, had won all Spain for
the infidels.
Without hesitation, and in defiance of the commands of Musa, who coveted
the glory that his lieutenant had so unexpectedly won, Tarik proceeded
to make good his mastery of the entire Peninsula. He despatched a force
of seven hundred horsemen to capture Cordova; Archidona and Malaga
capitulated without striking a blow; and Elvira was taken by storm. City
after city surrendered to the victorious invaders, and the principles of
true chivalry, which the Moors invariably observed, reconciled the
vanquished Spaniards to their new conquerors. The common people welcomed
the promise of a new era, while the nobles fled before the advancing
armies, and abandoned the country to the enemy. With the surrender of
Toledo, Tarik had added a new dominion to the crown of Damascus. Musa
left Ceuta in 712 with 18,000 men to join Tarik at Toledo, taking
Seville, Carmona, and Merida _en route_. The meeting of the Governor and
his General at the capital revealed the first flash of that fire of
personal jealousy and internecine conflict which kept Spain in a blaze
throughout the eight centuries of the Moorish occupation.
To the intrepid warriors, who were bred to war and trained to the
business of conquest, the Pyrenees represented, not a bar to further
progress, but a bulwark from which they were to advance to the
subjugation of Europe. The total defeat of the Saracens under the walls
of Toulouse by the Duke of Aquitana in 721 turned their course
westwards; and after occupying Carcasonne and Narbonne, raiding Burgundy
and carrying Bordeaux by assault, they suffered a decisive defeat at the
hands of the Franks, under Charles Martel, at the Battle of Tours in
733. The tide of Arabian aggression was arrested and rolled back; and
although the Moors repulsed the Frankish invasion of Spain under
Charlemagne, a bound had been put upon their empire-building ambitions,
and they set themselves resolutely to accomplish the pacification of the
kingdom they had already won. It is the boast of the Northern
Spaniards, the hardy mountaineers of Galicia and Leon, of Castile and
the Biscayan provinces, that they were never subject to Moslem rule.
There is good warrant for their claim, and in truth the independence of
the North was maintained, but the fact remains that the Moors had no
desire for those bleak and unfruitful districts; and so long as the
savage Basques did not disturb the security of Arabian tenure in the
fertile South, they were left in the enjoyment of their dreary, frozen
fastnesses, and their wind-swept, arid wastes.
The Moors had made themselves secure in the smiling country that,
roughly speaking, lies South of the Sierra de Guadarrama; and here, with
a genius and success that was unprecedented, they organised the Kingdom
of Cordova. “It must not be supposed,” writes Mr. Stanley Lane-Poole,
“that the Moors, like the barbarian hordes who preceded them, brought
desolation and tyranny in their wake. On the contrary, never was
Andalusia so mildly, justly, and wisely governed as by the Arab
conquerors. Where they got their talent for administration it is hard to
say, for they came almost direct from their Arabian deserts, and their
rapid tide of victories had left them little leisure to acquire the art
of managing foreign nations. Some of their Counsellors were Greeks and
Spaniards, but this does not explain the problem; for these same
Counsellors were unable to produce similar results elsewhere; all the
administrative talent of Spain had not sufficed to make the Gothic
domination tolerable to its subjects. Under the Moors, on the other
hand, the people were on the whole contented--as contented as any people
can be whose rulers are of a separate race and creed--and far better
pleased than they had been when their sovereigns belonged to the same
religion as that which they nominally professed. Religion was, indeed,
the smallest difficulty which the Moors had to contend with at the
outset, though it had become troublesome afterwards. The Spaniards were
as much pagan as Christian; the new creed promulgated by Constantine had
made little impression among the general mass of the population, who
were still predominantly Roman. What they wanted was--not a creed, but
the power to live their lives in peace and prosperity. This their
Moorish masters gave them.”
The people were allowed to retain their own religion and their own laws
and judges; and with the exception of the poll tax, which was levied
only upon Christians and Jews, their imposts were no heavier than those
paid by the Moors. The slaves were treated with a mildness which they
had never known under the Romans or the Goths, and, moreover, they had
only to make a declaration of Mohammedanism--to repeat the formula of
belief, “There is no God but God, and Mohammed is His Prophet”--to gain
their freedom. By the same simple process, men of position and wealth
secured equal rights with their conquerers. But while the Moors thus
practised the science of pacification, they were unable to conquer their
own racial instincts, which found their vent in jealous blood feuds and
ceaseless internal conflicts. In the field the Arabs were a united
people; under stress of warfare their rivalries were forgotten; but the
racial spirit of the conquerors reasserted itself when the stress of
conquest gave place to “dimpling peace,” and government by murder
created constant changes in the administration. The Arabs and the
Berbers, though they may be regarded as one race in their domination of
Spain, were two entirely distinct and fiercely hostile tribes. The
Berbers of Tarik had accomplished the conquest of Spain, but the Arabs
arrived in time to seize the lion’s share of the spoils of victory; and
when the Berber insurrection in
[Illustration: CORDOVA
THE MOSQUE--PRINCIPAL NAVE OF THE MIHRAB.]
[Illustration: CORDOVA
THE MOSQUE--ENTRANCE TO THE MIHRAB.]
[Illustration: CORDOVA
GATES OF PARDON]
[Illustration: VIEW OF THE CITY AND BRIDGE SOUTH OF THE GUADALQUIVIR]
[Illustration: GENERAL VIEW OF THE INTERIOR OF THE MOSQUE.]
[Illustration: CORDOVA
FAÇADE AND GATE OF THE ALMANZOR.]
[Illustration: CORDOVA
VIEW OF INTERIOR OF THE MOSQUE 961-967.]
[Illustration: CORDOVA
I.
THE MOSQUE.
PLAN IN THE TIME OF THE ARABS 786-796, 961-967, 988-1001, 1523-1593.
A--Gate of Pardon.
B--Bell Tower.
C--Orange Court.
D--Principal Entrance.
E--Mosque of the time 786-796.
F--Tribunal where the Mufti prays.
G--Portion of the time 961-967.
H--Hall where the Koran is kept.
I--Sanctuary.
K--Portion added in 988-1001.]
[Illustration: CORDOVA
II.
THE MOSQUE--PLAN IN ITS PRESENT STATE.
786-796, 961-967, 988-1001, 1523-1593.
L--Principal Chapel.
M--Choir.
N--First Christian Church.
O--Chapels.
P--The Cardinal’s Chapel.]
North Africa triumphed, their Berber brethren, who had been relegated to
the least congenial districts of Estremadura, roused themselves to
measures of retaliation, and carried their standards to the gates of
Toledo and Cordova. In alarm, the Arab Governor of Andalusia sent for
his compatriots of Ceuta to aid him, and he expiated his folly with his
life. The African contingent routed the Berbers, murdered the Arab
Governor, and set up their own chief in his place, until Abd-er-Rahman
arrived from Damascus to unite all factions, for a while, under the
standard of the Sultan of Cordova.
Abd-er-Rahman, which signifies “Servant of the Merciful God,” was a
member of the deposed family of the Omeyyads, which had given fourteen
khalifs to the throne of Damascus. The usurping khalif, Es-Deffah, “The
Butcher,” who founded the dynasty of the Abbasides, practically
exterminated the Omeyyad family, but Abd-er-Rahman eluded his vigilance,
and, after abandoning a project to make himself the Governor of North
Africa, he determined to carry his princely pretensions to the
newly-founded Spanish dominions. In Andalusia, the advent of the
Omeyyads was hailed with enthusiasm. The army of the Governor deserted
to the standard of the young pretender; Archidona and Seville were
induced to throw open their gates to him by a piece of questionable
strategy; he defeated the troops that opposed his march upon Cordova,
and before the end of the year 756, or some fifteen months after setting
foot in the country, all the Arab part of Spain had acknowledged the
dynasty of the Omeyyads, which for three centuries was to endure in
Cordova. Brave, unscrupulous, and instant in action, Abd-er-Rahman had
recourse to every wile of diplomacy, of severity, and of valour to
maintain his supremacy in Spain. He defeated and utterly annihilated an
invading army sent against him by the Abbaside khalif, Mansur, and sent
a sackful of the heads of his generals as a present to their master; he
won over the people of Toledo by false promises, and crucified their
leaders; he had the Yemenite chief assassinated while receiving him as
an honoured guest; he crushed a revolt of the Berbers in the North, and
of the Yemenites in the South; he saw the forces of Charlemagne waste
away in the bloody fastnesses of the Pyrenees. By treachery and the
sword, by false oaths and murder, he triumphed over every rival and
enemy until all insurrection had been crushed by his relentless might,
and the Khalif Mansur was fain to exclaim: “Thank God, there is a sea
between that man and me.” In an eloquent tribute to his “daring, wisdom,
and prudence,” his old-time enemy thus extolled the genius of the
conqueror: “To enter the paths of destruction, throw himself into a
distant land, hard to approach and well defended, there to profit by the
jealousies of the rival parties to make them turn their arms against one
another instead of against himself, to win the homage and obedience of
his subjects, and having overcome every difficulty, to rule supreme lord
of all! Of a truth, no man before him has done this!”
But the tyrant of Spain was to pay a great and terrible price for his
triumphs. He had established himself in a kingdom in which he was to
stand alone. Long before his death he found himself forsaken by his
kinsmen, deserted by his friends, abhorred by his enemies; on all sides
detested and avoided, he immured himself in the fastnesses of his
palace, or went abroad surrounded by a strong guard of hired
mercenaries. His son and successor, Hisham, practised during the eight
years of his reign an exemplary piety, and so encouraged and cherished
the theological students and preceptors of Cordova, that they rebelled
against the light-hearted, pleasure-loving Hakam, who succeeded him,
and incited the people to open rebellion.
But while the insurrectionists besieged the palace, the Sultan’s
soldiers set fire to a suburb of the city; and when the people retired
terror stricken to the rescue of their homes and families, they found
themselves between the palace garrison and the loyal incendiaries. The
revolt ended in a massacre, but the dynasty was saved, and the palace
was preserved to become the nucleus of the gorgeous city which Hakam’s
son, Abd-er-Rahman II., was to fashion after the style of
Harun-er-Rashid at Baghdad. Under this æsthetic monarch, Cordova became
one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Its palaces and gardens,
its mosques and bridges were the wonder of Europe; its courtiers made a
profession of culture; its arbiter of fashion again asserted himself as
the first man in the empire.
In such a city, and at such an epoch, it was natural, even inevitable,
that Christianity should assert itself as a protest against the fashion
of the age. But so tolerant was the Mohammedan rule in religious
matters, that the too exalted spirit of the Cordovan Christians was hard
put to it to find some excuse for its manifestation of discontent. While
the sultan and his nobles found their pleasure in music, poetry, and
other æsthetic if less commendable indulgences, the prejudices of the
devout were always respected. Prosecution for religious convictions was
unheard of, and the only way that the Christians could achieve martyrdom
for their faith was by blaspheming the creed of their Moslem rulers.
These early fanatics, whose religious rites and beliefs had been treated
with respect by the Mohammedans, and who knew that by Moslem law he who
blasphemes the Prophet Mohammed or his religion must die, voluntarily
transgressed the law for the purpose of achieving their object. In
spite of warnings, of protests, and of earnest counsel, these suicidal
devotees cursed the name of the Prophet, and expiated their wilful
fanaticism with death. With the exception of this period of religious
mania, which was bewailed by the general body of Christians, and
regarded with unfeigned sorrow by the Mohammedan judges, the tolerance
of the Moors to the Christians was as unvarying as it was remarkable.
After the execution, in the year 859, of Eulogius, a fanatical priest,
and the leader of these misguided martyrs, who was fruitlessly entreated
by his judges to retract his maledictions against the Prophet and be
restored to freedom, the mad movement flickered and died out. But the
devotion displayed by the Cordovan Christians had made its effects felt
in widespread rebellion in the provinces, and a series of incapable
sovereigns had reduced the throne to the state of an island surrounded
by a rivulet of foreign soldiers, in a country bristling with faction
jealousies and discontent. Spain had fallen a prey to anarchy, and the
end of Mohammedan rule appeared imminent. Petty kings and governors had
thrown off their allegiance; Berbers, Arabs, Mohammedan Spaniards and
Christians had each asserted their absolute independence; and the sultan
at Cordova was “suffering all the ills of beleaguerment.” The last
vestige of the power of the Omeyyads was falling away when Abd-er-Rahman
III. came to the throne to reconquer Spain, and bring the rebel nobles
to their knees. The new sultan was a lad of twenty-one, but he knew his
countrymen, and he realised that after a century of lawlessness and
wasting strife, the people were ripe for a strong and effectual
government. The Cordovans were won by his handsome presence and gallant
bearing. The boldness of his programme brought him adherents, and the
weariness of internecine warfare, which had devastated the country,
prepared the rebellious provinces for his coming. Seville opened her
gates to receive him, the Prince of Algarve rendered tribute, the
resistance of the Christians of Regio was overcome, and Murcia
volunteered its allegiance. Toledo alone, that implacable revolutionist,
rejected all Abd-er-Rahman’s overtures, and confidently awaited the
issue of the siege. But the haughty Toledans had not reckoned upon the
metal of which the new despot was made. Abd-er-Rahman had no stomach for
the suicidal tactics of scaling impregnable precipices, but he was
possessed of infinite patience. He calmly set himself to build a town on
the mountain over against Toledo, and to wait until famine should compel
the inhabitants to capitulate. With the fall of Toledo, the whole of
Mohammedan Spain was once more restored to the sultans of Cordova. The
power, once regained, was never relaxed in the lifetime of
Abd-er-Rahman. The Christians of Galicia might push southward as far as
the great Sierra, Ordono II. of Leon might bring his marauding hosts to
within a few leagues of Cordova, and cause Abd-er-Rahman to exert all
his personal and military influence to beat back the obstinate
Northerners, but the stability of the throne was never again imperilled.
During his fifty years of strenuous sovereignty, the great Abd-er-Rahman
saved Spain from African invasion and Christian aggression; he
established an absolute power in Cordova that brought ambassadors from
every European monarch to his court; and he made the prosperity of
Andalusia the envy of the civilised world. This wonderful transformation
was effected by a man whom the Moorish historians describe as “the
mildest and most enlightened sovereign that ever ruled a country. His
meekness, his generosity, and his love of justice became proverbial.
None of his ancestors ever surpassed him in courage in the field, and
zeal for religion; he was fond of science, and the patron of the
learned, with whom he loved to converse.”
In 961, Abd-er-Rahman III., the last great Omeyyad Sultan of Cordova,
died. His son Hakam II. employed the peace which he inherited from his
illustrious father in the study of books and the formation of a library,
which consisted of no fewer than four hundred thousand works. But in his
reign, the note of absolute despotism which had re-established the
Empire of Cordova, was less evident; and when at his death, his
twelve-year-old son, Hisham II., ascended the throne, the government was
ripe for the delegation of kingly power to favourites and ministers. The
Sultana Aurora, the Queen Mother, had already abrogated that power, and
was wielding an influence that Abd-er-Rahman III. would not have
tolerated for an instant, and her favourite--an undistinguished student
of Cordova, named Ibn-Aby-Amir--was waiting to turn her influence and
favour to his own advantage. This youth, who is known to history as
Almanzor, or “Victorious by the grace of God”--a title conceded to him
by virtue of his many victories over the Christians--was possessed of
pluck, genius, and ambition in almost equal proportions; and by the
opportunity for their indulgence which the harem influence afforded, he
made himself virtual master of Andalusia.
In his capacity of professional letter-writer to the court servants,
Almanzor won the patronage of the Grand Chamberlain, and his appointment
to a minor office brought him into personal contact with Aurora--who
fell in love with the engaging young courtier--and with the princesses,
whose good graces he assiduously cultivated. His charm of manner and
unfailing courtesy gained for him the countenance of many persons of
rank, and his kindness and lavish generosity secured him the allegiance
of his inferiors. By degrees he acquired a plurality of important and
lucrative posts; he earned the gratitude of the Queen Mother by
arranging the assassination of a rival claimant who opposed the
accession of her son Hisham to the throne; and he volunteered to lead
the sultan’s army against his insurrectionary subjects of Leon. Almanzor
was without military training or experience, but he had no misgivings
upon the score of his own ability, and his faith in himself was
justified. His victories over the Leonese made him the idol of the army;
and on the strength of his increased popularity he appointed himself
Prefect of Cordova, and speedily rendered the city a model of
orderliness and good government. By a politic impeachment of the Grand
Chamberlain for financial irregularities, he presently succeeded his own
patron in the first office in the State, and became supreme ruler of the
kingdom.