for the proud position he had attained, and he now permitted nothing to
menace the power he had so hardly won. He met intrigue with intrigue,
and discouraged treachery by timely assassination. He placated
hectoring, orthodox Moslems; he curtailed the influence of his
formidable rival, Ghalib, the adored head of the army; he conciliated
the Cordovans by making splendid additions to the mosque; he terrorised
the now jealous Aurora and the palace party into quiescence; and he kept
the khalif himself in subjection by the magnetism of his own masterful
personality. His African campaigns extended the dominion of Spain along
the Barbary coast, and his periodical invasions of Leon and Castile kept
the Northern provinces in subjection, and his army contented and rich
with the spoils of war. The Christians had terrible reason to hate this
invincible upstart, and it is not surprising to read in the Monkish
annals, the record of his death transcribed in the following terms: “In
1002 died Almanzor, and was buried in hell.” But if his death meant hell
to Almanzor, as the Christians doubtless believed, it meant the
recurrence of the hell of anarchy for the Kingdom of Spain.
Within half a dozen years of the great Chamberlain’s death, the country
which had been held together by the might of one man, was torn to pieces
by jealous and tyrannical chiefs and rebellious tribal warriors. Hisham
II. was dragged from his harem seclusion, and the reins of Government
were thrust into his incompetent hands. He failed, and was compelled to
abdicate, and another khalif was set up in his place. For the next
twenty years khalifs were enthroned and replaced in monotonous
succession. Assassination followed coronation, and coronation
assassination, until the princes of every party looked askance at the
blood-stained throne, where monarchs and murderers played their several
intimate parts. Outside the capital, anarchy and devastation was
ravaging the country. Berbers and Slavs were carrying desolation into
the South and East of the country, and in the North the Christians were
uniting to throw off their dependence. Alfonso VI. was selling his aid
to the rival chieftains in their battles amongst themselves, and storing
up his subsidies against the day when he would undertake the re-conquest
of Spain. The Cid had established his Castilian soldiers in Valencia,
and the voluptuous, degenerate Mohammedan princes were panic-stricken by
the growing disaffection and the instant danger which they were
powerless to overcome.
In their extremity they sent for assistance to Africa, where Yusuf, the
king of a powerful set of fanatics whom the Spaniards named Almoravides,
had made himself master of the country from Algiers to Senegal. Yusuf
came with
[Illustration: CORDOVA
ANCIENT ARAB TOWER, NOW THE CHURCH OF ST. NICHOLAS DE LA VILLA.]
[Illustration: CORDOVA
ORANGE COURT IN THE MOSQUE, MOORISH STYLE, BUILT 957, BY SAID BEN
AYOUT.]
[Illustration: CORDOVA
EXTERIOR OF THE MOSQUE.]
[Illustration: CORDOVA
THE MOSQUE--SECTION OF THE MIHRAB.]
his Berber hosts in 1086, defeated the Christians, under Alfonso, near
Badajoz, and leaving three thousand of his men to stiffen the ranks of
the Andalusians in maintaining the struggle, he returned to Africa. Four
years later the Spanish Mohammedans again besought Yusuf to bring his
legions against their Christian despoilers, offering him liberal terms
for his assistance, and stipulating only that he should retire to his
own dominions as soon as the work was completed. The Almoravide king
subscribed the more readily to this condition, since his priestly
counsellors absolved him from his oath, and had little difficulty in
convincing him that his duty lay in the pacification of the unhappy
Kingdom of Andalusia. Yusuf organised a force capable of contending with
both the Christians of Castile and his Moorish allies. The capitulation
of Granada provided him with the means of distributing vast treasure
among his avaricious followers, and promises of even greater booty
inspired them to further faithful service. Tarifa, Seville, and the rest
of the important cities of Andalusia, fell before the treasure-hunting
Berbers; and with the surrender of Valencia, on the death of the Cid,
the re-conquest of Mohammedan Spain was practically completed. Order was
temporarily restored, lives and property were once more respected, and a
new era of peace and prosperity appeared to have begun. But the
degenerating influence of wealth and luxurious ease, which in the course
of generations had sapped the manhood of Spain’s successive conquerors,
played swift havoc with the untutored Berbers. At the end of a score of
years, the Castilians, led by Alfonso “the Battler,” had resumed the
offensive, sacking and burning the smaller towns, and carrying their
swords and torches to the gates of Seville and Cordova. The Almoravides
were powerless to resist their vigorous forays. The people of Andalus,
recognising the powerlessness of their protectors, declared their
independence, and rallied to the ranks of the score of petty chiefs who
raised their standards in every city and castle in Andalusia, and who
fought with, or bribed their Christian adversaries for the maintenance
of their vaunted power.
At this crisis in the history of Spain, when the dominion of the
enfeebled and dissolute Arab and Berber leaders was weakening before the
resolute onslaughts of the rude, hard-living, and hard-fighting
Christians of the North, a new force was created to turn the scale of
Empire and prolong the rule of the Moslem in Europe. Before the
Almoravides had been overthrown in Andalus, the Almoravides in Africa
had been vanquished and dispersed by the mighty Almohades, who now
regarded the annexation of Mohammedan Spain as the natural and necessary
climax to the work of conquest. Andalusia had been a dependence of the
Almoravide Empire; it was now to be a dependence of the Almoravides’s
successors. Between 1145 and 1150 the transfer was completed; but
although the Almohades had wrested the kingdom from the Almoravides,
they had not subdued the Christian provinces. The new rulers,
under-estimating the potentiality of this danger, left the country to be
governed by viceroys--an error in statecraft, which ultimately lost
Spain to the Mohammedan cause. In 1195 they sent from Morocco a huge
force to check the Christian aggressive movement, and the Northern host
was routed at Alarcos, near Badajoz. That success was the last notable
victory that was to arrest the slow, but certain, recovery of all Spain
to Catholic rule. In 1212, the Almohade army suffered a disastrous
defeat at the battle of Las Navas; in 1235 they were driven out of the
Peninsula; three years later, on the death of Ibn-Hud, the Moslem
dominion in Spain was restricted to the Kingdom of Granada; and,
although this Moorish stronghold was destined to endure for another two
and a-half centuries, it existed only as a tributary to the throne of
the Christian kings of Spain.
For the purposes of this book, the history of Moorish Spain closes with
the expulsion of the Mohammedans from Cordova, Toledo, and Seville. That
more modern, and, in some ways more wonderful, Moorish monument--the Red
Palace of Granada--I have dealt with in my book on “The Alhambra,” to
which this work is intended to be the companion and complement.
CORDOVA
Of the four great cities of the Mohammedan domination in Spain, Cordova,
as the seat of the Khalifate established by Abd-er-Rahman I., is rightly
regarded as chief. The sun of the Moslem era shone with dazzling
brilliance on Seville, and pierced the shadows of grim Toledo ere it set
upon the decaying grandeur of Granada; but it had risen first on
Cordova, and from “that abode of magnificence, superiority, and
elegance” its glory had been reflected to the furthest corner of the
civilised world. For Cordova, by reason of its climate, its situation,
and its surroundings has, since the beginning of time, been one of the
garden spots of Europe. The Carthaginians had aptly styled it “the Gem
of the South,” and the Romans had founded a city there in 152 B.C.,
which they called Corduba. But Corduba had sided with Pompey against
Cæsar in the struggle for the mastership of the Roman Empire, and the
mighty Julius visited this act of hostility with the destruction of more
than half the city, and the massacre of 28,000 of its inhabitants. When
the Goths made themselves rulers of Spain in the sixth century, they
selected Toledo to be their capital, and Cordova sank into political
insignificance. In 711, when Tarik had defeated Roderick near the banks
of the Guadalete, he despatched Mughith with 700 horse to seize Cordova.
Taking advantage of a fortuitous storm of hail, which deadened the
clatter of the horses’ hoofs, and assisted by the treachery of a
Christian shepherd, the followers of the Prophet obtained an unopposed
entry, and the city fell without a blow being struck. Forty-four years
later Abd-er-Rahman I. established the dynasty of the Omeyyads of
Cordova, and for three centuries the capital of Mohammedan Spain was to
be, in the language of the old chronicler, Ash-Shakand, “the repository
of science, the minaret of piety and devotion, unrivalled even by the
splendours of Baghdad or Damascus.”
Science has long since deserted Cordova; piety is not obtrusive there;
its material magnificence has passed away. To-day the once famous city
is a sleepy, smiling, overgrown village; a congregation of empty
squares, and silent, winding, uneven streets, which have a more
thoroughly African appearance than those of any other town in Spain.
Theophile Gautier has described its “interminable white-washed walls,
their scanty windows guarded by heavy iron bars,” and its pebbly,
straw-littered pavement, and the sensitive spirit of De Amicis was
caught by a vague melancholy in the midst of its white-washed,
rose-scented streets. Here, he writes, there is “a marvellous variety of
design, tints, light, and perfume; here the odour of roses, there of
oranges, further on of pinks; and with this perfume a whiff of fresh
air, and with the air a subdued sound of women’s voices, the rustling of
leaves, and the singing of birds. It is a sweet and varied harmony that,
without disturbing the silence of the streets, soothes the ear like the
echo of distant music.” It has, as I have observed elsewhere, a charm
that fills the heart with a sad pleasure; there is a mysterious spell in
its air that one cannot resist. One may idle for hours in the sunshine
that floods the deserted squares, and try to reconstitute in one’s mind,
that Cordova, which was described as “the military camp of Andalus, the
common rendezvous of
[Illustration: PLATE I.
CORDOVA.
Shell-like Ornaments in the Cupola of the Mihrab.]
[Illustration: PLATE II.
CORDOVA.
Shell-like Ornaments in the Cupola of the Mihrab.]
[Illustration: PLATE III.
CORDOVA.
Shell-like Ornaments in the Cupola of the Mihrab.]
[Illustration: PLATE IV.
CORDOVA.
Part of the ornamentation and keystone of one of the lower arches which
gives light to the dome.]
[Illustration: Ring of the Cupola.]
those splendid armies which, with the help of Allah, defeated at every
encounter the worshippers of the Crucified.” This indolent, lotus-fed,
listless Cordova was once, says El-Makkari, “the meeting place of the
learned from all countries, and, owing to the power and splendour of the
dynasty that ruled over it, it contained more excellencies than any
other city on the face of the earth.” Another Mohammedan author,
Al-hijari, Abu Mohammed, writing of the city in the twelfth century,
said: “Cordova was, during the reign of the Beni-Merwan, the cupola of
Islam, the convocation of scholars, the court of the sultans of the
family of Omeyyah, and the residence of the most illustrious tribes of
Yemen and Ma’d. Students from all parts of the world flocked thither at
all times to learn the sciences of which Cordova was the most noble
repository, and to derive knowledge from the mouths of the doctors and
ulema who swarmed in it. Cordova is to Andalus what the head is to the
body. Its river is one of the finest in the world, now gliding slowly
through level lawns, or winding softly across emerald fields, sprinkled
with flowers, and serving it for robes; now flowing through
thickly-planted groves, where the song of birds resounds perpetually in
the air, and now widening into a majestic stream to impart its waters to
the numerous wheels constructed on its banks, communicating fresh vigour
to the land.”
The extent of ancient Cordova has been differently stated, owing, no
doubt, to the rapid increase of its population and the expansion of the
buildings under the sultans of the dynasty of Merwan on the one hand,
and, on the other, to the calamities and disasters by which it was
afflicted under the last sovereigns of that house. Cordova is, moreover,
described by Mohammedan writers as a city which never ceased augmenting
in size, and increasing in importance, from the time of its subjugation
by the Moors until A.D. 1009-10, when, civil war breaking out within it,
the capital fell from its ancient splendour, gradually decaying, and
losing its former magnificence, until its final destruction in A.D.
1236, when it passed into the hands of the Christians.
From 711 until 755, when Abd-er-Rahman arrived in Spain to seize the new
Moorish possession, which had fallen to the military skill and courage
of Tarik’s Berbers, the conquerors had been too fully employed in
capturing cities to devote much leisure to beautifying their prizes;
now, with the foundation of the Omeyyad power, Cordova was to reap the
first fruits of comparative peace. But the repulsion of the Abbaside
invasion, the subjugation of Toledo, and the suppression of the Berber
revolt in the Northern provinces, long delayed the commencement of the
great mosque which the sultan projected as “a splendid seal upon the
works pleasing to the Almighty, which he had accomplished.” By the
building of the mosque, Abd-er-Rahman would secure a place for himself
in Paradise, and would leave to his own honoured memory a Mecca of the
West to which the followers of the Prophet could go in pilgrimage.
The treasury of Abd-er-Rahman was at this time in a flourishing
condition, despite the large sums spent in adding splendour to the
growing khalifate, and there appeared to be no difficulty in carrying
out his project. But Umeya Ibn Yezid, the favourite secretary of the
sultan, who, in his capacity of Katib, was instructed to make overtures
for the purchase of the church on whose site the khalif intended to
build the new mosque, soon found that the negotiations were beset by
serious difficulties. The Christians held firm to the conditions of
capitulation granted them by the Saracen conquerors of Cordova, and were
not at all inclined to sell to Abd-er-Rahman the temple upon which he
had set his heart. This building is described by Pedro de Madrazo as a
spacious basilica, which they shared with the followers of the Prophet,
since the Mohammedans, according to the practice established amongst
them by the advice of the Khalif Omar, shared the churches of the
conquered cities with the Christians, and, after taking Cordova, had
divided one of the principal basilicas in two parts, one of which they
conceded to the Cordovans, reserving the other, which they at once
turned into a mosque, for themselves. The Christians had religiously
paid the tribute exacted from them that they might keep their churches,
bishops, and priests, but this had not protected them from unjust
exactions and plunderings at the hands of the governors and
representatives of the Eastern khalifs. Knowing this, Abd-er-Rahman was
anxious to acquire the desired site without violence, and, with his
natural sagacity, he perceived that the religious zeal of the native
Christians was much less fervent than that of his own people. Captivity
and affliction had damped the old ardour of the natives of Cordova,
which, in his day, was no longer the heroic colony, so anxious for
martyrdom, and so prodigal of its blood, as it was at the time when the
flock of Christ was guided by the great Osius under the persecutions of
Diocletian and Maximilian. Neither was it the Cordova which had endured
wars, hunger, and plague sooner than be contaminated with Arianism, and
the khalif knew, too, that in spite of the education given to the
Christian youth in the schools and colleges of the monasteries, where
many young priests and secular scholars promised to be a future danger
to the Mohammedans, the Church at Cordova was suffering grievous wounds
from the new doctrines of Migencio and Elipando. He was, therefore, the
more surprised to receive a stubborn refusal to his offer, but the
estimation in which he held the vanquished people and their leaders,
led him to believe that he could overcome their obstinacy by quiet
persistence, and by trusting to time to undermine their scruples. His
policy was justified by its eventual success.
How did Abd-er-Rahman succeed in persuading the Christians to make so
great a sacrifice? How came they to be induced to abandon their
principal church to the infidels? Had not these walls been witnesses of
the vows they had sworn at the most solemn epochs of their lives?
Perhaps it was already a matter of indifference to them to see the
ground, sanctified by the blood of their martyrs, defiled! “God Almighty
alone knows” must be our only comment upon this unaccountable
transaction, and we leave it thus in accordance with the practice
adopted by the Arab historians, when they were at a loss for an
explanation.
It is certain that under the reign of Abd-er-Rahman the Christians were
no longer persecuted on account of their religion. They paid tribute, it
is true, as a conquered people, but their faith was respected; they had
their churches and monasteries, where they worshipped publicly; and it
is not recorded that any of their priests were molested by the first
Moorish king of the West. On the other hand, when they compared their
present lot with that of the past, they must have considered themselves
greatly fortunate, as they escaped the tyranny under which their fathers
had suffered during the years from the cruel Alahor to the time of the
covetous Toaba. It is certain that a new empire was rising in Cordova,
which was very threatening to the law of Christ; but at first its menace
was not revealed, and for this reason it was more to be feared. Its
intentions were not published, but they were vaguely felt. Those who
were wisest and most far-seeing could perceive, though still far off,
the dark cloud of a bloody persecution drawing around the Church of
Andalusia; but for the generality of the Christians there seemed to be
no reason why the present toleration was not to continue, and it is
certain that fear was not the motive that made them yield to the wishes
of the khalif.
History is very reticent concerning this event; in fact, as Pedro de
Madrazo admits, nothing definite has, up to the present, been discovered
with regard to it. The probabilities are that the Bishop of Cordova,
upon receiving the message of the Moorish king, called a council, and,
after due discussion, resolved to part amicably with that which, despite
the king’s moderation, would without any doubt be taken from them by
force, should they persist in their refusal. In parting with their
church, and transferring their place of worship, they hoped, too, to be
released from the odious proximity of the infidels, whose presence under
the roof of their basilica must always have been looked upon as a
desecration of the sacred building. And, finally, the advantages to be
gained by removing their holy relics to a more suitable sanctuary may
have decided them to accept the khalif’s offer, under the condition that
they should be allowed to re-build the basilica of the martyrs St.
Faustus, St. Januaris, and St. Marcellus, which had been destroyed in
recent years; and this being conceded to them by the khalif, the bishop
authorised the transfer. The Arab ordered that the price agreed upon
should be sent at once to the Christians, who were in turn to surrender
their church forthwith, because Abd-er-Rahman, already advanced in
years, was anxious that the edifice he was going to raise should be
commenced without delay. No sooner had the Christians departed than
Abd-er-Rahman left his villa in Razafa and took up his residence at the
alcazar of the city, in order to superintend the projected work. The
destruction of the old building was immediately proceeded with. Devoured
with the desire to see the work completed, the indefatigable old man
spent many hours each day on the scene, carefully examining the portions
of the demolished buildings, which were to be utilised for the new
mosque, and classifying them with rare skill. The whole city was filled
with movement and commotion. There was not a trade amongst the people
which did not receive fresh impetus from the new building. Whilst all
were busy in the factories and workshop, in the woods, on the mountains,
and on the roads from the hills to the city; whilst the furnaces and
brick ovens were glowing; whilst the Syrian architect meditated on his
plans and on those traced by the king’s own hands, and the Katib wrote
to Asia and Africa inviting the co-operation of famous artists; the
people, lazy and curious, swarmed around the spacious foundations, and
the whole city presented a scene of animation and excitement not easy to
describe.
Abd-er-Rahman, who had a presentiment that he would not live to see the
mosque finished, pushed on the work with all speed, that he might at
least have the satisfaction of covering the arcades which formed its
naves, and of inaugurating the cult of Islam with one of those eloquent
harangues, which he was in the habit of addressing to his people on the
days of “Juma,” or Rest. Barely two years after the foundations were
laid the square fortress of Islam rose above the groves by the river,
surpassing in height the severe Alcazar of Rodrigo. A few more moons,
and the interior walls, the superb colonnades of bold and unusual
form,--the mosque of Cordova is probably the first edifice in which
superposed arches were introduced--the graceful rows of double arches,
the ample porticos, the handsome façade of eleven entrances, the rich
side doors, flanked by fretted windows, and finally the incomparable
roof of incorruptible wood, carved and painted, would be finished.
Still a few more moons, and the “hotba,” or harangue, for the health of
Abd-er-Rahman was to be read to the people from the most beautiful
“nimbar,” or pulpit in the West, and repeated by two thousand believers
as with one voice, drowning in the vibrating surge of an immense and
thundering contempt the shamed hymns of the vanquished Nazarenes.
Not only was the mosque to be ready for the celebration of the public
ceremonies on the first day of “Alchuma,” but already the sanctuary
loomed at the extremity of the principal nave towards the South, covered
with rich and dazzling Byzantine ornamentation, the venerated copy of
the holy house of Mecca. The great aljama was not yet complete, it is
true, but the diligent architects would find a way to satisfy the
impatience of the sultan by covering the walls with rich hangings from
Persia and Syria. A profusion of Corinthian columns in the principal
naves, and of bold marble pillars from the Roman monuments, sent from
the provinces as presents to the monarch from his walies, would be in
their place. The columns taken from the old basilica of the Visigoths,
would be found in the secondary naves, with others, as yet unchiselled.
The floor was to be covered with flowers and fragrant herbs, and the
sacred precincts would be inundated with light and perfume, diffused by
hundreds of candelabra and thuribles. The fortunate Abd-er-Rahman would
be able at least once before he died to direct the rites of the
religion, for the propagation of which he had made so many sacrifices,
in his capacity of “Imam” of the law.