FOUNDATION OF THE SPANISH MONARCHY
718–757
The Northern Provinces of Spain--Their Desolate and Forbidding
Character--Climate--Population--Religion--Peculiarities
of the Asturian Peasantry--Pelayus--His Birth and
Antecedents--He collects an Army--Obscure Origin of the
Spanish Kingdom--Extraordinary Conditions under which it was
founded--Battle of Covadonga--Rout of the Arabs--Increase of
the Christian Power--Favila--Alfonso I.--His Enterprise and
Conquests--His Policy of Colonization--Survival of the Spirit of
Liberty--Religious Abuses--State of Society--Beginning of the
Struggle for Empire.
The general topography of the Spanish Peninsula exhibits a gradual and
continuous increase in altitude, beginning at the tropical plains of
Andalusia and terminating in the mountain range which traverses its
northern extremity from the eastern boundary of France to the Bay of
Biscay. This rugged chain of mountains, some of whose peaks attain an
elevation of almost ten thousand feet, throws out innumerable spurs
to the north and south, which are separated by impassable gorges and
gloomy ravines, occasionally relieved by valleys of limited extent but
remarkable fertility. Its proximity to the ocean, whose vapors are
condensed and precipitated by contact with the summit of the sierra,
renders the climate of this region one of exceptional moisture, but
its foggy atmosphere is not unfavorable either to the health or the
longevity of man. In certain localities, rains are almost incessant,
and the depths of many of its defiles are never gladdened by the genial
and vivifying rays of the sun. The most untiring industry is requisite
to procure the means of a meagre subsistence, and the laborious efforts
of the cultivator of the soil are supplemented by the vigilance of the
shepherd, whose fleeces, generally preferred to the coarse products
of the loom, furnish the male population with clothing. Upon the
coast entire communities obtain their livelihood by fishing; and the
increased opportunities for intercourse with the world have produced
noticeable modifications in the character of these people, who, while
deficient in none of the manly qualities of the denizens of hill and
fastness, seem less uncouth, and are possessed of a greater degree
of intelligence than their brethren of the interior. The customs of
these famous mountaineers, variously known as Basques, Asturians,
Cantabrians, and Galicians, according to the respective localities
they inhabit, have varied but little in the course of many centuries.
They have ever been distinguished by simplicity of manners, sturdy
honesty, unselfish hospitality, and a spirit of independence which has
seldom failed to successfully assert itself against the most persistent
attempts at conquest. A mysterious and unknown origin attaches to the
Basques, whose strange tongue and weird traditions are supposed to
connect them with the original inhabitants of the Peninsula, and who,
in this isolated wilderness, have preserved the memory of one of the
aboriginal races of Europe. The rugged districts lying to the westward
of what is now called Biscay, the home of the Basques, were formerly
inhabited by the Iberians, a branch of the Celts, which, by force of
circumstances and through the necessities of self-preservation, has
become fused with colonists from the southern provinces until its
distinguishing features have disappeared. The well-known bravery of
the defenders of this bleak and forbidding country, its poverty--which
offers no allurements to either the avarice or the vanity of royal
power--its ravines swept by piercing winds, and its mountains draped
with perpetual clouds, long secured for it freedom from invasion. The
Carthaginians never passed its borders. The Romans, under Augustus,
succeeded, after infinite difficulties, in establishing over its
territory a precarious authority, disputed at intervals by fierce
and stubborn insurrections. It yielded a reluctant obedience to the
Visigothic kings, whose notions of liberty, coarse tastes, barbaric
customs, and frank demeanor were more congenial with the nature of the
wild Iberian than the luxurious habits and crafty maxims of Punic and
Latin civilization.
The most barren and inaccessible part of this secluded region at
the time of the Moslem conquest was that embraced by the modern
principality of the Asturias. A formidable barrier of lofty peaks,
whose passes readily eluded the eye of the stranger, blocked the way of
a hostile army. Within this wall a diversified landscape of mountain
and valley presented itself, with an occasional village, whose huts,
clustered upon a hill-side or straggling along some narrow ravine,
indicated the presence of a settlement of shepherds or husbandmen.
These dwellings, whose counterparts are to be seen to-day in the
wildest districts of the Asturias and Galicia, were rude hovels
constructed of stones and unhewn timbers, thatched with straw, floored
with rushes, and provided with a hole in the roof to enable the smoke
to escape. Their walls and ceilings were smeared with soot and grease,
and every corner reeked with filth and swarmed with vermin. The owners
of these habitations were, in appearance and intelligence, scarcely
removed from the condition of savages. They dressed in sheepskins and
the hides of wild beasts, which, unchanged, remained in one family for
many generations. The salutary habit of ablution was never practised
by them. Their garments were never cleansed, and were worn as long
as their tattered fragments held together. Their food was composed of
nutritious roots and herbs and of the products of the chase, a diet
sometimes varied by vegetables, whose seeds had been imported from
the south, and by a coarse bread made from the meal of chestnuts and
acorns. Total ignorance of the courtesies and amenities of social
life prevailed; privacy was unknown; and the peasant entered the hut
of his neighbor without fear or ceremony. An independent political
organization existed in each of these communities, whose isolated
situation, extreme poverty, and primitive manners dispensed with the
necessity for the complicated and expensive machinery of government.
Old age, as among many nations in the infancy of their existence, was
a title to authority and respect, and the elevation of an individual
to a certain degree of power was not unusual when he had distinguished
himself among his fellows for skill in hunting or valor in warfare.
Christian missionaries had, centuries before, carried the precepts of
the Gospel into the depths of this wilderness, and chapels and altars,
where the idolatrous practices of Druidical superstition were strangely
mingled with the ceremonies of the Roman Catholic ritual, attested the
persistence of a faith which had existed for ages. Many of the personal
habits and social customs of the Iberians, while well deserving the
attention of the antiquary, were of such a nature as to preclude
description. Under these manifold disadvantages were now to be laid
the foundations of an empire destined to embrace the richest portions
of two great continents; to extend its language, its ideas, its
policy, its religion, its authority, to the extreme limits of a world
as yet unknown; to humble the pride of the most renowned sovereigns
of Europe; to perfect the most formidable engine for the suppression
of free thought and individual liberty which the malignity of
superstition has ever devised; to perform achievements and accomplish
results unparalleled in the most fantastic creations of romance; and
to devote to extermination entire races whose sole offence was that
they had never heard of the God of their persecutors,--a people whose
civilization was far inferior to their own.
The terror inspired by the approach of the Saracens, after the battle
of the Guadalete, had driven great masses of fugitives to the north.
Such of these as escaped the hardships of flight and the swords of
their pursuers sought refuge in the most secret recesses of the
Asturian mountains. They carried with them their portable property,
their household gods, all the relics of the saints, all the sacred
furniture of the altars, which they had been able to rescue from the
sacrilegious grasp of the infidel. The refugees had forgotten alike,
in the presence of universal misfortune, the long-cherished prejudices
of race and the artificial distinctions of rank; and Goth, Roman,
Iberian, and Basque, master and slave, mingled together upon a friendly
equality. Received by the frank and hospitable mountaineers with a
sympathy which was strengthened by the bond of a common religion, the
unhappy fugitives became reconciled to the privations of a life which
secured to them immunity from infidel oppression; and, by intimate
association and intermarriage with their benefactors, formed in time a
new nation, in which, however, mixture of blood and altered physical
surroundings produced their inevitable effects, causing the traits
of the Iberian to predominate, in a conspicuous degree, over those
of the Latin and the Goth. As the rest of the Peninsula submitted
to the domination of the Moors, the population of this province was
largely augmented. Persecution, arising during the civil wars, still
further increased immigration; deposed prelates, ruined artisans,
and discontented slaves sought the companionship and aid of their
fellow-sectaries; many, in apprehension of future evil, voluntarily
abandoned their possessions; and the Asturias became the common refuge
of all who had suffered as well as of all who were willing to renounce
a life of comparative ease and dependence for the toils and privations
which accompanied the enjoyment of political and religious liberty.
With the advantages of freedom were also blended associations of a more
sacred character. The greater number of the most celebrated shrines of
a country remarkable for the virtues of its relics and the splendor of
its temples had been desecrated by the invader. He had destroyed many
churches. Others he had appropriated for the uses of his own religion.
The piety of their ministers had, however, secreted, and borne away in
safety, the most precious of those tokens of divine interposition whose
efficacy had been established by the performance of countless miracles
supported by the unquestionable testimony of the Fathers of the Church.
Transported by reverent hands from every part of the kingdom, these
consecrated objects were now collected in fastnesses impregnable to
the enemies of Christ. Where, therefore, could the devout believer
better hope for security and happiness than under the protection of
holy souvenirs which had received the oblations and the prayers of
successive generations of his ancestors? The wars and revolutions of
more than a thousand years have not diminished the feeling of popular
veneration attaching to these mementos of the martyrs, which, enshrined
in quaint and costly reliquaries of crystal and gold, are still
exhibited in the Cathedral of Oviedo.
Engrossed with the cares which necessarily attended the establishment
of a new religion and the organization of a new government, the first
viceroys of Spain took no notice of the embryotic state which was
gradually forming in the northwestern corner of the Peninsula. Their
scouting parties, which had penetrated to the borders of the Asturias,
had long since acquainted them with the severity of the climate and the
general sterility of the soil. No booty, save, perhaps, some sacred
vessels and a few flocks of sheep, was there to tempt the avarice of
the marauder. Domiciled in the genial regions of the South, whose
natural advantages continually recalled the voluptuous countries of the
Orient, the Moor instinctively shrank from contact with the piercing
winds and blinding tempests of the mountains far more than from an
encounter with the uncouth and warlike savages who defended this
inhospitable land. Musa had already entered Galicia at the head of his
troops when he was recalled to Damascus by the peremptory mandate of
the Khalif; and foraging parties had, on different occasions, ravaged
many of the settlements of the Basques; but as yet the Moslem banners
had never waved along the narrow pathways leading into the Asturian
solitudes, nor had the echoes of the Moorish atabal resounded from
the stupendous walls which protected the surviving remnant of the
Visigothic monarchy and the last hope of Christian faith and Iberian
independence.
At an early period, whose exact date the uncertainty of the accounts
transmitted to us renders it impossible to determine, the settlements
of the coast fell into the hands of the Saracens, who fortified the
town of Gijon, a place whose size might not improperly assert for it
the claims of metropolitan importance. The government of this city was
entrusted to one of the most distinguished officers who had served in
the army of Tarik, the former Emir, Othman-Ibn-Abu-Nesa, who, as we
have already seen, having contracted a treasonable alliance with the
Duke of Aquitaine, had been pursued and put to death by the soldiers of
Abdal-Rahman immediately before the latter’s invasion of France.
Their communications with the sea-coast having been thus interrupted,
the Asturians, impatient of confinement, determined to secure an
outlet by extending the limits of their territory upon the southern
slopes of the mountains. The adventurous spirit of the mountaineers
welcomed with ardor a proposal which must necessarily be attended
with every circumstance of excitement and glory. Among the refugees
who constituted the bulk of the population were many who had seen
service in the Visigothic army, and some who were not unfamiliar with
the tactics and military evolutions of the Saracens. One of the most
eminent of these was Pelayus, a name associated with the most glorious
traditions interwoven with the origin of the monarchy of Spain. The
imagination of subsequent ecclesiastical chroniclers has exhausted
itself in attempts to exalt the character and magnify the exploits of
this hero. The Moorish authorities, however, while they afford but
scanty details concerning him, are entitled to far more credit, as
their material interests were not to be subserved by the fabrication of
spurious miracles and preposterous legends. From the best accounts now
attainable,--which, it must be confessed, are far from reliable,--it
appears that Pelayus was of the mixed race of Goth and Latin. The
Arabs invariably called him the “Roman,” an appellation they were not
in the habit of conferring upon such as were of the pure blood of the
Visigoths. He was of noble birth, had held an important command in the
army of Roderick, and was not less esteemed for bravery and experience
than for hatred of the infidel, and for the reverent humility with
which he regarded everything connected with the ceremonies and the
ministers of the Church. To this chieftain, with the unanimous
concurrence of both refugees and natives, was now entrusted the
perilous and doubtful enterprise of openly defying the Saracen power.
With the caution of a veteran, and an enthusiasm worthy of a champion
of the Faith, Pelayus began to assemble his forces. The peasantry, ever
alive to the attractions of a military expedition, and the fugitives,
whose present distress recalled the more vividly their former
prosperity, their pecuniary losses, and their personal bereavements,
incident to the catastrophe which had befallen the nation, answered
the call to arms with equal alacrity. The army which placed itself at
the disposal of the new general did not probably number two thousand
men. The majority were clad in skins. But few wore armor,--antiquated
suits of mail which had rusted under the pacific rule of the successors
of Wamba and had survived the disasters of Merida and the Guadalete.
The Iberian javelin, the sling, and the short and heavy knife of the
Cantabrian peasant composed their offensive weapons. Not one in ten had
ever seen a battle. Not one in a hundred could understand or appreciate
the necessity for the uncomplaining patience and implicit obedience
indispensable to the soldier. Yet the soaring ambition, the patriotic
pride, the belief in the special protection of heaven--feelings equal
to the conquest of a world--rose high in the bosoms of these savage
mountaineers. Their courage was unquestionable. Their native endurance,
strengthened by simple food and habitual exposure to the tempests of
a severe climate and the incessant exertions of a pastoral life, was
far greater than that of their enemies. To invest the cause with a
religious character, and to rouse to the highest pitch the fanaticism
of the soldiery, a number of priests attended, with censer and
crucifix and all the sacred emblems of ecclesiastical dignity. Of such
materials was composed the army whose posterity was led to victory by
such captains as Gonzalvo, Cortes, and Alva, and whose penniless and
exiled commander was destined to be the progenitor of a long line of
illustrious sovereigns.
The original realm of Pelayus afforded no indication of the enormous
dimensions to which it was destined to expand. It embraced a territory
five miles long by three miles wide. Its population could not have
exceeded fifteen hundred souls. Its fighting men were not more than
five hundred in number. The bulk of the army was composed of Basques
and Galicians, attracted by the hope of spoil, held together for the
moment only by the sense of common danger; impatient of restraint;
scarcely recognizing the authority of popular assemblies of their own
creation; valiant in action; brutal in victory; selfish and cowardly
in defeat. They were without organization, officers, suitable arms, or
commissariat. Of the art of war, as practised by even semi-barbarians,
they knew nothing. Their military operations were controlled by the
usual stratagems of savages, the nocturnal attack, the sudden surprise,
the ambuscade.
The civil system of the infant monarchy was no further advanced. The
exiled subjects of Roderick still retained, in some measure, the
maxims and traditions of government. The people, among whom their
lot was cast and who greatly outnumbered them, had, however, little
knowledge of, and no reverence for, the Visigothic Code. The duchy
of Cantabria, to which the latter mainly belonged, was never more
than a nominal fief of the kingdom of Toledo. The fueros, or laws, by
which they had been governed through successive foreign dominations
of the Peninsula were of immemorial antiquity. Their long-preserved
independence had nourished in their minds sentiments of arrogance and
assumed superiority which were often carried to a ridiculous extreme.
These influences had no small share in the subsequent formation of the
Spanish constitution.
Thus, in a desolate and barren region; insignificant in numbers;
destitute of resources; ignorant of the arts of civilization; without
military system or civil polity; with neither court, hierarchy, nor
capital; animated by the incentives of religious zeal and inherited
love of freedom, a handful of barbarians laid the foundations of the
renowned empire of Spain and the Indies.
The bustle which necessarily attended the warlike preparations of
Pelayus was not long in attracting the attention of the government
of Cordova. Information was conveyed to Anbasah-Ibn-Sohim, the
representative of the Khalif, concerning the league that had been
formed between the fugitive Goths and the denizens of the Asturias, as
well as of the objects of the expedition which was organizing in the
northern wilderness. The Emir, whose contempt for his enemies, added to
a profound ignorance of the character of the country they inhabited,
induced him to underestimate the difficulties to be encountered in
their subjection, did not deem it worth his while to attack them
in person. He naturally thought little was to be apprehended from
the irregular hostilities of a few refugees who had retired with
precipitation at the approach of the Moorish cavalry, united with a
horde of vagabond shepherds and hunters unaccustomed to discipline and
inexperienced in warfare. In his blind depreciation of the prowess
of his adversaries, Anbasah-Ibn-Sohim left out of consideration many
circumstances which influenced, in a marked degree, the subsequent
fortunes of the Moslem domination in Spain. Their numerical inferiority
was of trifling moment in a country thoroughly familiar to its
inhabitants, but hitherto unexplored by the Saracens, and whose steep
and tortuous pathways afforded such facilities for resisting an
intruder that points might readily be selected where a score of men
could, with little effort, successfully withstand a thousand. The Emir
took no account of the mists which always enshrouding the sierra often
entirely obscured the landscape; of the dense forests which might so
effectually conceal the ambuscade; of the sudden and destructive rise
of the mountain torrents; of the dangers attendant upon the landslide
and the avalanche. Nor did he appreciate the feelings which must have
been inspired by the desperate situation in which the Christians were
placed. They were at bay in their last stronghold. Once driven from
the shelter of their friendly mountains nothing remained for them
but death or slavery. Their retreat into France was cut off by the
Arab column now advancing into Septimania. Their brethren throughout
the Peninsula had bowed before the sceptre of the Khalif, and no
assistance could be expected from them. Their patriotic ardor was
excited by the proud consciousness of independence and by apprehensions
of the degradation of servitude; their pious frenzy was aroused by
the destruction which menaced the religion of their fathers. In their
camp were the sole memorials of a monarchy whose princes had dictated
terms to the Mistress of the World. Around them on every side were
sacred relics which had been visited from far and wide by pilgrims,
whose miraculous power in the healing of disease it was sacrilege to
doubt, and which had not only brought relief to the suffering but also
comfort and salvation in the hour of death. God had made them the
custodians of these treasures rescued from His desecrated altars; truly
He would not abandon them in time of peril. By every artifice peculiar
to their craft; by all the fervid appeals of eloquence; by every
promise of present and prospective advantage; and by every threat of
future retribution, the prelates inflamed the zeal of their fanatical
hearers. They, more than any other class, understood the gravity of
the situation. While not anticipating the power which the sacerdotal
order was to attain over the temporal affairs of the Peninsula in
coming centuries, they were not ignorant that the result of the
impending conflict involved its supremacy or their own annihilation.
Thus, at the very birth of the Spanish monarchy, appears predominant
the ecclesiastical power which contributed more than all other causes
to its eventual decay. Taking these facts into consideration, it is
evident that the conquest of the Asturias would have required an ample
force conducted by an experienced commander, whose talents, however
respectable, could hardly have accomplished the task in a single
campaign. But the Emir, who was on the point of invading France and
did not deign to delay his expedition for the purpose of chastising a
band of vagrant barbarians, detached a division, under an officer named
Alkamah, to reduce the Asturias to subjection and exact the payment of
tribute.
The Arab general, aside from the natural impediments which obstructed
the march of an army through one of the most rugged localities
of Europe, experienced but little trouble in his advance. The
scattered collections of hovels which he encountered were deserted.
No flocks were feeding on the hill-sides. All signs of cultivation
were obliterated, and everything which could afford subsistence to
an enemy had been removed or destroyed. The features of the entire
landscape were those of a primeval waste. Through the defiles, without
resistance, and almost without the sight of a human being except his
own soldiers, Alkamah penetrated to the very heart of the Asturias,
lured on by the wily mountaineers to a point where his superior
numbers, so far from availing him, would be a positive disadvantage,
and from whence retreat would be impossible.
Upon the eastern border of the wilderness, amidst a chaos of rocks,
forests, ravines, and streamlets, rises the imposing peak of Auseba.
The northern side of this mountain for a hundred feet from its base
presents a steep and frowning precipice closing one end of a narrow
valley, and whose almost perpendicular sides are only accessible to the
trained and venturesome native. A cave, in whose depths three hundred
men could readily be sheltered, exists in the face of the cliff, and
through the gorge beneath run the troubled waters forming the source of
the river Deva. A path, completely commanded by the heights upon either
side, winds through the undergrowth and gives access to the cave and
its environs, in former times the resort of benighted goatherds. In
this spot, admirably adapted to purposes of defence, Pelayus determined
to make his final stand. All non-combatants were secreted in the
forest. Ambushes were posted along the only path by which an approach
was practicable. In the cavern, whose name, Covadonga, is still revered
by every Asturian noble and peasant, Pelayus concealed himself with a
body of men selected for their courage and the superiority of their
arms. Skirmishers now appeared in the front of the Moslem army, which,
with a confidence born of former success, without hesitation followed
its treacherous guides into the fatal valley. No sooner was the
command of Alkamah within arrow-shot of the cave than the mountaineers
sprang from their hiding-places. Wild cries of defiance and expectant
triumph echoed from the rocky slopes of the ravine. From every hand
the projectiles of the Christians poured down upon the heads of their
astonished foes. When the ammunition of the bows and slings was
exhausted, the sturdy peasants rolled down great stones and trunks of
trees, which crushed a score of men at a single blow. Massed together,
and thrown into confusion by the unexpected attack, the Saracens could
not use their weapons to advantage. Their arrows rebounded harmlessly
from the rocks. The agility of their enemies and the character of the
ground prevented a hand-to-hand engagement, which the inferior strength
of the Christians naturally prompted them to avoid. Unable to endure
the storm of missiles which was rapidly depleting their ranks, the
Saracens attempted to retrace their steps. The first intimation of a
desire to retreat was the signal for redoubled activity on the part
of the Asturians. Pelayus and his band, issuing from the cave, fell
upon the rear of the enemy. The detachments upon the flanks closed in,
and the unfortunate Moslems, surrounded and almost helpless, resigned
themselves to their fate. The battle became a massacre. To add to the
discomfiture of the invaders, a fearful tempest, which, in a latitude
whose air is always charged with moisture, often comes without warning,
burst upon the valley. In a few moments the little brook had swollen
into a roaring torrent. A section of the mountain-side, undermined and
already tottering and crowded with terror-stricken Saracens, gave way,
carrying with it hundreds of victims to be engulfed in the rushing
waters. A trifling number of fugitives, aided by the darkness and the
storm, succeeded in eluding the vigilance of the mountaineers, but the
great majority of those composing the detachment, including all of its
officers, perished. The estimated loss of the Moslems varies, according
to the nationality of the annalist, from three thousand to one hundred
and twenty-four thousand. In this, as in all other instances where the
statements of the Arab and Christian writers of that age conflict,
the preference should be given to the assertions of the former. The
valley of Covadonga is so restricted in extent, especially where the
battle took place, that it would with difficulty afford standing room
for twenty thousand combatants. The vainglorious character of the
northern Spaniard, who possesses not a little of the braggadocio
of his cousin, the Gascon, has incited him to grossly magnify the
importance of an exploit which requires no exaggeration; and his
fabulous accounts have been recorded, with extravagant additions, by
the ecclesiastical historians of the Dark Ages, with whom mendacity
was the rule and accuracy the exception. Absolutely controlled by
the prejudices of their profession, they studiously embellished
every tale which could have a tendency to promote its interests and
as carefully suppressed all hostile testimony. The monkish writers,
whose credulity kept pace with their love of the marvellous, conceived
that the glory of the Church was in a direct ratio to the number of
infidels exterminated by her champions. To this motive are to be
attributed the absurd statements concerning the losses of the enemy
in every victory won by the Christian arms, a pernicious habit which
was confirmed by the improbability of subsequent detection arising
from the universal illiteracy of the age. The thorough unreliability
of these old chroniclers in this and other particulars which might
directly or indirectly affect the prestige of their order is calculated
to cast suspicion over their entire narratives. When we add to these
gross misrepresentations their meagre and confused accounts of the most
important events, their profound ignorance of the hidden motives of
human actions, their superstitious prejudices, and their incapacity of
appreciating, or even of understanding, the principles of historical
criticism, it may readily be perceived how arduous is the task of those
who attempt to bring order out of this literary chaos. To the Arab
writers, however, we can turn with a much greater degree of confidence.
They make no attempts to disguise the magnitude of their reverses or to
diminish the glory of their enemies. No contemporaneous account of the
battle of Covadonga has descended to us. It was not for a century that
its paramount importance became manifest. The attention of the clergy
during that turbulent period was engrossed by the doubtful fortunes of
the Church, and the exactions consequent upon the changes produced by
a constant succession of rulers. The affairs of the entire Mohammedan
empire were in a turmoil. In the East the chiefs of desperate factions
were struggling for the throne of the khalifate. Africa was the scene
of perpetual insurrection, provoked and maintained by the indomitable
spirit of the Berbers. The Emirs of Spain, between the intervals of
civil discord, were nursing extravagant dreams of ambition,--visions of
the propagation of their faith, of the acquisition of new territories,
of the subjugation of infidels, of the extension of empire. The glance
of the viceroys was directed beyond the bleak Asturias towards the
fertile plains of Southern France. The execution of the gigantic
enterprise projected by the genius of Musa occupied their thoughts,
and they were ignorant or careless of the aspirations of a handful of
peasants, upon the issue of whose prowess and constancy were, even now,
impending the existence of their dominion and the destinies of the
Peninsula.
The meagre notices of the battle of Covadonga transmitted by Moorish
chroniclers indicate that it was not considered a great disaster,
and that its effects upon the posterity of both Christian and Moslem
could not have been dreamed of. Yet from this eventful day practically
dates the beginning of the overthrow of the Arab domination, not yet
firmly established in its seat of power. Then was inaugurated the
consolidation of mountain tribes, soon to be followed by the union
of great provinces and kingdoms under the protection of the Spanish
Crown. At that time was first thoroughly demonstrated the value of
harmonious co-operation among factions long arrayed against each
other in mutual hostility. Thence was derived the germ of freedom,
which successfully asserted its rights under the frown of royalty,
and, incorporated into the constitution of Aragon, long interposed a
formidable obstacle to the encroachments of arbitrary and despotic
sovereigns. During that epoch, by the fusion of races, were laid the
foundations of that noble and sonorous idiom, unsurpassed in simplicity
of construction, in conciseness and elegance of diction, in clear
and harmonious resonance. Then was manifested for the first time the
adventurous and daring spirit which carried the banners of Spain beyond
the Mississippi, the Andes, and the Pacific. Then was instituted the
scheme of ecclesiastical policy which, perfected by a succession of
able and aspiring churchmen, placed the throne of Europe’s greatest
monarchy under the tutelage of the primacy of Toledo. Then originated
that fierce and interminable contest--first for self-preservation, then
for plunder, lastly for empire--which for a thousand years engrossed
the attention of the world.
The renown acquired by Pelayus through the victory of Covadonga raised
him at once from the position of general to the dignity of king. In
his election the traditions of the ancient Gothic constitution were
observed. The sentiments of freedom innate in the mountaineer of every
land are reluctant to admit the superiority implied by the laws of
hereditary descent or by the exercise of unlimited authority. The rude
ceremonies by which regal prerogatives were conceded to this guerilla
chieftain could not suggest to the wildest visionary the possibility
of the gorgeous ceremonial of the Spanish court or of the absolute
power exercised by Charles the Fifth and Philip the Second. It is not
improbable that the commands of Pelayus were frequently disputed by
his half-savage retainers. But it may well be doubted if among all the
nations which composed the vast dominions of the House of Austria
could have been found an equal number of adherents more faithful in
misfortune, more intrepid in danger, than those who formed the little
band of the exiled hero. The immunity granted the Christians after
their triumph would seem to rather imply contempt by the princes of
Cordova than their discouragement or any apprehension of further
misfortune. The moral effect of the victory, if imperceptible on
the Arabs, produced at once most significant results in the regions
bordering on the Asturias. The threatening attitude of the fishermen
necessitated the evacuation of the coast, and Othman-Ibn-Abu-Nesa,
Governor of Gijon, abandoned his charge, and, by a forced march, joined
his countrymen beyond the mountains. The warlike spirit spread fast
through Cantabria and Galicia, and was even felt upon the borders of
what is now Leon and Castile; the Saracen colonists who had established
themselves in the most fertile districts were exterminated; and the
religious aspect of the struggle, which seemed to identify the cause of
the insurgents with that of the Almighty, crowded the squalid hovels
of the hospitable Asturians with thousands of fugitives who sought
protection and liberty in the society of their friends and kinsmen.
Neither history nor tradition has ascribed to Pelayus any other
military achievements than the famous one which signalized his
accession to supreme power. In the retirement of his little kingdom,
for the remainder of his days, he employed the security, for which
he was indebted to the contempt of his enemies, in consolidating his
authority; in the formation of a plan of government; in the erection
of churches, shrines, and monasteries; and in encouraging among his
subjects the pursuit of agriculture. His extreme devotion to the
interests of the Church has obtained for his memory the grateful
acknowledgment of the priesthood; while the little cross borne by him,
in lieu of a standard, at Covadonga, and still preserved at Oviedo,
is regarded with sentiments of peculiar reverence by the peasantry
as a symbol whose miraculous powers were confirmed by the hand of
God, and whose virtues were transmitted to the magnificent emblems of
the Catholic hierarchy, which, the successors of the Roman eagles,
sanctified in distant lands the explorations and the conquests of the
Christian monarchs of the Peninsula.
The reign of Pelayus lasted thirteen years. Such were the benefits
resulting from its munificence to the clergy and his justice to the
people that, at his death, the sentiments of loyalty and gratitude
overcame the traditions of centuries and the prejudice against
hereditary descent, and Favila, his son, was permitted to succeed him
by the tacitly admitted right of inheritance.
Little is known of the life of Favila excepting that it was passed in
peace. Without aspirations to enlarge the circuit of his dominions,
and destitute of all desire for military renown, he preferred the rude
society of his companions and the excitements of the chase to the
perilous and doubtful honors of warfare. Two years after his accession
he was torn to pieces by a wild boar, whose fury he had rashly provoked
under circumstances which admitted of no escape. He was buried by the
side of his father in the church of Cangas de Onis, an insignificant
hamlet not far from the battle-field of Covadonga, which was already
dignified by the title of capital of the Asturias, and whose church was
for many generations afterwards the pantheon of its princes.
Favila left no sons of sufficient age to assume the responsibilities
of government, while the exigencies of the time demanded the services
of a ruler possessed of talents and experience. The right of election
was, as of old, once more asserted to the exclusion of the claims
of primogeniture; and Alfonso I., son of the Duke of Cantabria and
son-in-law of Pelayus, was, by common consent of the principal men of
the infant nation, invested with the regal authority. The new king
was a noted warrior, who had been the comrade-in-arms of Pelayus. His
martial tastes and unflinching resolution were only surpassed by his
zeal for the Christian faith, which acquired for him the appellation of
“Catholic,” so highly prized by his descendants, and which is still the
most revered title of the head of the Spanish monarchy. The duchy of
Cantabria, whose ancient limits had, however, been greatly curtailed by
the encroachments of the Moors and the annexations of Pelayus, became,
through the exaltation of its lord, an integral part of the Asturian
kingdom.
The unquenchable fires of crusade and conquest burned fiercely in the
breast of Alfonso. With all the impetuosity of his nature he announced
his intention of waging ceaseless war against the infidel. The
condition of the provinces subject to his jurisdiction had undergone
radical changes since the election of Pelayus twenty years before.
The population had enormously increased, partly from natural causes,
but principally through immigration promoted by the love of liberty
and by the destructive revolutions instigated by the vengeance or
ambition of the conquerors. Villages, whose rude but comparatively
comfortable dwellings replaced the filthy cabins of former times,
occupied the picturesque valleys. Chapels and monasteries dotted the
mountain-sides. Public affairs were administered according to a system,
crude indeed, but framed upon the model of the Visigothic constitution,
whose principles were not inconsistent with both the assertion of the
prerogatives of royalty and the enjoyment, in large measure, of the
blessings of individual freedom. The kingly authority was, in fact, as
yet merely nominal. It had been conferred by the votes of the people,
and was understood to be conditional upon the observance of the laws
and the maintenance of order. The power of the Asturian sovereign was
at this time not greater than that of many a petty feudal chieftain of
Germany, and was far inferior to that possessed by the French Mayors of
the Palace.
The occasion was propitious to the realization of the ambitious designs
of Alfonso. The emirate was temporarily vacant through the absence of
Okbah, its head, in Africa. Anarchy, with all its nameless horrors,
prevailed in every portion of the Peninsula. The territory acquired
in France, whose occupation had shed so much lustre on the Moslems
and whose possession was designed as the preliminary step to the
subjugation of Europe, had, through the valor of the Franks and the
incapacity and jealousies of the emirs, with the solitary exception of
the city of Narbonne, been wrested from the conqueror. The prestige
of the heretofore invincible Saracens had been lost by repeated
reverses, crowned by the terrible misfortune of Poitiers. In Galicia
and the Basque provinces the peasantry had delivered the greater
portion of their country from the enemy and were in full sympathy with
the plans and aspirations of their Asturian neighbors, although they
resolutely kept aloof from political union with them and declined to
acknowledge the authority of their king. The operations of Alfonso
were characterized by the activity and judgment of an experienced
partisan. Passing suddenly into Galicia he surprised Lugo, which had
remained in the hands of the Arabs since its capture by Musa, and soon
afterwards occupied the strongly fortified city of Tuy, appropriating
the territory north of the river Minho by the right of conquest. Thence
he penetrated into Lusitania, taking some of the principal towns of
that province and extending his march to the eastward until he had
overrun all of the region lying to the north of the range of mountains
now known as the Sierra Guadarrama.
The annalists who have mentioned the expeditions undertaken by Alfonso
I. have neglected to regulate their order of occurrence, and attribute
to the movements of the King a celerity which is almost incredible.
In fact, these much-vaunted conquests were nothing more than mere
forays. No permanent occupation of the country was possible. The
uninterrupted succession of calamities which had descended upon it
had transformed a region, never renowned for great productiveness,
into a desert. In the few fertile spots where the industry of the Moor
had obtained a foothold the fierce squadrons of Alfonso blackened the
smiling landscape with the fires of destruction and carnage. Such
towns and villages as lay in their path were destroyed; the Moors were
condemned to slavery; and the Christians, despite their remonstrances,
were compelled to follow in the train of the invader, to accept from
him homes in the mountains, and to swear fidelity to the Crown. This
policy of increasing the population of his dominions by compulsory
immigration possessed at least the merit of originality, and was in
the end eminently successful. The reluctant colonists, whose cities
had been razed and whose lands had been devastated, were deprived of
all incentives to return to a region that could no longer afford them
subsistence. The ties of race and the precepts of religion already
united them to those whom, despite the violence they had displayed,
they could not consider as enemies. Distributed judiciously in the
districts most deficient in inhabitants, whose soil, in many instances,
was not more sterile than that which they had formerly tilled, the new
subjects of Alfonso soon became reconciled to their altered condition
of life. Their numbers greatly contributed to the strength of the
growing kingdom. Their traditions, prejudices, and aspirations were
identical with those of the Asturians. Complete amalgamation was soon
accomplished by intermarriage and by the intimacies of commercial and
social intercourse.
The operations of Alfonso are, for the most part, described with even
more confusion of dates and localities than that which ordinarily
characterizes the historical accounts of his age. Both the love of
the marvellous and the bias of superstition have combined to magnify
his achievements. Nevertheless, the account of no great victory
breaks the monotony of an endless recital of murder, pillage, and
conflagration. In the mountains, where every ravine favored an
ambuscade, the Christians were invincible, but upon the plain, even
when aided by the advantage of superior numbers, they were no match for
the Moorish cavalry. The vulnerable condition of the country, which
suffered from the inroads of the Asturian prince, impressed him with
the necessity of erecting suitable defensive works along the borders
of his own dominions. He therefore established a line of castles upon
the southern slope of the sierra, dividing the present provinces of Old
and New Castile, which were then known under the common designation of
Bardulia, and from these fortified posts the two famous provinces have
derived their modern name.
The reign of Alfonso does not seem to have known the blessings of
tranquillity. His expeditions were incessant, and their results almost
invariably successful. The Moors universally regarded him with a fear
which, far more than the profuse adulation of his monkish biographers,
confirms the prevailing idea of his prowess and indicates the respect
in which he was held by his enemies, whose historians conferred upon
him the honorable and significant appellation of Ibnal-Saif, “The
Son of the Sword.” At the time of his death he had extended the
limits of his kingdom until it embraced nearly a fourth part of the
entire Peninsula, reaching from upper Aragon to the Atlantic, and
from the Sierra Guadarrama to the Bay of Biscay. Far to the south of
the territory which acknowledged his jurisdiction, a vast region had
been swept by his inroads, and remained depopulated through the very
terror of his name. While his resources did not enable him to retain
possession of this neutral ground, its accessibility to attack rendered
it useless to the Saracens. His death, in 756, was coincident with the
accession to power of the renowned House of Ommeyah, whose genius held
in check for half a century the patriotic impulses of the state which
public disorder and universal contempt had permitted to form under the
eye of the haughty emirs, an error of policy whose fatal consequences
were not even suspected until the evil was beyond all remedy.
Thus, within a few years, from an affrighted band of homeless fugitives
had arisen a nation whose power had already become formidable. In the
independent spirit of its assemblies, convoked to elect a sovereign,
were plainly discernible traces of that constitutional liberty which
subsequently acquired such importance and produced such enduring
political effects in the history of Spain. The basis of the new
ecclesiastical system, on the other hand, consisted in a servile
obedience to Rome, and was marked by none of the conscious dignity
and self-reliance peculiar to the ancient Visigothic priesthood. A
series of misfortunes had broken the pride of the Church; in the
desecration of its relics, in the plunder of its altars, in the
confiscation of its treasures, in the insults to its prelates, the
multitude saw the fearful vengeance of an offended God. The wealth
of the ecclesiastical order had disappeared, and with it much of its
power. Its congregations were scattered. Whenever the poverty of the
devout was so great that the regular tribute could not be raised all
worship was proscribed. In those localities where the indulgence of the
conqueror permitted the Christian rites, there was small inducement to
proselytism, as no new churches could be erected, and the conversion of
a Mohammedan was a capital crime, of which both tempter and apostate
were equally guilty. In the face of the overwhelming catastrophe which
had overtaken the Church, it is but natural that the eyes of its
ministers should be turned towards the throne of the Holy Father, whose
admonitions they had unheeded and whose commands they had defied. In a
crowd of ignorant and superstitious peasants the prestige attaching to
ancient ecclesiastical dignity and the reverence exacted by its sacred
office soon raised the clergy to an unusual degree of prominence. It
was their influence which actually founded the infant state; which
dictated its policy; which directed its career; which profited by
its success; which tendered sympathy in the hour of adversity; which
shared its glory in the hour of triumph. And, as in the beginning it
was predominant, so through the long course of ages its grasp never
slackened, and to its suggestions, sometimes prompted by wisdom, but
often darkened by bigotry, are to be attributed the measures emanating
from both the civil and ecclesiastical polity of the dynasties of Spain.
The mingling of various nationalities in the Asturias produced its
inevitable ethnical result, the evolution of a race superior to each
of its constituents. But with physical improvement and mental culture
came many deplorable evils, merciless hatred, superstitious credulity,
military insubordination, and the vices of a society indulgent to
the maxims and practice of a lax morality. The remorseless butchery
of infidels was encouraged as highly meritorious, and only a proper
return for the calamities produced by invasion. The ferocious
soldiery, whose license during the continuance of hostilities was
never restrained by their commanders, were, as might be expected,
not amenable to discipline or obedient to the necessary regulations
of their profession in time of peace. The orders of the King were
sometimes openly disobeyed; and such was the precarious nature of
his authority that he not infrequently considered it more expedient
to dissemble than to punish. The licentious habits of the Visigothic
prelates and nobles had been carried, along with the traditions of
their ancient grandeur and the mementos of their former wealth, into
the rude, but hitherto comparatively pure, society of the mountains.
The severity of the climate, the incessant and violent exercise
demanded by their avocations, and the uncertainty of subsistence had
preserved the chastity of the Asturian peasantry, who, in many other
respects, were remarkable for degradation and brutality. Polygamous
unions, practised with more or less concealment by the privileged
classes during the reign of Pelayus, upon the accession of Alfonso
became open and notorious. The innumerable captives secured by
marauding expeditions afforded excellent facilities for supplying or
replenishing the harems of the nobles and the clergy. The holy fathers,
like their predecessors under Witiza and Roderick, were noted for
their taste and appreciation of the charms of female loveliness; and
the owner of a beautiful slave whose price was too high for the count
was rarely dismissed, for this cause, by the bishop. A well-appointed
seraglio was an indispensable appendage to the household of every
secular and ecclesiastical dignitary. The example of their ancestors,
and the temptations offered by the fascinations of the beautiful
Moorish captives, were too powerful to be withstood. To the allurements
of passion was also added the gratification resulting from the
consciousness of inflicted and well-deserved retribution. The fairest
of the Gothic and Roman maidens had been torn from weeping parents to
fill the harems of Cordova, Cairo, and Damascus. Alfonso I., whose
title, The Catholic, has been confirmed by the profuse and fulsome
eulogies of the Church, was behind none of his ghostly counsellors in
his polygamous inclinations; and the offspring of a connection with an
infidel concubine, who received the name of Mauregato, was destined
to play an important part in the annals of the Reconquest. In every
form and manifestation of social life the influence of the surviving
elements of the Visigothic monarchy produced important and permanent
results. To anarchy succeeded political organization, imperfect it is
true, but the wisdom of whose principles was repeatedly confirmed by
their adaptability to the requirements of an extensive empire. The
physical condition of the people was improved, and their strength,
hitherto employed against each other, was now directed to the injury
of a common enemy. With new aspirations and altered manners were
introduced changes in the Asturian dialect, which was originally
derived from the Euskarian, the idiom of the Basques. The intercourse
of the various classes of society grew more refined. Law gradually
supplanted government by force. Religion again exerted its beneficent
and powerful sway. The ceremonial of the Visigothic court--a mixture of
barbarian insolence, Roman dignity, and Byzantine pomp--was revived,
and a faint image of ancient greatness was exhibited by the pride and
prowess of representatives of noble families who, mindful of former
ascendency and confident of future distinction, gallantly rallied round
the throne.
The spirit of hero-worship, as may readily be inferred from the
superstitious credulity of the mountaineers, was strong in the
Asturias. Every action of the early princes is distorted by the
atmosphere of mystery and exaggeration which envelops it. The idea
pervading classic mythology that those whom tradition declares to have
been the benefactors of mankind, who have contributed to civilization
the greatest practical benefits, and from whose efforts have been
derived the true enjoyments of life, are entitled, if not to absolute
apotheosis, at least to exaltation as demigods, perverted by sacerdotal
influence, had been bequeathed, with other Pagan beliefs and practices,
by the priests of Hercules and Æsculapius to the servants of the
Pope. When canonization was deemed impolitic, the life of an eminent
personage was embellished with a mass of fiction, of prodigy, of
fable. Some historians have not mentioned the name of Pelayus; others,
on account of the untrustworthy character of the authorities, have
assigned all the exploits of his reign to the domain of the mythical. A
miraculous appearance of the Virgin in the cave of Covadonga inspired
the Christians with hope, and announced the coming victory. A choir
of angels, whose voices were distinctly heard by the attendants,
soothed the dying moments of Alfonso. Such legends, invented by
priestly artifice and propagated by universal approbation in an age of
ignorance, have no small influence in developing the character of a
nation.
Thus, in a secluded corner of the Peninsula, neglected by their friends
and despised by their enemies, the founders of an empire whose states
and principalities were to be lighted by the rising as well as by the
setting sun erected in obscurity and distress the humble fabric of
their political fortunes. The almost hopeless prospect of the struggle
at its inception nerved them to despair. Aided by the obstacles
interposed by nature for their defence, encouraged by the suicidal
conflicts which constantly harassed the emirate, and inspired with an
unshaken confidence in the protection of heaven, an insignificant band
of exiles, in the short space of a quarter of a century, insensibly
expanded into a people whose existence, hitherto ignored, began, when
too late, to arouse the serious apprehensions of the court of Cordova.
The Asturian element, as jealous of liberty as the Basques but far less
intolerant, infused into the public deliberations those principles
of freedom subsequently so prominent in the laws of the northern
provinces; and even now, after centuries of despotism, not entirely
eradicated from the Spanish constitution. It is one of the strangest
of political phenomena that from such a source should have proceeded
institutions that made the Inquisition possible. The imperceptible but
lasting influence of the Asturians did not pass away with the prestige
of the great princes of the Houses of Austria and Bourbon. The religion
of the national hierarchy, organized within its borders and promulgated
by its armies, still affords consolation to the devout of many lands,
and the musical language, formed by a fusion of barbarous dialects, is
the idiom of one-sixth of the geographical area of the habitable globe.