aims of the first founders, who discerned in the transplantation of the
churches of the _terra firma_, and their familiar pastors to the islands
the most persuasive reconcilement of the fugitives to a hard and
precarious lot; and after all the intervening years it was the elders of
the Church who once more stepped forward and delivered their views on
the best plan for healing discord, and making life in the lagoons
tolerable for all. They sought some system of rule, after trying
several, which would enable them to live in peace at home, and to gain
strength to protect themselves from enemies. They would have been the
most far-seeing of human beings if they had formed a suspicion of what
kind of superstructure they were laying on the foundation. The nearest
model for their adoption or imitation was the Lombard type of government
almost under their very eyes; and so far as the difference of local
postulates suffered, it was that to which they had recourse, when they
vested in their new chieftain undivided jurisdiction, but primarily
military attributes and a title then recognized as having, above all, a
military significance.
On the receipt of the desired reply, the patriarch lost no time in
calling on the national assembly to follow up their late vote to its
legitimate consequences; and the choice of the people fell on Pauluccio
Anafesto, a native of Heraclia, whose name occurs here for the first
time, but who may be supposed to have had some prominent share in
promoting the late revolution. Anafesto was conducted to a chair which
had been prepared for him in his parish church, and solemnly invested by
the metropolitan with the insignia of authority, one of which is said to
have been an ivory sceptre--a symbol and a material borrowed from the
Romans.
It is not an unusual misconception that this organic change in the
government involved the simultaneous extinction of the tribunitial
office and title. But the truth is that the tribunes continued to
exercise municipal and subordinate functions many generations after the
revolution of 697; each island of importance, such as Malamocco and
Equilo, had its own tribune, while of the smaller islands several
contributed to form a tribunate or governorship; and office, though
neither strictly nor properly hereditary, still preserved its tendency
to perpetuate itself in a limited number of families. It is only
subsequently to the twelfth century that less is heard of the tribunes;
and the progress of administrative reform led to the gradual
disappearance of this old feudal element in the constitution.
In the time of Anafesto, the larger islands of the _dogado_ formed the
seats of powerful factions; the disproportion in point of influence
between the Crown and the tribune of Malamocco or the tribune of Equilo
was but slightly marked; and the abolition of that magistracy was a much
more sweeping measure than the first makers of a doge would have dared
to propose.
The military complexion of the ducal authority was not confined to the
personal character of the supreme officer of state, for under him, not
as a novel element in the constitution, but as one which preëxisted side
by side with the tribunitial system, served a _master of the soldiers_,
whom there is a fairly solid ground for regarding as second to the doge
or duke in precedence, and above the civil tribunes of the respective
townships.
To find in so small and imperfectly developed a state the two leading
functionaries or ingredients deriving their appellations from a command
and control over the rude feudal militia, might alone warrant the
conclusion that the most essential requirement of Venice, even when it
had so far modified the form of administration, was felt to be the
possession, under responsible direction, of a means of securing internal
order and withstanding external aggression, if it were not the case that
from the Gothic era onward we hear of _scholæ militiæ cum patronis_,
manifestly the schools of instruction for the body over which the
_magister militum_ presided. These seminaries existed in the days of the
exarch Narses, generations before a doge was given to Venice. Yet,
through all the time which has now elapsed since the first erection of a
separate political jurisdiction, not only the Church, on which such
stress was at the very outset laid, but a civil government, and
regulations for trade and shipping, must have been active forces, always
tending to grow in strength and coherence.
The Venetians, in constructing by degrees, and even somewhat at random,
a constitutional fabric, very naturally followed the precedents and
models which they found in the regions which bordered on them, and from
which their forefathers had emigrated. The Lombard system, which was of
far longer duration than its predecessors on the same soil, borrowed as
much as possible from that which the invaders saw in use and favor among
the conquered; and the earliest institutions of the only community not
subjugated by their arms were counterparts either of the Lombard, the
Roman, or the Greek customary law. The doge, in some respects, enjoyed
an authority similar to that which the Romans had vested in their
ancient kings; but, while he was clothed with full ecclesiastical
jurisdiction, he did not personally discharge the sacerdotal functions
or assume a sacerdotal title. The Latins had had their _magistri
populi_; and in the Middle Ages they recognized at Naples and at Amalfi
a _master of the soldiers_; at Lucca, Verona, and elsewhere, a _captain
of the people_. But all these magistrates were in possession of the
supreme power, were kings in everything save the name; and the
interesting suggestion presents itself that in the case of Venice the
_master of the soldiers_ had been part of the tribunitial organization,
if not of the consular one, and that one of the tribunes officiated by
rotation, bearing to the republic the same sort of relationship as the
_bretwalda_ bore to the other Anglo-Saxon _reguli_. There can be no
doubt that Venice kept in view the prototypes transmitted by Rome, and
learned at last to draw a comparison between the two empires; and down
to the fifteenth century the odor of the Conscript Fathers lingered in
the Venetian fancy.
Subsequently to the entrance of the _dux_, _duke_, or _doge_ on the
scene, and the shrinkage of the tribunitial power to more departmental
or municipal proportions, the _master of the soldiers_, whatever he may
have been before, became a subordinate element in the administration.
His duties must have certainly embraced the management of the militia
and the maintenance of the doge's peace within the always widening pale
of the ducal abode. He was next in rank to the crown or throne.
Thus we perceive that, after a series of trials, the Venetians
eventually reverted to the form of government which appeared to be most
agreeable, on the whole, to their conditions and genius.
The consular _triumviri_, not perhaps quite independent of external
influences, were originally adopted as a temporary expedient. The
tribunes, who next succeeded, had a duration of two hundred and fifty
years. Their common _fasti_ are scanty and obscure; and we gain only
occasional glimpses of a barbarous federal administration, which barely
sufficed to fulfil the most elementary wants of a rising society of
traders. They were alike, more or less, a machinery of primitive type,
deficient in central force, and without any safeguards against the abuse
of authority, without any definite theory of legislation and police. The
century and a half which intervened between the abrogation of monarchy
in the person of a tribune, and its revival in the person of a doge
(574-697), beheld the republic laboring under the feeble and enervating
sway of rival aristocratic houses, on which the sole check was the urban
body subsequently to emerge into importance and value as the militia of
the six wards, and its commandant, the _master of the soldiers_.
But while the institution of the dogeship brought with it a certain
measure of equilibrium and security, it left the political framework in
almost every other respect untouched. The work of reform and
consolidation had merely commenced. The first stone only had been laid
of a great and enduring edifice. The first permanent step had been taken
toward the unification of a group of insular clanships into a
homogeneous society, with a sense of common interests.
The late tribunitial ministry has transmitted to us as its monument
little beyond the disclosure of a chronic disposition to tyranny and
periodical fluctuations of preponderance. The so-called chair of Attila
at Torcello is supposed to have been the seat where the officer
presiding over that district long held his court _sub dio_.
The doge Anafesto appears to have pacified, by his energy and tact, the
intestine discord by which his country had suffered so much and so long,
and the Equilese, especially--who had risen in open revolt, and had
refused to pay their proportion of tithes--were persuaded, after some
fierce struggles in the _pineto_ or pine woods, which still covered
much of the soil, to return to obedience. The civil war which had lately
broken out between Equilo and Heraclia was terminated by the influential
mediation of one of the tribunes, and the Lombards now condescended to
ratify a treaty assigning to the Venetians the whole of the territory
lying between the greater and lesser Piave, empowering the republic to
erect boundary lines, and prohibiting either of the contracting parties
from building a stronghold within ten miles of those lines. A settlement
of confines between two such close neighbors was of the highest
importance and utility. But a still more momentous principle was here
involved.
The republic had exercised a clear act of sovereign independence. It had
made its first Italian treaty. This was a proud step and a quotable
precedent.
FOOTNOTE:
[68] Some modern writers question the etymology which in the name of the
Langobardi finds a reference to the length of their beards. Sheppard
thinks that "long-spears," rather than "long-beards" was the original
signification. Since, on the banks of the Elbe, _Börde_ or _Bord_ still
means "a fertile plain beside a river," others derive their name from
the district they inhabited. Langobardi would thus signify "people of
the long bord of the river."
SARACENS IN SPAIN: BATTLE OF THE GUADALETE
A.D. 711
AHMED IBN MAHOMET AL-MAKKARI
When assailed by the Saracen power, the Gothic kingdom in Spain,
which had endured for three centuries, had long been suffering a
decline. Political disorders and social demoralization had made its
condition such as might well invite the Moslem armies, flushed with
victories on the African side, to cross the narrow Strait of
Gibraltar for new conquests.
The final subjection of North Africa had been accomplished by the
Arab general, Musa Ibn Nosseyr, only the fortress of Ceuta, on the
shore of the strait, still remaining in possession of the Goths.
The Saracens knew that a fresh revolution in Spain had placed on
the throne Roderic--who proved to be the last of the Gothic kings.
At Ceuta the commandant, Count Ilyan (Julian), when he was
attacked, made a feeble defence, virtually betraying the post into
the hands of the Moslems. The reason, according to some
authorities, for the defection of Ilyan was his desire to avenge an
injury inflicted upon him by Roderic, who is said to have
dishonored Ilyan's daughter, the Lady Florinda. Others attribute
the treason of Ilyan to his real loyalty to the rivals of Roderic,
the latter being regarded by him as a usurper.
It is recorded that Ilyan proposed to Musa the conquest of
Andalusia, whose wealth in productiveness and other natural
attractions he glowingly described. The people, Ilyan declared,
were enervated by reason of prolonged peace, and were destitute of
arms. He was induced entirely to desert the Gothic cause and join
the Moslems, and made a successful incursion into the country of
his former friends, returning to Africa loaded with spoil. From
this time Ilyan served under the Moslem standard.
Another invasion was made by the Saracens with like results, and
then Musa, having received authority from the Caliph, prepared to
enter upon the conquest of Spain. The events which followed were
not only of great moment in the affairs of that country, but
foreshadowed others which seemed to involve the fate of Europe and
of Christendom in the outcome of the Mahometan advance.
Musa strengthened himself in his intention of invading Andalusia; to
this effect he called a freed slave of his, to whom he had on different
occasions intrusted important commands in his armies, and whose name was
Tarik Ibn Zeyad Ibn Abdillah, a native of Hamdan, in Persia, although
some pretend that he was not a freedman of Musa Ibn Nosseyr, but a
free-born man of the tribe of Sadf, while others make him a _mauli_ of
Lahm. It is even asserted that some of his posterity, who lived in
Andalusia, rejected with indignation the supposition of their ancestor
having ever been a liberated slave of Musa Ibn Nosseyr. Some authors,
and they are the greatest number, say that he was a Berber.
To this Tarik, therefore, the Arabian governor of Africa committed the
important trust of conquering the kingdom of Andalusia, for which end he
gave him the command of an army of seven thousand men, chiefly Berbers
and slaves, very few only being genuine Arabs. To accompany and guide
Tarik in this expedition, Musa sent Ilyan, who provided four vessels
from the ports under his command, the only places on the coast where
vessels were at that time built. Everything being got ready, a division
of the army crossed that arm of the sea which divides Andalusia from
Africa, and landed with Tarik at the foot of the mountain, which
afterward received his name, on a Saturday, in the month of Shaban, of
the year [of the Hegira] 92 (July, 711), answering to the month of
Agosht (August); and the four vessels were sent back, and crossed and
recrossed until the rest of Tarik's men were safely put on shore.
It is otherwise said that Tarik landed on the 24th of Rejeb (June 19th,
A.D. 711), in the same year. Another account makes the number of men
embarked on this occasion amount to twelve thousand, all but sixteen, a
number consisting almost entirely of Berbers, there being but few Arabs
among them; but the same writer agrees that Ilyan transported this force
at various times to the coast of Andalusia in merchant vessels--whence
collected, it is not known--and that Tarik was the last man on board.
Various historians have recorded two circumstances concerning Tarik's
passage, and his landing on the coast of Andalusia, which we consider
worthy of being transcribed. They say that while he was sailing across
that arm of the sea which separates Africa from Andalusia, he saw in a
dream the prophet Mahomet, surrounded by Arabs of the Muhajirm and
Anssar, who with unsheathed swords and bended bows stood close by him,
and that he heard the prophet say: "Take courage, O Tarik! and
accomplish what thou art destined to perform"; and that having looked
round him he saw the messenger of God, who with his companions was
entering Andalusia. Tarik then awoke from his sleep, and, delighted with
this good omen, hastened to communicate the miraculous circumstance to
his followers, who were much pleased and strengthened. Tarik himself was
so much struck by the apparition that from that moment he never doubted
of victory.
The same writers have preserved another anecdote, which sufficiently
proves the mediation of the Almighty in permitting that the conquest of
Andalusia should be achieved by Tarik. Directly after his landing on the
rock Musa's freedman brought his forces upon the plain, and began to
overrun and lay waste the neighboring country. While he was thus
employed, an old woman from Algesiras presented herself to him, and
among other things told him what follows: "Thou must know, O stranger!
that I had once a husband, who had the knowledge of future events; and I
have repeatedly heard him say to the people of this country that a
foreign general would come to this island and subject it to his arms. He
described him to me as a man of prominent forehead, and such, I see, is
thine; he told me also that the individual designated by the prophecy
would have a black mole covered with hair on his left shoulder. Now, if
thou hast such a mark on thy body, thou art undoubtedly the person
intended."
When Tarik heard the old woman's reasoning, he immediately laid his
shoulder bare, and the mark being found, as predicted, upon the left
one, both he and his companions were filled with delight at the good
omen.
Ibnu Hayyan's account does not materially differ from those of the
historians from whom we have quoted. He agrees in saying that Ilyan,
lord of Ceuta, incited Musa Ibn Nosseyr to make the conquest of
Andalusia; and that this he did out of revenge, and moved by the
personal enmity and hatred he had conceived against Roderic. He makes
Tarik's army amount only to seven thousand, mostly Berbers, which, he
says, crossed in four vessels provided by Ilyan. According to his
account, Tarik landed on a Saturday, in the month of Shaban, of the
year 92, and the vessels that brought him and his men on shore were
immediately sent back to Africa, and never ceased going backward and
forward until the whole of the army was safely landed on the shores of
Andalusia.
On the other side, Ibnu Khaldun reckons the army under the orders of
Tarik at three hundred Arabs and ten thousand Berbers. He says that
before starting on his expedition, Tarik divided his army into two
corps, he himself taking the command of one, and placing the other under
the immediate orders of Tarif An-najai. Tarik, with his men, landed at
the foot of the rock now called _Jebalu-l-fatah_, "the mountain of the
entrance," and which then received his name, and was called
_Jebal-Tarik_, "the mountain of Tarik"; while his companion, Tarif,
landed on the island afterward called after him _Jezirah-Tarif_, "the
island of Tarif." In order to provide for the security of their
respective armies, both generals selected, soon after their landing, a
good encampment, which they surrounded with walls and trenches, for no
sooner had the news of their landing spread than the armies of the Goths
began to march against them from all quarters.
No sooner did Tarik set his foot in Andalusia than he was attacked by a
Goth named Tudmir (Theodomir), to whom Roderic had intrusted the defence
of that frontier. Theodomir, who is the same general who afterward gave
his name to a province of Andalusia, called _Belad Tudmir_, "the country
of Theodomir," having tried, although in vain, to stop the impetuous
career of Tarik's men, despatched immediately a messenger to his master,
apprising him how Tarik and his followers had landed in Andalusia. He
also wrote him a letter thus conceived: "This our land has been invaded
by people whose name, country, and origin are unknown to me. I cannot
even tell whence they came--whether they fell from the skies or sprang
from the earth."
When this news reached Roderic, who was then in the country of the
Bashkans (Basques), making war in the territory of Banbilonah
(Pamplona), where serious disturbances had occurred, he guessed directly
that the blow came from Ilyan. Sensible, however, of the importance of
this attack made upon his dominions, he left what he had in hand, and,
moving toward the south with the whole of his powerful army, arrived in
Cordova, which is placed in the centre of Andalusia. There he took up
his abode in the royal castle, which the Arabs called after him
Roderic's castle. In this palace Roderic took up his residence for a few
days, to await the arrival of the numerous troops which he had summoned
from the different provinces of his kingdom.
They say that while he was staying in Cordova he wrote to the sons of
Wittiza to come and join him against the common enemy; for, although it
is true that Roderic had usurped the throne of their father, and
persecuted the sons, yet he had spared their lives; since these two sons
of Wittiza are the same who, when Tarik attacked the forces of King
Roderic on the plains of Guadalete, near the sea, turned back and
deserted their ranks, owing to a promise made them by Tarik to restore
them to the throne of their father, if they helped him against Roderic.
However, when Roderic arrived in Cordova, the sons of Wittiza were
busily engaged in some distant province collecting troops to march
against the invaders, and he wrote to them to come and join him with
their forces, in order to march against the Arabs; and, cautioning them
against the inconvenience and danger of private feuds at that moment,
engaged them to join him and attack the Arabs in one mass. The sons of
Wittiza readily agreed to Roderic's proposition, and collecting all
their forces, came to meet him, and encamped not far from the village of
Shakandah, on the opposite side of the river, and on the south of the
palace of Cordova.
There they remained for some time, not daring to enter the capital or to
trust Roderic, until at last, having ascertained the truth of the
preparations, and seeing the army march out of the city and him with it,
they entered Cordova, united their forces to his, and marched with him
against the enemy, although, as will be seen presently, they were
already planning the treachery which they afterward committed. Others
say that the sons of Wittiza did not obey the summons sent them by the
usurper Roderic; on the contrary, that they joined Tarik with all their
forces.
When Tarik received the news of the approach of Roderic's army, which is
said to have amounted to nearly one hundred thousand men, provided with
all kinds of weapons and military stores, he wrote to Musa for
assistance, saying that he had taken Algesiras, a port of Andalusia,
thus becoming, by its possession, the master of the passage into that
country; that he had subdued its districts as far as the bay; but that
Roderic was now advancing against him with a force which it was not in
his power to resist, except it was God Almighty's will that it should be
so. Musa, who since Tarik's departure for this expedition had been
employed in building ships, and had by this time collected a great many,
sent by them a reinforcement of five thousand Moslems, which, added to
the seven thousand of the first expedition, made the whole forces amount
to twelve thousand men, eager for plunder and anxious for battle. Ilyan
was also sent with his army and the people of his states to accompany
this expedition, and to guide it through the passes in the country, and
gather intelligence for them.
In the mean while Roderic was drawing nearer to the Moslems, with all
the forces of the barbarians, their lords, their knights, and their
bishops; but the hearts of the great people of the kingdom being against
him, they used to see each other frequently, and in their private
conversations they uttered their sentiments about Roderic in the
following manner: "This wretch has by force taken possession of the
throne to which he is not justly entitled, for not only he does not
belong to the royal family, but he was once one of our meanest menials;
we do not know how far he may carry his wicked intentions against us.
There is no doubt but that Tarik's followers do not intend to settle in
this country; their only wish is to fill their hands with spoil, and
then return. Let us then, as soon as the battle is engaged, give way,
and leave the usurper alone to fight the strangers, who will soon
deliver us from him; and, when they shall be gone, we can place on the
throne him who most deserves it."
In these sentiments all agreed, and it was decided that the proposed
plan should be put into execution; the two sons of Wittiza, whom Roderic
had appointed to the command of the right and left wings of his army,
being at the head of the conspiracy, in the hope of gaining the throne
of their father.