fortifications, within which stood the finest houses and the cathedral,
withdrew to the inner line which traversed the isthmus separating the
two basins of the harbor. So far as the number and importance of its
buildings were concerned, the city was more than half taken when the
Moslem army, without opposition, filed through the deserted gateways
of the outer wall. Upon the narrow isthmus, measuring but little more
than a hundred yards in width, the assembled forces of both armies
contended furiously for the mastery. The Moorish engineers had invented
catapults of improved construction and terrific power, which instead
of projecting their missiles in a curve, as had hitherto been the
case, hurled them directly against the walls with unheard-of velocity
and accuracy of aim. Every expedient familiar to ancient warfare was
adopted to drive the garrison to extremity. Mines were carried under
the towers. Greek fire was thrown into every quarter of the city, to
the dismay of the besieged, who found themselves continually threatened
with destructive conflagrations. The Christians were compelled to the
exertion of constant vigilance to repel the storming parties that
mounted to the attack at all hours of the day and night. A fleet sent
by the Emperor to raise the siege was dispersed by the Saracen galleys,
which by this victory virtually acquired control of the Mediterranean.
The double port was occupied by the enemy, the Greeks were driven
from the northern side of the city into the citadel, and the walls
which defended the harbor were demolished. The Syracusans were now
abandoned to their own resources. Their valor, their endurance, and
their loyalty were their sole reliance. No assistance could reach
them from any quarter. Assailed by sea and land, they maintained
an obstinate defence. With an improvidence characteristic of the
Byzantine, no adequate supply of provisions had been collected. The
rapid movements of the Moslems and their unexpected appearance had
prevented any subsequent reparation of this inexcusable neglect.
Despite the disadvantages under which they labored, the people of
Syracuse sustained with honor the martial reputation of their city,
famous for many a hard-fought contest. Famine destroyed many whom the
weapons of the enemy had spared. The inhabitants were reduced to eat
moss scraped from the walls, to devour hides and broken bones, even to
feed upon the flesh of the slain. An ass’s head was valued at twenty
gold byzants; a small measure of grain could not be obtained for less
than one hundred and fifty. The use of unwholesome food soon produced a
plague. Such was the mortality from this cause alone that one-quarter
of the inhabitants perished in a month. Notwithstanding their knowledge
of the inertness of the Byzantine government, and the rigid blockade of
the Moslems, the Syracusans had not relinquished all hope of relief.
The Emperor Basil had grievously disappointed the expectations which
had been formed of his character, which had been derived from his early
career as a soldier, and from his vigorous measures of reform on his
accession to the imperial throne. His mind had proved incapable of
withstanding the blighting ecclesiastical influence which pervaded the
atmosphere of Constantinople. Of late, he had endeavored to expiate
the errors and crimes of former years by a degrading subserviency
to the sacerdotal order. He honored the priesthood with employments
of the highest importance. Monks, some of them eunuchs of unsavory
antecedents, became his advisers in affairs of state. He erected
a hundred churches, many of them in honor of St. Michael, as the
ineffectual atonement of a guilty conscience for the cruel treatment of
his murdered sovereign. And now, while the Syracusans were striving,
with undaunted courage, to uphold the dignity and power of the Empire
in the only stronghold of Sicily which still resisted the encroachments
of the infidel, this abject slave of superstition was employing his
soldiers in the construction of a stately basilica, a penance enjoined
by the exhortations of his ghostly counsellors.
As the spirits of the besieged fell day by day, and their ranks
were thinned by casualty, famine, and disease, the efforts of the
Moslems became more determined than ever. The massive walls of the
citadel gradually crumbled under the incessant discharges from
ballistas and catapults directed against such a limited extent of
their circumference. The great tower which defended the larger harbor,
undermined, and battered for months by the military engines, was
finally precipitated into the water, carrying with it a part of the
contiguous defences. This event, long expected by the besiegers, was
the signal for a furious assault. Urged on by every consideration of
ambition, zeal, avarice, and revenge, the Saracens entered the breach
with an impetuosity that threatened to bear down all opposition. But
they were met with a determination equal to their own. The garrison,
though weakened by privation and fatigue, sustained the struggle with
the energy of despair. The inhabitants, all told, scarcely reached the
number of twenty thousand. Each one, however, contributed his or her
part towards the defence of home and religion; the priests, attired
in their sacred vestments, animated the soldiery by their prayers and
benedictions, the women cared tenderly for the wounded and the dying.
For twenty days and nights the valor of the Syracusans held their
assailants at bay. A rampart of corpses, rising for many feet upon
the ruins of the demolished wall, afforded a ghastly bulwark for the
protection of the besieged, while it poisoned the air far and wide with
its horrible effluvium. The combat was hand to hand. No missile weapons
were used. The issue could not be doubtful, and yet the Christians
never for an instant entertained a thought of surrender. At length
the Moslems withdrew, the din of battle ceased, and the governor,
without distrusting the intentions of his wily enemy, leaving a small
detachment to keep watch, retired with the main body of his forces for
a moment’s rest. All at once every engine in the Saracen camp sent
forth its deadly projectiles, and from ruined houses, fallen rampart,
and shattered wall, the besiegers, at the stirring sound of atabal
and trumpet, again rushed forward into the breach. The success of
the stratagem was complete. The slender guard to which the careless
confidence of the governor had committed the destinies of the devoted
city was cut to pieces in an instant. The garrison, massing its forces
in the streets, endeavored in vain to stem the furious torrent. The
frightened inhabitants sought the sanctuary of the churches only to be
butchered at the altar. Exasperated beyond measure by the resistance of
a people who, even in the face of death, disdained to yield, the fierce
assailants greedily satiated their thirst for blood. The archbishop
and three of his ecclesiastical subordinates, seized in the cathedral,
were spared on condition of revealing the place where were deposited
the sacred vessels used in the ceremonial of public worship. The
heroic governor, whose name unfortunately no Christian or Arab writer
has deemed worthy to be transmitted to posterity, threw himself with
seventy nobles into a tower of the citadel, which was stormed and taken
on the ensuing day. As was the custom in the Sicilian wars prosecuted
by the Saracens, all men of mature age were put to the sword. Such
of these as had escaped the weapons of the enemy during the assault
were collected, imprisoned for a week, and then, huddled together in a
narrow space, were inhumanly beaten and stoned to death. Some imprudent
zealots, who courted martyrdom by reviling the name of Mohammed, were
flayed alive. Four thousand captives were disposed of in a single day
by this atrocious but effective method. The women and children, without
exception, were condemned to slavery. Out of nearly fifteen thousand
people, but a few hundred succeeded in evading the vigilant search of
the Saracens, to carry into Christian lands the story of a defence
seldom equalled for gallantry and endurance in the annals of warfare,
and to publish to the astonished and indignant nations of Europe the
criminal apathy and cowardice of the vaunted champion of Christendom,
the weak and superstitious sovereign of the Eastern Empire. As Syracuse
had long been the principal depository of the treasure of the island
which had escaped the rapacity of former campaigns, as well as a place
far famed for its commerce and the wealth of its citizens, great booty
was secured by the conquerors. The Arab chroniclers relate that in no
other capital ever subjected to the Moslems did such precious spoil
fall into their hands. The ecclesiastic Theodosius, an eye-witness
not disposed to exaggerate the success of his enemies, places its
value at a million byzants, equal at the present time to more than
twenty million dollars. The sacred vessels and utensils taken from
the churches weighed five thousand pounds. Composed entirely of the
precious metals, their value, intrinsically enormous, was greatly
enhanced by their exquisite workmanship, which exhibited the skill of
the most accomplished artisans of Constantinople. For some reason,
for which at this lapse of time it is impossible to offer a plausible
conjecture, the Moslems determined to utterly demolish the stronghold
which had so long and so resolutely resisted their arms. As the battle
had been confined to a comparatively limited area, the larger portion
of the city was still uninjured. The outer walls, which enclosed the
suburbs and the splendid mansions of the wealthy and the noble, were
intact. Entire streets, while silent and deserted, presented no other
evidence of the destructiveness of war. Rows of marble palaces still
reared their majestic fronts along the avenues and squares which the
opulent Syracusans had embellished with every resource of pomp and
luxury. On all sides were elegant colonnades, amphitheatres, temples.
In the public gardens the senses were delighted and refreshed by
numerous parterres and fountains; in the forums, at every step, the
observer was confronted with the speaking effigies of the famous heroes
of antiquity. While devoted to the lucrative pursuits of commerce, the
attention of the polished citizens of Syracuse had been by no means
monopolized by practical occupations. They were generous patrons of
literary and artistic genius. Their architects and their sculptors
seem to have inherited no small proportion of Attic excellence. No
Italian city which derived its civilization from Grecian colonists
had preserved unimpaired to such a high degree the evidences of its
noble origin. The elegant conceptions embodied in the works of the
artists of Syracuse, the skill of their execution, the purity of taste
they disclosed, the superiority of their materials, offered a marked
contrast to the crude and barbaric efforts of Byzantine mediocrity.
There seemed no reason why this magnificent city should be doomed
to annihilation. Its fortifications--whose prodigious strength had
been demonstrated by a contest of half a century--could have been
easily repaired. Its situation was delightful, its harbors capacious,
its territory productive, its mercantile facilities unrivalled. Its
abandoned habitations could without difficulty have afforded shelter
to a population of a hundred thousand souls. The remembrance of its
traditions, the prestige of its name, the glory of its capture,
might well have induced the victors to preserve it as an enduring
monument to their perseverance and valor. But no considerations of
utility or sentiment influenced the ruthless determination of the
Moorish commander. The order went forth that Syracuse must be utterly
destroyed. An idea can be formed of the massive character of its
structures by the statement that two months were required for their
demolition. At length, when the walls had been dismantled, the houses
razed, and the harbors choked with rubbish, the conquerors applied the
torch, and the flames completed the ruin which rapine and vandalism had
so successfully begun.
The prisoners and the spoil were despatched to Palermo under a strong
guard of Africans. Six days and nights were required for the painful
journey. Eager to arrive at their destination, the brutal soldiery
refused to allow their captives a moment of rest, and the march was
accomplished without a halt, except when the necessity of preparing
food or the physical obstacles of the mountain pathways caused delay.
At the approach of the melancholy procession the gates of the Moslem
capital poured forth its thousands of turbaned spectators. The sight
of the long train of captives, and of plunder such as had never
before dazzled the eyes of the most experienced veteran, aroused
the fervid enthusiasm of the multitude. Some displayed their joy by
extravagant gestures and dances, but the majority, more decorous,
chanted in unison appropriate passages from the Koran. Many of the
captives, after unspeakable sufferings, perished in the subterranean
dungeons of Palermo. Others obtained an infamous security by the
public renunciation of their faith. The fall of Syracuse practically
completes the Moslem conquest of Sicily. The degenerate monarch, who,
through his inexcusable neglect, was responsible for the loss of the
island, made no serious effort to recover it. A few insignificant
towns, the principal of which was Taormina, indebted for their
safety rather to the indifference of the Saracens than to their own
impregnability, still remained faithful to the Emperor. The Byzantine
standard--the emblem of rapacity, bigotry, and every political
abuse--disappeared forever from those lofty ramparts where it had
waved for so many centuries. Henceforth the prowess of the conquerors
was to be principally exerted against each other. The annals of Sicily
for many subsequent years are a tedious and unprofitable recital of
conspiracies, assassinations, and civil commotions, of the ineffectual
efforts of ambitious captains aspiring to independent sovereignty,
of the rapid succession of emirs of sanguinary tastes and mediocre
abilities, of defiance of and indecisive conflicts with the princes
of Kairoan. History was repeating itself. The disorders which had
disgraced the society of every Moslem country, when the apparent
cohesion of races was dissolved by the defeat and expulsion of the
common enemy, were now exhibited on a smaller scale, but with no less
vindictiveness, upon the narrow theatre of Sicily. Elevation to the
emirate, whether sanctioned or not by the confirmation and investiture
of the African Sultan, had become a most perilous distinction. Tribes
and factions pursued each other with relentless hatred. Not even in
Spain were the glaring defects of the Moslem polity more conspicuous,
or the vicious character of the components of the social organization
more thoroughly revealed. The constant deportation of criminals and
political malcontents by the Sultans of Africa, as a measure of
prudence whose inexpediency was demonstrated in every new insurrection,
was largely responsible for this general disorganization. It could not
reasonably be supposed that these disturbers of public tranquillity,
whose lives had been passed amidst the turmoil of religious and
military revolution, would remain quiet under any government.
While the Moslem factions with varying success were wasting their
energies in suicidal conflicts, the Christian communities, many
of which were respectable in wealth and numbers, were enabled by
sufferance to enjoy a temporary respite. The conclusion of the war had
accomplished one most beneficial result, an interchange of captives.
From the dark vaults of noisome dungeons; from the galley, with its
scourge and its clanking fetters; from the rice-fields, reeking with
miasmatic vapors; from the gilded antechambers of the harem; the
prisoners, who had long since abandoned hope, were now led forth to be
restored to home and kindred. The struggle which for more than half
a century had engaged alike the attention of Christian and Moslem
throughout the world was ended. Mankind now began to cast anxious
glances towards the new Mohammedan state which formed a stepping-stone
by which the hordes of Africa might once more enter Europe. The passage
of the Strait of Messina offered fewer obstacles to an invader than
that of the Strait of Gibraltar. From the confines of Calabria it was
a march of only a few days to Rome, and it was not forgotten that the
banners of Islam had once been seen before the walls of the Eternal
City. Numerous colonies of Moslems, most of which seemed to threaten
permanent occupancy, were established in Southern Italy; the Moorish
navy had asserted its power in the Adriatic; an intimate alliance
existed between the Republic of Naples and the emirs of Sicily. Not
without cause therefore did Christendom regard with unconcealed
apprehension the presence of such implacable foes in close proximity
to her capital. No adequate means of defence existed to ward off the
impending danger. The court of Constantinople had retired discomfited
from the field. Italy was distracted by the quarrels of a multitude
of insignificant principalities. The Papacy had not yet attained to
that commanding position in the political system of Europe which it
subsequently occupied, and its temporal power was confined to the
agitation of the mob of the capital, whose passions, once aroused, it
was not always able to control. The dream of Musa, who boasted that the
unity of God would be proclaimed in the Church of St. Peter, seemed now
far more easy of realization, when the Saracen armies were separated
from Rome by only a narrow channel and a few hours’ march, than when
the project first awoke the ambition of that daring general beyond the
intervening mountain barriers of the Pyrenees and the Alps.
The peace of the island having been finally assured after much
bloodshed, the efforts of the emirs were directed to the extension of
their empire in Italy. Political necessity rather than inclination
had compelled the rulers of the Saracen settlements in Calabria
and Apulia to recognize the superior jurisdiction of the governors
of Sicily. The division of those regions between so many powers of
different nationalities and forms of government--imperial, republican,
theocratic--was the cause of mutual distrust and irreconcilable hatred.
Each held aloof from alliance or even from intercourse with the others.
Their very weakness was at first the guaranty of their safety. The
Moslem, however, took advantage of this circumstance to attack his
adversaries in detail. On one side he drove back the Byzantines, who
had begun to threaten his settlements on the Gulf of Tarentum. On
another, his cavalry swept away the flocks of the Roman Campagna. The
republics, restrained by the faith of treaties, and the barons, who had
more than once felt the keen edge of the Moorish scimetar, preserved a
prudent neutrality. The country in the vicinity of the papal metropolis
for a radius of many miles suffered from these inroads. Large districts
were rendered uninhabitable. An important source of the food supply
of Rome was destroyed. The fury of the Moslems was, as usual, chiefly
aimed at the ecclesiastical establishments. Churches and convents
were destroyed, the priests butchered, the nuns hurried away to the
seraglio. The fugitives who sought an asylum at Rome crowded the
streets and the religious houses, and taxed to the utmost the resources
of monastic hospitality and benevolence. Within the walls of the
Eternal City all was trepidation and despair. An attack was hourly
apprehended, the sacred machinery of the church was put in motion to
avert the impending calamity, and the result invested with new and
profitable credit the performance of penance, the exhibition of relics,
and the solemn processions, whose influence was presumed to have
effected the deliverance of the Vicar of God.
It is not within the scope of this work to recount in detail the
monotonous sequence of fruitless revolutions, changes of rulers,
religious disputes, and inveterate animosities of sects and races which
compose the history of Sicily under the Arabs. No magnificent dynasty
like those of the Ommeyades at Cordova and the Abbasides at Bagdad
arose in the island to promote the cause of learning and science, and
to reflect imperishable lustre on the Moslem name. No great commander
carried his victorious arms beyond the Apennines and the Alps. The
maritime superiority acquired by the fleets of Palermo was lost in
a day in the bay of Naples, and the Byzantine navy once more became
supreme in the Mediterranean. No military exploit worthy of record has
been preserved save the storming of Taormina, which still obeyed the
Greek Emperor, in the beginning of the tenth century.
The cruelty with which the ascendency of each triumphant faction
was celebrated familiarized the Sicilians with scenes of blood, and
impressed itself indelibly upon the national character, while the
innate love of rapine, common to Arab and Berber alike, still survives
in the irrepressible brigandage of to-day. The greatest opportunity
ever afforded the Moslems for the conquest and conversion of Europe was
lost by the irresolution of the Sultans of Africa, and by the perpetual
discord which exhausted the strength and dissipated the resources of
Sicily. After acknowledgment in turn of the suzerainty of Aghlabite,
Abbaside, and Fatimite princes, the mutual persecution of religious
sects, and the long toleration of the feuds of antagonistic races, the
Sicilian emirate finally attained to independence, based upon the law
of hereditary succession. But this new political condition brought no
peace to the unhappy island. Every captain of banditti, every ambitious
courtier, considered himself eligible to a dignity which could claim in
reality no better title than that given by the sword. The country was
divided into numerous states agitated by petty jealousies and incapable
of concerted action in an hour of national peril. The city of Syracuse,
which had been partially rebuilt and, despite the unsettled affairs of
the times, had once more become an important seaport, was in the year
1060 the capital of Ibn-Thimna, who exercised a nominal authority over
the larger portion of the island. A domestic quarrel brought him in
collision with Ibn-Hawwasci, the governor of Castrogiovanni; a battle
was fought, the army of Ibn-Thimna was destroyed, and the conqueror
succeeded to the dignity and the dominions of his vanquished rival.
Consumed with hatred and regardless of consequences, Ibn-Thimna then
solicited the aid of a band of adventurers whose prowess was widely
renowned throughout Europe, and the exploits of whose ancestors
in former ages had caused them to be considered the scourge of
civilization and the implacable enemies of the human race.
In the Italian Peninsula, the Moslems long held the balance of power.
Its most productive territory was for fourteen years a prey to the
violence and rapacity of a few hundred Arab freebooters. The ministers
of the Church were naturally the principal objects of their hostility
and contempt. The priests were put to death after having been subjected
to every indignity. The monks were tortured, enslaved, emasculated. The
consecrated vessels of divine worship--whose hiding place was revealed
by serfs exasperated by generations of oppression--were profaned with
every refinement of blasphemy and sacrilege. Dogs and horses were
enveloped in sacred vestments. The smoke of censers perfumed the air
amidst the orgies of licentious banquets. From jewelled chalices were
drunk toasts to the success of the Moslem armies. Upon the very altar
was sacrificed the chastity of the spouses of Christ. During the ninth
century, every ship bound for Italian ports was laid under contribution
by the Arab corsairs. The dukes of Spoleto and Tuscany joined the
Saracens of Tarentum in an impious league to deprive the Pontiff of his
possessions and his power. The republics of Gaeta, Naples, Amalfi, and
Salerno formed a confederacy to the same end with the Emir of Sicily.
Pope John VIII., abandoned by his vassals, for two years regularly
paid tribute to the infidel, and the Holy See thus became virtually a
dependency of the Moslem empire.
In the cosmopolitan cities of Palermo and Messina were grouped types of
every race of Europe, Africa, and Asia, the most turbulent elements of
medieval society, the most vicious products of the evils of servitude
and the tyranny of caste; native Sicilians, degenerate Greeks, Lombard
exiles; Negroes, Persians, and Jews; outlawed criminals, pariahs,
refugees, apostates, and banditti. Here personal feuds and tribal
hatred were prosecuted with every circumstance of perfidiousness and
ferocity. Here Arab and Berber renewed the quarrel begun a century
before in Mauritania, which in the end involved in ruin both the
Ommeyade dynasty and the Sicilian Emirate. Here was nourished the
spirit of discord which proved fatal to Moslem supremacy and called
in the Normans, as in former times the dissensions of the Lombard
principalities had invited the Saracen invasion of Italy. The rule
of the Byzantine had been feeble, inert, and quiescent; moulded by
the incompetency of a cowardly government and the fears of a degraded
people. That of the Arab, on the other hand, was restless, energetic,
ambitious, aggressive. His versatility and his enterprise were
unfortunately largely neutralized by the character of the elements with
which he had to deal. As proved by the event, a formidable state may be
founded, but cannot be perpetuated, by a coalition of outcasts. It is
not from such sources that are derived the greatness, the glory, the
security of empires.
The Normans of the eleventh century had, by the intercourse of several
generations of warriors with the polished nations of the Mediterranean,
acquired a knowledge of the laws of humanity and the usages of social
life unheard of among their barbarian forefathers, who had defied the
perils of the English Channel and the Bay of Biscay in diminutive
vessels of skins and osier, and carried dismay among the populous
cities and rich settlements of the Seine and the Guadalquivir. Tempted
by the charms of soil and climate enjoyed by that province of Northern
France which still retains their name and the memory of their valor,
these daring pirates exchanged without hesitation the dangers of a
predatory existence upon the seas for the less exciting but more
profitable employments of a sedentary life. With the abandonment of
country was at the same time associated a renunciation of religion.
The Pagan ceremonies and savage customs attending the worship of
Woden were discarded for the imposing forms and benign precepts of
Christianity. These significant events did not, however, produce any
material alteration in the tastes, the character, or the aspirations
of the great body of the Norman youth. The theatre of action alone was
changed. In a moral point of view, no appreciable distinction exists
between a pirate and a soldier of fortune. The Norman man-at-arms
retained all the marauding instincts of his race, modified to some
extent by the civilization with which he was occasionally brought
in contact through his casual association with the accomplished
inhabitants of Moorish Spain and the shrewd and adventurous traders
of the Byzantine Empire. He had inherited the lofty stature of his
ancestors, their enormous strength and powers of endurance, their
contempt of danger, their barbarity in the treatment of a vanquished
foe. Attracted to Italy by the accounts of pilgrims returning from the
Holy Land, the Normans first appear in the history of that country as
the mercenaries of those principalities whose close proximity to each
other kept them in a condition of perpetual hostility. The intrepidity
and military experience of the strangers were soon recognized as
commodities of great value by the rulers of such states as Capua,
Beneventum, and Salerno. From a subordinate position, their audacity
and their courage soon raised them to a political equality with their
former masters. They acquired territorial possessions, built castles,
and plundered their neighbors with equal profit and even greater
facility than did the Lombard barons, themselves descended from a
race of freebooters. They figured alternately as the allies and the
adversaries of both Greeks and Moslems, as the dictates of prudence
or the prospect of gain suggested. Before the middle of the eleventh
century they had become an important factor in the politics of the
Italian Peninsula, where their ambition caused their friendship and
their enmity to be regarded with almost equal fear and suspicion. Of
all the Norman knights who had been induced by the hope of fame and
fortune to cast their lot in Southern Italy, none ranked so high for
chivalrous grace and martial prowess as the six members of the noble
house of De Hauteville. Without resources save their weapons and their
valor, they soon attained to high distinction in those communities of
adventurers whose existence depended on the sword. They cemented their
power by matrimonial alliances with the daughters of local chieftains
of large possessions and distinguished lineage; in more than one
instance at the expense of conjugal attachments contracted years before
during the affectionate enthusiasm of youth. Their influence soon
became paramount in the councils of the Christians, as their pennons
were ever foremost in the line of battle. The youngest of these bold
champions was called Roger, a name destined to great and enduring
renown in the crusading wars of Europe and Asia.
Encouraged by the dissensions of the Moors, certain citizens of
Messina, whose vicinity to the main-land afforded its inhabitants
frequent opportunities of communication with the Italian princes,
formed the design of inviting the Normans to undertake the conquest of
the island. Their plans had hardly been unfolded to Count Roger, when
Ibn-Thimna, the fugitive Emir, sought his aid, with the fallacious hope
that the efforts of the Christians might contribute to his restoration
to the throne. The attempt was resolved upon; the assistance of Robert,
Duke of Calabria, was secured, and, in the spring of 1061, Roger,
with a small detachment of soldiers, crossed the Strait by night,
and at daybreak, through the timely assistance of the conspirators,
was introduced into the fortifications of Messina. The enterprise so
auspiciously begun was prosecuted with the most flattering prospects of
ultimate success. Robert was soon enabled to strengthen the garrison of
Messina with a considerable force; many Christian settlements revolted,
others secretly sent assurances of sympathy and co-operation; the
predatory expeditions of the adventurers returned with valuable spoil,
and, finally, a decisive victory obtained near Castrogiovanni placed
the affairs of the invaders on a substantial footing and acquainted
the Moslems with the formidable character of the enemy. The success
of the Normans was rapid and decisive. Trani was delivered up by its
inhabitants, weary of Moslem oppression and anarchy. Bari was taken
after an obstinate defence. The Saracens now experienced in their turn
the evils with which they had visited the unhappy Sicilians in the
early times of the conquest. Their harvests were swept away. Their
vineyards were uprooted. The peasant feared to venture beyond the walls
of fortified places, and was hardly secure anywhere, for in every city
Greek conspirators maintained secret and treasonable communication with
the enemy. No hamlet, however sequestered, was exempt from the rapacity
of the Norman freebooter, who pushed his incursions to the very
environs of Palermo. In 1071 the siege of that city was undertaken.
The forces of the invaders, which had received accessions from almost
every country of Europe, were sufficiently numerous to invest the
Moslem capital by land and sea. The stubborn resistance maintained by
the garrison might have disheartened the assailants had it not been for
the treachery of Christian soldiers serving under the Saracen banner.
Notice was conveyed to the besiegers that a weak point existed in a
certain part of the citadel. To divert the attention of the Moslems,
the city was assailed on the eastern side as well as from the harbor,
while the Duke, at the head of a picked body of men, scaled with little
opposition the western walls of the citadel, which had been indicated
as the vulnerable point by the traitors in the Moorish service.
Astounded by the sudden appearance of the enemy in their rear, the
Moors retired in disorder to the suburbs, and the next day surrendered
under honorable conditions which guaranteed enjoyment of their laws and
their religion.
The capture of Palermo, after a siege of only five months, reflected
great distinction on the Norman arms. Every circumstance conspired to
facilitate their triumph. Although the entire force of the besiegers
could not have exceeded ten thousand, they were all veterans, whose
courage had been tested in many a campaign and foray. The Saracen
capital had long been distracted by faction, by religious schism,
by civil war. Its population had been greatly diminished from these
causes, and even the imminent danger of conquest failed to reconcile
the partisans of the hostile sects and tribes, who cared less for the
prosperity of their country than for the maintenance of their doctrines
and the prosecution of their hereditary enmities. The most important
auxiliaries of the invaders, however, were the Christian tributaries.
Harassed by the persecution of successive usurpers, insecure in person
and property, subject to the capricious tyranny of a despotism which,
without warning, not infrequently consigned their bodies to the dungeon
and their daughters to the seraglio, these unfortunate vassals were
prepared to further any undertaking which might deliver them from the
intolerable oppression under which they groaned.
The progress of the Normans was henceforth unimpeded by organized
resistance. Trapani, Taormina, Syracuse, were carried by storm.
Castrogiovanni was surrendered by its governor, who apostatized to
the Christian faith. In 1091 the cities of Butera and Noto, the last
possessions of the Moslems in the island, were transferred by peaceful
negotiation to the Normans, who now became the masters of Sicily.
Coincident with the extensive territorial acquisitions resulting from
the conquest, the feudal system was instituted, and fiefs were bestowed
on those officers of the invading army whose services merited such
a recompense and whose fidelity could be depended upon by the lords
of the house of De Hauteville who assumed the suzerainty. The Moors,
assured of the possession of their rights, passed quietly from anarchy
and riot to the restraints and subordination of feudal dependence.
With greater facility than would have been conjectured from their
customs and antecedents, they adapted themselves to the unfamiliar
conditions by which they were surrounded. As had been the case with
the Greeks, they intermarried with their conquerors. They served with
gallantry and distinction in the Norman armies. Their mercenaries,
under the leadership of Christian nobles, were regarded with greater
dread than when, under their own commanders, they had menaced the
existence of the Papacy and the security of Rome. In many ways their
superior civilization made its influence felt in the life and habits
of the semi-barbarians of the West. The manners of the latter became
more polished, their intercourse with equals less offensively rude,
their treatment of inferiors less tyrannical and cruel. The Arab
physician, who, with the Jew, monopolized the medical learning of
his time, enjoyed the confidence and respect of the Norman princes.
The Arab statesman and financier both stood high in their favor, and
received the most substantial and flattering marks of their esteem. The
luxurious customs of the Moors--permitted by their creed but forbidden
by the strict morality of Christian discipline--commended themselves
with peculiar zest to the lax principles and unrestrained passions of
the Norman chivalry. The latter practised polygamy upon a scale fully
as extensive as that of their infidel predecessors, established harems,
and maintained troops of eunuchs. Beautiful concubines, arrayed, some
in Christian, others in Moorish garb, and attended by trains of female
slaves whose charms rivalled those of their mistresses, sauntered
daily through the delightful promenades of Syracuse and Palermo. In
vain the anathemas of the Holy See were launched against the nominal
champions of the Faith who, with Oriental sensuality and magnificence,
held their courts in the Sicilian capitals. The corruption of the
Vatican was too familiar to all who had served in the campaigns of
Italy for the denunciation of the Pope to arouse any other feelings
than those of ridicule and contempt. Even the clergy became infected
through the contagious example of their temporal rulers; the amiable
vices so reprobated by the Holy Father were scarcely concealed by the
inferior ecclesiastics, while the episcopal palaces of the larger
cities exhibited scenes more appropriate to the secret precincts of
a Moorish harem than to the homes of the most exalted dignitaries
of the Sicilian Church. During the Saracen occupation of Sicily the
country was probably more thickly populated and was certainly subject
to a more thorough system of tillage than it had been while under
the control of any other nation. It contained eighteen cities and
hundreds of towns, villages, and hamlets. In all there were more than
a thousand centres of population throughout the island, which did
not include the smaller settlements. The tireless industry of the
Moor developed to the highest degree its wonderful natural resources.
Almost every grain and fruit known to the agriculturist flourished
on the slopes of the gentle eminences which lined its coast or in
the fertile depths of the sheltered valleys. Its mountain sides were
covered with forests of chestnut, pine, and cedar, invaluable for
ship-building purposes. The papyrus, identical with the famous plant
of Egypt, and found nowhere else in Europe, grew wild in its marshes.
The level lands of the South were occupied by endless groves of palms
and oranges. Cotton, sugar-cane, and flax were cultivated with great
success. Olives constituted one of the staple crops of the country.
The culture of silk was introduced into Sicily some years before it
became known to the Moors of Spain, and extensive plantations of
mulberries were maintained for the sustenance of that useful insect
whose industry, in every country propitious to its growth, has been
forced to contribute to the luxury and vanity of man. The products of
the Sicilian wine-press were famous among the bacchanalian poets of the
court of Palermo, who had long since forgotten the prohibitory mandate
of the Prophet. The most improved methods of cultivation, tested by the
experience of ages, were adopted to aid the fertility of the soil and
the mildness of the climate. The irrigating system in use was modelled
after those of Persia and Egypt. The supply of water seems to have
been abundant and of the purest quality, but, through the ignorance of
succeeding generations, which destroyed the forests, extensive tracts,
once verdant as a garden and traversed by navigable streams, have been
changed into arid plains barren of all vegetation and seamed with dry
and rocky ravines.
The mineral resources of Sicily were of remarkable richness and
variety. Gold and silver were found in considerable quantities. There
were mines of lead, iron, quicksilver, copper, antimony. Volcanic
products, such as vitriol, sal-ammoniac, naphtha, pitch, and sulphur,
were obtained with trifling labor. The deposits of rock-salt and
alum, of inexhaustible extent and unusual purity, were of themselves
sufficient, if properly developed, to insure the prosperity of any
nation. The fine jaspers and marbles of the Sicilian quarries were
well known to the builders of antiquity, and the Moorish architects
were not slow to recognize their excellence and to employ them in the
construction of the palaces with which the Arab nobles embellished the
suburbs of the great centres of commerce and power. The sunny slopes
of the hills furnished abundant pasturage for droves of cattle and
flocks of goats and sheep. The horses of Italy were renowned for their
fleetness and symmetry. Among the pursuits of the Saracen colonists
apiculture was not neglected, and honey was exported in quantities to
Italy and other countries of Christian Europe. But meagre accounts of
the manufactures and trade of Moorish Sicily have been transmitted to
posterity. It is well known, however, that commercial relations existed
between the principal ports of the island and the maritime nations of
the Mediterranean. The merchantmen of its thriving seaports exchanged
the products of the East and West in the harbors of Malaga, Alexandria,
Constantinople. No people surpassed the Sicilians in the delicacy and
beauty of their fabrics, and the silks of Palermo, interwoven with
texts and devices in gold, were highly esteemed, and much sought after
by the luxurious potentates and nobles of the Mohammedan world.
Of all the imposing palaces, baths, and mosques which once adorned the
Moorish cities of the island, unhappily not a vestige now remains.
Nothing but a few scattered and broken inscriptions has survived the
violence of mediæval times, to attest the pomp and splendor of the
Sicilian emirs. The architecture of no other people has suffered
such complete and systematic annihilation. Two or three structures,
erected during the rule of the Norman princes, but whose proportions
and ornamentation, while remarkable, yet disclose unmistakably the
decadence of architectural skill, are all we have upon which to found
an opinion of the magnificence of Mohammedan Palermo.
It must not be forgotten that the advances of the Sicilian Moslems in
the arts of peace were made under the most discouraging circumstances.
War was the normal state of the country from the invasion by
Asad-Ibn-Forat to the surrender of the last castle to the Normans. When
the Saracens were not engaged in hostilities with the Christians, they
amused themselves by cutting each other’s throats. In every instance,
whether plundered by Greeks or persecuted by Moslems of an unfriendly
sect, the husbandman and the merchant were always the sufferers. That
agriculture and commerce could exist at all under such difficulties may
well awaken surprise; that a civilization superior to that of any state
of Christian Europe should have been developed and sustained in spite
of these obstacles is an anomaly without precedent in the history of
nations.
The administration of the laws by the dominant race was, of course,
based upon the principles of Moslem jurisprudence. It was not unusual,
however, for these laws to be either evaded or executed with a severity
never contemplated by their author. Constant familiarity with bloodshed
and habitual defiance of their authority by the populace had brutalized
the rulers of Sicily. They affected a reserve characteristic of the
worst forms of Oriental despotism. Their features were unknown to the
great body of their subjects. From motives of caution, or to enhance
the mysterious dignity investing their office, they gave audience and
dispensed justice from behind a curtain which entirely concealed
the throne. Like the most degenerate of the Persian Fatimites, they
travelled unseen in litters, attended by the effeminate ministers of
their vices. The few who attained to military distinction by active
operations in the field died of disease; a large proportion of those
who intrusted the conduct of campaigns to subordinates perished by the
hand of the assassin.
In no part of the domain of Islam was the population of a more
diversified character than in Sicily. Discord and disunion were the
inevitable results of its composition. In the face of an enemy,
the valor of its warriors was never questioned. In the excitement
of a revolution, no man was safe from the dagger of his friend.
Individuals deriving their origin from so many different countries
naturally brought with them the experience, the arts, the industry,
the accomplishments, the vices, of their respective nations. Under
a dynasty of independent and resolute princes able to repress the
outbreaks of tribal discord, Sicily would undoubtedly have risen to the
most exalted rank in the scale of civilization. As it was, with all
her serious impediments to progress, she had no rival excepting Spain
among the kingdoms of Europe. Her armies wrested from the Byzantine
Emperor one of the most valuable provinces of his dominions. Her navy
for a considerable period enjoyed the maritime superiority of both
the Adriatic and the Mediterranean. The country, in spite of civil
commotion and the consequent insecurity, was densely populated. In
938 the inhabitants of the valley of Mazara alone amounted to two
million,--half of whom were Moslems. The elegant luxury of Palermo
surpassed in taste while it equalled in splendor the barbaric pomp
of Constantinople. The domestic and social conditions prevailing in
Germany, Italy, France, and England were incomparably inferior in
all the qualities by which the advancement and happiness of nations
are promoted to those, defective as they were, by which society in
Moorish Sicily was organized and controlled. In the province of letters
the Sicilian Moslems seem to have merited distinction not inferior
to that achieved by their Andalusian brethren. A long catalogue
of authors, whose compositions, for the most part, unhappily have
perished, indicate the esteem in which literature was held, as well as
the prodigal liberality by which the efforts of its professors were
rewarded.
The influence of Sicilian civilization upon the Normans exhibits the
counterpart of that exercised by the decaying genius of Rome upon the
fierce and untutored barbarians. But the minds of the former were far
better fitted to receive the impressions imparted by association and
example than were those of the followers of Alaric and Alboin. They
were somewhat accustomed to the conveniences and the luxuries of life,
and not entirely ignorant of the amenities of social intercourse. They
had travelled far and had insensibly made comparisons between the
usages of many nations. The architectural remains of the mighty empire
of the Cæsars had awakened their admiration. They were familiar with
the defaced, but still awe-inspiring, monuments of Roman grandeur.
Tradition, embellished with a thousand enchanting legends, had brought
before them visions of the majesty and glory of the greatest powers
of the ancient world. Intimate contact with the Greek colonists of
Southern Italy, who still retained in a measure the graces and the
refinement of their ancestors, gave them well-defined ideas of the
civilization enjoyed by the original seat of literary superiority, of
architectural perfection, of artistic excellence. Thus the Normans were
ready, even eager, to receive from their Moorish vassals lessons in
those elegant pursuits whose advantages they had long appreciated, but
had never enjoyed. The Moslems, as a rule, were granted every courtesy
by their Christian neighbors, who quickly recognized their superior
intellectual acquirements. They celebrated in public, and without
molestation, the festivals of their religion. The rich freely indulged
their inclination for splendid attire and imposing retinues. They had
their own ministers of justice and of worship, their markets, mosques,
and judicial tribunals. The majority of the merchants of Palermo under
the Norman domination were Mohammedans.
Reluctant, perhaps unable, to discriminate, the invaders grew corrupt,
and the evils characteristic of a sensual and luxurious race were
insensibly adopted with the benefits which its culture afforded. After
the Norman conquest, the spirit of Moorish civilization still remained
paramount. The Saracens formed no unimportant part of the military
establishment of their conquerors, maintained both for service and
ostentation. At the siege of Amalfi, in 1096, twenty thousand of them
served under the Norman standard. In 1113, when Adelaide, mother of
Count Roger, went to Ascalon to marry Baldwin, King of Jerusalem, she
presented him with a band of Moorish archers splendidly uniformed in
scarlet and gold. The forms of government observed by the emirs were
retained. Moslem ministers and magistrates directed the administration
of the state, regulated the finances, dispensed justice. The Arabic
tongue continued to be not only the recognized medium of communication
between all classes of society, but the vehicle of public acts and
edicts, and the official idiom of the courts of law. Over the gateways
of palaces constructed by the princes of the family of De Hauteville
are still to be deciphered legends whose sentiment is unmistakably
Mohammedan. The Norman coins were stamped with sentences from the Koran
and with the date of the Hegira. The dress, the manners, the etiquette
of public audiences, the habits of private intercourse, became
essentially Oriental. The umbrella, an emblem of royalty borrowed from
the Fatimites of Egypt, was borne over the heads of the Norman kings
on occasions of ceremony. The robes of distinguished personages were
interwoven with Arabic texts, whose characters and whose significance
excited the pious horror of the orthodox. The regulation of the royal
household was modelled after that of the emirate. The very titles of
the public officials were Arabic. The education of youth was committed
without reserve to learned doctors of the Mussulman or the Hebrew
faith. In some of the harems of the Norman lords the inmates were all
Mohammedans; in those of others, Christian damsels shared the favor and
the affection of the licentious noble. No restrictions were imposed
upon the religious prejudices of either, and it is related that the
Christians, convinced by the arguments or the fascinations of their
infidel associates, not infrequently became proselytes to the doctrines
of Islam. Under the enlightened government of the Normans, persecution
was unknown. Indeed, the vanquished people were regarded with such
partiality that Count Roger absolutely forbade that any Moslem
should, even by the most gentle means, be converted to Christianity.
The clergy, unable to resist the prevailing influence, suffered
their sacred edifices to be adorned with sentences from the Koran,
whose monotheistic tendency accorded ill with the accepted maxims
of patristic theology and the infallible edicts of ecclesiastical
councils. From the balcony of the minaret and the tower of the
cathedral the voice of the muezzin or the pealing of the bell called
the pious to worship, and from the altars of every community arose in
unison the praise of Allah and the invocation of the Triune God.
The traveller Ibn-Haukal and the geographer Edrisi have left us
interesting and lively descriptions of the great Moslem cities of
Sicily under Norman rule. Of these Palermo easily took precedence,
not only on account of its being the metropolis, but by reason of
the superior wealth, intelligence, and culture of its citizens. Of
the number of its inhabitants no data have survived to enable us to
form an approximate computation. They must have amounted, however,
to several hundred thousand, as five hundred mosques were required
for the worship of the Mussulmans, and, as a rule, the Christian
population in every community equalled, if it did not exceed, that of
the sectaries of Islam. Many of these structures were superb temples,
whose costly decorations attested the liberality of the prince or the
devotion of the multitude. Some were of vast dimensions; the largest
could accommodate with ease seven thousand worshippers. The vanity
of private individuals, whose wealth permitted them to indulge their
taste for ostentation and offer an exhibition of zeal not always
above suspicion, possessed mosques of their own, from which all were
excluded save their own relatives, dependents, vassals, and slaves. But
not alone in their places of worship did the prodigal and luxurious
citizens of Palermo emulate the magnificence of their neighbors.
The palaces of the rich and the great were unsurpassed by those of
any Moslem capital excepting Cordova. The skill and delicacy of the
labor expended upon them corresponded with the rare and precious
character of the materials of which they were composed. The walls were
encased with variegated marbles, the floors were formed of mosaic,
the ceilings exhibited a labyrinth of geometric tracery relieved by
brilliant coloring and resplendent with gold. Rows of aromatic shrubs
filled the court-yards with their fragrance. The predilection of the
Arab for water--the greatest treasure of the Desert--was everywhere
manifested. Aqueducts composed of tiers of towering arches skirted
the mountains in all directions. Canals traversed the plantations and
gardens of the extensive suburbs. Fountains of classic design cooled
the air of parks and promenades or quenched the thirst of the tired
and dusty caravan. The city, from east to west, was intersected by
the market-place, a wide street paved with hewn-stone and lined with
shops filled with the most valuable commodities known to the commerce
of the age. The central or older portion of the city was the seat
of the court and the residence of the monarch. The suburbs almost
entirely surrounded it, and contained the quays, the warehouses,
the markets, the caravansaries, necessary to the traffic of a great
maritime emporium. Like Cordova, Palermo was divided into five separate
quarters, each of which was isolated from the others when the gates
were closed. The houses were of blocks of polished stone put together
with the greatest accuracy, the streets were lighted, the mansions of
commanding height and symmetrical proportions, the habitations of the
poor more commodious than the dwellings of many of the wealthy burghers
of Paris and London. In the time of Ibn-Jubair, who visited Palermo
during the reign of William the Good, the costumes and the manners of
the Christians were not distinguishable from those of their Moslem
vassals. The ladies wore veils of different colors and garments of
mingled silk and gold. Dainty slippers, embroidered in arabesques with
the precious metals, protected their tiny feet, jewelled ornaments
of exquisite patterns glittered upon their bosoms, and the aroma
of costly essences which enveloped them revealed their passionate
love of perfumes. The fusion of races was nowhere so apparent or so
remarkable as in the unrestricted intimacy maintained, and in the
refined courtesies reciprocated by the once hostile nationalities which
composed the population of the Norman capital. The amenities of social
intercourse required the practice of politeness and of self-restraint
even among enemies. In the time of William the Good cruelty and rapine
were stigmatized as Teutonic vices.
The noble and elevating pursuits of science were not neglected under
the Moors of Sicily and their intelligent and progressive conquerors,
the Norman princes. Geography, astronomy, chemistry, and medicine
were studied with diligence and success. Edrisi, whose descent from
the royal dynasty of Fez has been obscured by the eminent reputation
he attained as a geographer and a philosopher, made for Roger II.
a planisphere which represented at once the surface of the earth
and the positions of the heavenly bodies. From the minarets of
Palermo, the Arab astronomer observed the motions of the planets,
the periodical recurrence of eclipses, the relative positions and
general distribution of the stars in space, by the aid of instruments
invented on the Guadalquivir and the Tigris, and of tables computed on
the plains of Babylon centuries before the Christian era. The Moslem
thus consecrated to the prosecution of scientific research the towers
of his most sacred temples, at a time when from the cathedrals of
Europe doctrines were promulgated which menaced, with the severest
penalties that ecclesiastical malignity could devise, every occupation
which in any way contributed to the emancipation of reason or the
intellectual progress of humanity. Astrology, that delusive study
so flattering to the vanity of human nature, and so alluring to the
imagination from the preternatural power supposed to be wielded by
the charlatans who practised it, too often discredited the results of
astronomical investigation; just as the vain and costly pursuit of the
philosopher’s stone brought into disrepute at first the pre-eminently
useful science of chemistry. The Sicilians were firm believers in the
influence exerted by the heavenly bodies upon the actions and the
destiny of man. The attempt to extract the precious metals from the
most unpromising substances of nature had long engaged the attention
of the Arab, and the cities of the island swarmed with impostors who
cast horoscopes, interpreted dreams, and predicted future events by
pretended communion with the stars, while the fires in the laboratory
of the alchemist were maintained at the expense of innumerable dupes of
their own credulity, whose hopes were sustained by mystery and fraud,
while their purses were being systematically depleted. The superior
intelligence of the higher classes afforded no immunity from these
popular delusions; the noble embraced their principles with the same
confidence and the same avidity as were displayed by the plebeian and
the slave. The home of the alchemist was habitually frequented by the
highest officials of the court, and the astrologer, with his peculiar
garb, his long staff engraved with talismanic signs, his flowing beard,
and his air of mysterious assurance, was the most welcome guest in the
palaces of Palermo.
The Arabs of Sicily, with their brethren of Spain, owing to their
extraordinary and thorough proficiency in medicine and surgery, were
the most skilful practitioners in Europe. Their eminence in this
profession was, to a large extent, shared by the Jews, who, as a race,
were the recipients of royal favor and public confidence under the
Norman as well as under the Saracen domination. The peer of the Moslem
in every branch of scientific knowledge, the Hebrew brought to the
study and application of the principles of the healing art the same
keen perception and unerring tact which enabled him in all ages to rise
to the most commanding positions in the mercantile world.
In their acquaintance with the mechanical arts the Sicilians were not
inferior to their most accomplished contemporaries. Their hydraulic
system was provided with all the appliances which had been tested by
those nations whose arid soil required the artificial stimulus of
irrigation. Their mills dotted the banks of every stream whose current
afforded sufficient motive power for the propulsion of a water-wheel.
The products of their looms were famous for their exquisite patterns
and the fineness of their texture. They seemed to have also excelled
in the invention and manufacture of contrivances for the measurement
of time. A clepsydra belonging to Roger II. has been commemorated by
an inscription which would indicate that it equalled in ingenuity and
perfection the famous one presented by Harun-al-Raschid to Charlemagne.
The hours were marked off by automatons, which dropped a corresponding
number of balls into a metallic basin, a not unworthy predecessor of
the modern clock. A considerable number of the astrolabes, which,
having fortunately escaped the effects of ecclesiastical fury wreaked
upon them as magical instruments and devices of Satan, are now
preserved in the museums of Europe, are of undoubted Sicilian origin.
Abu-Layth, an architect and engineer, who had been educated in the
schools of Sicily, assisted in the completion of the great mosque of
Seville, erected during the twelfth century, and the globes of gilded
bronze which crowned the summit of the Giralda, whose extraordinary
dimensions and perfect symmetry excited the wonder of all beholders,
were cast and raised to their places under his supervision. The
superiority of the Sicilian Moslems in the construction and management
of military engines has been already referred to in these pages.
The court of Palermo for more than a century was no less distinguished
for the literary acquirements of those who, attracted by its reputation
and the character of its society, took up their abode in its precincts,
than for the scientific studies pursued with such ardor under the
patronage of its sovereigns. During the Saracen rule, translations of
those classical authors who wrote on philosophy and natural history
were made; the perusal of the works of Aristotle, for whose doctrines
the Moslems of the Middle Ages evinced such a remarkable predilection,
was one of the favorite diversions of the learned; and the poems of
Pagan Arabia were recited in the elegant idiom of the Desert, amidst
the applause of believer and infidel alike, almost within hearing
of the metropolis of Christendom. The prodigious stores of learning
accumulated by the philosophers of the Alexandrian school, through
the boundless munificence of the Greek dynasty of Egypt, enriched the
libraries and cultivated the understanding of the scholars of Sicily.
The writings of Hero, of Eratosthenes, of Euclid, and of Ptolemy were
familiar to the students in attendance upon the academies and colleges
of Palermo and Messina. The Syntaxis, the Geography, and the Optics of
the latter have survived, mainly through the instrumentality of the
Moors, the indiscriminate destructiveness of the barbarians and the
calculating malice of the clergy, to convey to subsequent generations
instructive and significant ideas of the philosophical attainments and
mathematical knowledge of one of the most accomplished scholars of
antiquity. The great work of Edrisi was compiled under the auspices
of Roger II. The Arab was peculiarly fitted for the treatment of the
comprehensive science of physical and descriptive geography. His
information had been largely obtained by practical experience. He had
served in campaigns conducted on the frontiers of civilization; in the
capacity of a merchant he had traversed with the plodding caravan vast
regions diversified with illimitable plains, lofty mountains, noble
rivers; as a pilgrim he had performed his devotions at the cradle of
the Moslem faith; in the tireless pursuit of learning he had prosecuted
his researches over strange countries and among strange peoples; his
features and his costume were familiar to the residents of the great
European and Asiatic capitals; his peregrinations had extended from
the Douro to the Indus, from the shores of the Baltic to the sources
of the Nile. Thus endowed with especial qualifications, the Arab
geographer was equally at home, whether recounting to a delighted
audience the experiences of an extended journey or explaining to an
assemblage of students the physical features of the earth and the
relative distribution of land and water as depicted on the surface of
a terrestrial globe. The work of Edrisi is an imperishable monument to
the intelligence, the industry, the criticism, of the compiler, whose
studies were confirmed in many instances by personal observation,
and the practical value of whose undertaking was established by his
scientific attainments as well as by the copious erudition of the
illustrious monarch by whose command it originated and was brought to a
successful termination.
In the exact sciences the Arabs of Sicily attained to a proficiency
unsurpassed by any nation since the glorious days of the Alexandrian
Museum, and, in fact, they appropriated and absorbed much of the
knowledge bequeathed to posterity by that immortal institution. Their
geometers applied that knowledge to the improvement of hydraulic
apparatus, to the increase in power and efficiency of military engines,
to astronomical observations which facilitated the explorations of the
navigator, to a thousand inventions which promoted the convenience
and the happiness of domestic life. The leisure of the emirs and of
the Norman princes was amused, and the literary ambition of their
accomplished courtiers excited, by the recitations of famous bards,
who, in a land which still cherished the memory of the incomparable
poetic inspiration of Greece and Rome, competed for the applause of an
audience in whose eyes ready improvisation and extravagant metaphors
were infallible tokens of the highest excellence.
Of such a character were the material civilization, the scientific
achievements, the intellectual culture of Moorish and Norman Sicily.
Its glories have long since departed. Of the hundreds of palaces and
mosques whose majestic and elegant proportions were the pride of the
Moslem cities, not one has escaped the destructive touch of plebeian
vandalism and ecclesiastical hatred. The Sicilian population, from
being one of the most cultivated, has degenerated into the most
ignorant of Catholic Europe. The suburbs of Palermo, once the abode
of every science and of every art, are now so infested with brigands
that they cannot be traversed in safety by the traveller without the
protection of an armed guard. For the medical experience and skilful
offices of the surgeon have been substituted arduous penance and the
application of suspicious, often spurious relics. Intellectual liberty
and religious toleration have been supplanted by the repression
of thought, by the discouragement of every noble impulse, by the
tyranny of a superstition which degrades the mind and enfeebles every
aspiration which can promote the material welfare of humanity.
The enterprising spirit of the Arabs which induced them to extend their
conquests to all accessible points on the Mediterranean early suggested
the occupation of the largest islands of that sea, whose importance
as naval stations whence invading armies might be transported into
Europe, and as bases for the equipment of piratical undertakings,
was fully recognized by every nation. The Balearic Isles were a
dependency of the khalifate of Cordova. They paid tribute to its
sovereigns like other provinces of the empire, furnished troops for
its armies, participated largely in its civilization, and, fortunate
in their isolation, survived for nearly two centuries its overthrow.
Sardinia, invaded by Musa in the first years of the eighth century,
was never completely subjugated by the Saracens. The mountainous and
barren interior of that island, sparsely inhabited by a barbarous
and poverty-stricken peasantry, repelled them from a conquest whose
doubtful advantages could not possibly compensate for the toil and
danger necessary to secure it, and the coast with its harbors seemed
the only territory worthy of their attention. For the space of seventy
years the Moors retained a precarious foothold on the shores of that
island, and the possession of a few insignificant seaports was disputed
by the Franks and Italians with a pertinacity not unworthy of a contest
involving the fate of an extensive kingdom.
In 722 the Saracens, having become familiar with the extensive traffic
in relics carried on by the Catholic clergy and determined to turn to
their own profit the superstitious credulity of the devout, entered
into negotiations with Liutprand, King of the Lombards, for the sale
of the body of St. Augustine, which had reposed in peace for two
hundred years in the metropolitan church of Cagliari. The transaction
was betrayed by the arrival of the messengers of Liutprand, and the
people, incited by the monks, rose in revolt. An unsuccessful attempt
was made to rescue the ashes of the saint, the Arab garrison was called
out to quell the tumult, and seven monks paid the extreme penalty of
their zeal, and perhaps not wholly disinterested piety. In view of the
precious character of these mementos and of the difficulties attending
their transfer, the Arabs exacted, in addition to the price already
agreed upon, the payment of three pounds of gold and twelve of silver;
an amount which indicates the immense value of the original ransom. The
grief of the devout inhabitants of Cagliari on account of their loss
was somewhat alleviated by the remembrance that the vestments which had
been torn from the bones of the saint in the struggle still remained
in their hands, and the innumerable miracles wrought by these tattered
garments, confirmed by the highest ecclesiastical authority, long
attested the celestial influence and supernatural virtues possessed by
the sacred relics of the deceased Bishop of Hippo.
Crete, captured by refugees from Spain, who, exiled from that country
for treason during the reign of Al-Hakem I., were subsequently driven
from Alexandria by the infuriated populace, whose hospitality they
had abused, remained in the hands of the Moslems until 961, when it
was reconquered by the Greeks. The Spanish Arabs about the year 806
descended upon the coast of Corsica. The timely aid of King Pepin
prevented the immediate loss of that island, which, however, was
occupied by the Saracens in 810. The despairing Corsicans, who had
betaken themselves to the mountain solitudes, solicited the aid of
Charlemagne, who sent a powerful fleet to their relief. The Moslems,
after a series of sanguinary engagements, were absolutely exterminated
by the ferocious warriors of the West; but the unfortunate Corsicans
fared little better than their enemies, for it is stated by respectable
authority that nine-tenths of the population perished within less than
three years from the effects of the Saracen invasion. The shores of
the island are still covered with ruins of extensive towns and cities
dating from that period, indicating the former prosperity of the
inhabitants, as well as the frightful calamities which they must have
endured at the hands of the truculent adventurers of Spain and Africa.
Malta, acknowledged in the Middle Ages, as now, to be the key of
the Eastern Mediterranean, was for two hundred and twenty years an
important dependency of the Sicilian Emirate. Taken by the Moslems
in 870, it was occupied by the Norman troops, led by Count Roger in
person, in 1090. The subjects of the Greek Emperor were put to death or
enslaved, but for the native Maltese the Arabs manifested an unusual
partiality. Their lot was far more tolerable than that of the tributary
Christians of Sicily, their religion was unmolested, their taxes were
moderate, the privileges conceded to them more favorable than those
ordinarily accorded to infidels. The inhabitants of all these islands,
except Sicily, which made war upon an extensive scale, subsisted by
piratical depredations and by trade in slaves, in which reprehensible
practices the Moors of Malta early obtained an undisputed and infamous
pre-eminence.
In this chapter has been traced an incomplete outline of the origin,
progress, and decline of the Moslem domination in Sicily, a subject
which, if elaborated, would embrace many volumes. From this imperfect
sketch, however, the reader may form an idea of a civilization
centuries in advance of that of any contemporaneous people, with the
single exception of the Spanish Arabs; a civilization which, fostered
and perpetuated under the brilliant reign of the Emperor Frederick
II., effected such a memorable revolution in the ideas and opinions
entertained as indisputably correct by the devout and the credulous of
many preceding ages.