CHAPTER XVIII

THE EMPIRE OF THE ALMOHADES

1121–1212

Rise of Abu-Abdallah, the Mahdi--His Character and Talents--He

rebels against Ali--His Eventful Career--Abd-al-Mumen succeeds

Him--Decline of the Almoravide Power in Spain--Raid of Alfonso

of Aragon--Rout of Fraga--Death of Alfonso--Indecisive Character

of the Campaigns in the War of the Reconquest--Progress of

Abd-al-Mumen in Africa--Victories of the Almohades--Natural

Hostility of Moor and Berber--Anarchy in the Peninsula--It

is invaded by the Africans--Establishment of the Almohade

Empire in Andalusia--Almeria taken by the Christians--Its

Recapture by the Berbers--Death of Abd-al-Mumen--His Genius and

Greatness--Accession of Yusuf--His Public Works--He organizes

a Great Expedition--He dies and is succeeded by Yakub--The

Holy War proclaimed--Battle of Alarcos--Effects of African

Supremacy--Death of Yakub--The Giralda--Mohammed--He attempts

the Subjugation of the Christians--Despair of the Latter--Battle

of Las Navas de Tolosa--Utter Rout of the Almohade Army.

The proverbial instability of the tribes of Northern Africa, habitually

dominated by the most abject superstition, the prey of successive

generations of religious impostors, incapable of systematized civil

organization, of moral consistency, of personal loyalty, was now to be

again demonstrated by a revolution that, in the principal circumstances

of its origin and progress, was almost the counterpart of the one

preceding it, which had made the polished and intellectual population

of Spain--justly proud of the traditions of the khalifate--tributary

subjects of a foreign and barbaric potentate. As with every race

brought suddenly in contact with the highest civilization without

passing through the intermediate phases incident to the regular and

predestined development of nations, the corruption and degeneracy

of the Berbers advanced with amazing rapidity. Amidst the hitherto

unknown allurements of luxury and vice, the primitive virtues of

generosity, courage, and hospitality disappeared. The fetichism of the

Desert was replaced by a spurious and absurd Mohammedan belief, which

retained, as essential parts of its doctrine, the most objectionable

and offensive principles of Paganism. The religious teachers of the

people, more deeply contaminated than their disciples and closely

allied with the Jews, whose worship and whose dogmas they held up to

reprobation in public and connived at in secret, had become monsters

of extortion, profligacy, and injustice. The martial tastes of Yusuf

had not descended to his son, who daily exhibited, to the delight of

the clergy and the astonishment of the people, the abasement of a

devotee, an example sufficiently edifying in a saint but strangely

unbecoming in a sovereign whose throne was sustained by arms, and whose

subjects were accustomed to subsist by conquest and rapine. No faqui

desirous of obtaining a reputation for piety prayed and fasted with

more persistent regularity than Ali. The greater part of his time was

passed in the mosque, and the administration, meanwhile, was usurped

by the clergy and the ladies of the court. The direct intervention

of women in public affairs was a practice heretofore unknown to the

Moslem constitution. During the reign of Ali, however, the wives and

concubines of great officials virtually controlled, by favor and

purchase, the policy of the government, trafficked in appointments of

the civil and military service, capriciously deposed high dignitaries,

and pardoned brigands and other malefactors condemned for atrocious

crimes. The contradictory mandates, and the uncertain execution of the

laws resulting from the conflicting interests and the indecision of

ambitious and corrupt females, produced inextricable confusion, and

provoked the scorn and resentment of the people. In Spain, far removed

from the capital of the empire, the prevalent disorder and oppression

reached its culmination; and even constant familiarity with military

abuses could not reconcile the citizens of the Andalusian capitals to

the intolerable insolence of the Almoravide soldiery.

About this time there appeared in the African dominions of Ali a new

reformer, half enthusiast, half charlatan, whose austerities and

denunciations of the prevalent luxury and impiety of the age at once

attracted the attention and inspired the reverence of the masses.

His name was Abu-Abdallah; his origin--designated by an appellation

referring to the calling of his father, a lamplighter in the mosque

of his native village--was most humble; but nature had endowed him

with talents which early marked him as a leader of men. His education,

acquired in the famous schools of Cordova, Bagdad, and Cairo, was far

superior to his rank, and, by assiduous study and extensive travel in

foreign countries, he had amassed a vast fund of knowledge, and had

obtained, even in the centres of Moslem learning, the reputation of

an accomplished controversialist and theologian. A pupil of the great

Al-Ghazzali, he had embraced with eagerness the doctrines of that

renowned philosopher, whose work, branded as heterodox and impious

by the clergy of Cordova, had been publicly consigned to the flames,

and its possession made a cause of relentless persecution by the

bigoted religious counsellors of Ali. The subsequent conduct of the

reformer might suggest to an observant and unfriendly critic that

this unfavorable reception of the dogmas of one of the most famous

teachers of Islam had not a little influence in forming the opinions

and determining the career of the ambitious young Berber student.

His education completed, Abu-Abdallah returned to his home among the

tribesmen of Masmoudah in the country of Sus. His travels and his

studies, directed by a keen and vigorous intellect, had given him

a profound insight into human nature, while the superiority of his

literary attainments obtained for him the greatest respect from the

simple and ignorant shepherds among whom his lot was cast. From the day

of his return, he affected an air of mystery well calculated to impose

upon a credulous and highly imaginative people. He assumed the title of

Al-Mahdi, or The Leader, a word synonymous with Messiah, a personage

whose advent has been predicted by the founders of almost every sect

of Oriental origin. He declaimed with audacity and eloquence against

the sins of the degenerate Moslems. In common with all reformers whose

success demands a real or apparent exhibition of sanctity, his life

afforded an edifying example of self-denial and of the practice of

the most austere virtue. His garments were scanty and of the coarsest

materials. His sole possessions consisted of a staff and a leathern

bottle. Subsisting upon alms, and sleeping in the court-yards of the

mosques, where, during the day, with impassioned oratory, he exhorted

the wayward to repentance, he did not remain long in solitude. Crowds

gathered to participate in his devotions and to enjoy the benefit

of his prayers. The erratic genius of the Berber, impressed with an

exhibition so congenial with its nature and actuated by the love of

novelty, soon recognized in the holy man a guide whose inspiration was

directly derived from heaven. Among the first of his disciples was

a youth of distinguished lineage and unusual personal attractions,

named Abd-al-Mumen, whom the Mahdi, as he was now universally

called, selected as his councillor, and whose talents for war and

executive ability, as soon became evident, were superior to those of

any individual of his time. Accompanied by a small band of followers,

the Mahdi advanced by easy stages to Morocco, the depravity of whose

citizens he constantly represented as worthy of the severest punishment

that could be inflicted by the wrath of an outraged Deity. It was not

without reason that he denounced the vices of the great Almoravide

capital. Although so recently founded, it already ranked with the

most opulent, the most splendid, the most dissolute of the cities of

the Mohammedan world. Its population had been gathered from three

continents; its commerce extended from the frozen zone to countries

far south of the equator; its profligate diversions equalled in their

shamelessness and monstrous variety the proverbial abominations of

ancient Carthage.

The first public act of the Mahdi after his arrival was one whose

unparalleled audacity was admirably calculated to establish the

sacredness of his pretended mission as far as the most distant

frontiers of the empire. On one of the Fridays of the festival of

Ramadhan, a great concourse had assembled in the principal mosque of

the capital to await the coming of the Sultan. Before the royal cortége

appeared, an emaciated figure, meanly clad and intoning in deep and

solemn accents verses from the Koran, strode through the assemblage

and seated itself, without ceremony, on the throne. The remonstrances

of the attendants of the mosque produced no effect on the intruder,

and even at the approach of Ali himself he retained his seat, while

the entire congregation rose and stood reverently in the presence of

their monarch. In the minds of devout Moslems, mental eccentricity

and insanity are not infrequently considered evidences of divine

inspiration; the most outrageous denunciations are received with

humility by the greatest potentates; and, encouraged by impunity, the

dervish and the santon, sure of the toleration of the sovereign and the

applause of the multitude, do not hesitate to violate every feeling of

decency and reverence in the prosecution of their schemes of imposture.

The existence of this superstitious prejudice prevented the molestation

of the Mahdi, whose reputation had preceded him, but whose person was

as yet unknown to the inhabitants of Morocco. Not content with usurping

his place, the audacious reformer even ventured, in scathing terms,

to reprove the Sultan in the presence of the assembly, and warned him

that if he did not correct the faults of his government and the vices

of his subjects he would be speedily called upon to render an account

of his neglect to God. The amazement and consternation of the Prince

were only exceeded by the apprehensions of the people, who awaited,

with equal anxiety, the accomplishment of a miracle or the outbreak of

a revolution.

From that day the religious authority of the Mahdi was established

throughout the African dominions of Ali. His audiences were numbered

by thousands. Proselytes in vast multitudes assented to his

doctrines, and his movements began to seriously occupy the attention

of the government, whose officials saw with unconcealed dread his

fast-increasing popularity and the effect which his harangues and his

ostentatious asceticism were producing upon the capricious and easily

deluded masses. He was examined by the ministers, some of whom advised

his immediate execution, but, as he had hitherto confined himself to

religious exhortations and had asserted no pretensions to the exercise

of temporal sovereignty, the impolitic clemency of Ali, unmindful of

the similar circumstances which had attended the elevation of his own

family to power, dismissed, unharmed, the most dangerous enemy of

his life and his throne. The lesson he had just been taught was not

lost on the wary impostor, who, of all distinctions, coveted least the

honors of martyrdom. He left the capital and repaired to Fez, where for

a considerable period he kept himself in seclusion, but, through his

devoted emissaries, still retaining and indeed increasing his influence

over the ignorant populace, deeply impressed with the mystery that

surrounded his movements as well as with the oracular messages with

which he nourished the curiosity and stimulated the expectations of his

followers. At length, without warning, he reappeared in the streets of

Morocco. The enthusiastic welcome he received made it apparent that

his popularity had been in no respect diminished during his absence.

His insolence and his extravagance now became more offensive than

ever. He denounced, in epithets conveying the greatest opprobrium, the

public and private conduct of the monarch and his court. Assisted by

his disciples, he seized the wine vessels in the bazaars and emptied

their contents into the streets. The sight of a musical instrument

roused him to fury and was the signal for its instant destruction, as

well as for the maltreatment of the owner. His piety could not tolerate

even the songs of mirth, and those who presumed to enjoy this harmless

amusement in his hearing were speedily silenced with a shower of blows.

The climax of impudence and outrage was attained when the Mahdi, having

one day encountered in one of the public thoroughfares of the capital

the sister of Ali, who, in compliance with the prevalent custom of the

Moorish ladies of Africa and Spain, had discarded the veil, roundly

abused her for this violation of the injunctions of the Prophet, and

ended by precipitating her from her saddle into the gutter, to the

horror and consternation of her numerous retinue. An offence of this

flagrant character committed by any one unprotected by the influence

of the grossest superstition would, under Oriental law, have been

instantly punishable with death. But the reverence entertained for the

sacred profession of the culprit, the general suspicion of his want

of responsibility, and a fatal indifference to his rapidly increasing

power suggested the imposition of an insignificant penalty, and the

bold and reckless innovator was banished from the city. In obedience

to the letter, if not to the spirit of his sentence, he betook himself

to a neighboring cemetery, erected there a miserable hovel, and,

surrounded by the significant memorials of the dead, began anew his

prophesies of impending evil and his declamations against the vice and

corruption of the dignitaries of the empire. The leniency with which

his offences had been treated by the authorities was distorted by fear

and fanaticism into persecution and injustice, and the violator of law

was at once exalted into a martyr. The passions of the ignorant were

then artfully aroused by representations that the life of their leader

was threatened, and a bodyguard of fifteen hundred well-armed soldiers

was organized to watch constantly over the safety of the self-styled

Messenger of God. The Sultan now began to realize, when too late, the

effects of his ill-timed indulgence. He sent a peremptory order for

the Mahdi to leave the vicinity of the capital. The latter, alleging

that he had already complied with the directions of his sovereign

as indicated by the sentence of banishment, and feeling secure in

the midst of his devoted adherents, at first declined to abandon

his position; but, on learning that measures were already taken for

his assassination, he fled in haste to the distant town of Tinamal,

where he had disclosed his pretended mission. There, in the mosque,

he first openly announced his claim to temporal power. A sympathetic

audience was excited to frenzy by his mysterious predictions and his

fervid eloquence; his claim to universal dominion as the Champion

of the Faith and the restorer of the purity of Islam was received

with vociferous applause by the multitude, and in the midst of the

turmoil Abd-al-Mumen and ten of his companions, rising and drawing

their swords, swore eternal fealty to their leader. Their example was

followed by the entire congregation; and thus, a second time, in the

centre of the Sahara was inaugurated a Mohammedan reformation the

precursor of a gigantic but unsubstantial and impermanent empire.

This decisive step had no sooner been taken than the Mahdi proceeded

to organize his government by the appointment of civil and military

officials. Abd-al-Mumen was made vizier; the ten proselytes who had

sworn allegiance in the mosque were united in a Supreme Council;

and the two subordinate bodies, composed respectively of fifty and

seventy disciples, were charged with the management of affairs of

inferior moment; the result of their deliberations being subject to the

approval or rejection of the Mahdi himself. The revolutionists, whose

numbers, daily recruited by accessions from the martial tribes of the

Desert, had now become formidable, assumed the name of Almohades, or

Unitarians, not only to distinguish them from the Christians, whose

trinitarian dogma and adoration of images caused them to be designated

by all Moslems as idolaters, but to indicate as well a return to

the original simplicity of Islam, long corrupted by the heterodox

practices and dissolute manners of their Almoravide rivals. A strange

and mysterious fatality seemed to attach to the fortunes of the latter

in every field where they encountered the armies of the newly arisen

Prophet. In four successive engagements the soldiers of Ali, seized

with a panic in the presence of the enemy, yielded almost without

resistance to the attack of the Berber cavalry; their standards and

baggage were taken, and thousands of fugitives, butchered in headlong

flight, expiated with the loss of life and honor their effeminacy and

their cowardice.

The opinion generally prevalent in the minds of the illiterate, that

military success is an infallible criterion of religious truth, began

to produce its effect on the Almoravides. The terror experienced

by them at the sight of the enemy--really due to relaxation of

discipline and apprehension of the miraculous powers of an audacious

charlatan--was universally attributed to supernatural influence. The

mission of the Mahdi required no further demonstration of its divine

origin. Henceforth his utterances were received by both friend and

enemy as the oracles of God. His credit daily increased among the

credulous and passionate inhabitants of the Desert. The Almoravide

soldiers shrank from an encounter with a foe whose white standard

seemed to be invested with the mystic qualities of a talisman. The

Mahdi, renouncing in a measure his character of affected humility,

now assumed the pomp of a sovereign. He surrounded himself with a

splendidly appointed bodyguard. His throne was approached by suppliants

for favor with the debasing and complicated ceremonial of Oriental

despotism. He demanded, in arrogant and menacing language, submission

and tribute from Ali, who, dejected by repeated misfortune, began to

share with his ignorant subjects the awe which enveloped the person

and the attributes of his triumphant and formidable adversary. The

plans of the latter had heretofore been accomplished without an

established base of operations, the camps of the Almohades being moved

from place to place over the drifting sands of the Desert; but now,

the direction of an army of twenty thousand men, the subsistence and

shelter of a vast multitude of non-combatants, and the dignity and

power of a new and growing political organization urgently demanded

a settled habitation and a recognized centre of authority. Among the

lofty crags of a mountain spur extending from the range of Tlemcen

to the Atlantic stood the village of Tinamal. Its retired situation,

its natural defences, its proximity to both the rich cities of the

coast and the fertile regions of the interior, the character of its

people, who were to a man ardent believers in the mission of the Mahdi,

made it an admirable point either for the inauguration of a conquest

or the institution of an harassing system of predatory warfare. It

was approached by narrow and tortuous paths which, winding along the

mountain side, disclosed, on the one hand, an inaccessible cliff, on

the other, an abyss whose depths were shrouded in perpetual gloom.

From its battlements, almost hidden in the clouds, the progress of a

hostile party could be watched for miles as, with slow and uncertain

steps, it pursued its hazardous way. In this mountain fastness the

Mahdi fixed his residence and established his capital. The natural

impediments in the path of an invader were greatly multiplied by the

artificial resources of engineering skill. Towers and fortresses were

raised at points commanding the various approaches to the mountain

stronghold. Drawbridges were thrown across roaring torrents. Walls and

gateways obstructed the passage, where an insignificant force might

with ease check the progress of a numerous army. The village of Tinamal

soon became a city, whose inhabitants, subsisting by the plunder of

their neighbors, became the scourge and the terror of the peaceable

and defenceless subjects of Ali. After a long sojourn in his seat of

power, the Mahdi, about to succumb to a fatal disease, determined to

signalize his closing days by an enterprise worthy of the pretensions

he had assumed and of the success which had hitherto favored his

undertakings. An army of forty thousand men was assembled for the

capture of Morocco. In a desperate conflict under the walls of that

city, the Almoravides, who outnumbered their opponents two to one, were

put to flight and pursued with terrible carnage to its gates. But the

fortunes of the Almohades, heretofore invincible, were now destined to

receive a serious blow. Unaccustomed to the conduct of a siege, the

soldiers of Abd-al-Mumen habitually neglected the precautions which,

in the presence of an enemy, are indispensable to the security of a

camp. Within the immense circuit of the capital were marshalled for

a final struggle the collected resources of the empire. Thousands of

fugitives from the recent disastrous battle had found an asylum behind

its walls. Reinforcements had been drawn from every African province

as well as from the diminished Andalusian armies, their own strength

already sorely taxed by repeated incursions of the Christian foe. The

constructing and handling of military engines were confided to a body

of Byzantine and Sicilian engineers enlisted for that purpose. The

soldiery was animated by the presence and the example of the Sultan,

who had for the time abandoned the Koran for the sword, and stood ready

to perform the part of a valiant and resolute commander. The citizens,

moved to desperation by the approach of an enemy whose relentless

character had been established by the massacre of fugitives and

prisoners, and from whose ferocity, aggravated by prolonged opposition,

they could expect no indulgence, co-operated manfully with the garrison

in the defence of their homes, their families, their property, and

their king. The first sallies of the Almoravides, conducted by leaders

trained to partisan encounters in the wars of Spain, were signally

disastrous to the besiegers. The latter, suddenly checked in an

uninterrupted career of victory, were disconcerted and dismayed, and

their confidence was shaken in proportion as the spirits of their

adversaries rose. Encouraged by success, the attacks of the latter

became more vigorous and determined; a general engagement followed,

the Almohades were routed with terrific slaughter, and it was only by

the exertion of strenuous effort that Abd-al-Mumen and a handful of

survivors were enabled to escape the lances of the Almoravide cavalry.

The depression caused by a single disaster was more potent in its

effect on the minds of the disciples of the Mahdi than the prestige

derived from a score of victories. The influence which had exercised

its mysterious sway over the imagination of all who had presumed to

dispute the claims of the impostor was perceptibly impaired. The fickle

tribesmen deserted his standard by thousands. But in the course of a

few years his eloquence and tact were able to repair the losses he

had sustained; another army commanded by Abd-al-Mumen issued from the

mountains, and a brilliant victory obtained over the followers of Ali

retrieved the honor and credit of the Almohade cause. The Mahdi did

not long survive his triumph. Overcome with the excitement occasioned

by the return of his soldiers with their array of spoil and captives,

he died, after having committed to the faithful Abd-al-Mumen the

accomplishment of the task of conquest and reformation which he had so

successfully begun.

Of all the prophets and reformers, the progenitors of dynasties, the

conquerors of kingdoms, the restorers of the Faith, which from its

origin have appeared in the domain of Islam, none possess a greater

claim to distinction than Abu-Abdallah, surnamed the Mahdi, the

founder of the sect of the Almohades. Without the commanding genius

and originality of Mohammed, he equalled that remarkable personage

in keenness of perception and energy of character, and far surpassed

him in education, in eloquence, in practical acquaintance with the

foibles and the prejudices of humanity. The suggestive examples

of his predecessors, who had attained to supreme power through

pretensions to inspiration and martial achievements, incited him to

establish for himself a political and religious empire. With more of

the charlatan and less of the soldier in his mental composition than

had characterized many reformers, he retained to the last his retiring

asceticism, but in case of emergency he did not hesitate to boldly

risk his life on the field of battle. No scholar was better versed

than he in the literature and science of his age. His sagacity was

proof against the insinuating arts of the most accomplished negotiator.

In the prosecution of his ambitious projects he never considered

the comfort or the safety of his followers; in the exaction of his

vengeance every sentiment of pity and indulgence was ruthlessly cast

aside. His influence over his disciples was maintained by appeals to

superstition and by arts of imposture congenial with the temperament of

the ignorant and the credulous. To conceal these frauds, the wretched

instruments by whom they had been effected were promptly put to death.

Such persons as were so unfortunate as to incur the enmity of the false

Prophet were buried alive. Such was the extent of his power over the

masses, that the crimes perpetrated by his orders or with his sanction

were regarded in the light of virtues; that his spurious claims to

divinity were accepted by entire nations who revered him even more

than his great prototype Mohammed, and who demonstrated their enduring

faith in his mission by raising his friend and successor, to whom his

authority had descended, to an equality with the greatest potentates of

the age.

While the victories of the Almohades in Africa were undermining the

already crumbling empire of Ali, his Spanish dominions were overrun

and wasted by Aragonese and Castilian armies. The supremacy of

the clergy which followed the rise of the Almoravide dynasty was

the signal for Christian persecution. In Andalusia, and especially

throughout the principality of Granada, where the Mozarabes abounded,

the Moslem theologians exercised with unrestricted severity the

congenial privilege of oppression. Churches and monasteries were

confiscated or destroyed under pretext of their construction since

the Conquest, acts of encroachment which, although in contravention

of the stipulations of Musa, had been tacitly ignored for centuries.

Taxes far in excess of those prescribed by Mussulman law were imposed

on the Christian tributaries. Under the most frivolous accusations

their property was seized. Every indignity which popular envy or

religious hatred could contrive was inflicted upon them. Their

endurance exhausted, the Mozarabes of Granada, who, through the medium

of Jewish merchants, had long held secret communication with their

Castilian brethren, an intercourse which had suggested and promoted

many a predatory expedition, now began to meditate permanent freedom

from conditions scarcely less intolerable than those of servitude.

The serious difficulties in which the Almoravide empire was involved;

the contemptuous indifference of its ruler to the complaints of his

subjects; the succession of Almohade victories; the withdrawal to

Africa of the flower of the Andalusian troops for the defence of

Morocco; the advance of the Castilian outposts, in the face of whose

encroachments the frontier was continually receding; the reconquest

of Saragossa, the last important Moslem bulwark in the North, all

encouraged the hope that the Christian domination and the Christian

faith might now be easily re-established from the Pyrenees to the

Mediterranean. Excited by ill-timed dreams of liberty, the Mozarabes

brought to bear every resource of solicitation and argument to tempt

an invasion by the Christian princes. They despatched secret envoys

to the court of Castile. They sent to Alfonso I., King of Aragon,

topographical descriptions of the country, enumerations of its armies,

information of the locations of its magazines and of the relative

position and respective strength of its fortresses, its castles, and

its arsenals. They promised their services as guides and pioneers.

They pledged the support of the Christian tributaries of Granada,

who, through the favor they had enjoyed under Hebrew ministers,

exceeded in numbers and wealth those of any other province of the

empire. To assurances of success, the Mozarabes enlarged upon the

attractions which characterized the most fertile and beautiful valley

in Andalusia. It was not strange that the cupidity of the Aragonese

cavaliers should have been excited by such a picture, or their

sovereign tempted by a prospect so flattering to his ambition. An

expedition was hastily organized, and at the head of twelve thousand

cavalry Alfonso entered the country of the enemy. But the enterprise

which promised such magnificent results terminated in inaction, which

was even more discreditable than defeat. The Mozarabes, faithful to

their engagements, joined the invader in multitudes. They conducted

his forces by unfrequented paths through the perilous defiles of the

mountains. They furnished their allies with money, provisions, horses,

and beasts of burden. Forty thousand volunteers swelled the ranks of

the Aragonese army. But for some inexplicable reason this great force

accomplished nothing. The King, whose resolution seemed to have failed

him before the bold provincials of Granada, retired discomfited from

the walls of Valencia, Xucar, Denia. The citizens of Baeza, whose

city was unprovided with defences, repulsed with severe loss the

formidable chivalry of the North, fighting under the eye of a sovereign

accustomed from boyhood to the perils and the stratagems of war. The

time lost by the Christians, who seemed incapable of appreciating the

advantages of surprise and attack, was diligently improved by their

adversaries. Temim, the brother of the Sultan and the governor of

Granada, collected reinforcements from every district of the Peninsula

held by the Almoravides. The troops which had been sent to Africa were

recalled. The fortifications of the capital, which at that time were

far from possessing the finished and impregnable character subsequently

imparted to them by the military genius and profuse expenditures of the

Alhamares, were improved and perfected as far as time and circumstances

would permit. The Mozarabes were placed under rigorous espionage. The

most obnoxious were imprisoned. Others were expelled from the city. A

large force was encamped on the slopes of the Sierra Nevada, but the

proximity of the Christians, whose outposts could be distinctly seen

from the battlements of the citadel, and the presence of thousands of

secret and implacable enemies, raised the most gloomy apprehensions in

the minds of the Moslems. In hourly expectation of an assault, crowds

assembled in the mosques, where the imams offered the supplications

prescribed by the Koran for seasons of extremity. Although the numbers

of the Christian army reached fifty thousand, the great majority of

which was composed of Mozarabe rebels, not ignorant of warfare and

nerved to despair by the remembrance of recent persecution and the

hopelessness of future immunity, it remained idly in its intrenchments.

Familiarity with the enemy gradually removed from the minds of the

Moors the fears which had been excited by overwhelming odds. The

flying Arab cavalry swept the plain of subsistence and forage. Small

parties of Christians were cut off. The rainy season arrived; the

streams overflowed; the dry ravines became impassable torrents,

and disease and want began to invade the hostile camp. Then Alfonso

determined to retreat. One way alone was open, for the mountains which

separated him from his kingdom were already white with snow, and the

active Moslems, anticipating a favorable turn of affairs, had long

since occupied the passes in his rear. Abandoning his allies, who had

sacrificed honor, allegiance, and liberty in obedience to his summons,

the King of Aragon marched southward. Threading the perilous defiles

of the Alpujarras, the Christians emerged at length upon the tropical

coast of Velez-Malaga. The cavaliers of the inhospitable North were

enchanted with the delightful prospect presented by the plantations of

cotton and sugar, the groves of oranges and palms, and the profusion of

odoriferous shrubs and flowers whose blossoms filled the air with their

fragrance. But the pleasures of this paradise could not be long enjoyed

by the invaders. Behind them the entire country was in arms. All the

forces available for that purpose had been collected throughout the

Moslem dominions to intercept their retreat. It was certain death for

a straggler to venture beyond the limits of the camp. Provisions could

be obtained with the greatest difficulty, owing to the fears of the

Mozarabes and the vigilance of the enemy. To add to the embarrassment

of the King, his following had been increased by the undesirable

presence of a great number of non-combatants, who consumed the supplies

while hampering the movements and diminishing the security of the

army. Ten thousand Mozarabes, many of whom were accompanied by their

families, preferring the doubtful issue of a military campaign and the

hardships of a long and tedious march to the certain severities of

Moorish vengeance, impeded the march of the Christians. It was hardly

consistent with the dictates of humanity to desert these refugees,

connected with his race by the double ties of blood and religion; and

Alfonso was forced, much against his will, to tolerate their presence

and assure them of his protection. After a few days’ sojourn at

Velez-Malaga, the army began its homeward march through the mountains

of Guadix. From that moment until the boundary of Aragon was reached,

its progress was marked by incessant battle. The country swarmed

with Moorish horsemen. The camp was repeatedly stormed. The noonday

halt, the passage of a stream, the approach to a mountain defile, was

certain to provoke a bloody encounter. Hundreds of exhausted women

and children, unable to bear the fatigue of the march, were, with

the wounded, daily abandoned to the rage of a vindictive enemy. When

Alfonso entered his capital, it would have been difficult to recognize

in his emaciated and dejected followers, whose ragged garments and

battered armor bore evidence of many a hotly contested skirmish, the

splendid array of knights which almost a year before had with exultant

confidence set forth, as upon a holiday excursion, to capture the city

of Granada. No enterprise in the wars of the Peninsula was inaugurated

under more brilliant auspices and was more unproductive of results.

The indecision with which its operations were conducted was itself a

precursor of disaster. The valor of the Aragonese chivalry was expended

in a series of fruitless and inglorious contests with Andalusian

mountaineers. The accomplishment of the main object of the expedition

was never seriously attempted. No victory contributed its lustre to

the waning reputation of the Christians. Not a foot of territory had

been added to the realms of the invader. No spoil consoled him for the

loss of glory, no prisoners swelled his train. Cities unprotected by

fortifications had successfully resisted the assaults of his bravest

soldiers. No substantial benefit could be derived from indecisive

engagements, protracted sieges, difficult marches through a hostile

country, forays unrewarded with either captives or plunder. It was

true that the Moorish states of Andalusia had been traversed from end

to end; that a portion of their territory had been desolated; that the

emblem of Christian faith had been displayed, for the second time since

the rout of the Guadalete, on the shores of the Mediterranean. These,

however, were but evidences of a barren triumph. The vulnerability of

the Moslem empire, since the fall of the khalifate, had been repeatedly

demonstrated. Predatory expeditions undertaken without the prestige

of royalty had often inflicted far more damage on the enemy than that

which had accompanied an invasion by picked troops of the Aragonese

kingdom. The only real advantage remained with the Moslems of Granada,

who were made acquainted with the disaffection of their Mozarabe

subjects, and were enabled to provide against future outbreaks by the

permanent suppression and removal of a treacherous population, which

had long been a menace to public security. The Mozarabes expiated

by poverty and chains, by exile and death, their ill-timed effort

to escape the vexations of Moslem rule. Their lands were forcibly

occupied by their Arab neighbors. Their effects were seized and sold

at auction. Hundreds expired amidst the noxious vapors of subterranean

dungeons. Such as had openly joined the Christian army were, with their

families, condemned to slavery, and were purchased by Jewish traders

to be again disposed of in the markets of Asia. The majority of the

others, by order of the Sultan, were banished to Africa, where, in the

vicinity of Mequinez and Salé, many of them eventually perished by

disease and famine. After the lapse of eleven years a final deportation

of these troublesome subjects, who seem to have given renewed cause

for offence, was effected; and the kingdom of Granada, which formerly

possessed the largest number of tributary Christians in the empire,

was now almost entirely deprived of this element of its population.

The places of the exiles were supplied by African colonists, whose

modern descendants, in their swarthy complexions, their curling locks,

and their general mental characteristics, have preserved unmistakable

tokens of their Mauritanian ancestry.

In the midst of his foreign and domestic tribulations, the death of

Temim, the Viceroy of Spain, brought fresh perplexity and sorrow to

the heart of Ali. A worthy successor of that able warrior was found,

however, in Tashfin, the promising heir of the Almoravide throne. The

youth of that prince proved rather an inducement than an objection to

his appointment to a responsible command. He gained several victories

over the Christians, ravaged the valley of the Tagus as far as the

gates of Toledo, and in a few short campaigns added to the possessions

of his father more than thirty fortresses and castles. Aragon, long

involved in hostilities with Castile, had recently obtained an

important accession of territory and power. Saif-al-Daulat, the son of

the last Emir of Saragossa, unable to hold the remaining cities of his

principality, harassed by Christian and Moslem alike, surrendered them

to Alfonso. The latter, desiring communication with the South,--still

closed by Moslem occupation,--pushed his advance along the valley

of the Ebro. Mequinenza was taken after a short resistance and its

garrison massacred. Then the Christian army invested Fraga. This

fortress, situated on a lofty and isolated mountain, was considered

one of the most impregnable places in the Peninsula, and, commanding

the navigation of the Ebro, was the key of Southern Aragon. The Moors,

recognizing its value, had removed all persons unable to bear arms; had

provided its magazines with provisions sufficient for a long siege,

and had manned its fortifications with a force of several thousand

veterans, who, warned by the fate of their brethren at Mequinenza, were

nerved to an obstinate defence. The siege was signalized by a series

of desperate encounters, in which both parties utilized every resource

of military stratagem and personal prowess. At the first appearance

of the Christians before the principal bulwark of the now contracted

Mussulman frontier, a general alarm had been sounded in all the cities

of Spain and Africa. The Emir, relieved for the time from apprehensions

of the Almohades, despatched a powerful army for the relief of Fraga.

With its ranks largely reinforced by Andalusian levies, the Berber

host, whose supplies were transported upon hundreds of camels, advanced

rapidly along the Ebro until it came in sight of the besiegers’

camp. Contrary to custom, but with a design whose wisdom soon became

fatally apparent, the convoy with the baggage preceded the main body

on the march. The soldiers of Alfonso, presuming that the camels were

loaded with provisions for the garrison, and deceived by the feeble

escort which protected them, rushed forward in tumultuous disorder

and attacked the guard. The latter retreated, and the Christians,

unwarily drawn into the mountain ravines, were surrounded. Almost

helpless in their confined situation, with enemies swarming on every

side and the air darkened with clouds of missiles, their army was soon

annihilated. The situation, which forbade alike successful defence or

orderly retreat; the bewildering sensations produced by the unexpected

apparition of myriads of ferocious warriors; the repeated charges which

by sheer force of numbers overpowered at once the foremost ranks of the

Aragonese; the countless stones and arrows which poured down from crag

and hillside, soon decided the bloody and unequal contest. Scarcely an

hour elapsed before the Christians succumbed to the superior numbers

and equal valor of their foes. One after another the bravest knights of

Aragon, together with the flower of the French and English chivalry,

whom crusading ambition and the love of adventure had allured to the

standard of Alfonso, were killed while protecting their king and their

commanders. With them were not a few of the highest dignitaries of

the church, who, exchanging the mitre for the helmet and the crosier

for the sword, had been accustomed, since the Visigothic domination,

to share the fortunes of the most arduous campaigns, and to unite in

the field and in the camp the duties of their peaceful profession with

the stern and merciless demands of war. These martial prelates nobly

sustained upon this occasion the reputation for courage which had for

centuries distinguished their order above that of any other country in

Europe. The bishops of Rosas, of Jaca, and of Urgel fell side by side,

sword in hand. The King, supported by fifty devoted followers, resisted

with desperate courage and hopeless firmness the assaults of the

Moslems, exasperated by the valor of a handful of determined men. His

fate, like that of Roderick the Goth, is unknown. The ecclesiastical

legends of the time have celebrated, as the most glorious events of

his life, his abandonment of the throne and his retirement to the

cloisters of a monastery in expiation of the sins for which his defeat

was assumed to be a token of divine displeasure. But the monkish

annals of the Middle Ages are notoriously unreliable; the minds of

their authors were clouded with ignorance and warped by prejudice; the

critical faculty, so indispensable to the correctness of historical

narration, was unfamiliar to them; and, to accomplish the degradation

of an enemy or the exaltation of a friend, they were capable of the

most disreputable inventions and the most extravagant perversions of

the truth.

From the character and the life of Alfonso, it is probable that

he perished with his attendants, and that his body, stripped and

unrecognized, was confounded with the thousands of other corpses

which encumbered the field of battle. The King of Aragon, who had won

the proud appellation of El Batallador, was not the man to retire in

the face of the enemy, even had it been possible. Still less would

he have been willing to surrender, that the captivity of the most

formidable of Christian champions should contribute to the glory of a

Moslem triumph. The temper of the age was pre-eminently favorable to

the exercise of imposture; an escape, procured through the miraculous

intervention of saints and angels, was perfectly congenial with the

superstitious ideas of the masses; and the selection of a religious

house as a place of refuge and voluntary penance by an humiliated and

contrite monarch could not fail to enhance the importance and extend

the influence of the ecclesiastical order, already becoming intolerable

for its arrogance and power. But, whatever may have been the ultimate

fate of Alfonso, it is certain that his disappearance dates from the

battle of Fraga. The most exhaustive historical research has failed

to establish his existence subsequent to that melancholy and eventful

day. His loss was a great but not an irreparable misfortune to the

cause of the Reconquest. Although at the time of his death he was the

most conspicuous figure in the Christian armies, others were soon found

capable of prosecuting the work he had so gallantly begun, and of

carrying to a successful issue the fierce and relentless crusade which

only ended under the walls of the Alhambra.

As in former ages the progress of the Moslems was retarded and the

stability of their empire endangered and finally undermined by

intestine quarrels, so now, on the other hand, the jealousies and

contentions of the rival kingdoms of Castile and Aragon were destined

to prolong for centuries their struggle for national and religious

supremacy. The intrigues of hostile chieftains, the greed and ambition

of the clergy, the passions of dissolute and unprincipled women, the

unnatural aversion of two nations identical in origin, proud of the

same traditions, professing the same theological dogmas; the prejudices

of the fanatical masses, absolutely controlled by a despotic and

ignorant priesthood, were all-important factors in determining the

policy of the as yet unorganized Christian states of the Peninsula.

The mutual hostility of the kingdoms subsequently united under

Ferdinand and Isabella insured the continuance of Moorish dominion

far more effectually than the levying of contributions, the forming

of alliances, the enlistment of armies. Bodies of Moslem mercenaries

served alternately with the troops of both contending parties, and

those who fought side by side to-day might meet as enemies to-morrow.

Not infrequently impoverished and unscrupulous vassals of the Christian

monarchs were induced to revolt before a projected invasion by the

judicious employment of Moorish gold. Thus arrayed against each other,

with treachery in their camps and foes in their rear, the Spanish

princes were constantly hampered in the execution of their plans of

conquest. Other causes contributed to their want of success. The

Christian generals could often win, but were seldom disposed to improve

a victory. Feudal independence, now first interposed as a disturbing

force, was implacably hostile to discipline; the vassal obeyed his

suzerain; but the noble whose origin was often as illustrious as that

of his king was only too ready to question, or even to defy, the regal

authority. The incapacity to appreciate the resultant advantages of

military success was also a characteristic of the Moors. A great

battle usually ended a campaign. But the enemy was rarely pursued

beyond the field; his camp was overrun by a disorganized mob in search

of plunder; his baggage was ransacked; his seraglio appropriated; his

wounded massacred. The dispersed remnants of his army were afforded

abundant time to reorganize and to again become formidable. The

ability of the Moslems to profit by the discomfiture of an adversary

disappeared with the great soldier Al-Mansur. Generations were to

elapse before the Spanish commanders, recognizing untiring energy as

an indispensable requisite of permanent success, were enabled to plant

their banners on the towers of Cordova and Seville. In no great contest

described in history were such fierce battles fought, such bodies of

men dispersed, such losses of life sustained, and such paltry results

accomplished. On more than one occasion a sovereign, the moral effect

of whose capture would have been almost equivalent to a great victory,

was suffered to escape from the very hands of the enemy. In a few weeks

a force which had been apparently destroyed confronted the victor as

defiantly as ever. The defenceless condition of the Moslem states had

been thoroughly established. Their territory had been penetrated in

every direction by squadrons of Christian cavalry, whose numbers, when

compared with the inhabitants of the provinces they despoiled, were

insignificant. The invaders dispersed with ease large bodies of the

effeminate Andalusian horsemen. They encamped with impunity in the

vicinity of populous cities. But these expeditions accomplished but

little more than the destruction of a few harvests and the burning of a

few villages. The campaigns on both sides were ordinarily distinguished

by fraternal discord, military incapacity, and fatal indecision.

The correctness of these observations may be established by recurring

to the consequences of the battle of Fraga. The rout of the Christians

and the death of their king would certainly seem to have demanded a

vigorous prosecution of hostilities by the victors before the popular

demoralization resulting from such a catastrophe subsided. But nothing

of the kind took place. The few survivors of the defeat which had

wrecked the hopes of a nation spread dismay through the realms of the

Christians. In Aragon, part of whose territory had recently been ceded

by a degenerate prince to his hereditary enemies, and none of which

was in sympathy with the usurpation of their detested masters, the

people expected, with eager but fallacious hopes, the appearance of the

deliverer. The merchants lounged idly in their shops. The peasantry,

with sullen patience, submitted to the extortions of the Jewish farmers

of the revenue. Saragossa was still, in all but name and government, a

Moslem city. The muezzin still announced from her minarets the hour of

prayer. The imam still read the Koran from the pulpits of her mosques.

Her occupation by the Aragonese had only served to intensify the hatred

entertained by her citizens against those who had profited by their

betrayal. The noble recalled with mingled sorrow and exultation the

military fame and intellectual pursuits of the royal House of Ibn-Hud;

the husbandman viewed with unconcealed resentment the encroachments

of the Church and the Crown upon his small but valuable inheritance.

The valley of the Ebro still possessed many fortresses defended by

natural impediments and Moslem valor. All these considerations invited

the intervention of the victors, but the Moorish commander, satisfied

with the barren laurels acquired at Fraga, neglected an opportunity

which might have restored to the Almoravide Sultan one of the most

important provinces of his empire. For several years the frontier

was wasted by implacable partisan warfare; the Moslems carried into

slavery the populations of entire communities; the Christians, harassed

by the enemy and encumbered with their prisoners, frequently put

these defenceless victims of their hostility to the sword; in the

heat of battle quarter was neither asked nor given, and the struggle

assumed more than ever the character of a war of extermination. The

country devastated by these incessant and destructive inroads never

recovered its prosperity. The once beautiful regions of the Ebro and

the Pisuerga now present to the eye the sombre and monotonous aspect

of a desert, and portions of the valley of the Guadalquivir, which

under Moorish rule were clothed with extensive orchards and luxuriant

harvests, have lapsed into primeval desolation. The ruthlessness with

which these wars were prosecuted bears ample testimony to the savage

inhumanity of that age. Considerations of mercy seldom influenced the

conduct of the victor. Engagements contracted under circumstances

of peculiar solemnity were violated without provocation and without

excuse. In the perpetration of these enormities the Christians,

encouraged and absolved by their spiritual advisers, far surpassed

their antagonists. No attention was paid to the pitiful appeals of

enemies stricken in the heat of battle. The heads of rebellious princes

were fixed on the battlements of cities; their limbs, embalmed with

campher, were exhibited as trophies in the palace of the conqueror.

When a place was taken by storm, neither age, nor sex, nor infirmity

were regarded by the infuriated assailants. The discovery of hidden

gold by the application of torture was a favorite amusement of the

Christian soldiery. If the number of captives became inconveniently

large, the least valuable were butchered. The licentious passions of

the Castilians were exercised without restraint upon the weak and the

defenceless. Women were violated before the eyes of their husbands and

fathers. The mansions of Christian nobles rivalled in their treasures

of Moorish beauty the harems of the most voluptuous Andalusian princes.

In the alluring diversions of sensuality, unsanctioned by law and

prohibited by religion, the dignitaries of the Church were as ever

pre-eminently conspicuous; and their lovely concubines, attired with a

magnificence only to be procured by the use of ecclesiastical wealth,

appeared at court with their lords, equally careless of unfavorable

comment or of public scandal.

In Africa the movements of Abd-al-Mumen, who had been the general

of the Almohades and was now their sovereign, began to excite the

alarm of Ali. The successor of the Mahdi began his reign with an

expedition whose destructive course extended to the city of Morocco.

Tashfin, the ablest of the Almoravide captains, was recalled from

Spain; but, despite his reputation and the skilful disposition of his

forces, the battalions of Ali, dominated by a craven and superstitious

fear, instinctively recoiled from the presence of the enemy. All the

experience and resolution of the youthful prince, who had redeemed the

Moslem cause in the Peninsula, were insufficient to counteract the evil

influence emanating from religious fraud, which, by the force of a

distempered imagination, could transform a bold and courageous people

into a race of poltroons and slaves. His continual reverses preyed upon

the mind of Ali, and his moments were distracted by the signs of the

imminent and apparently inevitable collapse of his power. The memory of

his early grandeur offered a distressing contrast to the misfortunes

of his declining years; and, overcome with mortification and sorrow,

he passed from life, bequeathing to his son Tashfin a disheartened

army, an exhausted treasury, and a royal inheritance of diminished

jurisdiction and doubtful value.

The ill-fortune of Tashfin followed him upon the throne. Defeated by

Abd-al-Mumen, he collected all his resources for a supreme and final

effort. Such of the Desert tribes as had held aloof from the Mahdi were

enlisted. Every available soldier in Africa was called to arms. The

garrisons of Andalusia were almost denuded of troops. With the Moorish

squadrons of Spain came also a body of four thousand Mozarabes, who,

accustomed to long service under Moslem standards, had almost forgotten

their ancestry, their traditions, and their faith. These auxiliaries,

amenable to discipline and experienced in border warfare, were far more

formidable than their scanty numbers would denote.

On the plains of Tlemcen the two armies whose valor was to decide the

fate of an empire faced each other. The Almoravides far outnumbered

their foes, but the mystic spell of superstition more than compensated

for numerical superiority; the soldiers of Tashfin were terrified by

imaginary apparitions and supernatural voices, and after a brief but

sanguinary contest Abd-al-Mumen remained master of the field. Tashfin

was soon afterwards killed in the vicinity of Oran by a fall from a

precipice, and with his death vanished the last hope of the Almoravide

monarchy.

During the year 1145 a famous landmark of the Mediterranean, of unknown

antiquity, but most probably of Phœnician origin, was destroyed.

Near the city of Cadiz, and built in the waters of the bay, had long

stood a structure composed of a series of columns, rising above each

other to the height of one hundred and eighty feet and surmounted by

a colossal statue of bronze. The latter represented a man with his

right arm extended towards the Strait of Gibraltar and grasping in his

hand a key. The entire statue was heavily plated with gold, and was

a conspicuous object for a distance of many leagues. Its origin was

not less mysterious than the reason for its preservation for nearly

four centuries and a half after the Moslem conquest. The well-known

iconoclastic propensities of the followers of Mohammed were indulged

with every opportunity and against every symbol of idolatrous worship.

There was probably no souvenir of Pagan antiquity in Africa or Spain

so prominent and so well known as the effigy which, for a period

unrecorded even by tradition, indicated to the mariner the gateway of

the Mediterranean. The Romans and the Goths, confounding it with the

two historic promontories of Europe and Africa, called the imposing

structure that supported it the Pillars of Hercules. But it certainly

had no connection with that divinity. His temple stood some miles

away upon an island, and it was the distinctive peculiarity of his

worship among the Phœnicians that he was never represented under a

physical form. To the Arabs the statue was known as “The Idol of

Cadiz.” A singular fatality had preserved it from the zeal and fury of

early sectaries of Islam. It had, no doubt, often awakened the pious

horror of devout pilgrims on their way to the shrine of the western

Mecca. It had stimulated the curiosity of the antiquary during the

scientific period of the khalifate. It had pointed the way to many

an invading squadron. It had witnessed the success or the failure of

many revolutions. The truculent Norman pirates had viewed its gigantic

dimensions with superstitious terror. In the sagas of Scandinavia

is preserved the tradition that St. Olaf and his freebooters were,

during the eleventh century, deterred from further prosecution of

their ravages on the coast of the Peninsula by a vision which its

presence inspired. Its immunity from the effects of fanaticism is

not less remarkable than its long exemption from the violence of

rapacious marauders. A great treasure was said to be concealed beneath

the foundations of the tower. It was also the general belief--not

confined to the Peninsula, but prevalent throughout Europe--that this

famous statue was of solid gold. Its brilliancy, which had remained

untarnished by exposure for so many centuries, tended to confirm, if

not to absolutely establish, this opinion.

At last, in the twelfth century, the Admiral Ibn-Mamun, having revolted

against the Almoravides, caused the statue to be overthrown and broken

to pieces. The material was then discovered to be bronze, but the gold

with which it was covered brought twelve thousand dinars, a sum now

equal to a hundred and ninety-two thousand dollars.

Relieved of all apprehensions from his most dangerous adversary,

Abd-al-Mumen attacked and captured in succession the great cities of

Africa. Fez offered a desperate resistance, but was taken by damming

the river by which it was traversed, until the pent-up waters, bursting

their bounds, swept away a large portion of the walls. Mequinez,

Aghmat, Salé capitulated. Then the siege of Morocco was begun. To

convince the inhabitants of his inflexible purpose, the Almohade

general caused a permanent encampment, which resembled, in the regular

and substantial character of its edifices, a handsome and well-built

city, to be constructed before its walls. The enterprise was prosecuted

with unusual pertinacity and vigor. In a sally a large detachment

of the Almoravides was decoyed into an ambuscade and cut to pieces,

and, with numbers sensibly reduced by this catastrophe, the garrison

confined itself for the future to repelling the scaling parties of

the enemy. The complete investment of the city was soon followed by

famine. The dead lay everywhere in ghastly heaps. The living drew

lots to decide who should be sacrificed to provide a horrible repast

for his perishing companions. Such was the awful mortality that two

hundred thousand persons died of starvation and disease. Aware of the

inevitable consequences of surrendering to barbarians without faith

or mercy, the garrison contended bravely against hope and fortune.

Finally, some Mozarabe soldiers entered into communication with

Abd-al-Mumen, and it was agreed that a gate should be opened during

the disorder attending a general attack. At daybreak the Almohades,

eager for revenge and booty, swarmed into the city. The scimetar

and the lance completed the work which famine had not had time to

finish. Seventy thousand defenceless persons were massacred. Even this

frightful sacrifice did not satiate the besiegers’ desire for blood.

For three days such scenes were enacted as could only be tolerated

among men insensible to motives of humanity and ignorant of the laws

of war. Abd-al-Mumen decapitated with his own hand Abu-Ishak, the son

and successor of Tashfin. The command then went forth that not one of

the hated sect should be spared. Great numbers of women and children

were slaughtered by the savage conquerors and the survivors sold into

slavery. Every mosque was levelled with the ground as the only way

to purify the houses of God from the abominations of the heretical

Almoravides. Preparations were immediately made to erect upon their

sites others more extensive and magnificent, and Abd-al-Mumen, who all

the while had remained outside the gates, marched away to other scenes

of conquest.

A century had elapsed since Abdallah-Ibn-Jahsim had announced to

the tribesmen of Lamtounah his mission as the apostle of political

integrity and religious reformation. Based upon his teachings, and

supported by his military genius and the prowess of his followers, a

mighty empire had arisen. With incredible rapidity it had combined

in apparently indissoluble union contending nationalities, hostile

dogmas, antagonistic temporal interests. It had subjugated a great

part of the continent of Africa. It had reconciled the discordant

social and political elements which for generations had disturbed the

peace and diminished the power of the Moslem states of Spain. It had

checked the progress of Christian conquest. By its sweeping victories

it had revived the memory of the splendid achievements of the Western

Khalifate. The largest armies that had ever trodden the soil of the

Peninsula had marched under its banners. Its chiefs were, without

exception, men of signal ability. Some, it is true, were destitute of

experience in the art of government, but endowed with rare executive

talents; others were warriors of established renown; all had exhibited

in the exalted post to which they had been called by fortune the

qualities of great generals, diplomatists, legislators. The genius of

the last of that princely race, had his designs not been frustrated

by the Almohade revolution, promised the eventual restoration of

Moorish rule over much, if not all, of the territory included in the

kingdoms of Aragon and Castile. The rise and progress of no dynasty

to boundless power had been so rapid; the decline of none had been

more decided or its extinction more destructive and fatal. Mohammedan

Spain, still the most civilized and polished of countries, whose court

had once dictated the policy of Western Europe; whose alliance had

been assiduously courted by Christian kings and emperors; whose armies

marched each year to victory; whose fleets monopolized the trade of

the seas; whose capital was the literary centre of the world, had been

degraded to a dependency of the most ignorant, the most superstitious,

the most brutal of nations. The hazardous experiment of establishing

a peaceable union between such incongruous and inimical populations

must have resulted in failure. Still less could such an undertaking

have succeeded when attempted by force. The ethnical elements of

Spain and Africa could never have coalesced into a single people.

Their enmity was irreconcilable. Their tastes were dissimilar. The

Hispano-Arab was a scholar, a philosopher, a gentleman. In spite of

the evils which afflicted his country, his colleges and academies

were still largely attended by the ambitious youth of distant, often

of hostile, nations. He still had access to the fragmentary remains

of the great libraries of the khalifs. The architectural monuments

of his ancestors still graced, in all their splendor and beauty, the

esplanades and thoroughfares of his capitals. Pilgrims still admired

with astonishment and rapture the most magnificent temple of Islam.

The sacred volume ascribed to the martyred Othman, enshrined in its

embossed and jewel-studded casket, still received, amidst the lavish

sculpture and sparkling enamels of the Mihrab, the reverential homage

of the Faithful. The diminished but not unimportant commerce of his

seaports; the manufacturing establishments, whose products were largely

exported to foreign countries; the contracted but marvellously fertile

area of his agricultural territory, daily reminded the Spanish Moslem

of the wisdom and the enterprise developed by the subjects of that

glorious empire whose institutions, whose traditions, whose refined

tastes, whose intellectual pre-eminence he had inherited.

Far different was it with the conqueror who had appropriated and

abused the inestimable remains of all this greatness. From first to

last his movements seemed to have been inspired by the genius of

disorganization and ruin. The noble attributes of piety and magnanimity

were absolutely foreign to his nature. He spared no foe. He forgave no

injury. The essential doctrines of the religion he nominally professed

were in reality unknown to him. He was wholly ignorant of letters. In

the gratification of his savage passions the shedding of blood took

precedence of the grovelling instinct of avarice or the more gentle

allurements of licentious pleasures. His stolid nature could not

appreciate the charms of art, the benefits of science, the delights and

the consolations of literature, the advantages of philosophy. All that

did not contribute to sensual enjoyment he turned from with disdain.

Descended from a race of brigands, who had from time immemorial

exercised on the caravans of the Desert the stratagems and the violence

of their nefarious calling, he considered the menial and sedentary

occupations of agricultural and manufacturing industry as only fit for

the hireling and the slave. Ever accustomed to individual freedom, he

obeyed only the orders of his sheik, who owed his promotion to the

suffrage of the tribe, and who was often elected or deposed with equal

haste and facility. The monarch was frequently as unlettered as his

meanest subject. Yusuf could neither read nor write, and understood but

imperfectly the copious and polished idiom spoken in many provinces

of his dominions. Ali was less intelligent than many a youth in the

primary schools of Cordova. This wide-spread and deplorable contempt

for learning virtually placed the power of the state in the hands of

a class least qualified to wield it; and the intrigues and exactions

of the Mohammedan clergy, supplemented with African barbarism and

rapacity, contributed more than domestic convulsions or Christian

valor to finally subvert the unstable but still majestic fabric of the

Saracen power.

The Moslem factions of the Peninsula joined in precarious union under

the sceptre of the Almoravides beheld with dismal forebodings the

successive and crushing misfortunes which preceded the extinction of

that dynasty. Neither religious accord nor political necessity would

have reconciled them to the domination of a race between whose members

and themselves there existed an irreconcilable antipathy. But on

many points of theological controversy the liberal views of the most

learned Moorish doctors shocked the strict disciplinarians of Islam.

These accomplished polemical scholars had imbibed in the Universities

of Seville and Cordova ideas highly offensive to the severely orthodox;

they had indulged their wit at the expense of hypocrisy and ignorance

in the intellectual atmosphere of the court, and the vengeance of those

who were recently the objects of their satire had now descended with

redoubled force upon the thoughtless aggressors. All books except the

Koran and the Sunnah fell under the royal displeasure. The study of

philosophy, although prohibited in the schools, was, as is usual under

such circumstances, diligently pursued in secret. The intellectual

habits of centuries were not to be abolished by an imperial edict,

and the reprobation of a band of hypocrites and zealots who preached

self-denial and abstemiousness, and were notoriously guilty of the

grossest offences against morality, was unable to entirely suppress

the accumulation and the diffusion of knowledge. No country in

Europe, however, was more exclusively and disastrously controlled by

ecclesiastical influence than was Moorish Spain under the rule of the

Almoravides.

Aside from theological considerations, as has been previously stated,

universal dissatisfaction with the dominant race existed. The Africans

were regarded as foreigners, invaders, oppressors. They had, even in

their moments of leisure, contributed nothing to the material wealth

of the country. They were unacquainted with the simplest principles of

engineering or the adaptation of the mechanical arts to the ordinary

concerns of life. No structure worthy of notice had risen under their

auspices. Their native ferocity remained unmitigated in the midst of

the humanizing influences of civilization. They discouraged manual

labor and despised the occupations by which that labor was employed

and maintained. Thus harassed by theological intolerance and barbarian

tyranny, every sect and party in the Peninsula, except the one in

power, received with secret exultation intelligence of the serious

disasters to the Almoravide cause. Public feeling was already aroused

to a point which almost defied restraint, when news arrived of the

defeat and death of Tashfin, whose well-known abilities and courage

had heretofore alone prevented a revolt. It was then that the long

suppressed and furious passions of an outraged people found expression.

In every Moslem community the mob rose against their African tyrants.

Ibn-Gamia, the lieutenant of Tashfin, fled to the Balearic Isles.

Complete anarchy prevailed. Governors of provinces and commanders of

fortresses aspired to independence. Each city became the capital of a

miniature kingdom, each castle the seat of a principality. Forgetting

the imminent peril in which they stood, environed as they were by

powerful enemies, these petty sovereigns immediately turned against

each other. Civil war of the most sanguinary and vindictive character

was inaugurated. Cordova deposed her governor, installed another,

and, after eight days, recalled the first to power. At Granada the

Almoravide garrison was besieged for months in the citadel. In some

provinces the inconstant temper of the multitude, which selected and

murdered their rulers with equal alacrity, made the promotion to

supreme authority, usually so coveted by ambitious men, a distinction

of the most doubtful and invidious character. The Kadi of Cordova,

whose office retained to a considerable extent the dignity and

importance with which it was invested under the khalifs as the first

judicial employment in the empire, was assassinated while at prayer

in the mosque. The appearance of an African in the streets of any

Andalusian city immediately provoked a riot. The obligations of

hospitality were forgotten in the gratification of vengeance. Obnoxious

ministers were poisoned amidst the festivities of the banquet. Military

officers whose loyalty interposed obstacles to the ambition of obscure

and unprincipled adventurers were murdered while asleep. The dangerous

aid of the Christian princes, only too willing to contribute to the

mutual embarrassment and enmity of their Mussulman neighbors, was

invoked. Ibn-Gamia had succeeded in organizing a considerable party of

adherents, and had obtained from Alfonso VII., King of Castile, a body

of troops on condition of the acknowledgment of the latter as suzerain.

Baeza was the first place to submit to Ibn-Gamia, and its surrender was

immediately followed by the siege of Cordova. In this singular warfare,

Moslems and Christians, although their efforts were directed against

a common enemy, fought and encamped apart, serving independently

under their respective commanders. The Castilians, conscious of their

power, treated their allies with undisguised contempt, and haughtily

ascribed to Christian valor alone the achievement of every successful

enterprise. The venerable capital, incapable of prolonged resistance,

soon opened its gates to the besiegers. The entry of the Christians

was rendered memorable by the commission of a sacrilege in comparison

with which the profanations of former conquerors were trivial. The

Great Mosque of Abd-al-Rahman, one of the holy places of Islam, which

since its foundation had never been profaned by the presence of an

infidel, was invaded by the rude Castilian soldiery. They rode through

its court, fragrant with the odors of innumerable orange blossoms. They

tethered their war-horses in its arcades. They bathed in the basins

whose waters had hitherto been sacred to the ablutions of the Moslem

ceremonial. Inside the edifice raised by the tribute of Christian

cities and the spoils of a hundred victorious campaigns, they

sauntered through the colonnades and gazed with wonder upon the Mihrab

blazing with all the gorgeous magnificence of the East. The religious

sentiments and prejudices of their allies received no consideration

at the hands of these scoffing mercenaries. Despite the remonstrances

of the Moslems, they desecrated the precincts of the sanctuary. Some

mounted the pulpit and derided with indecent mockery the postures

and genuflexions of the Mussulman worship. Their eyes glared with

unrestrained cupidity upon the casket of sandal-wood and ebony enriched

with gems which contained the Koran of Othman. With flippant and

sneering comments they examined that volume, venerated by the Moslems

of every age and nation with all the superstitious reverence of

idolatry. They removed it from its receptacle, turned over its leaves,

and gazed with incredulity and contempt on the mysterious stains which

tradition and faith attributed to the blood of the murdered Khalif.

In their intercourse with the citizens their overbearing demeanor and

insatiable rapacity caused the encroachments of Moslem tyranny to be

almost forgotten. Their leaders, assuming all the credit of a conquest

in which they had figured in a subordinate capacity, demanded that

Cordova be added to the realms of Castile. This proposition, repugnant

to every sense of justice, was promptly rejected by the Moslems. A

serious altercation followed; the rival captains mutually refused to

yield, and a collision seemed imminent, when through the adoption of

prudent counsels matters were adjusted by the cession of Baeza, which

was immediately occupied by a detachment of Christian troops.

The subjection of Africa by the Almohades had scarcely been effected

when Abd-al-Mumen began to take measures for the establishment of

his power in the Peninsula. An army of thirty thousand soldiers,

commanded by Abu-Amrah-Musa, landed at Algeziras. The march of this

formidable army resembled a triumphal progress rather than the

cautious movements of a hostile force. The people, with characteristic

inconstancy, welcomed the savage invaders as the deliverers of their

country. Algeziras, with its ample port and well-provided magazines

and arsenals; Tarifa, with its impregnable defences; Xeres, with its

wealth of orange groves and vineyards, opened their gates to the enemy.

Then Abu-Amrah, flushed with success, pushed on to Seville. On the

march his ranks were swelled by numerous accessions from the peasantry,

actuated by the prospect of plunder and the hope of retribution. To

these undisciplined but serviceable recruits was added a considerable

and well-equipped reinforcement from the province of Badajoz. Seville

had remained nominally loyal to the Almoravides; but her population

was divided by faction, and thousands of citizens cherished in secret

implacable resentment against their cruel and avaricious masters.

Warning was conveyed to the garrison of the treasonable intentions of

the populace, which had promised to deliver the city to the Africans,

and it escaped to Carmona before the appearance of the enemy. Seville

was no sooner occupied than Malaga, always susceptible to African

influence, and whose inhabitants had probably long been cognizant of

the projected invasion, voluntarily submitted to the Almohades and

added another to their list of bloodless but decisive triumphs.

The memory of the exploits of the Almoravide generals, and the

appearance of a new and victorious enemy in the South, had reconciled

the quarrels of the Christian states far more effectually than all

the concessions of diplomacy or the exhortations and anathemas of

the Church. Envoys from the Italian republics of Venice, Pisa, and

Genoa had recently visited the Castilian court and represented to

the King the important service he could confer upon Christendom by

the suppression of the pirates who, from their stronghold at Almeria,

threatened the destruction of commerce on the Mediterranean. The

depredations of these adventurous rovers carried terror into every

part of Southern Europe. Their vessels swept the coast from Bayonne

to Constantinople, defied the combined navies of Italy and the

Empire of the East, and had already materially reduced the wealth

and disturbed the trade of many populous and important cities. It

seems extraordinary that under such circumstances application for

relief should have been made to the remote kingdom of Castile. It was

separated from Almeria by the entire length of the Spanish Peninsula.

Vast tracts of barren lands, provinces swarming with a hostile and

warlike population, were interposed between its plains and the tropical

coast of Andalusia. A formidable enemy had just established himself in

the most fertile districts of the South. The port of Malaga, in close

proximity to the destination of the expedition, was in his power. It

is true that the republics of Italy, united by a common faith and

sympathizers in a common cause, had long been allies of the Christian

kingdoms of Northern Spain. But something more than hatred of the

Moslem and devotion to the interests of the Church must have impelled

Alfonso VII. to undertake an enterprise of certain difficulty and of

doubtful success. A foe that had vanquished a dynasty whose armies

had repeatedly desolated his kingdom and insulted his capital already

menaced his borders. It is highly probable that the Pope, influenced by

temporal far more than by spiritual considerations, may have proposed

or even dictated the terms of this alliance. It was no unusual thing

for the Holy Father, whose vow of poverty, like many other moral

obligations, gave him little concern, to share in the profits of

commerce. The private revenues of His Holiness, often inadequate to the

prodigal expenditures required for the pomp and luxury of the Vatican,

could easily be increased by mercantile speculations, and the Moorish

corsair in his indiscriminate depredations would certainly not respect

the property of the highest dignitary of a hostile faith. The character

of Eugenius III. gives color to this hypothesis. His court, under the

threadbare cloak of asceticism, was shockingly corrupt. The institution

of begging friars, the imposition of frequent penances, the observation

of fasts, the performance of pilgrimage, could not conceal from the

eyes of the least discerning the universal and notorious profligacy

which infected every profession and every class of society in Rome. The

avarice of the Pope himself was proverbial. Blessings, indulgences,

and absolutions, whose prices were regulated by an established tariff,

were sold by the clergy, and wealthy or repentant sinners in multitudes

availed themselves of the facilities for wickedness or of the immunity

from ecclesiastical censure afforded by traffic in this spiritual

merchandise. The mercenary and grasping disposition of Eugenius

was also subsequently confirmed by his sale of Portugal to Alfonso

Henriquez, in flagrant contravention of the rights of the King of

Castile. These circumstances serve to explain the unprofitable siege

of a distant seaport by a power having no immediate interest in its

subjugation, when a vigorous campaign by the united Christians would

in all probability have prevented the renewed calamities of African

invasion and have materially accelerated the progress of the Reconquest.