Santiago, Santa Catalina, San Julián, San Ildefonso, San Andrés, San
Vicente, San Lorenzo, San Bartolomé, Santa Cruz, and Santa Maria de las
Nieves (some of which no longer exist), were all mosques during the
Almohade era. A few continue to preserve their minarets and _mihrabs_,
generally restored and modified almost beyond recognition.
While attending by the construction of these numerous places of worship
to the spiritual needs of their subjects, the Almohade rulers neglected
no means of strengthening Ishbiliyah and of promoting its general
prosperity. The city became the most important seat of Mohammedan power
in the West. Trade rapidly increased, and the town became the principal
resort of the weavers, metal-workers, and other prominent Moorish
craftsmen. Abu Yakub Yusuf was the first to throw a bridge of boats
across the Guadalquivir, over which troops first passed on October
11th, 1171. This bridge immensely added to the strength of the city as
a fortified place, as it established permanent communication between
it and its principal source of supplies, the fertile district called
the Ajarafa on the right bank of the river. The charms of this expanse,
otherwise known as the Orchard of Hercules, are rapturously described
by Arab historians. These are the words of the poet Ibn Saffar: “The
Ajarafa surpasseth in beauty and fertility all the lands of the world.
The oil of its olives goeth even to far Alexandria; its farms and
orchards exceed those of other countries in size and convenience; so
white and clean are they, that they appear like so many stars in a
sky of olive gardens.” The Ajarafa is an Arabia Felix without wild
beasts, the Guadalquivir a Nile without crocodiles. El Makkari says it
measured about forty miles in each direction and contained a numerous
population. Those who know the rather dreary country extending westward
of the modern city will realise the melancholy change brought about by
time.
The city then, as now, was girdled by strong walls. The gates
were twelve in number. Those not turned towards the river were
strongly fortified with towers and bastions. The farther bank of the
Guadalquivir was defended by castles and redoubts. Upwards of a hundred
keeps and watch-towers studded the adjacent country.
One of the most vital points in the defensive works was the
poetically-named Torre del Oro (tower of gold), which still exists, and
is familiar to every visitor to the city. The tower is a twelve-sided
polygon of three storeys. It is surmounted by a smaller tower, also
of twelve sides, which in turn supports a small round cupola. This
superstructure was added in the eighteenth century, whereas the main
building was erected by the Almohade governor Abu-l-Ala in the year
1220. The tower was in those days connected with the walls of the city
by what is called in military parlance a curtain, which was pulled
down as late as in 1821. The outwork faced another watch-tower on the
opposite bank of the river, and a great iron chain was drawn from the
one to the other, effectually closing the harbour against hostile
vessels. The assaults of the foeman and the deadlier ravages of time
have stripped this strong and graceful monument of the beautiful tiles
or _azulejos_ with which it was once adorned, and which seemed to have
earned for it its present name. No Danaë, alas! waits in this tower of
gold to-day for tyrant or deliverer. The place is occupied by clerks,
whose pens are ever busy recording the shipments of coal brought by
incoming steamers; and the immediate vicinity is infested by “tramp”
sailors of all nationalities, mostly British, for whose benefit,
presumably, rum, “Old Tom,” and other stimulating but unromantic
beverages are dispensed at kiosks and bars.
The spot appears to have been the scene of a picturesque episode
recounted by Contreras. It is worth repeating as revealing the polished
character of the dusky amirs who ruled in Ishbiliyah three hundred
years before Charles of Orleans devoted his declining years, in his
palace by the Loire, to the making of ballads, triolets, and rondeaux.
The Abbadite amir, Mut’adid-billah, was walking one day in the field
of Marchab Afida, on the banks of the Guadalquivir, and observed the
breeze ruffling the surface of the water. He improvised the line--
“The breeze makes of the water a cuirass”--
and turning to the poet Aben Amr, called upon him to complete
the verse. While the laureate was still in the throes of poetical
parturition, a young girl of the people who happened to be standing by,
anticipated him, and gave utterance to these original lines--
“A cuirass strong, magnificent for combat,
As if the water had been frozen truly.”
The prince was astonished at this display of the lyrical gift by a
woman of her condition, and ordered one of his eunuchs to conduct her
to the palace. On being questioned, she informed him that she was
called Romikiwa, because she was the slave of Romiya, and was a driver
of mules.
“Are you married?” asked the prince.
“No, sire.”
“It is well, for I shall buy you and marry you.”
It is to be hoped that Romikiwa’s merits as a wife exceeded her
abilities as a poetess.
The Alcazar, the palace inhabited by this dilettante amir and his
successors of the race of Abbad, continued to be the principal
residence of the subsequent rulers of Ishbiliyah, both Almoravides
and Almohades. There can be no doubt that the latter restored and
reconstructed the building to an extent that almost effaced the work
of the founders. But the impress of the Berber architects was in its
turn almost entirely lost when the fabric came into the possession of
the Christians. Thus the Alcazar cannot be rightly classed among the
monuments of the Almohade period. It is certain that its extent at this
time was greater than it is now. Its enclosure was bounded by the city
wall, which ran down to the river, and occupied the whole angle formed
by the two. The Alcazar was then primarily a fortress, and its walls
were flanked on every side by watch-towers such as those with which its
front is still furnished. The principal entrance seems to have been at
the Torre de la Plata (silver tower), which was standing as late as
1821. Finally, among the works of the last Musulman rulers of Seville,
we must not omit to mention the great aqueduct of four hundred and
ten arches, called the Caños de Carmona, constructed in 1172, which
ensured the city an abundant supply of water from the reservoir of
Alcalá de Guadaira. The Almohades had other palaces in the city. The
old residence of Abdelasis yet remained, and we hear of the palaces of
St Hermenegildo and of the Bib Ragel (or northern gate).
The Almohades kinged it nobly in Andalusia; but these successive
revivals of fervour and activity in Western Islam may be compared to
the last strong spasms of a dying man. Despite these furious inrushes
of Almoravides and Al-Muwahedun, the Christians were slowly but surely
gaining ground. The lieutenants of Abd-ul-Mumin subjugated Granada and
Almeria in the east, Badajoz and Evora in the west. The Moorish amir
of Valencia did homage to Yusuf, Abd-ul-Mumin’s son and successor, at
Ishbiliyah. The third sovereign of the dynasty, Yakub Al Mansûr, dealt
what seemed a crushing blow to the allied Spaniards at Alarcos in 1195.
Had that victory been properly followed up, perhaps to this day a
Mohammedan power might have been seated firmly in the south of Spain,
and the Strait of Gibraltar might have been a western Dardanelles.
But the Christians rallied. In 1212 was fought the decisive battle
of Las Navas de Tolosa, between the Moorish Khalif An-Nasr and the
Castilian King, Alfonso VIII. The Musulmans were totally defeated. “Six
hundred thousand combatants,” says El Makkari, with perhaps a trace of
Oriental hyperbole, “were led by An-Nasr to the field of battle; all
perished, except a few that did not amount to a thousand. This battle
was a malediction, not only on Andalus but on all the West.”
Yet the downfall of the Islamite power did not immediately follow.
An-Nasr survived his defeat seven years, and his son, Abu Yusuf Yakub
Al-Mustanser, reigned four more inglorious years. His dying (1223)
without children was the signal for dissensions and disturbances
throughout his still vast empire. While Abd-ul-Wahed was proclaimed
Khalifa in Morocco, Al Adil took up the reins of sovereignty in Murcia.
Both pretenders soon disappeared from the troubled scene, Abd-ul-Wahed
being assassinated, and his rival, after having been defeated in Spain
by the Christians, being forced to take refuge in Morocco, there to
abdicate in favour of An-Nasr’s son, Yahya. Abu-l-Ala, Al Adil’s
brother, who had been left as governor in Ishbiliyah, declared himself
Khalifa on learning the accession of Yahya. He was the last of the race
of Abd-ul-Mumin to rule in the city. He was driven from Spain--to found
a wider empire in Africa--by Mohammed Ben Yusuf, variously styled Ben
Hud and Al Jodhami.
The storm-clouds were gathering fast over the beautiful city by the
Guadalquivir. Spain’s great national hero, St Ferdinand, now wore the
crown of Castile. He routed the Moors at Jerez, and in 1235 wrested
from them their most ancient and glorious metropolis, Cordova. The
discord and sedition which history shows are the usual prelude to the
extinction of a state, were not wanting at Seville. Ben Hud died in
1238, and his subjects turned once more in their despair to the African
Almohades. But no new army of Ghazis crossed the strait to do battle
with the Unbeliever. Despite their protestations of allegiance to the
Khalifa of Barbary, the Moors of Seville were left to fight their last
fight unassisted. When the Castilian army appeared before the walls,
the defence was directed, strangely enough for a Mohammedan community,
by a junta of six persons. Their names are worthy of being recorded:
Abu Faris, called by the Spaniards Axataf, Sakkáf, Shoayb, Ben Khaldûn,
Ben Khiyar, and Abu Bekr Ben Sharih.
The siege of Ishbiliyah lasted fifteen months. Material assistance
was lent to the Spaniards by Musulman auxiliaries, among them the
Amirs of Jaën and Granada. The Castilian fleet under Admiral Ramon
Bonifaz dispersed the Moorish ships, while the Sevillian land forces
were driven to take refuge within the walls. The Admiral succeeded
in breaking the chain stretched across the river, and thus cut off
the garrison from their principal magazines in the suburb of Triana.
Only when in the clutches of famine did the defenders ask for terms.
They offered to give up the city, on the condition that they should
be allowed to demolish the mosque. The Infante Alfonso replied that
if a single brick were displaced, the whole population would be put
to the sword. The garrison finally surrendered on the promise that
all inhabitants who desired to do so should be free to leave the city
with their families and property, and that those who elected to remain
should pay the Castilian king the same tribute they had hitherto paid
to the native ruler. The brave Abu Faris was invited to accept an
honourable post under the conqueror, but he magnanimously declined and
retired to Africa. Thither thousands of his countrymen followed him.
Indeed, probably only a few thousand Moors remained behind in Seville.
Ferdinand took possession on December 22nd, 1248. He took up his
residence in the Alcazar and allotted houses and territory to his
officers. It is worthy of remark that the first Christian soldier to
ascend the Giralda was a Scotsman named Lawrence Poore. Among the first
duties of the saintly king was the purification of the mosque and its
conversion into a Christian church.
Seville, after having remained in the hands of the Musulmans five
hundred and thirty-six years, had passed from them for ever.
SEVILLE UNDER THE CASTILIAN KINGS
The outward transformation of the Moorish Ishbiliyah into Seville,
the Christian capital, proceeded slowly and gradually. The
personal devotion and profound religious fervour of King Ferdinand
notwithstanding, even the war which resulted in the taking of the
city cannot be regarded as a crusade. As we have seen, Mohammedan
troops fought under the banners of the Christian king and contributed
to his victory; and in the division of the spoils these allies were
not forgotten. Satisfied with their triumph, the Castilians showed
moderation in their treatment of their Muslim subjects. The fall of
Ishbiliyah was attended by no outburst of iconoclastic fury. The
conquerors were delighted with the beauty and richness of their prize,
and had no desire to impair the handiwork of their predecessors.
The transition from the pure Arabic and Almohade styles of architecture
to what is called the Mudejar style was therefore almost imperceptible.
The physiognomy of the city altered but slowly. But the alteration was
from the first inevitable. Houses and lands were bestowed on knights
from all parts of Spain on the condition of their residing permanently
in Seville. Catalans, Galicians, Castilians of all trades and ranks
flocked in, and their influence was bound sooner or later to assert
itself. But the builders and artisan class remained for many years
composed of Moors--sometimes Christianised, but thoroughly imbued
with the artistic traditions of their forebears. Thus came about that
peculiar and graceful blending of the Moorish and Gothic and earlier
Renaissance styles known to Spanish writers as the Mudejar. Its
differentiation from the Arabic naturally became more marked as the
centuries rolled by.
Moorish architecture was thus accepted by the conquerors of Seville
both from choice and necessity. But certain important modifications
in the structure of buildings became immediately necessary, owing to
the difference of faith and customs. The mosque and the dwelling-house
alike had to undergo some alteration. No _mihrab_ was required, nor
minaret, nor the south-easterly position; in the dwelling-house there
was no need for harem, for retired praying-place, for the baths so dear
to the Andalusian Muslim.
Probably the first building of importance to be affected by the change
of rulers was the mosque. The outermost naves were divided into
chapels, the names and order of which have been preserved for us by
Zuñiga (quoted by Madrazo).
The royal chapel occupied the centre of the eastern wall; the other
chapels were: San Pedro, Santiago, Santa Barbara, San Bernardo, San
Sebastian (in this chapel were buried some Moors of the blood royal who
had been baptised and had served King Ferdinand, among them being Don
Fernando Abdelmon, son of Abu Seyt, Amir of Baeza), San Ildefonso, San
Francisco, San Andrés, San Clemente, San Felipe, San Mateo (containing
the sepulchre of the Admiral of Castile, Don Juan de Luna), Don Alonso
Perez de Guzman, San Miguel, San Marcos, San Lucas, San Bernabe, San
Simon, and San Judas, and the Magdalena. In the last-named chapel were
buried the knights who had taken part in the capture of the city.
Attached to it was the altar of Nuestra Señora de Pilar, a reputedly
miraculous shrine which became the objective of pilgrims in after years.
Chapels were also constructed in the four cloisters of the Patio de
los Naranjos. The cloister of the Caballeros contained eight--one of
which, Santa Lucia, was the place of sepulchre of the Haro family; the
cloister of the Granada contained three; the cloister of San Esteban,
three; the cloister of San Jorge or Del Lagarto, four--in one of
which, San Jorge, reposed that doughty warrior, Garci Perez de Vargas,
who distinguished himself before all his compeers at the assault of
Seville. This cloister was named Del Lagarto from the remains of an
enormous crocodile, a present from the Sultan of Egypt to King Alfonso
el Sabio, which are still suspended from the roof.
The cathedral--for so we must now call the mosque--was endowed and
richly embellished by St Ferdinand’s son and successor, the bookish
monarch Alfonso el Sabio. He also bestowed upon Seville its existing
coat-of-arms, consisting of the device NO8DO, which frequently appears,
to the bewilderment of strangers, on public buildings, uniforms, and
documents. The knot is in the vernacular _madeja_; the device thus
reads _no madeja do_, or, with an excusable pun, _no me ha dejado_--“it
has not deserted me.” This honourable motto the city won by its loyalty
to Alfonso during the civil wars which distracted the kingdom during
his reign. Seville bears the splendid title of “Most noble, most loyal,
most heroic, and unconquered city” (_muy noble_, _muy leal_, _muy
heroica_, _y invicta_). The surname “most noble” was bestowed upon it
by St Ferdinand; the style “most faithful” it received from Juan II. in
remembrance of its resistance to the Infante Don Enrique; “most heroic”
from Fernando VII. in recognition of its devotion to the national cause
during the War of Independence; and “unconquered” from Isabel II. to
commemorate its defence against the army of Espartero in July 1843.
The successors of the sainted king made their home in the Alcazar, and
adapted themselves to an environment created by their traditional foes.
The personality which looms largest in the history of the city is that
of Don Pedro I., surnamed the Cruel, or, by his few admirers, ‘the
Justiciary.’ What Harun-al-Rashid is in the story of Bagdad is this
ferocious monarch in the annals of Seville. Countless are the tales,
the ballads, and traditions of which he is the subject. Curiously
enough, Pedro enjoyed a certain measure of popularity in the country
he misgoverned. He was undoubtedly a vigilant protector of the humbler
classes of his subjects against the tyranny of the aristocracy, and
officials, and appears to have combined a grim humour and a strain of
what we should now call Bohemianism, with a tiger-like ferocity. He was
fond of rambling _incognito_ through the poorer quarters of the city;
and no account of Seville can be considered complete without a relation
of one of his most notable adventures in the street called Calle de la
Cabeza de Don Pedro.
The king had promulgated a decree holding the municipal authorities
answerable with their lives for the preservation of peace and public
order within their jurisdiction. A few nights later, wandering, heavily
cloaked as we may suppose, through a dark alley, a gentleman brushed
rudely against him. A brawl ensued, swords were drawn, and Pedro ran
his subject through the body. Flattering himself that there had been no
witness to the encounter, he stalked away. In the morning the hidalgo’s
body was found, but there appeared to be no clue as to the assassin.
The king summoned the Alcalde and reminded him of the edict. If the
miscreant were not discovered within two days the luckless magistrate
must himself pay the penalty on the scaffold. It was a situation with
precisely the humorous aspect that Pedro relished.
But presently to the Alcalde came an old lady with a strange but
welcome story. She told how she had seen a fight between two gentlemen,
the previous night, from her bed-chamber window. She witnessed the
fatal termination, and lo! the light of her candle fell full on the
face of the murderer; and as he bent forward, she heard his knee crack.
By his features and by this well-known physical peculiarity, she
recognised, beyond all possibility of a mistake, the king.
Next day the Alcalde invited his sovereign to attend the execution of
the criminal. Greatly wondering, no doubt, Pedro came. Dangling from a
rope he beheld his own effigy. “It is well,” he said, after an ominous
pause. “Justice has been done. I am satisfied.”
We may be inclined to disagree with the king’s conception of justice
as evinced on this occasion. More equitable and humorous was his
action when a priest, for murdering a shoemaker, was condemned by his
ecclesiastical superiors to suspension from his sacerdotal functions
for twelve months. Pedro thereupon decreed that any tradesman who slew
a priest should be punished by being restrained from exercising his
trade for the like period!
The catalogue of this Castilian monarch’s crimes proves interesting
if gloomy reading. He left his wife, Blanche de Bourbon, to perish
in a dungeon; he married Juana de Castro and insultingly repudiated
her within forty-eight hours; he put to death his father’s mistress,
Leonor de Guzman. He threw the young daughter of his brother, Enrique
de Trastamara, naked to the lions, like some Christian virgin-martyr.
But the good-humoured (and possibly well-fed) brutes refused to touch
the proffered prey. Not wishing to be outdone in generosity by a wild
beast, Pedro ever afterwards treated the maiden kindly. She was known,
in remembrance of her terrible experience, as Leonor de los Leones.
The Jew, Don Simuel Ben Levi, had served Pedro long and only too
faithfully as treasurer and tax-gatherer. It was whispered in his
master’s ear that half the wealth that should fill the royal coffers
was diverted into his own. Ben Levi was seized without warning and
placed on the rack, where the noble Israelite is said to have died,
not of pain, but of pure indignation. Under his house--so the story
has it--was a cavern filled with three piles of gold and silver so
high that a man standing behind any one of them was completely hidden.
“Had Don Simuel given me the third of the least of these three piles,”
exclaimed the king, “I would not have had him tortured. Why would he
rather die than speak?”
Somewhat more excusable was the treatment meted out to the Red King
of Granada, Abu Saïd; for this prince was himself a usurper, and had
behaved traitorously towards his own sovereign and his suzerain, the
King of Castile. Fearing Pedro’s resentment, he appeared at his court
at Seville with a retinue of three hundred, loaded with presents, among
which was the enormous ruby that now decorates the Crown of England.
He was received in audience by the Spanish king, whom he begged to
arbitrate between him and the deposed King of Granada. Pedro returned
a gracious reply, and entertained the Red King in the Alcazar. Before
many hours had passed the Moors were seized in their apartments and
stripped of their raiment and valuables. Abu Saïd, mounted on a donkey
and ridiculously attired, was taken, with thirty-six of his courtiers,
to a field outside the town. There they were bound to posts. A train of
horsemen appeared, Don Pedro among them, and transfixed the helpless
men with darts, the king shouting as he hurled his missiles at the
luckless Abu Saïd, “This for the treaty you made me conclude with
Aragon!” “This for the castle you lost me!” The Moors met their death
with the stoical resignation of their race.
That atrocities committed against Jews and infidels, against even
members of the royal family, should be regarded with indifference by
the public of that day need not surprise us. But the people of Seville
tamely suffered the most cruel wrongs to be inflicted by the tyrant on
their own fellow-citizens. After his (or rather the Black Prince’s)
victory over Don Enrique at Najera (1367), the Admiral Bocanegra and
Don Juan Ponce de Leon were beheaded on the Plaza San Francisco. Garci
Jufre Tenorio, the mayor of the city, also suffered death. The property
of Doña Teresa Jufre was confiscated because she had spoken ill of
his Majesty. Doña Urraca Osorio, because her son had taken part with
Don Enrique in the revolt, was burned at the stake on the Alameda.
Her servant, Leonor Dávalos, threw herself into the flames and shared
the fate of her mistress. In consequence of this persecution, Seville
lost several of her most illustrious families, which either became
extinguished or removed themselves to other parts of Spain.
So much for the picturesque if repugnant personality of Pedro I. With
his sinister memory the Alcazar is so intimately associated, and the
part he took in its reconstruction was so conspicuous that this may be
deemed the proper place to deal with that famous building--one of the
two most important in Seville.
THE ALCAZAR