had been accumulated in the Visigothic capital. Here were found the
Psalms of David, written upon gold leaf in a fluid made from dissolved
rubies! and most wonderful of all, the Table of Solomon made out of a
single emerald! It was brought to Toledo--so runs one version--after the
taking of Jerusalem, and was valued in Damascus at one hundred thousand
dinars--equal to about £50,000. We are not surprised to hear that this
unique piece of furniture “possessed talismanic powers”; for tradition
affirms it was the work of genii, and had been wrought by them for King
Solomon the Wise, the son of David. This marvellous relic was carefully
preserved by Tarik as the most precious of all his spoils, being
intended by him as a present to the Khalifa; and, in commemoration of
it, the city was called by the Arabs, Medina Almyda, that is to say,
“The City of the Table.”
Thus far Washington Irving. With characteristic credulity, Ibn Hayyan,
the historian, gives in the translation of Gayangos a substantially
different account of the treasure: “The celebrated table which Tarik
found at Toledo, although attributed to Solomon and named after him,
never belonged to the poet-king. According to the barbarian authors, it
was customary for the nobles and men in estimation of the Gothic Court,
to bequeath a portion of their property to the church. From the money so
amassed the priests caused tables to be made of pure gold and silver,
gorgeous thrones and stands on which to carry the Gospels in public
processions, or to ornament the altars on great festivals. The so-called
Solomon’s table was originally wrought with money derived from this
source, and was subsequently emulously enlarged and embellished by
successive kings of Toledo, the latest always anxious to surpass his
predecessor in magnificence, until it became the most splendid and
costly gem ever made for such a purpose. The fabric was of pure gold,
set with the most precious pearls, emeralds and rubies. Its
circumference was encrusted with three rows of these valuable stones,
and the whole table displayed jewels so large and refulgent that never
did human eye behold anything comparable with it.... When the Muslims
entered Toledo it was discovered on the altar of the Christian Church,
and the fact of such a treasure having been found soon became public and
notorious.”
Gibbon accounts for the presence of the Table of Solomon at
Toledo--assuming that there ever was such a thing, and that it ever was
there at all--by supposing it to have been carried off by Titus to
Rome, whence it may have been taken by Alaric when the Goths sacked the
city. Whichever version of the table’s origin be accepted, it seems
strange that it was not carried away by the clergy in their flight from
Toledo. Of its ultimate fate nothing is known, unless we can accept the
little that is revealed in the following history.
Upon Musa approaching the city to supersede Tarik, the latter broke off
and concealed one of the legs of the table. Musa was already incensed
against his lieutenant for having deprived him of the glory of the
conquest of Spain, and emphasised his reprimands with strokes of a whip.
When he found that the leg of the table was missing, his anger was very
great. Tarik assured him he had found it in that mutilated condition,
and Musa caused the missing leg to be replaced by one of gold. His
subordinate, however, he cast into prison, where the One-Eyed One
remained till released by orders from the Khalifa himself. He was amply
revenged on Musa, when upon the latter presenting the table to his
sovereign as his own discovery, he was able triumphantly to give him the
lie by producing the missing leg of emerald. And so the wonderful Table
of Solomon, of emerald, or of gold, or of both, passes out of the ken of
history.
We hear of Musa’s son, Abd-ul-Aziz (or “Belasis,” as he is quaintly
termed by old Spanish writers) marrying King Roderic’s widow, Exilona,
at Toledo. Abd-ul-Aziz, however, was Governor of Seville, where he met
his death, and it is not unlikely, if he married the queen at all, that
he did so in that southern city, where she may have been left by her
first consort to await the result of the battle of the Guadalete. If
there be any truth in the legend that Exilona was of Moorish origin
herself, the story of this second and apparently cold-blooded union
seems less improbable. Tradition has it that the widow of the Goth only
consented to the match on Abd-ul-Aziz promising to observe towards her
all the deference due to a Christian queen. He kept his promise only too
faithfully, and his forcing his officers to bend the knee to a woman and
an infidel, is said to have contributed to bring about his assassination
in the mosque at Seville.
The conquerors here, as in other parts of the kingdom, acted generously
towards the conquered. A moderate tribute was levied on the Christians,
who were allowed to practise their religion and be governed by their own
laws and customs. Seven churches were allotted to their use, the names
of these being Santa Eulalia, Santa Maria de Alficem, Santa Justa, San
Sebastian, San Marcos, San Torcuato, and San Lucas. But these privileges
must have hardly consoled the citizens for the loss of the town’s rank
as capital of Spain. It became, as it had been under the Romans, “a
strong place,” of which the dominant race valued the advantages, but, in
consequence of the rise of Cordoba and Seville it sank to the condition
of a provincial town.
As such its career was throughout stormy and turbulent. The spirit of
rebellion seemed instinct in the grim fortress-like city, and infused
itself into Mohammedan and Christian, Arab and Castilian alike. The two
races fraternised well enough. They had a common interest: resistance to
any external authority. This impatience of control was characteristic of
the Toledans for centuries. Its annals during the period of Mohammedan
occupation are a tedious record of sieges, riots, usurpations and
massacres. Such events are only of interest when studied in the minutest
detail. A brief _résumé_ of them is, however, indispensable to a proper
knowledge of the town.
The citizens’ first appearance in the troubled arena of Muslim politics
was as loyalists--an uncongenial _rôle_! In the civil wars that
distracted the reign of Abd-ul-Malik, Toledo was held by his son Omeya,
and vainly besieged for a month by the rebels. On the approach of
Abd-ul-Malik, the garrison, wishful of glory, made a vigorous sortie and
completely routed the investing force. The townsmen had tasted blood.
It took much to quench their thirst. Knowing their character, in the
troubles fomented by the pretender Yusaf ben Debri, his partisan,
Mohammed Abu-l-Aswad took refuge among them in the year of the Hegira
142. The place was immediately invested by the Wizir, Al Kama, and as
usual offered a stout resistance. Wearied of their ruler, however, the
people played him false and betrayed the town to the Wizir. Abu-l-Aswad
was taken prisoner and sent to Cordoba.
A year or two later the Toledans repented of their submission. While the
Amir, Abd-ur-Rahman, was engaged in preparations for a war in the east
of Spain, some powerful families, led by one Hixem ben Adra al Fehri,
rose, seized the Alcazar, and put the Wizir to flight. They released the
notorious rebel, Kasim ben Yusuf, from prison, and raised an army of
about ten thousand men--mostly freebooters and masterless men who seemed
to have regarded Toledo as the best market for their peculiar talents.
The Amir’s appearance before the walls, with a powerful army, caused
moderate counsels to prevail among the insurgents. The citizens were
anxious to be rid of the undesirables they had invited into their midst,
and persuaded Hixem to visit the royal camp to solicit terms.
Abd-ur-Rahman generously pardoned him, and once more incarcerating
Kasim, left the town to itself.
He soon had good reason to repent his forbearance. In 763 Kasim escaped
from confinement, rallied the citizens round him, and declared the town
subject only to the Khalifa of Damascus. The siege that followed was
languidly conducted. The people, we read, were suffered to cultivate
their fields, and to carry produce into the city unmolested. At this
rate the siege might have lasted as long as that of Candia. Kasim,
meanwhile lulled into a sense of security, abused his power, and
alienated his unruly subjects. On the arrival of the Amir, he was given
notice to quit. Having seen him successfully elude the royal forces,
Toledo opened its gates to Abd-ur-Rahman. The Amir, despairing of the
townsmen’s temper, exacted from them but a nominal obedience, but his
successor, Hakam, thought to coerce them by a bitter lesson. As
Governor, he sent them one Amru of Huesca, a renegade Christian, “by a
condescension,” he wrote, “which proves our extreme solicitude for your
interests.” The renegade’s policy was thorough. He ingratiated himself
with the people, and posed as the champion of their liberties. It was at
their own suggestion that he raised a fortress in their very midst. The
place being strongly garrisoned and all being ready, the approach of a
large army, commanded by the Amir’s son, Abd-ur-Rahman, was announced.
At the suggestion of the Governor, the prince was invited by the
nobility into the city; and he, in return, as if to mark his sense of
the honour conferred upon him, ordered a great feast to be made ready at
the Castle. To this all the chief men were bidden. What followed is
known as the Day of the Fosse. The guests were allowed to enter only one
by one. Behind the gate stood a man with bared arm and uplifted axe. As
each guest entered there was a sweep of the arm, a flash of steel, and a
head rolled into the ditch already prepared. Without, nothing was heard,
nothing was seen, nothing suspected. The episode reminds one of the
famous Blood Bath of Stockholm. The butchery is said at last to have
been revealed to those waiting outside the wall by the thick vapour
issuing from the gate. A physician, who had been watching for hours, and
who had noticed that none of the numerous guests who had entered, had
issued forth, was the first to raise the alarm. “Men of Toledo,” he
shouted, “I vow that yonder vapour is not the smoke of a feast, but
rises from the blood of our butchered brethren!”
This ghastly tragedy occurred in 807, and has given rise to a proverbial
expression current in Spanish--_una noche Toledana_, applied to a night
disagreeably passed in sleeplessness or pain.
The blow struck by the ferocious Amru was of the kind that alone met
with the approval of Macchiavelli: it not only intimidated, but it
crushed. For a quarter of a century we hear no more of tumults or
dissensions in the City by the Tagus. Meantime it prospered. Arts and
letters flourished. In the year 827 we have to record the death “of the
very learned alfaqui, Isa ben Dinar el Ghafeki, a native of that city
and a disciple of Malik ben Anas. He was a man beloved by all--friendly
in manner, admirable in conversation, and upright of life: such as were
taught by Isa ben Dinar acquired their learning with delight. He was in
the habit of practising some few observances that were considered
extraordinary: he made, for example, the prayer of the dawn with the
preparation and ablutions proper to that of the evening twilight.”
The opulence of the Jews and Christians decided the Wali, Aben Mafût ben
Ibrahim, to increase their tribute. This led to the outbreak of 832. A
wealthy young citizen, named Hakam el Atiki, otherwise known as El
Durrete, or “the striker of blows,” had been insulted by the Wali, and
used the discontent of the people as a means of avenging his injuries.
He distributed money freely among the more inflammable sections of the
populace, and collected about him a body of lawless followers. One of
these was seized in the Soko, or market-place (the Zocodover) by one of
the Wali’s officers, and a tumult at once uprose. In the end the
Alcazar fell into the hands of the rebels, and the Wali barely escaped
with his life. Hakam, however, was shortly afterwards obliged to abandon
his conquest, and spread abroad the report that he had left the country.
The vigilance of the garrison becoming in consequence relaxed, he seized
the city by a _coup de main_, and held it for some years. He was
wounded, taken prisoner, and beheaded in 837, by Abd-el-Raf, his head
being suspended from the gate of Bisagra.
So far the risings at Toledo had been mainly political, and the townsmen
had sunk their religious and racial differences to make common cause
against the stranger. The cause of the insurrection of 854 was, by
exception, an outburst of fanaticism on the part of the Muzarabes or
Christians, who practised the ritual of the Spanish Goths. It was at
this time that the Catholics of Cordoba and Seville, subject to some
extraordinary aberration, had in great numbers earned the doubtful
honour of martyrdom by blaspheming Mohammed. To Toledo, as the most
likely spot at which to create a disturbance, came Eulogius and stirred
the Christians to avenge the “wrongs” of their co-religionists. Under
the leadership of Sindola, they dispossessed their Moorish governors,
and carrying the war into the enemy’s own country, defeated the Amir’s
forces at Andujar. Ordoño King of Leon, now came to the assistance of
the citizens, who, hitherto, had shown no eagerness to call in the help
of the Christians of the north. Mohammed, the Amir, presently appeared
before Toledo, and drew the allied forces into an ambush. The Christians
were totally defeated--almost annihilated. Nothing daunted, the
Toledans, later on, insulted their sovereign by electing Eulogius to the
vacant archiepiscopal see. Mohammed, by way of reprisal, inveigled a
large force of Christians on to a bridge which he had undermined. It was
the Day of the Fosse over again.
In the year 873, we find the independence of Toledo, subject to his
suzerainty, nominally acknowledged by the Amir, who was probably glad to
make any terms that promised peace with vassals so turbulent. In the
reign of the Amir Al Mundhir even this faint shadow of outside authority
was shaken off by the city, which again asserted its complete
independence, in 886, under Ibn Hafsûn. The town was besieged by the
royal forces under the Wizir Haksim. The wily Ibn Hafsûn, seeing that
the stronghold must fall, proposed to the opposing general that he
should allow him to evacuate the place and transport his army to the
frontier of Valencia, on a train of beasts of burden to be provided by
the besiegers. Haksim joyfully assented to this capitulation, and on the
day appointed, what was supposed to be the entire army of the rebel
chief issued from the gates of the city and wended their way, with the
train of packhorses, eastwards. Leaving what he considered a sufficient
garrison in Toledo, Haksim drew off the greater part of his forces and
went to Cordoba. Meanwhile the crafty Hafsûn swiftly retraced his steps,
and with the aid of the considerable detachment he had left concealed in
the town, put the garrison to the sword, and once more hurled defiance
at the Amir. Great was Al Mundhir’s wrath on the receipt of this
intelligence, and before nightfall, the head of Haksim lay severed from
his body.
Ibn Hafsûn proved a formidable antagonist. The Amir lead an army against
him in 888 and was defeated and killed. Twenty years later Hafsûn died,
bequeathing what was practically an independent sovereignty to his son.
The great Khalifa, Abd-ur-Rahman III., now sat on the throne of Cordoba.
He determined to put an end to the arrogant pretensions of the unruly,
untameable city. His summons to capitulate being contemptuously
rejected, he took the field in 930. For eight years the siege went on,
varied by exploits and incidents, which might prove matter for a Moorish
Iliad. Famine stalked abroad in the obstinate city, but the Hafsûns
would not hear of surrender. When at last it became plain that the
people would yield, the leaders and their partisans, to the number of
four thousand, made a last desperate sortie. Two thousand cavaliers,
with a foot-soldier clutching firmly hold of each horse’s girth, they
broke through Abd-ur-Rahman’s camp, and got clean away. Almost joyfully
the townsmen opened their gates to the great Amir--to be firmly bitted
and bridled during the remainder of his reign.
That the town was still subject to the central authority in the year
979, we gather from this incident. The Governor, Abd-ul-Malik Ibn Merwân
having some difference with the Wali of Medina Selim (Medinaceli),
challenged him to single combat and slew him. For this, without more
ado, he was removed from office by orders from Cordoba.
In the first quarter of the eleventh century, Toledo recovered her
freedom, on the break-up of the Umeyyah empire. Under her sultan,
Ismail, in 1023, she was able to boast that she knew no other lord or
ruler under the blue heavens. After Ismail came Abu-l-Hasan Yahya al
Ramân who reigned till 1075, and was then succeeded by Yahya Kadir, who
lost his throne in 1085.
Before relating the incidents of the reconquest of Toledo by the
Christians and its incorporation in the steadily expanding kingdom of
Leon, we will take a glance at the city as it was under its Mohammedan
rulers. Of its affluence, importance, and strength, the foregoing
cursory sketch of its history has afforded us some idea. It ranked as
the metropolis of the Christian element in the Amir’s dominions, and its
prelates early obtained recognition from their Paynim sovereigns as
dignitaries of the highest standing. Among them were such notable men as
Wistremir and Eulogius. One of the archbishops of Toledo, Elipando,
embraced the heresy of Nestorius, and went the length of excommunicating
his fellow bishops. Upon his death, however, an orthodox successor was
chosen. The Christians were wealthy and arrogant. They were classed in
congregations, dependent on their various churches, each division
including certain families irrespective of their domiciles. Toledo,
during the three and a half centuries of Mohammedan dominion, never
seems to have lost the outward character of a Christian town. Moorish
influence she felt, and it served to soften and chasten her rough
features, but Moorish she never became as did Seville and Cordoba. Yet
in every corner of the old city the guides are prone to point out the
buildings and remains that they fondly believe to be of Arabic
workmanship. In reality, very few monuments of the Mohammedan period
have survived. It is not by what we see but by what we read that we can
form an idea of the city as it was in those days.
It was renowned for its clepsydras or water-clocks, invented by
Abu-l-Kasim. These are described as follows in an Arabic document: “But
what is marvellous and surprising in Toledo, and what we believe no
other town in all the world has anything to equal, are its water-clocks.
It is said that Az-Zagral [Abu-l-Kasim] hearing of a certain talisman
which is in the city of Arin, of Eastern India, and which shows the
hours by means of _aspas_ or hands, from the time the sun rises till it
sets, determined to fabricate an artifice by means of which the people
could know the hour of day or night, and calculate the day of the moon.
He made two great ponds in a house on the bank of the Tagus, near the
Gate of the Tanners, making them so that they should be filled with
water or emptied according to the rise and fall of the moon.” The water
began to flow into the ponds as soon as the moon became visible, and at
dawn they were four-sevenths full. The water rose by one-seventh every
twenty-four hours, and were full at full moon. As the luminary waned,
the water fell in exact proportion. The exact working of these
contrivances was lost when an astronomer, deputed by Alfonso el Sabio to
examine them, broke parts of the intricate machinery.
The chroniclers relate wonders of the palace of An Naôra, so called from
its celebrated _noria_ or hydraulic apparatus. The apartments were so
splendid as to rival those of the palace of the Amir himself, and “were
resplendent as the sun at noonday, and the moon at the full.” In the
luxurious gardens was the lake or albuhera, in the centre of which rose
a pavilion of glass, where Al Ramân-bil-Lah, the last sovereign of
Toledo, used to pass the night. “The clever architects”--we quote from
the “Monumentos Arquitectónicos”--who made the lake, not only raised the
waters from the river in order to fill it, but raised them above the
cupola of the pavilion, over and around which they flowed incessantly,
forming around it a diaphanous and crystalline mantle. Not a drop could
penetrate the structure or touch the persons within. With the sonorous
murmur of these waters mingled that produced by the fountains that
gushed forth from the mouths of the lions in metal guarding this
wonderful pavilion. Illumined inside with lamps of various colours,
without it presented a fantastic appearance, which was reflected back
from the waters of the lake, and which the people of Toledo contemplated
with admiration through the dense foliage.”
Of this exquisite pleasaunce, no trace remains. Nor is anything left of
the other palace of Al Hizem, built by Ismaîl, the first admittedly
independent Sultan of Toledo--afterwards inhabited by the Christian
kings. The principal building in Moorish times was, of course, the
Aljama, or Chief Mosque. This seems to have been erected at the same
time as the great Mezquita at Cordoba, in the reign of Abd-ur-Rahman
II., and to have been richly embellished and enlarged under the third
and greatest Khalifa of that name. We read that in the fourth century of
the Hegira, the architect Fatho ben Ibrahim el Caxevi built two
sumptuous mosques, called, the one, Adabejin, the other Gebel Berida;
but where these were situated, or what was the real Arabic spelling of
the names, we have no means of knowing.
Happily a few specimens of the local architecture of that epoch remain.
Of these one of the learned compilers of the “Monumentos
Arquitectónicos” writes: “In spite of their varying degrees of
integrity, and although greatly damaged and changed by later
restorations, these works possess an extreme importance, and suffice to
manifest the peculiar physiognomy of the secondary religious edifices of
this part of the Peninsula at the most glorious epoch of the
Khalifate--a physiognomy strikingly different from that of the principal
religious structures, or Aljamas, equivalent to our cathedrals, and
different also from that of the same buildings in the south. They show,
furthermore, decorative processes believed to have been unknown in
Spain at that epoch.”
The most complete and remarkable of these buildings is the Mosque of
Bib-el-Mardom, now known as the Cristo de la Luz. It is situated to the
north of the city, between the Puerta del Sol and the Puerta Bisagra.
Here Alfonso VI., on entering Toledo on May 25, 1085, halted and caused
Mass to be celebrated, leaving his shield behind him as a memento of the
incident.
The exterior of this most interesting building is unpromising. It is
thus described by Mr. Street: “The exterior face of the walls is built
of brick and rough stone. The lower part of the side wall is arcaded
with three round arches, within the centre of which is a round horseshoe
arch for a doorway; above is a continuous sunk arcade of cusped arches,
within which are window openings with round horse-shoe heads. The lower
part of the walls is cut with single courses of brick, alternating with
rough stonework; the piers and arches of brick, with projecting labels
and strings also of unmoulded brick. The arches of the upper windows are
built with red and green bricks alternated.” Restorations carried out in
1899 brought to light a most interesting pierced frieze running round
the north-eastern façade, and serving as a sort of ventilator. Above was
deciphered the following inscription in Arabic characters: “In the name
of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful. This mosque was rebuilt ... the
renewal of its upper part, proposing to render it more beautiful, and
[the restoration] was finished, with the help of God, under the
direction of Musa Ibn Ali, the architect, and of Saada. It was completed
in the Muharram of the year 370” [July 17, 979, to August 15, 980 A.D.]
The whole façade of the edifice has been much disfigured by successive
reconstructions, coatings of plaster, &c., and has undergone much more
serious transformation than the interior.