3. SPAIN.
The Beginnings of Spain.—When, in the eighth century, the Saracens swept like a wave over Spain, the mountains of Asturia, in the northwest corner of the peninsula, afforded a refuge for the most resolute of the Christian chiefs who refused to submit their necks to the Moslem yoke. These brave and hardy warriors not only successfully defended the hilly districts that formed their retreat, but gradually pushed back the invaders, and regained control of a portion of the fields and cities that had been lost. This work of reconquest was greatly furthered by Charlemagne, who, it will be recalled, drove the Saracens out of all the northeastern portion of the country as far south as the Ebro, and made the subjugated district a province of his great empire, under the name of the Spanish March.
By the opening of the eleventh century several little Christian states, among which we must notice the names of Castile and Aragon, because of the prominent part they were to play in later history, had been established upon the ground thus recovered or always maintained. Castile was at first simply "a line of castles" against the Moors, whence its name.
UNION OF CASTILE AND ARAGON (1479).—For several centuries the princes of the little states to which we have referred kept up an incessant warfare with their Mohammedan neighbors; owing however to dissensions among themselves, they were unable to combine in any effective way for the reconquest of their ancient possessions. But the marriage, in 1469, of Ferdinand, prince of Aragon, to Isabella, princess of Castile, paved the way for the union a little later of these two leading states. Thus the quarrels of these rival principalities were composed, and they were now free to employ their united strength in effecting what the Christian princes amidst all their contentions had never lost sight of,—the expulsion of the Moors from the peninsula.
[Illustration: THE SPANISH KINGDOMS 1800.]
THE CONQUEST OF GRANADA (1492).—At the time when the basis of the Spanish monarchy was laid by the union of Castile and Aragon, the Mohammedan possessions had been reduced, by the constant pressure of the Christian chiefs through eight centuries, to a very limited dominion in the south of Spain. Here the Moors had established a strong, well-compacted state, known as the Kingdom of Granada.
As soon as Ferdinand and Isabella had settled the affairs of their dominions, they began to make preparation for the conquest of Granada, eager to signalize their reign by the reduction of this last stronghold of the Moorish power in the peninsula. The Moors made a desperate defence of their little state. The struggle lasted for ten years. City after city fell into the hands of the Christian knights, and finally the capital, Granada, pressed by an army of seventy thousand, was forced to surrender, and the Cross replaced the Crescent on its walls and towers (1492). The Moors, or Moriscoes, as they were called, were allowed to remain in the country and to retain their Mohammedan worship, though under many annoying restrictions. What is known as their expulsion occurred at a later date (see p. 538).
[Illustration: THE ALHAMBRA. PALACE OF THE MOORISH KINGS AT GRANADA. (From a photograph.)]
The fall of Granada holds an important place among the many significant events that mark the latter half of the fifteenth century. It ended, after an existence of eight hundred years, the Mohammedan kingdom in the Spanish peninsula, and thus formed an offset to the progress of the Moslem power in Eastern Europe and the loss to the Christian world of Constantinople. It advanced Spain to the first rank among the nations of Europe, and gave her arms a prestige that secured for her position, influence, and deference long after the decline of her power had commenced.
THE INQUISITION.—Ferdinand greatly enhanced his power by the active and tyrannical use of the Inquisition, a court that had been established by the Church for the purpose of detecting and punishing heresy. The chief victims of the tribunal were the Moors and Jews, but it was also directed against the enemies of the sovereign among the nobility and the clergy. The Holy Office, as the tribunal was styled, thus became the instrument of the most incredible cruelty. Thousands were burned at the stake, and tens of thousands more condemned to endure penalties scarcely less terrible. Queen Isabella, in giving her consent to the establishment of the tribunal in her dominions, was doubtless actuated by the purest religious zeal, and sincerely believed that in suppressing heresy she was discharging a simple duty, and rendering God good service. "In the love of Christ and his Maid- Mother," she says, "I have caused great misery. I have depopulated towns and districts, provinces and kingdoms."
DEATH OF FERDINAND AND OF ISABELLA.—Queen Isabella died in 1504, and Ferdinand followed her in the year 1516, upon which latter event the crown of Spain descended upon the head of his grandson, Charles, of whom we shall hear much as Emperor Charles V. With his reign the modern history of Spain begins.
Beginnings of the Spanish Language and Literature.
THE LANGUAGE.—After the union of Castile and Aragon it was the language of the former that became the speech of the Spanish court. During the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella it gradually gained the ascendancy over the numerous dialects of the country, and became the national speech, just as in France the Langue d'Oil finally crowded out all other dialects. By the conquests and colonizations of the sixteenth century this Castilian speech was destined to become only less widely spread than the English tongue.
THE POEM OF THE CID.—Castilian, or Spanish literature begins in the twelfth century with the romance-poem of the Cid (that is, Chief, the title of the hero of the poem), one of the great literary productions of the mediæval period. This grand national poem was the outgrowth of the sentiments inspired by the long struggle between the Spanish Christians and the Mohammedan Moors.
[Illustration: SARCOPHAGUS OF FERDINAND AND ISABELLA, AT GRANADA. (From a photograph.)]