The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 10

by Unknown

CHAPTER II. THE TIME OF MOSLEM DOMINATION

[711-1214 A.D.]

“They come! they come! I see the groaning land

White with the turbans of each Arab horde:

Swart Zara joins her misbelieving band,

Allah and Mahomet their battle word,

The choice they yield, the Koran or the sword.

See how the Christians rush to arms amain!

In yonder shout the voice of conflict roar’d;

The shadowy hosts are closing on the plain.

Now God and Saint Jago strike for the good cause of Spain!

“By heaven, the Moors prevail! the Christians yield!

Their coward leader gives for flight the sign!

Their sceptred craven mounts to quit the field—

‘Is not yon steed Orelia?’—‘Yes, ’tis mine!

But never was she turn’d from battle line.’

Lo! where the recreant spurs o’er stock and stone!—

‘Curses pursue the slave, and wrath divine!

Rivers engulf him!’—‘Hush!’ in shuddering tone

The prelate said; ‘Rash prince, yon vision’d form’s thine own.’

“Just then a torrent cross’d the flier’s course;

The dangerous ford the kingly likeness tried,

But the deep eddies whelm’d both man and horse,

Swept like benighted peasant down the tide.”

—Scott, The Vision of Don Roderic.

The young Arab power was at the door of Spain before the degenerate Goths were half awake to their danger. They had hardly shaken off their slumbers before they were prisoners or fugitives from the house they had ruled for almost exactly three centuries. Roderic and his sixty thousand men fought madly for three days at Xeres near the junction of the Guadalete and Guadalquivir, but when the brave king himself lost courage and fled—if indeed he fled—the whole race took panic with him. The end of Roderic is lost in a tangle of fable and tradition. Scott has embalmed the legend as quoted above, and Southey in his poem, The Last of the Goths, has built him a splendid mausoleum; but all that history can say is that his crown and sceptre were found on the bank of the stream and that his kingdom was as completely disembodied as its empty emblems. And now, as Hume[b] says, “The purely Gothic element in Spain was withered up as if by fire.”

[711-755 A.D.]

The story of the Moslem conquest has been already told in the fifth chapter of the history of the Arabs, in the eighth volume of this work. To that the reader is referred for the details of the invasion. The original Spanish people who had been regarded by the Goths as an inferior race unworthy of marriage, though the restriction was withdrawn shortly before the Moslems came, and the Jews, treated by the Goths as a cursed pest whom it was a virtue to torment—both welcomed the new-comers. They were rewarded with a gentleness of tolerance and a growth of intellectuality and commerce that lead one to question if the Arab domination of Europe would have been indeed the horror it is usually imagined; and if the repulse Charles Martel gave the Saracens at Tours in 732 were really the benefit to civilisation that we are wont to imagine it.

A Mohammedan Chief

The chapter on Arab civilisation in the eighth volume argues that the Arabians gave to Spain a glory and a culture of the most brilliant type, extending from the restoration of Greek letters to the awakening of modern science and commerce of the most splendid sort. When at length they were cast out of Spain, the reaction against them was itself the effort of an intolerant, tyrannous, and blood-thirsty religious system, which even in its triumph at the time of Ferdinand and Isabella distinguished itself by the greatest blot on human civilisation, the Inquisition, and by cruelties that spread zealously round the world to the enslavement and torture, often the annihilation of remote and innocent races.

It would be so easy to adduce evidence that the Christian powers have done more harm to civilisation than the Moslem, that perhaps it would be wiser to omit bigoted self-gratulations on the failure of Arab ambitions in Europe, and be content with an impartial and non-dogmatic recital of a conflict in which Europeans and Africans fought with a common greed of power and masked primeval instincts under the names of religion and patriotism. The aims of both were checked as much by internal dissensions and treacheries as by any united opposition, and in neither Christian nor Arab politics is there much food for pride in humanity. Leaving the reader to find in the previously mentioned history of the Arabs the account of Moslem rule, misrule, and feud in the regions they conquered, we may turn to the equally sordid and selfish, and at times equally lofty and heroic story of the Christians, who found refuge in rocky fastnesses and there grew slowly and painfully to a new life and a large hope.

They had much to complain of from Arab cruelty to those who would not accept the alternatives of “Koran or tribute,” but war was especially brutal in the Middle Age, and the Christians did not fail to revenge their maltreated women and children on the non-combatants of the other side. The pity one instinctively feels at the sufferings of the Christians is somewhat stifled on realising that the same sufferings had been or would speedily be visited on the Mohammedans or on other Christians at the first opportunity. The examples of clemency which are now the commonplaces, the demands of warfare, were at that time so rare and amazing that they might almost be said to be always due to the eccentricity of the conqueror. But to take up the story of the Christian Reconquista:

Roderic was miscalled “the last of the Goths,” for there were two Gothic rulers to succeed him. In the southeast Theodomir made peace with the Arabs; reigned as a vassal; and was succeeded in 743 by the Gothic Atanagild, whose realm was absorbed by Abd ar-Rahman in 755. In the northwest was Pelayo, who made a great name on small capital.[a]

THE ASTURIAS AND LEON UNDER PELAYO (718 A.D.)

[718 A.D.]

The more zealous or more independent Christians, who, after the triumphs of Tarik and Musa, were dissatisfied with the submission of Theodomir, gradually forsook their habitations in the south to seek a more secure asylum amidst the northern mountains of their country. They knew that in the same hills the sacred fire of liberty had been preserved, in defiance of Carthaginian, or Roman, or Goth; and they felt that to them was now confided the duty of reviving its expiring embers.

At first, indeed, the number which resorted to these solitudes was few, and actuated by the mere hope of individual safety: but as the Mohammedan excesses became more frequent and intolerable; as neither prompt submission, nor the solemnity of treaties could guarantee the unhappy natives from plunder,[19] persecution, and destruction; and, consequently, as the number of refugees increased, the possibility of a combined defence on a larger scale, and even of laying the foundation of an infant state, was eagerly indulged. The care of the sacred relics, which, on the reduction of Toledo, were carefully conveyed to these mountain fastnesses, the presence not only of prelates, but of nobles descended from the blood of the Goths, and the necessity of self-preservation, united these refugees in an indissoluble bond. But they could do nothing without a head: they proceeded to elect one; and their unanimous suffrages fell on Pelayo, said by Sebastian of Salamanca[f] to be the son of Favila, duke of Cantabria, belonging to the royal house of Cindasuinto.[20]

At the time this unequivocal demonstration of defiance was made by the Christians, Al-Haur, the Mohammedan governor, was in Gaul; but one of his generals, Al-Khaman, accompanied, as we are informed, by the renegade archbishop Oppas, and obedient to his orders, assembled a considerable force, and hastened into the Asturias, to crush the rising insurrection. Arriving at the foot of the Asturian mountains without obstacle, the Arabian general did not hesitate to plunge into the defiles: passing along the valley of Cangas de Onis he came to the foot of Mount Auseva, near the river Sella. On the heights of Covadonga, and in the cavern of St. Mary, the small but resolute band of Pelayo was concealed, waiting for the attack. Loath to run the risk of one where the advantage of position was so much in favour of the Christians, Al-Khaman is said to have despatched Oppas to Pelayo, representing to that prince the inutility of resistance, and the advantage of instant submission. The refusal of the Asturian, who well knew his position, and what stout hearts he commanded, was followed by the ascent of the Arabs up the steep acclivity. But to their consternation huge rocks and stones came thundering down on their dense ranks, by which they were precipitated into the narrow valley below. The destruction did not end here: it met those who attempted to ascend the opposite acclivity. Thousands were crushed beneath the vast fragments; and the rest would speedily have shared the same fate, had they not precipitately fled by the way they had advanced. The confusion attending this retrograde movement was turned to good account by the Christians, who now issued from their hiding-places, and inflicted a terrific loss on the fugitives. The extent of that loss we should vainly attempt to estimate; but that it was great may be learned from the very admission of the vanquished.[h]

The brilliance of Pelayo’s success naturally inspired the old chroniclers to a belief in divine interposition, and the account of this battle by Sebastian of Salamanca is too vivid an example of history, as it was written by the churchmen, to be omitted.[a]

SEBASTIAN’S ACCOUNT OF THE BATTLE OF COVADONGA (718 A.D.)

And when Pelayo knew the approach of the Arabs, he betook himself to a cave, which is called the cave of Santa Maria, and immediately posted his army around it. And Oppas, the bishop, approaching him, thus said: “Brother, thou art not ignorant how, when all Spain was under the rule of the Goths, and when all her armies were joined together, she was unable to cope with the Ismailites: how much less will be thy power to defend thyself here in such a strait? Now listen to my advice: relinquish all thoughts of resistance; that, being in peace with the Arabs, thou mayst enjoy much prosperity, and preserve whatever thou didst or dost possess.” And Pelayo replied, “I will neither have the Arabs for friends, nor will I submit to their dominion. Thou dost not perceive that the church of God is like unto the moon; now it decreases, and now it regains its former magnitude. And we trust in God’s mercy that from this very hill which thou beholdest, salvation may arise for Spain, and the Gothic army be renewed; so that in us may be fulfilled the saying of the prophet, ‘I will visit their iniquities with a rod, and their sins with stripes; but my pity will I not withdraw from them.’ Wherefore, though we have undergone a righteous judgment, we yet believe that there will descend grace from on high for the restoration of our church, our nation, and kingdom. We fear not; we utterly despise this multitude of pagans.”

Then the wicked bishop returned to the enemy, and said: “Hasten and fight; for by the sword only shall ye have peace with this man.” Immediately they handle their weapons, and begin the battle: the engines are raised, the missiles fitted to the sling; the swords shine, the spears glitter, and the arrows are sent forth. But the weapons of the Lord were not wanting; for as the stones were shot from the slings and engines, and reached the temple of Holy Mary, ever a virgin, they were miraculously driven back on those who sent them, and killed a multitude of the Chaldeans. And as the Lord doth not number the spears, but giveth the victory to whom he pleaseth, so when the faithful left the cave to join in the battle, the Chaldeans forthwith fled, being divided into two bodies. And Bishop Oppas was soon taken, and Al-Khaman slain; in the same place were also slain 124,000 of the Chaldeans. Sixty-three thousand who remained alive ascended the top of Mount Auseva, and hastily descended by a precipice, which is usually called Amosa, to the territory of the Liebanians. But neither did these escape the Lord’s vengeance; for when they reached the banks of the Deva, near a heritage called Casegadia, that part of the hill which overhung the river suddenly gave way,—manifestly through God’s judgment,—forced the sixty-three thousand Chaldeans into the river, and covered them all. So that, even at this day, when the channel is swollen by the winter torrents, and the banks are overflown, vestiges of arms and human bones are clearly to be seen. Do not esteem this a vain or false miracle, but remember that He who thus covered the Arabs, the persecutors of God’s church, with such a vast mountain heap, is the same who plunged the Egyptians into the Red Sea while pursuing Israel.[f]

Sebastian further adds that 375,000 Moors took refuge in France from the divine vengeance. His generosity with his numerals equals his liberality with miracles, but is more confusing. The result of the battle, however, was most definite. Al-Khaman and his colleague Suleiman were both killed.[a]

[718-739 A.D.]

Oppas, too, is said to have been taken prisoner, and justly put to death for his treachery. This was splendid success; but it was almost equalled by the defeat of Manuza. This chief, who was then governor of a northern city, hearing of the disastrous defeat of his countrymen, and apprehensive that the enemy would soon be upon him, ordered his troops to retreat; but he was overtaken, defeated, and slain by the Asturian hero. These memorable events fixed the destiny of the infant kingdom; they were the first of a succession of triumphs which, though sometimes tardy, and often neutralised by accident, ended in the final expulsion of the invaders from the peninsula. The Asturias were now left in the undisturbed possession of the Christians, nor were the Mohammedans for some years in any disposition to assail their formidable neighbours.

The remainder of Pelayo’s reign is unknown: it was probably passed in peace. He died in 737, and was buried in the church of St. Eulalia, at Cangas de Onis. Of Favila, the son and successor of Pelayo, nothing is known beyond his brief reign and tragical death. In 739, he was killed by a boar while hunting near the church of the Holy Cross, which he had founded.

ALFONSO THE CATHOLIC (739-757 A.D.)

[739-757 A.D.]

Alfonso I, surnamed the Catholic, a son-in-law of Pelayo, descended, we are told, from Leuvigild, was the next prince on whom the suffrages of the Asturians fell: not that Favila left no children; but they were doubtless of tender age, and therefore unfitted for bearing so heavy a burden as the duties of monarchy in times so critical.[21] Besides, among these rude mountaineers, hereditary right seems to have been as much unknown as among their Gothic fathers; the crown, however, was always confined to the same family, and the election was generally sure to fall on the next prince in succession, provided he was not disqualified for the dignity either by age, or impotence of body or of mind.

Though no record remains of Alfonso’s battles with the Arabs, it is certain that he must have been victor in several; for he made ample additions to his territories. Lugo, Orense, and Tuy, in Galicia; Braga, Oporto, Viseu, and Chaves, in Lusitania; Leon, Astorga, Simancas, Zamora, Salamanca, and Ledesma, in the kingdom of Leon; Avila, Sepulveda, Segovia, Osma, Corunna del Condé, Lara, and Saldaña, in Castile—these, and many other places of less note, were reduced by him. It appears, however, that he acted with cruelty towards the Mohammedan inhabitants, whom he exterminated to make room for his Christian colonists.[22] Biscay, too, and Navarre, obeyed Alfonso; so that his kingdom extended from the western shores of Galicia into Aragon, and from the Cantabrian Sea to the southern boundary of the Tierra de Campos; that is, over about one-fourth of all Spain. To account for the rapidity and extent of these conquests—conquests, however, which for the most part were frequently lost and regained in succeeding wars,—the reader has only to remember the civil dissensions of Mohammedan Spain some years prior to the accession of the caliph Abd ar-Rahman.

But Alfonso was not merely a conqueror: the colonies which he established, the towns which he founded or restored, the churches which he built or repaired, are justly adduced as signal monuments of his patriotism and religious zeal. Hence the appellation of “Catholic”—an appellation which continues at the present day. His end happened in 757.[h]

In the chronicle of Alfonso the reign of the first Alfonso is treated with great reverence and his death thus described:

“In the nineteenth year of the reign of Alfonso the Catholic, of the era 791, of the Incarnation of our Lord 753, of the empire of Constantine 15, and of the Alarabes since Muhammed was their king, 132, it befel that King Alfonso, having populated such places as he saw he could maintain, and laboured ever to serve God as far as in him lay, and to maintain his kingdom in peace and justice, fell sick and died, and rendered his soul to God, and at the hour of his death voices were heard in the air singing, ‘The righteous perisheth and no man layeth it to heart, and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come. He shall enter into peace.’[23] And King Alfonso was buried with great pomp in the town of Cangas with his wife Doña Hermesinda, in the church of Santa Maria of that town.”[k]

ALFONSO THE CHASTE AND BERNARDO DEL CARPIO

[757-866 A.D.]

Fruela I (757-768) Alfonso’s son, made Oviedo his capital. To strengthen his position, endangered by the civil distractions of his reign, he obtained his recognition as king of the Asturias and Oviedo from the caliph of Cordova in exchange for an annual tribute. He was very pious, but killed his own brother, and his difficulties were ended only by his assassination. Four usurpers, Aurelio, Silo, Mauregato, and Bermudo I. followed one another on his throne and continued to pay the tribute to Cordova, coupled, the legend says, with the yearly present of one hundred virgins. Alfonso II, called the Chaste, is credited with putting an end to this humiliating relation to Cordova. He was the son of Fruela I and began his reign in 791 by vigorously repulsing a Moorish invasion. He added to the kingdom on the southern frontier, but his relations with Charlemagne constitute the chief interest of his reign. He is said to have offered to make the Frankish monarch his heir, in return for the latter’s assistance against the Moors, and Louis le Débonnaire, Charlemagne’s son, twice led an army into Spain, which conquered the “Spanish Mark.” But Alfonso’s promise to Charlemagne was disapproved by the nobles; whereupon (so the Spanish writers affirm), a quarrel ensued between the Franks and the Spaniards of Oviedo. With this quarrel they connect the great battle of Roncesvalles, where Charlemagne’s forces under his nephew Roland were defeated and Roland was slain. But this battle is assigned by Arab writers to 778 A.D., thirteen years before the accession of Alfonso.[a]

Of the legendary slaughter, of the heroism of Roland, of the valour of Bernardo del Carpio, of the hundred and one stories which have been embroidered upon the simple happening of this mountain ambuscade, no account can be given here; but at least one important fact comes out of the legend, namely, that Spaniards of all sorts and races, though divided enough to be constantly fighting among themselves, had now, for the first time in their history, the early promptings of the nationality of soil, as apart from that of faith or tribal connection, sufficiently strong to permit of a coalition against a foreigner as such. This feeling was again demonstrated a few years later (797), when Alfonso II, encouraged by his successful raids against the Moors in the south, bethought him to beg the aid of Charlemagne to establish himself in his new conquest, even as tributary of the Frankish emperor. But this the Spanish-Gothic nobles would not endure, and incontinently locked up their king in a monastery until he promised that no foreigner should ever be allowed to interfere in struggles on the soil of Spain.[b]

Alfonso the Chaste was succeeded in 842 by Ramiro I, son of King Bermudo. His election was disputed but he put down this as other rebellions. He repelled the Norse invaders, who then ravaged the Moslem coast. His alleged victories over the Saracens are not recorded by Arab historians. In 850 his son Ordoño I succeeded him. He won a battle at Clavijo—the great victory at the same place credited to his father being pure legend. He unintentionally aided the Moslems by defeating the Arab rebel Musa, but also drove off the hungry Norse pirates and was a famous builder of cities and castles. When he died in 866 he left the whole region from Salamanca to the Bay of Biscay to his eldest son.

Alfonso III, who was then only eighteen and was driven from the throne for a time, showed his native vigour by re-establishing himself against his enemies, though his pacificatory schemes to end the rebellions of Navarre ended in the eventual loss of that realm to Spain.[a]

ALFONSO THE GREAT

[866-914 A.D.]

But Alfonso’s victories over the Mohammedans almost atoned for his imprudent policy with regard to Navarre—if, indeed, that policy was not the compulsory result of circumstances. He removed the boundary of his dominions from the Douro to the Guadiana, and the territories thus acquired were possessed by his successors above a century, until the time of the great Almansor. From 870 to 901, his contests with the enemy—whether with the wickedness of the kings of Cordova or their rebellious vassals, who aimed at independence—were one continued series of successes. His last exploit at this period was the destruction, in the battle of Zamora, of a formidable army, led by the rebel Kalib of Toledo, whose ally, Abul-Kassim, fell on the field.

Mohammedan Sword and Shield

But this great prince, if glorious in his contests with the natural enemy, was unable to contend with his rebellious barons, headed by his still more rebellious son Garcia. At the prospect of a civil war, the king no longer wished to uphold his rights. Having convoked an assembly at Bordes, in the Asturias, in 910, he solemnly renounced the crown in favour of Don Garcia, who passed at once from a prison to a throne. To his second son, Ordoño, he granted the government of Galicia; and another, Fruela, he confirmed in that of Oviedo. These concessions were, doubtless, extorted from him—a fact that does not speak much for the firmness of his domestic administration; he appears, like many other princes of his country, to have been great chiefly in the field of battle.

Alfonso did not long survive his abdication. Having paid a visit to the shrine of Santiago in Galicia, on his return to Astorga he solicited permission and adequate forces from his son to make a final irruption into the Mohammedan territories. Both were granted; and in laying waste the possessions of the enemy, he had the consolation of reflecting that he had done great service to the church, and left another signal remembrance of his valour before his departure. He died at Zamora, at the close of the year 910; leaving behind him the reputation of one of the most valiant, magnanimous, and pious sovereigns that Spain ever produced.

ALFONSO’S SUCCESSORS

[914-950 A.D.]

Of Garcia, the successor of Alfonso III, little more is known than that he transferred the seat of sovereignty from Oviedo to Leon; made a successful irruption into the territories of the misbelievers; and died in 914. The nobles and bishops of the kingdom—henceforth called the kingdom of Leon—having met, according to custom, for the purpose of nominating a successor, placed the royal crown on the head of Ordoño, brother of the deceased Garcia. Ordoño II, under the reigns both of his father and brother, had distinguished himself against the Mohammedans; and he resolved that no one should say his head was weakened by a crown. In 917 he advanced towards the Guadiana, stormed the town of Alhange, which is above Merida, put the garrison to the sword, made the women and children captives, and gained abundant spoil. With the wealth thus acquired he founded the magnificent cathedral of Leon. In a subsequent expedition he ruined Talavera, and defeated a Mohammedan army near its walls. Indignant at these disasters, Abd ar-Rahman III assembled a powerful army, not only from all parts of Mohammedan Spain, but from Africa; but this immense host was also defeated, under the walls of San Pedro de Gormaz. In a subsequent battle, however, which appears to have been fought the same year in Galicia, victory declared for neither party. Nearly three years afterwards (in 921), Ordoño was entirely defeated in the battle of Val-de-Junquera, whither he had advanced to aid the king of Navarre. He took his revenge for this disaster by an irruption into Andalusia, which he laid waste from the Navas de Tolosa to within a day’s journey of Cordova. Soon after his return to Leon, the king committed a rigorous but treacherous act of justice. Four counts of Castile, whom he suspected of disaffection, were put to death. Ordoño died in 923, immediately after his third marriage with a princess of Navarre.

Fruela II, brother of Ordoño, was elected in preference to the children of the deceased king. Alfonso IV, who succeeded in 925, in preference to the sons of Fruela II, is represented as a prince more addicted to piety than to ambition. In the sixth year of his reign, he renounced the vanities of the world, resigned the sceptre into the hands of his brother Ramiro, and retired into the monastery of Sahagun. The following year, however, he forsook his cell, and, with a considerable force, hastened to Leon to reclaim the throne. His brother compelled him to surrender, and again consigned him to his monastery, with three princes (the sons of Fruela II) his counsellors. In accordance with the laws of the Visigoths, the punishment of death was commuted to all four by the loss of their eyes. Alfonso survived his misfortune about two years and a half.

Ramiro II, who ascended the throne in 930, is chiefly distinguished for his wars with the misbelievers. He gained a considerable advantage over Abd ar-Rahman III at Simancas. Like most of his predecessors, Ramiro had also to struggle with internal discord. The dependent count of Castile, Fernan Gonsalez, and one Diego Nuñez, a count also in the same province, for reasons with which history (however communicative romance may be) does not acquaint us, revolted against him. The king marched against them, seized their persons, and confined them in two separate fortresses. His displeasure was not of long duration: he suffered the counts to resume their offices on their taking the usual oaths of obedience; and he even married his eldest son, Ordoño, to Urraca, daughter of Fernan Gonsalez. To that son, on the vigil of the Epiphany, in the year 950, he resigned the crown: his growing illness convinced him that he had not long to live; he therefore assumed the penitential garb, and passed his few remaining days in religious retirement.

[950-967 A.D.]

Ordoño III had scarcely ascended the throne before he was troubled by the ambitious projects of his younger brother, Don Sancho. That prince, wishing to share the sweets of power, modestly requested that the government of one or two provinces might be confided to him; and on the refusal of the king, he persuaded Garcia of Navarre and the count of Castile to espouse his interests. That Fernan Gonsalez, the father-in-law of the rightful sovereign, whose forfeited life had been spared by the generosity of that sovereign’s father, should thus conspire against Ordoño, proves the infamy of his character; neither gratitude nor oaths had any influence over this unprincipled governor. But on this occasion treason and perjury met with deserved failure: Sancho and the count, at the head of the Castilians and Navarrese, in vain invaded the territories of Leon; they found Ordoño so well prepared to receive them that they retreated without risking a single battle. Incensed at this conduct of his vassal, the king repudiated his wife Urraca, and immediately married Elvira, a lady connected with the chief families of Leon. Fernan Gonsalez was now compelled to bow the knee before him. With equal success he triumphed over the Galicians, who rebelled. He died in 955.

Sancho I, surnamed from his corpulency the Fat, now arrived at the summit of his ambition. But by the retributive justice of heaven he was doomed to bear, and in a still heavier degree, the burden of anxiety which he had laid on his brother and predecessor. Aided by the restless count of Castile, whose daughter, the divorced Urraca, he had married, Ordoño, son of Alfonso IV, aspired to the throne. Despairing of success by open arms, the two rebels artfully seduced the troops of Sancho from their allegiance, and persuaded them to join the intruder. This unexpected event deprived the king of the means of resistance, compelled him to flee secretly for his life, and raised Ordoño IV to a precarious dignity. The exiled Sancho sought the aid of his maternal uncle, the king of Navarre. But instead of an army to regain his rightful possessions, he received the consoling admonition that he ought to submit with patience to the dispensations of heaven; and that if he could not regain his kingdom, he might at least rid himself of his excessive corpulency, with which he appears to have been seriously inconvenienced. As no Christian leech could be found skilful enough to effect the change, and as the physicians of Cordova were renowned over all Europe, he wrote to Abd ar-Rahman III for permission to visit that capital. It was readily granted: Sancho was courteously received and magnificently entertained by the caliph; by the juice of certain herbs in a short time he was effectually rid of his cumbrous mass of flesh, and restored to his former lightness and agility.[24]

But this was not the only advantage which Sancho derived from his residence in the court of the caliph. He so won the favour of Abd ar-Rahman and the Moslem chiefs that they wished to restore him. At the head of his new allies the king returned to Leon, and was everywhere received with open arms. The tyranny of the intruder had rendered him obnoxious; his cowardice made him contemptible to the people. In utter hopelessness of aid from any of his former subjects, he retired into the Mohammedan territories, where he ended his days in misery. The restored king did not long survive his good fortune. In an expedition against Gonsalo Sanchez, count of Galicia, who aspired to render that government independent of Leon, he was poisoned under the mask of hospitality by that perfidious rebel, after a troubled reign of twelve years.

As Ramiro III was only five years of age on the death of his father, his education fell to the care of his aunt, Doña Elvira, abbess of the convent of San Salvador, who also appears to have been regent of the kingdom. His minority offers little that is interesting, if we except a predatory irruption of the Normans, in 968. As Ramiro grew in years, the qualities which he exhibited augured anything but good to his people. He became so odious to the nation that the counts of Castile, Leon, and Galicia threw off their allegiance to him, and proclaimed in Compostella Prince Bermudo, grandson of Fruela II. Ramiro immediately assembled an army, and marched against his rival, whom he encountered near Monterroso in Galicia, in 982. The contest, though long and bloody, was indecisive; so that both kings, afraid of renewing it, retired to their respective courts—Ramiro to Leon, and Bermudo to Santiago. The calamities arising from this civil strife were increased by the hostile inroads of Almansor, the celebrated hajib of Hisham II, who now began a career of unrivalled military splendour, and who was destined to prove the most formidable enemy the Christians had experienced since the time of Tarik and Musa. Fortunately, however, for the distracted state, Ramiro did not long survive his return to Leon: his death again consolidated the regal power.

In the reign of this prince (in 970) died the famous Fernan Gonsalez, count of Castile, whose fruitless efforts after independence have been already noticed. His fame arises not so much from the real as from the romantic exploits with which the fertility of fiction has invested him.

As mention has been frequently made of the counts of Castile, and as that government is about to form a conspicuous portion of Spanish history, the subject may be properly introduced here.

ORIGIN OF CASTILE

[760-1010 A.D.]

Ancient Cantabria, which the writers of the eighth century usually termed Bardulia, and which, at this period, stretched from the Biscayan Sea to the Douro, towards the close of the same century began to be called Castella—doubtless from the numerous forts erected for the defence of the country by Alfonso I. As the boundaries were gradually removed towards the south, by the victories of the Christians, the same denomination was applied to the new as well as to the former conquests, and the whole continued subject to the same governor, who had subordinate governors dependent on him. Of the first governors or counts, from the period of its conquest by that prince in 760 to the reign of Ordoño I (a full century), not even the names are mentioned in the old chroniclers; the first we meet with is that of Count Rodrigo, who is known to have possessed the dignity at least six years, viz., from 860 to 866.

Bermudo II, who, on the death of Ramiro, in 982, was acknowledged king of Leon, had little reason to congratulate himself on his elevation, since his reign was one of the most disastrous in the national annals—distracted alike by domestic rebellion and foreign invasion. The fierce Almansor laid waste the greater part of his kingdom, entered his very capital, and forced him to seek refuge in the heart of the Asturias. He died in 999.

Alfonso V was only five years of age on the death of his father; and the government was consequently entrusted to a regent. That regency is eventful, from the defeat of Almansor in 1001—a defeat which not only occasioned the death of that hero, but which was the forerunner of the fall of Cordova. In the dissensions which followed among the candidates for the throne of Hisham, the Christian princes of Spain embraced different sides, as their interests or inclinations dictated. In 1010, Alfonso was imprudent enough to confer the hand of his sister on Muhammed, king of Toledo—a prince who was subsequently raised to the throne of Cordova, but was soon deposed and put to death by Hisham. As the king of Leon grew in years, he endeavoured to repair the disasters which had been occasioned by the hostile inroads of the Arabs: he rebuilt and repeopled his capital, whither the seat of government was again transferred from Oviedo. His good intentions, however, were not a little thwarted by the rebellion of Count Sancho Garces of Castile. In 1021, Don Sancho died: his son, Don Garcia, a mere child, succeeded him. With Don Garcia ended the counts of Castile—which was thenceforth to be governed by kings, and to remain more than two centuries dissevered from Leon. Alfonso carried his arms into Portugal, and laid siege to Viseu, then held by the Mohammedans. He was mortally wounded by an arrow from the ramparts.

SANCHO EL MAYOR

[1010-1037 A.D.]

Like his father, Bermudo III, though already married to the infanta of Castile, was at a tender age on his accession. Of this circumstance advantage was unworthily taken by Sancho el Mayor, king of Navarre, who, not satisfied with assuming the sovereignty of Castile in right of his queen, Doña Muña Elvira, the elder sister of the queen of Leon, and daughter of Don Garcia, the last count of Castile, made a hostile irruption into the states of his brother-in-law. Having passed the Pisuerga, the western boundary of Castile, he conquered as much of Leon as lay between that river and the Cea. Peace was, however, made on the condition that the king of Leon should confer the hand of his sister, Doña Sancha, on Don Ferdinand, one of King Sancho’s sons. But this peace appears to have been subsequently broken, doubtless through the ambition of the enterprising Navarrese; for, according to the Complutensian[p] and Toledan[q] annals, that king in 1034 possessed Astorga, and indeed most of the country as far as Galicia. Yet what need of conquest? As Bermudo continued childless, the wily monarch might safely cherish the hope that the crown of Leon would devolve on the brows of his son in right of the infanta, his daughter-in-law.

On the death of Sancho, in 1035, his ample states were thus divided: to Garcia he left the kingdom of Navarre, the lordship of Biscay (which had been hitherto annexed to Castile), and a part of Rioja; to Ferdinand he bequeathed the new kingdom of Castile, and the conquests he had made between the Pisuerga and the Cea; to Ramiro fell the states of Aragon, which had hitherto continued a stateship as much dependent on Navarre as Castile on Leon; to another son, Gonsalo, he left Ribagorza, with some forts in Aragon. This policy could not fail to be followed by fatal results. While Ramiro made war on his brother of Navarre, Ferdinand I was summoned to the defence of the conquests which he held beyond the Pisuerga, and which Bermudo resolved again to incorporate with the kingdom of Leon. Aided by some auxiliary troops under his brother Garcia, he encountered Bermudo on the banks of the Carrion. The battle, which was fought in 1037, was sanguinary and long-continued; until the king of Leon impatiently spurred his horse into the midst of the hostile squadrons, and fell mortally wounded by the thrust of a lance.

With Bermudo III ended the male line of the house of Leon. This prince deserved a better fate than that of falling by hostile hands at the premature age of nineteen. The zeal with which he rebuilt churches and monasteries; the valour which he exhibited against the Mohammedans of Portugal, from whom he took several fortresses; the firmness with which, even at that early age, he enforced the administration of justice; and his affability of disposition, rendered him deservedly dear to his people.[h]

THE HISTORY OF CASTILE (1037-1109 A.D.)

[1037-1064 A.D.]

After this fateful battle on the Carrion, in which Bermudo fell, Ferdinand, who had taken Bermudo’s sister to wife, seized upon the whole of Leon and its dependencies and united them with the rest of his dominions to form the kingdom of Castile.

His solemn coronation at Leon ushered in a new epoch in the history of Christian Spain. To pacify the Leonese, who were profoundly aggrieved at the loss of their supremacy, he caused an assembly of the estates to be held at Coyanza, and there confirmed all the civil and ecclesiastical privileges and liberties which had come down to them from earlier times, and added others. At the same time he augmented the defensive armaments of his dominions, with the twofold object of repressing rebellion and making war upon the Saracens.

His elder brother, Garcia, cast envious glances at the flourishing neighbour country, which rose steadily to greater heights of prosperity and power under Ferdinand’s wise governance. He was mortified that his hereditary kingdom of Navarre should be ousted from the dominant position it had taken under his great father. He therefore laid snares in his brother’s way and embarrassed his dominion by perpetual intrigues till at length a fratricidal war broke out between them. The hatred he bore his brother led Garcia to conclude an alliance with the emir of Saragossa and Tudela. But the battle of Atapuerca (1054), not far from Burgos, decided the struggle in Ferdinand’s favour; Garcia was slain by a lance-thrust, the Navarrese were routed, and most of their Moorish auxiliaries killed or taken prisoners. Ferdinand then added the district on the right bank of the Ebro to his own dominions, and left the rest of the kingdom to the late king’s son, Sancho III.

Having thus tranquillised his own kingdom and assured its safety, he endeavoured to extend it southwards by making war upon the infidels. He destroyed the fortresses in the northern provinces of what is now the kingdom of Portugal, crossed the Douro, and took Lamego, Viseu, and other fortified towns, under whose walls Christian and Moslem had so often measured their strength in days gone by. These successes inflamed the Castilians with martial ardour and religious enthusiasm and made them eager for fresh ventures. Having first secured the consent of his knights and nobles in an assembly of the estates, the king conquered a chain of fortified towns on the eastern frontier of Castile which had long served the enemy as a point d’appui, and then pressed forward into the heart of the Moorish provinces. He laid the country waste, and spread terror as far as Andalusia. The aged ruler of Seville purchased peace with rich gifts, among which were the relics of St. Isidore, which Ferdinand buried with great pomp at Leon in the church he had built and dedicated to the saint.

THE ALHAMBRA

Ferdinand crowned his glorious career by the conquest of the great fortified city of Coimbra, which for six months had offered a stubborn resistance. The soul of the monarch overflowed with martial ardour and religious devotion. In time of peace he was to be seen devoutly kneeling at the altar and joining in the chants of the priests. War was likewise a religious act in his eyes. With the sword he desired to maintain the honour of God among the infidels and win a heavenly crown for himself. Returning stricken with disease from one of his campaigns, the pious king had himself carried into the church of St. Isidore, where he laid aside the insignia of royalty, and, wrapped in the garment of a penitent, passed away in the arms of the priests, in 1065.

[1064-1072 A.D.]

At an assembly of the estates, held a few years before, he had made arrangements for the succession and for the partition of his dominions. According to these, Castile passed to Sancho II, his first-born son; Leon and Asturias to Alfonso, his favourite; Galicia and the newly districts as far the Douro to Garcia, the youngest. The cities of Zamora and Toro he assigned to his two daughters, Urraca and Elvira, and conferred on them the patronage of all abbeys in the kingdom. We know from the romance of The Cid—who in the reigns of Ferdinand and his sons performed those prodigies of valour which later generations celebrated in song—that shortly after his father’s death Sancho made war upon his brothers with the intention of seizing their dominions for himself.[25] After several battles Alfonso and Garcia were stripped of their possessions and compelled to flee to Toledo and Seville. All the country from the range of the Pyrenees to the shores of the west Atlantic Ocean, which Ferdinand had acquired partly by inheritance and partly by conquest, thus fell under the sway of his son Sancho. Only the rocky stronghold of Zamora still owned allegiance to the princess Urraca, and afforded a safe refuge to the adherents of the fugitive king Alfonso and other malcontents.

Knight of the Order of St. Iago

Sancho resolved to conquer this city too, for fear it should become a centre and bulwark of rebellion; but was treacherously murdered under its walls by the lance of a traitor knight, Vellido Dolfo by name. His army speedily dispersed; only a band of brave Castilians loyally kept guard over the king’s body and bore it to the abbey of San Salvador at Oña, where it was solemnly committed to the earth. On receiving the tidings of his brother’s murder, Alfonso fled secretly from Toledo, where he had been hospitably entertained, and took possession of Sancho’s kingdom. Garcia, the younger brother, also came in haste, hoping to regain Galicia, the share his father had bequeathed him. But Alfonso, who was no less ambitious and unjust than the murdered Sancho, had his brother perfidiously seized on his arrival, and kept him in captivity, loaded with fetters, for the rest of his life.

[1072-1126 A.D.]

Alfonso VI was now master of the whole of his father’s kingdom of Castile, Leon, and Galicia; and when his royal cousin of Navarre, a few years later, fell a victim to conspirators, he joined the king of Aragon in the conquest and partition of the bereaved kingdom; and after its brief hour of glory it was long before Navarre was again counted among independent states.

Henceforward history follows the fortunes of the two kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, which rose upon its ruins. Side by side with them Catalonia flourished in the east, blest with culture and prosperity, but exercising no particular influence on the course of events; and towards the end of the century some knightly adventurers laid the foundation of the kingdom of Portugal in the west, the northern part of which Alfonso conferred first on his son-in-law, Raymond of Burgundy, and then on Count Henry, the husband of his natural daughter Theresa, as a fief of the kingdom of Castile.

All these kingdoms turned their arms against the disunited Mohammedan world in the centre and south of the peninsula. When once he had gained secure possession of his kingdom, Alfonso, guided by the judicious advice of his sister Urraca, who always retained great influence over the brother she loved so dearly, endeavoured by the excellence of his administration and legislation to efface the stains that had defiled his path to the throne. He took counsel with honourable and capable men on affairs of state, he delivered the communes from the oppressions of royal officers and judges, abolished the burdensome turnpike toll which had been levied on all pilgrims who visited the famous shrine of Santiago de Compostella and had given occasion for many exactions and abuses, and by the disuse of the Gothic liturgy established in Christian Spain the Roman and hierarchical system of church government, which had been striving to extend its sway over all the countries of Europe ever since the time of Gregory VI. By the zeal of the Benedictines of Sahagun and the French clergy whom he appointed to many important preferments in the Pyrenean peninsula, the Spanish church was soon brought at all points under the supremacy of Rome.

He then availed himself of dissensions which had arisen amongst Moslem rulers to carry his arms into the heart of the Moorish states. After the conquest of Toledo he was able to cherish the proud hope of extending Christian rule over the whole peninsula. The arrival of the Almoravids, however, put an end to his triumphant progress. After a long reign which succeeding generations have ever borne in mind as a period of glory, justice, and general prosperity, Alfonso VI died in 1109 of a broken heart at the defeat of Ucles and the loss of his only son. His daughter Urraca, queen of Leon and Castile, who governed the country during her son’s minority, espoused Alfonso I, king of Aragon, as her second husband. But instead of strengthening the unity and power of Christian Spain, this alliance led to furious civil wars which served to strengthen and prolong Moslem dominion.

ORIGIN AND EARLIEST HISTORY OF THE KINGDOM OF ARAGON

[714-1076 A.D.]

On the right bank of the river Noguera, which takes rise in the Pic de la Maladetta, the loftiest summit of the Pyrenees, and flows southward along the frontier between the districts now known as Catalonia and Aragon, to mingle its waters with the Segre, had lain from time immemorial the county of Ribagorza. The owners of this land, men of strong arm and devout faith, strove with all their might to check the warlike enterprise of the Moslem, who possessed a sure centre and stronghold in the governorship of Saragossa.

Their family possessions were broken up by repeated partitions, but various members of the ancient stock were scattered over the whole country north of the Ebro and formed fresh alliances and made fresh acquisitions by marriage and inheritance. Thus the line of the counts of Aragon, who ruled the town of Jaca and the province of Sobrarbe, early entered into matrimonial alliances with the family of the counts of Ribagorza. The royal house of Navarre was also connected by marriage with both families, and, on the extinction of the male line in both at the end of the tenth century and the beginning of the eleventh, King Sancho, who was in a position to enforce the claims of kinship with the sword, took possession of Aragon, Sobrarbe, and Ribagorza, and on his death bequeathed the province of Aragon, as has already been stated, to his natural son Ramiro (1035).

The latter assumed the title of “king of Aragon,” and endeavoured by fraud and force to gain a fitting extension to the territory of his kingdom. An attempt which he made to wrest Navarre from his elder brother Garcia was frustrated, but, on the other hand, after Gonsalo, the other brother, had been assassinated, he succeeded in gaining possession of his territories of Sobrarbe and Ribagorza, whether by popular election or otherwise cannot be certain. Ramiro also took the field against the Saracens, but the power and personal abilities of the emirs of Saragossa (Mundhir ben Yahya and the Banu Hud) prevented him from gaining any brilliant successes. At the same time he continued to give proof of his piety by founding abbeys and giving gifts to the church in the spirit of the counts before him. The abbey of San Juan de la Peña was the most favoured sanctuary of all, and was richly endowed with lands and revenues, privileges and liberties by the king and the nobles of Aragon. The donation which the king had sent to Pope Alexander II when he introduced the Roman liturgy into Aragon was declared by Gregory VII to be a tribute due to the apostolic see.

Ramiro fell in battle against the Saracens at the siege of Grados (1063), and his son Sancho Ramirez, a young prince full of energy, courage, and adventurous spirit, ascended the throne. He promptly turned his arms against the Moors. Having first wrested from them all the possessions they held in the mountainous districts of Aragon, Sobrarbe, and Ribagorza, he came down upon the fertile plains watered by the Cinca, Gallego, and other tributaries of the Ebro, and after a fierce engagement in which his ally, Count Ermengol of Urgel, lost his life (1065), took the important city of Barbastro which, though lost again a short time after, finally passed into the power of the Aragonese, and provided them with a favourably situated base for subsequent conquests. Soon afterwards King Sancho III of Navarre, the son of Garcia, was murdered at Peñalen by a band of conspirators headed by his ambitious brother Raymond and his sister Ermesenda (1076). As his children were not of age and the Navarrese refused to acknowledge the fratricide as their sovereign, the two kings Alfonso VI of Castile and Sancho Ramirez of Aragon marched into the neighbour kingdom, put Raymond to flight and divided the country between them; the country as far as the Ebro being united to Aragon, and Rioja, with Najera and Calahorra and the Basque provinces of Alava, Guipuzcoa, and Biscay falling to the share of Alfonso VI of Castile and Leon.

[1076-1109 A.D.]

Sancho then undertook a war of revenge against the emir Ahmed Muktadir of Saragossa, who had given shelter to the fugitive regicide Raymond. Having first seized some favourably situated places on the Ebro he advanced upon the city of Huesca, which, with the surrounding district, lay like a broad wedge driven into Aragonese territory, fortified with many strongholds and severing the north of his dominions from the south. In a war which lasted for several years and which was marked with every accompaniment of horror, the brave king succeeded in subjugating a large part of this district and making a safe road to the very walls of Huesca by a succession of skilfully planned fortifications. But he was not destined to witness the fall of the city; he received his death-wound in the siege from the enemy’s arrows (1094). His valiant son Pedro carried on with vigour and energy the work which his father had begun and urgently enjoined on him with his dying breath.

The Moslems strained every nerve to save the bulwark of their dominion in northern Spain. The emir Ahmed Mostain led a great confederate army, which numbered not only Almoravids but Christian auxiliaries in its ranks, into the field against Aragon. But Pedro’s victory at Alcoraz decided the fate of Huesca. In the very year (1096) in which western Christendom was making ready to drive the infidels out of Jerusalem, Huesca and all the country north of the Ebro fell into the hands of the Christians of Spain. Henceforward the fall of Saragossa could only be a question of time, a question which would have been decided earlier than it was if a civil war had not broken out between Alfonso I of Aragon (Alfonso VII of Leon) who succeeded Pedro in 1104, and his wife Queen Urraca of Castile.[o]

Before taking up the story of the war of Urraca and Alfonso, we may consider the exploits of the most famous warrior in Spanish history, the Cid, whose fame was so overgrown with romance that it became the fashion to deny that such a man ever existed in reality. But the critical historian who has robbed us of so many traditions has restored to us the Cid. His deeds are so typical of the period that they may claim some liberality of space, for in the words of H. E. Watts,[r] “The history of mediæval Spain without the Cid would be something more barren than the Iliad without Achilles.”[a]

BURKE’S ESTIMATE OF THE CID

[ca. 1050-1099 A.D.]

The three favourites of mediæval Spanish romance, says the Señor Lafuente,[cc] Bernardo del Carpio, Fernan Gonzalez, and the Cid, have this at least in common, that they were all at war with their lawful sovereigns, and fought their battles independently of the crown. Hence their popularity in Spain. The Castilians of the Middle Ages were so devoted to their independence, so proud of their fueros, such admirers of personal prowess, that they were disposed to welcome with national admiration those heroes who sprang from the people, who defied and were ill-treated by their kings.

The Cid is the only knight-errant that has survived the polished satire of Cervantes. For his fame was neither literary nor aristocratic; but like the early Spanish proverbs, in which it is said he took so great a delight, it was embedded deep in the hearts of the people. And although the memory of his religious indifference may not have added to his popularity in the sixteenth century in Spain, it is a part of his character which must be taken into account in gauging the public opinion of earlier days. From the close of the eighth century to the close of the fifteenth, the Spanish people, Castilians and Aragonese, were if anything less bigoted than the rest of Europe. The influence of their neighbours the Moors, and of their Arab toleration could not be without its effect upon a people naturally free, independent, and self-reliant; and the Cid, who was certainly troubled with no religious scruples in the course of his varied career, and who, according to a popular legend affronted and threatened the pope on his throne in St. Peter’s, on account of some fancied slight, could never have been the hero of a nation of bigots.

To judge the Cid, even as we now know him, according to any code of modern ethics, is supremely unreasonable. To be sure that, even now, we know him as he was is supremely presumptuous. But that Ruy Diaz was a great man, and a great leader of men, a knight who would have shocked modern poets, and a free lance who would have laughed at modern heroes, we can have no manner of doubt. That he satisfied his contemporaries and himself; that he slew Moors and Christians as occasion required, with equal vigour and absolute impartiality; that he bearded the king of Leon in his Christian council, and that he cozened the king of Saragossa at the head of his Moslem army; that he rode the best horse and brandished the best blade in Spain; that his armies never wanted for valiant soldiers, nor his coffers for goldpieces; that he lived “my lord the challenger,” the terror of every foe, and that he died rich and respected in the noble city that had fallen to his knightly spear—of all this at least we are certain; and, if the tale is displeasing to our nineteenth century refinement, we must be content to believe that it satisfied the aspirations of mediæval Spain.[g]

THE HISTORICAL CID

[ca. 1050-1065 A.D.]

The real existence of the Cid and the most important events in his life have been proved by a sufficient, although not by a large number of documents, which, being amplified by Middle Age chroniclers, have formed the basis of later tradition. It is more or less in this traditionary form that the Cid appears, in Spanish history.

Mariana[i] related the chief events of his life as popular tradition has collected them from history and fable, and contented himself with adding, “Some persons hold a large part of this account to be fabulous; I also relate many more statements than I believe, because I do not dare to pass over in silence what others assert, nor would I like to assert as certain that which I doubt for reasons which compel me to do so and which others have stated.”

Prudencio de Sandoval[u] questioned many single items and declared whole episodes to be unhistorical. He was followed by Ferreras.[v] When finally, in 1792, the Augustine Manuel Risco,[w] supported by the Gesta Roderici Campidocti which he had discovered, tried to rescue some part of the old traditions, the Jesuit, Juan Francisco de Masdeu, doubted not only the genuineness of this document but the very existence of the Cid. The English historian Dunham[h] was even more firmly sceptical. Robert Southey,[x] who published an English translation of the Chronicle of the Cid, tried hard to steer between history and story and rescue as much as possible of the latter.

Victor Aimé Huber[y] has the credit of being the first to distinguish between the historical and mythical elements with great critical ability. The material used by Huber was not materially enriched until the Dutch orientalist R. Dozy[z] discovered in the library at Gotha, in 1844, an Arabic account of the Cid and his most celebrated deed of arms, the conquest of Valencia. This was found in the third volume of a history of literature (Zakira) written by the Moorish author Ibn Bassam,[aa] in the year 503 of the Hegira, according to his statement (1109 A.D.), that is, only ten years after the death of the Cid. It is thus the oldest, the only really contemporary account of the celebrated Spanish hero that we possess, and is of great historical value even though written by an enemy. The Dutch scholar was not satisfied merely to publish the text with a French translation, but also enumerated the known sources in order to distinguish between the historical and the more or less legendary traits of the same and to get as historically accurate a picture as possible of the Cid. At the same time he put entirely too much confidence in the Arabic account, placing himself in fact on the side of the Moors. Hence in order to get a correct idea of the Cid’s character one should not follow Dozy blindly, but should rather consider as to how far the Arab historian deserves credence on his own account.

The Cid

(From an old engraving of an alleged portrait)

The date of the Cid’s birth is not known. However, it cannot be far from the middle of the eleventh century, certainly not more than ten to twenty years before the battle on the Carrion river (1037), in which Ferdinand I of Castile conquered the allied kings of Leon and Navarre, and Bermudo III, king of Leon, met his death. With this king, who left no descendants, the Visigothic dynasty came to an end, that dynasty which since Pelayo for three hundred years had carried on the struggles of Christian Spain against the superior force of the Moors, under the most variable circumstances, but ever with increasing success. The birth, as well as the youth and first warlike deeds of Rodrigo Diaz de Bivar, later called the Cid,[26] fall in that brilliant period when the kingdom of Spain first acquired a greater power by the union of Castile and Leon and attained a certain moral supremacy over Moorish Spain. In a battle led by the eldest son of the king Sancho, against Sancho of Navarre, the Cid conquered a knight of Navarre in single combat and thus received the surname Campeador, i.e., “Challenger.” With the death of Ferdinand I, however (1065), the scarcely established union fell asunder. In his will he divided his kingdom among his five children.

[1065-1085 A.D.]

Scarcely three years after his father’s death Sancho was in open fight with his brother Alfonso at Llantado and won a temporary, though not a decisive victory. On this occasion Rodrigo de Bivar was promoted to be “banner-bearer,” i.e., “chief commander” of Sancho’s troops. The brothers kept the peace for only three years. Eventually Sancho was assassinated. Since there was no suitable pretendant to the throne, the crown of Castile was finally offered to Alfonso, but only on condition that he take a solemn oath to the effect that he was not a party to Sancho’s death. Rodrigo Diaz de Bivar and eleven other knights administered this oath. The king at the same time was seized with a violent dislike towards the Campeador. Policy, however, advised him not to indulge this for the present, but to try to attach this powerful and influential Castilian to himself by showing him favour. He even gave him his cousin Ximena in marriage (the 19th of July, 1074).

Alfonso sent him to the court of Mutamid, the king of Seville, to collect the tribute due him. At the very time of his arrival Mutamid was threatened by an attack from Abdallah, king of Granada, in whose army were several Christian nobles, among them Count Garcia Ordoñez, a prince of royal blood. The Campeador attacked them with his own people, and the Sevillians defeated them and took Garcia Ordoñez and other Castilian knights captive, although he freed them again after three days. That was enough for his enemies, especially Garcia Ordoñez, to malign him before Alfonso, after his return, saying that he kept a part of their presents for himself. The earlier dislike of the king was revived, and when Rodrigo, in 1081, on his own initiative and without permission undertook an attack on the Moors, the king seized the occasion to banish him. Thus the hero, with whose help the king might have been able to break completely the power of the Moors, was banished from Christian Spain and compelled to lead the life of a warrior chieftain or condottiere and even to seek service with the Moors themselves.

Just at this time (October, 1081) the emir Muktadir of Saragossa died, leaving two sons, one of whom, Mutamin, received Saragossa, the other, Mondzir, had Denia, Tortosa, and Lerida. They at once began to dispute each other’s possessions. Mondzir allied himself with King Sancho Ramirez of Aragon and Count Berengar of Barcelona. Mutamin won over the Campeador to his cause and found him his surest support. Rodrigo conducted expeditions of incredible boldness and became the terror of the princes allied against Mutamin. The latter besieged the fortress Almenara in overwhelming numbers and reduced it to such straits that Rodrigo himself advised treating for peace, in order to save the garrison, but when Mutamin insisted on holding out he repulsed the enemy in spite of superior force and even took the count of Barcelona captive. His entry into Saragossa was like a triumph, and the emir loaded him with honours and presents. Nevertheless the valiant Castilian would not be bound. As soon as an opportunity offered he tried again to approach King Alfonso. Not until the latter, in his pride and anger, had again repulsed him, did he continue to use his talents of generalship and his personal bravery in the service of Mutamin. He ravaged a large part of Aragon in an expedition lasting five days, and his attacks were executed so swiftly that his followers were usually up and away before the alarm could even be sounded for a repulse. He next attacked Mondzir’s possessions and plundered large tracts of territory with the same rapidity. When Sancho of Aragon came to assist his ally, Rodrigo defeated his troops, took sixteen nobles and two thousand soldiers captive and returned again to Saragossa with enormous booty. After Mutamin’s death (1085) he continued to serve his son Mostain; but no details have been preserved of his further warlike deeds until 1088. In that year he concluded a contract with Mostain, the object of which was the conquest of Valencia.

[1085-1094 A.D.]

In the complicated intrigues for the ownership of the city, the Campeador would seem, according to the account of Dozy,[z] at first to have played a double, not to say a many-sided part. He made a secret compact with Mostain, promising to help him get the city but reserving all booty for himself; but when Kadir made him rich presents he excused himself to Mostain by saying that an attack on Valencia could not be made without declaring war on Alfonso, and Mostain himself hesitated before such a step. At the same time he sent word to King Alfonso that he still regarded himself as his vassal and that all his expeditions were carried out only for the purpose of weakening the power of the Moors and of supporting an army at their expense, which would later bring the whole land into subjection to the king. So the latter let him keep his troops, with which he occasionally undertook his favourite raids of conquest and plunder. When reproached for them he declared that he did it only to earn his living. In 1089 he went to Castile to have a personal interview with the king. The latter received him graciously, gave him several castles and drew up a document, deeding all the fortresses and lands he should conquer from the Moors to him and his heirs forever. Thereupon the Cid returned to the neighbourhood of Valencia to join his army, which numbered seven thousand picked men.

But the Cid had another mischance with Alfonso. When the latter asked him to take part in an expedition against the castle of Aledo, near Larca, the Cid, through no fault of his own, arrived too late, and the king, although he suffered no injury thereby, allowed himself to be influenced by spiteful insinuations, deprived the brave warrior of his favour, took away the document he had given him the year before, confiscated all his estates, and imprisoned his wife and children. All attempts of the offended Cid to prove his innocence were repulsed; the only concession which the king made was to give back his wife and children. Again was the Cid obliged to fight his own way as an independent leader, with his own means, and to support his army by plunder. His bravery and ability met with unusual success. Kadir of Valencia paid him annually 120,000 dinares, the lord of Alborracin 10,000, the one of Alpuente the same, the lords of Murviedro and of Segorbe 6,000 each, of Jerica 4,000, of Almenara 3,000. The most important deed of arms in the next period was a brilliant victory over Berengar of Barcelona, who had attacked him unexpectedly but was defeated and himself taken captive with five thousand soldiers. The Cid demanded a high ransom, but set the prisoners free before it could all be paid.

[1094-1101 A.D.]

For the sake of Alfonso he broke off the siege of Liria, which had been progressing favourably, but an interview with the suspicious monarch led only to new discord. The latter felt offended on account of a mere trifle and wanted to take the Cid prisoner. When he escaped, the king, in revenge, himself undertook an expedition against Valencia, which to a certain extent was already in the power of the Cid. Rodrigo was deeply offended; with the speed of lightning he hurled himself on the counties of Najera and Calahorra, whose governor was his most implacable and powerful enemy, Count Garcia Ordoñez, the most important man next to the king. He committed such depredations with fire and sword in his provinces that Alfonso was obliged to abandon the siege of Valencia to protect his own land from Rodrigo’s plundering raids. This tragic self-destruction of Spanish force was fortunately brought to an end again by the dissension and strife among the Moors. While thus the inhabitants, split up into various parties, were fighting among themselves, some expecting help from one quarter, others from another, the Cid by a sudden attack surrounded the city, cut off all provisions and forced it to surrender on June 15th, 1094, because of most terrible famine. He was at first very lenient towards the conquered, promised them a just administration, and warned his own people to be merciful. Roderigo made Ibn Jahhaf draw up an inventory of all his possessions and swear that he had concealed nothing. Ibn Jahhaf took the oath and declared himself ready to die if anyone found anything not on the list. The oath was a false one. The deceit was soon discovered and then the Cid acted with all the severity of the times. He caused the treacherous and perfidious royal murderer to be burned (May or June, 1095), and with him a number of his friends and associates; he also wanted to condemn his wife and children to death by burning, but the Christians intervened and obtained their pardon.

Hated as Ibn Jahhaf had been before, he now became a martyr in the eyes of the Moors. Consequently in their accounts the Cid is charged with perfidy and cruelty. Now for the first time was the Cid fully and completely master of this rich and powerful city, the conquest of which was in some respects more important than that of Toledo by Alfonso. In the eyes of the Castilians it was a deed having few parallels, the highest and best which their much-feared warrior-hero achieved in a life so rich in battles. Olocau and Serra, two fortified places of great strategic importance, now fell into his hands and he thought with all seriousness of driving the Moors out of the whole of remaining Spain. An Arab of that time claims to have heard him say: “A Rodrigo lost this peninsula; another Rodrigo will win it back.” The Moors themselves saw these thoughts threateningly embodied in him, and Christian kings had to sue for his friendship.

In 1094 he allied himself with King Pedro of Aragon in order to force the power of the Almoravids further toward the south. At Beira, near Candia, where a Moorish fleet could support the attack of the land army, the Christians were hard pressed; only the heroism, personal bravery and tact of the Cid revived their sinking confidence and led them to victory, so that the superior force of the enemy was completely defeated and an immeasurable booty fell into their hands. After a short rest in Valencia he marched against Murviedro. Finally on St. John’s day, June 24th, 1098, he entered the city, celebrated the new victory with a Te Deum, and commanded the laying of the foundation for a St. John’s church in commemoration of the event. That he did not pursue selfish ends may be gathered from the testimony of the Mohammedans themselves, who state that his real end was to drive them out of Spain. But for the continuous struggle he carried on for this purpose, especially for the tedious sieges, he had to furnish his own means entirely. Even when disease and weakness did not permit him to carry a sword himself, he did not give up his great plan. But his followers were not so successful as he. They met with Ibn Aisha’s army, which had just won a brilliant victory at Cuenca over Alvar Fañez who commanded the royal army of Castile. Even the brave warriors of the Cid, who felt the need of their old leader, succumbed to the victorious might of the Moslems, and only a few of them returned to Valencia.

According to the Arab accounts the Cid died in 1099 from rage and grief at this defeat. For two years after the death of the unconquered warrior his widow Ximena succeeded in holding the city against the repeated attacks of the Almoravids. But in October, 1101, having decided to abandon it, the Christians set it afire in order to spoil the Mohammedan joy of victory. Mazdali and his army found only smoking ruins when they entered on May 5th, 1102. The body of the Cid was brought by his faithful wife herself and buried in the cloister of San Pedro de Cardeña at Burgos, where she had numberless masses said for the deceased. She outlived him only five years and was likewise buried at Burgos. His son [?] Diego Rodriguez fell in the battle of Consuegra. Of his two daughters one, Christina, married the infante Ramiro of Navarre, the other, Elvira, Raymond IV (Raymond Berengar III) of Barcelona. Through her the Cid became the ancestor of the later royal dynasty of Spain.

One hundred and thirty-six years passed before Valencia was reconquered for Christian Spain by James I of Aragon after a difficult and tedious siege (1238). The heroic life of the Cid, however, did not remain unfruitful during this interval.[bb]

CHRISTIAN SPAIN IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY

[1102-1118 A.D.]

The war between Alfonso of Aragon and his wife Queen Urraca of Castile lasted many years and was accompanied by conspiracies and partisan warfare among the nobles, by scandals in the royal palace, by the papal annulment of the marriage, by plunder of the treasures of the church, by the spoliation and impoverishment of the people. Even the queen’s death in 1126 did not immediately put an end to the war, for the two Alfonsos (her husband, and the son of her first marriage, Alfonso Raymond) now turned their arms against each other. Finally the clergy negotiated a peace. The two kingdoms were separated, a compromise being effected with regard to the disputed districts. Castile with Leon and Galicia formed the territory of Alfonso VII (or VIII,[27] since his stepfather is also counted amongst the Castilian kings); Aragon and Navarre were left to king Alfonso I (1126).

The Aragonese now once more turned his arms against the Moslem; the proud name of Batallador, “the fighter,” which his compatriots bestowed on him, may serve as evidence of the strength and energy with which he pushed on the struggle. [He also assumed the title of emperor.] It has been mentioned that by the conquest of Huesca, his predecessor Pedro had confirmed and consolidated the kingdom of Aragon. Ten years after his death, Tudela on the Ebro was won, and formed an important base for further conquest; but it was only when Alfonso, supported by the knights from the southern kingdom, had conquered the Saracens in several sharp encounters and finally, after a siege of seven months, had compelled the surrender of the city of Saragossa, 1118, the bulwark of the Arab rule in the northeast, that the kingdom of Aragon was able to proceed with its political development. Saragossa, so long the seat of a Mohammedan emir, became Alfonso’s capital. The principal mosque served henceforth for the worship of the Saviour. The knights and nobles who had stood bravely by the side of the king, as well as the soldiers who had gathered to his banner from beyond the Pyrenees, were richly rewarded.

[1118-1150 A.D.]

The Moslems were deeply affected by the loss of Saragossa, the result of their own want of unity; that they might not be entirely driven from the territory of the Ebro they nerved themselves to a general resistance. There was a series of sanguinary conflicts on the Segre and Ebro, and then under their brave commander Yahya ben Gania they won by stratagem the battle of Fraga, July, 1134, with which Alfonso ended his heroic life. His efforts had undermined his strength, and grief at this severe defeat did the rest. He sank on a bed of sickness from which he never rose again.[28]

The existence of the kingdom was endangered by his death. As he was childless he had designated the Christian orders of the knights of the Holy Sepulchre, who had taken the most active share in the struggles against the Saracens and who possessed lands and castles in all parts of the peninsula, as his heirs. But this disposition was not carried into effect.

In the “royal city” of Jaca, the Aragonese elected a brother of the dead man for their king. This was Ramiro II (1134-1137), who had lived in a cloister from his youth; and thus the warrior was replaced by a monk. On the other hand the Navarrese raised to the throne Garcia IV, a scion of their old princely house, and declared their independence of Aragon. Indeed, the priest-king was a feeble substitute for “the fighter”; still he secured the continued existence of Aragon. Immediately after his accession Ramiro espoused Inez, sister of the duke of Aquitaine and Poitou; she bore him a daughter, Petronilla, who at the age of two years was betrothed, on the advice of the grandees, to Raymond Berengar IV [or V] of Barcelona, or Catalonia, and when Ramiro soon after returned to the cloister the count received the regency of Aragon till the age of the bride should make the nuptials possible. The result of this marriage was the lasting union of Aragon and Catalonia[29] under Alfonso II, the son of Raymond and Petronilla.[o]

Want of space forbids us to give the details of the history of Raymond Berengar’s dominions. The district had been conquered by the Moslems in the eighth century, but part of it was recovered for Christianity by the Franks and formed into a province under the name of the Spanish Mark. The various counts soon asserted their independence, and those of Barcelona increasing in power and importance gradually absorbed the dominions of the rest and became masters of the whole of Catalonia.[a]

FOUNDATION OF THE SPANISH ORDERS OF KNIGHTHOOD

[1082-1162 A.D.]

Raymond sought to fulfil the testamentary dispositions of Alfonso by founding a special order of knighthood, modelled on the pattern of the Temple, “for the defence of the Western church and to oppose the Moors in Spain,” and he bestowed on it large possessions with castles and revenues. As a special Aragonese branch of the order of the Temple, it was under the grand-master of Jerusalem. The large profits which the brethren of the order might hope to derive from the spoils of the Arabs in case of a victory were a powerful incentive to enterprises and expeditions of conquest.

Before this, Raymond IV, Raymond’s father, a valiant warrior in the service of Christ, had himself joined the order of the Temple and had granted it extensive lands and rights. With the help of these, and supported by the Catalan knighthood and the Pisans, he had fought against the infidel with courage and success, and in a hotly contested struggle had taken from them many towns and citadels. He had also extended his territory in the north of the Pyrenees and had acquired the countship of Carcassonne, Besalu, Cerdagne, etc. Raymond V was not only the heir to these possessions which he united to Aragon; he continued the war of conquest against the Saracens, now single-handed, now in alliance with his brother-in-law, Alfonso VII (VIII) of Castile, who, like his predecessor, assumed the title of “emperor of Spain” and claimed the suzerainty over the other Christian kingdoms.

The Christians soon again succeeded in winning the upper hand of the Moslems. It was not only that religious enthusiasm, the chivalrous fighting spirit of the time and the prospect of knightly lands and spoil continually attracted fresh combatants to the standard; but dissensions and disorganisations amongst the disciples of Mohammed facilitated the progress of their arms. One party of the Moors called in the aid of the Castilian king. Alfonso VII did not hesitate to profit by the disorder amongst the Mohammedans. While the Portuguese king conquered Lisbon with the help of the crusaders, the Castilian “emperor,” in conjunction with Raymond of Barcelona, Count William of Montpellier, and the Christian chivalry of all the Spanish kingdoms, marched to the coast towns of Almeria, the headquarters of the Mohammedan pirates, invested it on the land side whilst the fleet of the Genoese and Pisans blockaded the harbour, and after a long siege compelled it to surrender. The garrison were put to the sword, and incalculable spoil was carried off. Raymond Berengar fought with like success against the Moslems on the Ebro, where, again supported by the Genoese and Pisans, he took the important city of Tortosa, and then added the whole territory on the river to his kingdom (1148).

Alfonso VII lived to see the hardly won town of Almeria again wrested from Castile. On his return from a military expedition he died in the pass of Muradal, a prince endowed with strength, intelligence, and the love of justice, full of zeal for the Christian faith and generous to churches and cloisters. With him the series of “emperors of Spain” comes to an end (1157).

With the death of Alfonso VII of Castile, and that of Raymond of Aragon and Catalonia, which followed five years later, the Christian kingdoms of the Spanish peninsula again entered on evil times. Whilst the Mohammedan world, united and strengthened under the rule of the Almohades, acquired fresh power in the south and southeast, and won back much of its ancient possessions, in the north the vigour of the attack and resistance was broken by divisions and civil contentions.

Although the kingdom of Aragon and Catalonia passed undivided to the young King Alfonso II, and his suzerainty extended over a great part of Languedoc and the country of Provence which was governed by a relative of the royal family, on the other hand, under the sons and successors of Alfonso VII the Castilian kingdom was dismembered; for Leon with Galicia and Asturias, and Navarre with the Basque provinces seceded from it and started an independent political existence under their own princes, without paying any further attention to the feudal superiority of Castile. The results of these partitions were intestine disputes and family quarrels which stood the Moslem in good stead.

[1157-1197 A.D.]

The divisions and weakness of Spanish Christendom would have gained a still greater ascendency, had not the clergy admonished the knighthood to the struggle against the infidels as a religious duty and kept alive their zeal for the faith. They encouraged the formation of the Spanish orders of knighthood to which the preservation of the Christian kingdoms and the final overthrow of the Mohammedans was principally owing. Besides the order of Calatrava which Raymond, abbot of the monastery of St. Mary at Fitero, founded in 1158 on the model of the Templars and according to the Cistercian rule, another brotherhood of the faith had come into existence in the year 1156. This was subsequently called the order of Alcantara, after its chief fortress. In Galicia the priesthood enrolled a number of warlike robber knights in the order of St. James of Compostella (1175), for the protection of the church of the tomb of St. James (St. Iago) in that city, and laid on them as their most sacred duty the obligation of escorting pilgrims thither.

It was principally the courage and religious enthusiasm of these armed brotherhoods that prevented the Moslem from again bearing the banner of Islam across the Ebro and Douro in the second half of the twelfth century, when Castile was distracted by internal strife, due to the enmity and jealousy of the two princely houses of Lara and Castro, when the Christian kings of the various states turned their arms against each other, when in Catalonia the confusion mounted to such a height that two archbishops of Tarragona were murdered and Portugal and Leon lay under ban and interdict on account of a marriage between near relatives, and anarchy and the right of the strong hand ruled unchecked.

Since the days of the great Almansor no prince had warred against Christian Spain with so much success as the Almohad, Abdul-Mumin, “the commander of the faithful.” But when, against the advice of his officers, he risked a battle at Santarem, he suffered a defeat in which he lost his life. But his son Yakub Almansor, a prince whose virtues and great qualities were not inferior to those of his contemporary Saladin, soon avenged his father’s death. The Third Crusade increased fanaticism even in the Pyrenean peninsula. Undisciplined hosts of pilgrims landed in the west and south, marking their path by robbery and devastation, and Christian and Saracen were spurred to fresh encounters. Roused by a devastating raid of the archbishop of Toledo against Seville, and by a written challenge of the Castilian king Alfonso “the noble,” Yakub Almansor took the field with his whole army. The Christian host, especially the numerous knights of the fraternities, both those of the country and foreign Templars and knights of St. John, opposed him at Alarcon and suffered a complete defeat (1195). The flower of the Christian chivalry were left on the battle-field. Almost all New Castile, as far as the fortress of Toledo, fell into the hands of the infidels; the mountains and citadels of Guadarrama and the want of provisions alone prevented the Moslems from again penetrating to the mountain districts of Asturia. Moreover the Castilians were at war with the Leonese and it was not until the marriage of Berengaria, the daughter of the Castilian king, with the king of Leon that a reconciliation was effected (1197). But, for this, king and kingdom were laid under an interdict, because the marriage was against the church’s law on account of the relationship of the parties, until Berengaria agreed to a divorce and returned to Castile. Her children, however, were considered as legitimate. At the same time Sancho of Navarre concluded an alliance with the Moorish party of the Almohads, in the hope of obtaining the supremacy over the Christian kingdoms by their assistance.

[1197-1212 A.D.]

Under these circumstances it seemed as though the Spanish Christians must succumb. Fortunately for them, Yakub Almansor died four years after the battle of Alarcon. It was not till the new emir Muhammed al-Nasir had succeeded in mastering his enemies, after several bloody battles, that he again undertook a “holy war” against the Christians. But in the meantime the northern kingdoms had revived and the zealous efforts of pope and clergy had succeeded in temporarily adjusting intestine feuds.

OVERTHROW OF THE MOSLEMS

Consequently when, after an interval of fourteen years, Muhammed renewed the struggle and took the field with vast hosts from Africa and Andalusia, he met with a powerful resistance (1211). It was not merely that the whole Spanish chivalry, headed by the members of the orders of every description, thronged to the standards of the kings of Aragon and Castile; many ultramontanes from the provinces of southern France and other districts were to be found there, who, fired by itinerant preachers, had travelled across the Pyrenees to earn a heavenly reward and earthly possessions as soldiers of God. By an ordinance of the pope, the assistance of heaven had been invoked throughout Christendom by fasts and processions. The religious excitement which at that time had gained possession of all minds, furthered the enterprise. Never before had such great hosts of warriors encountered one another in the peninsula.

In numbers, orders, and military discipline the Moslems were superior to the Christians; like the crusaders in the Holy Land, the Christian warriors in Spain, especially the free companies who had flocked thither from abroad, sullied the cause of faith by savage crimes and robbery and persecutions of the Jews in and about Toledo; and when the Saracens, having wasted their best strength during eight months before the mountain fortresses of Salvatierra, saw themselves compelled to agree to deliver up to the king of Castile the beleaguered city of Calatrava with the treasures collected there, in return for a free passage, the majority of the ultramontanes withdrew in anger, because the Spanish princes would not allow the retreating enemy to be waylaid in defiance of the promise given. Fanaticism had hardened their hearts and stifled the sentiments of honour and humanity. But in spite of the defection of the foreign soldiers, the Spanish Christians won a glorious victory in the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, in the Sierra Morena, when the rule of the Africans in Spain received its death-blow (1212), as described in the history of the Arabs. More than a hundred thousand corpses, amongst them that of Muhammed’s first-born, strewed the battle-field, and for long after the 16th of July was celebrated in Toledo by a great thanksgiving festival, called “the triumph of the cross.” The spoil was enormous, but the brilliant victory was stained by cruelty and rapine at the capture of the surrounding cities.[o]

FOOTNOTES

[19] [Compare what the Arab historian Al Lagi[j] said of Alfonso the Catholic: “The terrible Alfonso, the manslayer, son of the sword, killed tens of thousands of Moslems. He burned houses and dwellings, and no treaty could be made with him.” Christian historians equal this. The archbishop Rodrigo[c] draws a worse view of the desolation of Spain than even Isidore[d]: “Children are dashed on the ground, young men beheaded; their fathers fall in battle; the old men massacred, the women reserved for greater misfortune.” He tells us that “every cathedral in Spain was burned or destroyed”; that “the national substance, etc., was plundered, except what the bishops could save in the Asturias”; that “the cities which were too strong to be stormed immediately, were deluded into a surrender”; that “oaths and treaties were uniformly broken by the Arabs,” etc. Both he and Isidore may exaggerate, but the exaggeration only proves the fact.]

[20] The monk of Albelda[e] calls Pelayo the son of Bermudo, and nephew of king Roderic. His origin is wrapped in much obscurity. [Burke[g] says “Pelayo, no doubt, was but a robber chieftain, a petty mountain prince, and the legends of his royal descent are of later date and of obviously spurious manufacture; but Pelayo needs no tinsel to adorn his crown. He was the founder of the Spanish monarchy. The Arabs called him ‘Belay.’”]

[21] Mariana[i] says, that Alfonso inherited in virtue of Pelayo’s will. This is one of the assertions so common in this writer, without the shadow of a foundation. Equally unfounded is the assertion that he inherited in right of his wife, Hermesinda, though that circumstance would doubtless have some weight with the electors. His best claim was, that “in tempore Egicani et Witizani regum, princeps militiæ fuit,” according to Sebastian.[f]

[22] [“Dunham,[h] quoting Sebastian of Salamanca,[f] omnes Arabes occupatores civitatum interficiens, says placidly, ‘Such an extermination of the Mohammedan inhabitants to make room for his Christian colonists was a just retribution on the heads of the followers of a sanguinary faith.’ A strange nineteenth century Christian gloss! If such things can be written in 1832, it is hardly surprising that the retributive justice practised in the mountains should have been somewhat one-sided in 750.”—Burke.[g]]

[23] [Isaiah lvii, 1-2. In a note upon this Dunham[h] says, “Not a single historian of Spain, from Bishop Sebastian[f] to Masdeu[l] and Ortiz,[m] has ventured to express his disbelief in this miracle.”]

[24] Ipsi Agareni herbam attulerunt, et crassitudinem ejus abstulerunt à ventre ejus, et ad pristinam levitatis astutiam reductus, etc.—Sampiro.[n] It is a pity the Mohammedan doctors did not leave the prescription behind them.

[25] [Previously to this he waged “the war of the Three Sanchos,” so called from the fact that he, Sancho of Castile, attacked his cousin Sancho of Navarre, who called in the aid of Sancho of Aragon; and together the latter Sanchos defeated the Castilian, in 1068.]

[26] [It is a curious fact that this warrior is known to the Spaniards by his Arab name of Cid or Saïd, that is, lord or leader, while to the Arabs he is known by his Spanish name of Campeador or “Challenger.”]

[27] [Burke[g] explains the inconsistent enumerations of the kings of this period as follows:

The curious confusion arising from a twofold or threefold system of numeration of the Alfonsos of Castile and Leon in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries seems to call for some special notice. Dunham[h], Romey[s] and other foreign historians and chronologists, among whom the count de Mas-Latrie[t] must ever be spoken of with the greatest respect, call Alfonso el Batallador, of Aragon, Alfonso VII of Leon and Castile, as in right of his wife Urraca; and thus call Alfonso el Imperador number VIII; and keep Alfonso III of Castile out of the Leonese or Junto numeration altogether. Thus and in other ways confusion has been introduced, and by imperfect explanation still worse confounded.

The following, it is to be hoped, is plain:

Alfonso VI of Leon was the first of the name to reign in Castile; and, as in the course of the next hundred and fifty years the two kingdoms were sometimes under the same king, though not formally united, and sometimes each with a king of its own, the plan has been generally adopted by modern Spanish writers of numbering the Alfonsos of Leon and of Castile consecutively, without regard to the kingdoms over which they reigned, taking no account of the Alfonsos of Aragon. Thus Alfonso el Sabio was Alfonso IV of Castile, and Alfonso IX of Leon, but Alfonso X of the consecutive Alfonsos, by which title he is always known. And it is by this numeration that the late king of Spain was Alfonso XII, and his present majesty is Alfonso XIII.]

[28] [His ambitious assumption of the title of “emperor of Spain” was scarcely justified by his uncertain conquests from the Almoravids and was made ridiculous by his failure to subdue his Christian neighbours in Leon and Castile.[g]]

[29] [Burke[g] says, “The union of Catalonia with Aragon by the marriage of Queen Petronilla with Raymond Berengar of Barcelona in 1150, was the foundation of the greatness of Spain.”]