Its heights were covered with farmhouses and hamlets, as the Arab writer indicates, which formed, as it were, a continuous population, rich in provisions, from which Seville usually received abundant supplies of all necessaries. There were four principal villages: Aznalfarche (to-day, San Juan de Alfarache), Aznalcazar, Aznalcollar, and Solucar de Albayda, strong walled places, where the Mohammedans collected the revenues of the district. The fringe, formed by the heights of the Aljarafe, was given the name of “Mountain of Mercies” (Jebl arrahmah) by the Mohammedans, on account of its extraordinary fertility, a surprising abundance of figs, known as “Al-kuiti” and “Ash-shari,” being produced there.
The Sevillians faced the Christian attack with boldness, bred of confidence, and a determination to strain every nerve, and exhaust every resource, in repelling the invaders. They were engaging upon their last throw for the sovereignty of Andalusia. Fernando’s warships encountered the Moorish fleet at the mouth of the Guadalquivir, and drove them from their position, and the infidels collected their forces to make a last stand on land. But their stubborn front was broken by the Christian host, and the war-worn remnant of the Moorish army prepared to withstand a siege. Even when the bridge of boats was destroyed, and all communications with the suburb of Triana and the surrounding country was cut off, the Moors still fought on within the city walls, and it was not until fifteen months had elapsed that Seville was starved into submission. On the 23rd February, 1235, Fernando entered the city, and Abdul Hassan, rejecting the king’s invitation to become a dependent officer of the Spanish Crown, retired with thousands of his vanquished Almohades to Africa.
Fernando’s first act was to have the mosque purified for the celebration of a high and imposing Mass; he took up his quarters in the alcazar; divided the Moorish possessions among his knights, and rested his army after their long and arduous campaign. Four years later he died of dropsy. He was succeeded by Alfonso X., who founded the University of Seville, devoted his leisure to the study of poetry, history, and ancient laws, and merited the title of “El Sabio,” “the Learned.” But although the beautiful alcazar appealed to the studious temperament of “El Sabio,” the fortress-palace is more closely associated with his son, Pedro I., Pedro, “the Cruel,” the most renowned of all the Christian sovereigns who ruled Andalusia from Seville.
Pedro’s character has been made the study of many biographers and historians, and he has not been without his literary whitewashers, but the “incidents” which illuminate his career do not place him in a favourable light. His Bohemianism endeared him to the people, and a certain sense of justice, in cases in which his own interests were not concerned, has gained for him the title of “The Justiciary.” It may be that the plottings of Albuquerque, his father’s chancellor, and the perfidious behaviour of his relatives, including his own mother, served to warp and embitter his nature; but he had no sooner, at the instigation of his mistress, Maria de Padilla, taken up the reigns of government, than he revealed the cruelty and malignity of his character. Leonora de Guzmar, the mother of Alfonso’s illegitimate son, Enrique, was done to death in his prisons; Abu Said, the King of Granada, was seized by treachery, robbed, and executed; Urraca Osorio, for refusing Pedro’s addresses, was burned to death in the market-square of Seville; his wife, Blanche of Bourbon, was mysteriously murdered; Don Fadrique, his half-brother, was assassinated with Pedro’s dagger; and he himself was eventually defeated
SEVILLE
TOWER OF THE GIRALDA.