[176] For proofs of this circumstance, I must again refer the reader to the engravings in Murphy’s Arabian Antiquities of Spain.
[177] Pur su ley, pur su Sennor natural, pur su terra. Partidas, cited by Selden, Titles of Honour, part ii. cap. 4.
[178] Partidas, l. ii. tit. 21. lib. 36. tit. 2, &c.
[179] Selden, Titles of Honour, part ii. c. 4.
[180] Tomich, Conquestas de los Reyes de Aragon e los Comtes de Barcelona, 1534, folio 23.
[181] Our English translators of ancient Spanish poetry need not think, as they are inclined to do, that they are worshiping a shade in Pelayo. The Arabian History of Spain by Ahmadu-bn Muhammadi-bn Mūsa Abū Bakr Arrāzy, a writer of the fourth century of the Hegira, attests his existence in the manner stated in the text. This author, whose name I will not again attempt to transcribe, is one of the authorities of Mr. Shakspeare, whose able dissertation on the History of the Arabs in Spain accompanies Murphy’s splendid work on the architecture of that country. Great expectations have always been entertained of the illustrations of Arabic-Spanish history which the Escurial manuscripts could furnish. The work of Casiri encouraged the most ardent hopes of a successful result of more patient enquiry; and nothing could promise better than the circumstance that his very learned and intelligent successor in the librarianship, D. José Antonio Conde, was engaged in the work. The results of his labours were published at Madrid in 1820 and 1821. I have not been able to meet with a copy of his work in the original Spanish, but I have found it mixed up with other matter in a French book, entitled “Histoire de la Domination des Arabes et des Maures en Espagne, et en Portugal, depuis l’Invasion de ces Peuples jusqu’a leur Expulsion définitive; redigée sur l’Histoire traduite de l’Arabe en Espagnol de M. J. Conde. Par M. de Marlés.” 3 vols. 8vo. Paris. 1825. From the preface of M. de Marlés it appears that D. Conde’s book is entirely the tale of the Arabic historians, and not the judicious result of a critical comparison between these writers and the Spanish chroniclers. M. de Marlés has endeavoured to supply the deficiency, and to write a history of Spain from Mariana and others on the one hand, and D. Conde’s Arabians on the other. He has entirely failed; for a more feeble work was never written. Much of the fault rests with his authorities; for his history is only another proof, of what we possessed a thousand instances before, that sufficient materials do not exist for the compilation of a good and complete Spanish history. The insufficiency of D. Conde’s book to all real historical purposes appears in every page. Something, indeed, has been gained on the subject of the Moorish civil wars and dissentions, but such details are without interest. Little or nothing has been added to our stores on the subject of Pelayo, Charlemagne’s invasion, the Cid, or the conclusion of the Moorish history; all points whereon information is so much wanted. These remarks apply only to Conde’s researches into the political and civil history of Spain while under the dominion of the Moors, and not to his enquiries into the literary history of the Arabs.
[182] Chronicle, i. 20.
[183] Chronicle, i. 1.
[184] The circumstances about this marriage are so contradictory to modern usages, that the whole story has been regarded as a fable. Abundant evidence, however, of the marriage exists; and as that competent judge of Spanish manners, Mr. Southey, observes, “The circumstances of the marriage are not to be disbelieved for their singularity: had such circumstances appeared incredible or repugnant to common feeling, they would not have been invented;—whether they be true or false, they are equally characteristic of the state of manners.”
[185] Chronicle, i. 13.