[4] See "Life of John of Gorz," sec. 123.
[5] See "Life of John of Gorz," sec. 123; Samson, "Apolog.," ii. c. 4. Cp. "Loys de Mayerne Turguet," xvii. 13. The king, Halihatan (Abdurrahman III.), 950 published an edict, "par lequel il estait mandé a tous Chrestiens habitans és terres et villes a luy subjectes de laisser la religion de Jesu, et se faisans circoncire prendre cette de Mahomet, sur peine de vie."
[6] See Appendix B, p. 167; and Koran v. ad init.—" You are forbidden to eat that which dieth of itself, and blood, and swine's flesh ... and that which hath been strangled."
[7] "John of Gorz," 1.1.
[8] "Pseudo-Luit.", sec. 341. Cp. "Chron. Juliani," sec. 501. "Viritanus coegit concilium Toleto ad inveniendum remedium ne Muzarabes Toletani, imo totius Hispaniae, Saracenis conjuncti, illorum caeremoniis communicarent."
Sometimes, however, the contact with Islam acted by way of contraries, and Christian bigots, such as the monks often were, would cling to some habit or rite of their own from a mere spirit of opposition to a reverse custom among Moslems. Thus we know that the monks in the East became the more passionately devoted to their image-worship, because Iconoclasm savoured so much of Mohammedanism. In the same way, but with far more objectionable results, the clergy in Spain did their best to impress the people with the idea that cleanliness of apparel and person, far from being next to godliness, was incompatible with it, and that baths were the direct invention of the devil.[1] Later on we know that Philip II., the husband of our Queen Mary, had all public baths in his Spanish dominions destroyed, on the ground that they were relics of infidelity.[2]
Celibacy of the clergy, again, was strongly advocated as a contrast to the polygamy of Mohammedans; and an abbot, Saulus, is mentioned with horror as having a wife and children, one of whom afterwards succeeded him, and also married.[3]
One of the last acts of a Gothic king had been to enforce the marriage of the clergy, and though this act was repealed by Fruela I. (757-768) in the North, yet concubinage became very common among the clergy;[4] and it was perhaps to remedy a similar state of things that Witiza wished to compel the clergy to have lawful wives.
[1] Miss Yonge, p. 67.
[2] Lane-Poole, "Story of the Moors," p. 136.