[3] Florez, "Esp. Sagr.," xviii. 326—"Conventus Episcoporum pro restoratione monasterii." The children are called "Spinae ac vepres, nec nominandi proles."
[4] Prescott, "Ferd. and Isab.," p. 16. From Samson, "Apol.," ii. cc. 2, 6, we learn that Christians had begun to imitate the Moslems in having harems.
We have left to the last the great and interesting question of the origin of chivalry. Though forming no part of the doctrines of Christianity or Islam, chivalry and its influences could not with justice be wholly overlooked in a discussion like the present. The institution known by that name arose in the age of Charles the Great (768-814),[1] and was therefore nearly synchronous with the invasion of Europe by the Arabs. Its origin has been, indeed, referred to the military service of fiefs, but all its characteristics, which were personal and individual, such as loyalty, courtesy, munificence, point to a racial rather than a political source, and these characteristics are found in an eminent degree among the Arabs. "The solitary and independent spirit of chivalry," says Hallam,[2] "dwelling as it were upon a rock, and disdaining injustice or falsehood from a consciousness of internal dignity, without any calculation of the consequences, is not unlike what we sometimes read of Arabian chiefs or American Indians."
Whatever the precise origin of chivalry may have been, there can be no doubt that its development was largely influenced by the relative positions of Arabs and Christians in Spain, and the perpetual war which went on between them in that country.
Though not a religious institution at the outset, except perhaps among our Saxon forefathers,[3] chivalry soon became religious in character, and its golden age of splendour was during the crusades against the Moslems of Spain and Palestine. Spain itself may almost be called the cradle of chivalry; and it must be allowed that even in the first flush of conquest the Arabs shewed themselves to be truly chivalrous enemies, and clearly had nothing to learn from Christians in that respect. The very earliest days of Moslem triumph, saw the same chivalrous spirit displayed at the capture of Jerusalem, forming a strange and melancholy contrast to the scene at its recapture subsequently by the Crusaders under the heroic Godfrey de Bouillon.
[1] Hallam, "Mid. Ages.," iii. 392.
[2] Ibid. Cp. p. 402. "The characteristic virtues of chivalry have so much resemblance to those which Eastern writers of the same period extol, that I am disposed to suspect Europe for having derived some improvement from imitation of Asia."
[3] Hallam, "Mid. Ages" (1.1.).
Similarly the last triumph of the Moors in Spain, at the end of the tenth century, furnished an instance of generosity rarely paralleled. The Almohade king, Yakub Almansur, after the great victory of Alarcos (1193), released 20,000 Christian prisoners. It cannot, however, be denied that the action displeased many of the king's followers, who complained of it "as one of the extravagancies proper to monarchs,"[1] and Yakub himself repented of it on his deathbed.
In many passages of the Arabian writers we find those qualities enumerated which ought to distinguish the Moorish knight—such as piety, courtesy, prowess in war, the gift of eloquence, the art of poetry, skill on horseback, and dexterity with sword, lance, and bow.[2] Chivalry soon became a recognised art, and we hear of a certain Yusuf ben Harun, or Abu Amar, addressing an elegant poem to Hakem II. (961-976) on its duties and obligations;[3] nor was it long before the Moorish kings learnt to confer knighthood on their vassals after the Christian fashion, and we have an instance of this in a knighthood conferred by the king of Seville in 1068.[4]