[438] The meaning of the word Mozárabe was long doubtful; the best opinion being that it was derived from Mixti-arabes, and meant what this Latin phrase would imply. (Covarrubias, Tesoro, 1674, ad verb.) That this was the common meaning given to it in early times is plain from the “Chrónica de España,” (Parte II., at the end,) and that it continued to be so received is plain, among other proofs, from the following passage in “Los Muçárabes de Toledo,” (a play in the Comedias Escogidas, Tom. XXXVIII., 1672, p. 157,) where one of the Muzárabes, explaining to Alfonso VII. who and what they are, says, just before the capture of the city,—
Muçárabes, Rey, nos llamamos,
Porque, entre Arabes mezclados,
Los mandamientos sagrados
De nuestra ley verdadera,
Con valor y fé sincera
Han sido siempre guardados.
Jornada III.
But, amidst the other rare learning of his notes on “The Mohammedan Dynasties of Spain,” (4to, London, 1840, Vol. I. pp. 419, 420,) Don Pascual de Gayangos has perhaps settled this vexed, though not very important, question. Mozárabe, or Muzárabe, as he explains it, “is the Arabic Musta’rab, meaning a man who tries to imitate or to become an Arab in his manners and language, and who, though he may know Arabic, speaks it like a foreigner.” The word is still used in relation to the ritual of some of the churches in Toledo. (Castro, Biblioteca, Tom. II. p. 458, and Paleographía Esp., p. 16.) On the other hand, the Moors who, as the Christian conquests were advanced towards the South, remained, in their turn, inclosed in the Christian population and spoke or assumed its language, were originally called Moros Latinados. See “Poema del Cid,” v. 266, and “Crónica General,” (ed. 1604, fol. 304. a,) where, respecting Alfaraxi, a Moor, afterwards converted, and a counsellor of the Cid, it is said he was “de tan buen entendimento, e era tan ladino que semejava Christiano.”
[439] Conde, Tom. I. p. 229.