In their search after knowledge for its own sake, the Moors accorded toleration to the best brains of all races. Elsewhere in Europe the Jews were held accursed, protected by Christian rulers so long as their money-bags could be squeezed like a sponge, but exposed to insult, torture, and death whenever popular fury, aroused by a crusade or an epidemic, demanded an easy outlet for zeal in burning and pillaging houses.
Christian fanaticism had closed nearly every avenue of life to the Jew save that of money-lender, in which he found few competitors, since the law of the Church forbade usury. It then proceeded to condemn him as a blood-sucker because of the high rate of interest that his precarious position induced him to charge for his loans. Thus, despised, hated, and feared, persecution helped to breed in the average Jew the very vices for which he was blamed, namely, the determination to sweat his Christian neighbours, and an arrogant absorption in his own race to the exclusion of all others.
In the cities of the Moors alone the Jew could rise to public eminence, as in Cordova, where teachers of the race were especially noted for their researches in medicine and surgery. Many Spanish Israelites indeed became doctors, and proved themselves so unmistakably superior in knowledge and skill to the ordinary quacks that rulers of Christian states were thankful to employ them when their health was in danger.
It would seem at first sight as if this happy kingdom of the Moors, where culture, comfort, and toleration reigned, must in time succeed in spreading its civilizing influence over Europe; but there was another and darker side to Moslem Spain. The Caliphate of Cordova, like other Moslem states, was the victim of a form of government whose sole bond was the religion of Islam. Its ruler was a tyrant independent of any popular control, and could send even his Grand Vizier, or chief minister, to death by a word. Such an exalted position had its penalties, and the Caliph must keep continual watch lest he should find enemies ready to slay him, not merely amongst his servants, but even more amongst his sons or brothers. Since polygamy prevailed, in nearly every family there were children of rival mothers, who learned from their cradles to hate and fear each other. It depended only, as it seemed, on a little luck or cunning who would succeed to the royal title, and few scrupled to use dagger or poison to ensure themselves the coveted honour.
Out of the feuds and plots of the Moorish court and the rise and fall of Emirs and Sultans in the provinces, Moorish Spain prepared its own downfall during the three centuries that it dominated southern and central Spain.
Away in the north, in Asturias, the ‘cradle of the Spanish race’, where every peasant considers himself an ‘hidalgo’ or noble, in the kingdoms of Leon and Navarre, in the counties of Castile and Barcelona, the descendants of the once enfeebled Goths were meanwhile developing into a race of warriors.
Though ardent in his devotion to Christianity, weaving supernatural aid around every victory, the Spaniard did not, in what might be called the first period of ‘the Reconquest’, show any acute dislike of the Moor. His early struggles were not for religion but for independence, and often a Prince or Count would join with some friendly Emir to overthrow a Christian rival. ‘All Kings are alike to me so long as they pay my price!’ These words of Rodrigo (Ruy) Diaz, the greatest of Spanish heroes, were typical of his race in the age in which he lived.
The Cid
This Ruy Diaz, ‘El Campeador’, or ‘the Challenger’, as the Christians named him, but more popularly called by his Arabic title ‘Al Said’ or ‘the Cid’, meaning ‘the Chief’, was brave, generous, boastful, and treacherous. A Castilian by race, he held his allegiance to the King of Leon, whose wars he sometimes condescended to wage, as in no way sacred; but when banished by that monarch, who had well-founded suspicions of his loyalty, proceeded unabashed to fight on behalf of his late master’s enemy, the Moorish Sultan of Saragossa.
It is evident from the old chronicles and ballads that the Cid himself could rouse and keep the affection of those who served him. When he sent for his relations and friends to tell them that he had been banished by the King of Leon and to ask who would go with him into exile, we are told that ‘Alvar Fañez, who was his cousin, answered, “Cid, we will all go with you through desert and through peopled country, and never fail you. In your service will we spend our mules and horses, our wealth and our garments, and ever while we live be unto you loyal friends and vassals”: and they all confirmed what Alvar Fañez had said.’