CHAPTER VI
THE MOORISH WAR
1481–1483
“A people that for generations had lived to fight.” This summary of the Castilian race explains the fervour of enthusiasm with which the project of renewed war against Granada was greeted. Other nations, similarly exhausted by misgovernment and internal strife, might have welcomed a period of peace, which would enable them to pursue industry and commerce undisturbed; but neither Isabel nor her subjects regarded the matter in this light.
To them, the establishment of justice and order and the restoration of the royal finances were but a prelude to the great crusade, that every Castilian king inherited from his ancestors. It was a duty no true son of the Church would dare to neglect; and even the sluggish Henry IV. had made a pretence of raising the Christian banners. No less than three incursions into Moorish territory had been organized at the beginning of his reign; though by royal orders the army confined its attention to a work of pillage and robbery amongst the villages scattered over the fruitful “Vega.”
“The King was pitiful and not cruel,” says Enriquez del Castillo in excuse. “He said that life has no price nor equivalent ... and thus it did not please him that his men should take part in skirmishes or open battles.”
Such a policy awoke anger and derision in Castilian hearts, the more so that large quantities of money had been raised by means of a bull of indulgence, especially granted by the Pope for the purposes of a holy crusade. According to one of the chronicles, the sum realized was over a hundred million maravedis, of which very little went to its professed object. Henry quickly wearied of the display and pageantry that had alone reconciled him to camp life; and he had neither the fanaticism nor love of glory that could have held him to his task when this outward glamour faded.
Moreover he soon began to suspect that his worst enemies were amongst his own followers; and the picked Moorish guard that he adopted for his protection became the scandal of all the faithful. “He eats, drinks, and clothes himself after Moorish fashion,” wrote a Bohemian who visited his Court; and we have already noticed that the conspirators of Burgos began their complaints by censuring the open infidelity of those nearest to the royal person. Orthodoxy proved a convenient weapon for rebellious nobles; but it did not prevent the chivalry of Murcia and Andalusia from accepting the hospitality of the Sultan of Granada, when they wished to settle their private quarrels undisturbed.
The kingdom of the Moors which had once embraced the whole peninsula, save the mountains in the north-west, had shrunk to somewhat less than two hundred leagues; but this area comprised all that was best in soil and atmosphere. In its fertile valleys was ample pasturage for flocks of sheep; in the depths of its mountains, no lack of the ore and metals that its furnaces converted with unrivalled skill into ornaments and weapons. Its plains, protected from the northern winds by snow-capped mountain peaks, and preserved from the ill effects of the sun by a careful system of irrigation, were covered with maize and other grains, producing between them a perpetual harvest. Its villages nestled amidst vineyards and olive-groves; oranges, citrons, and figs grew in its orchards; here and there were plantations of mulberry trees. The silk woven in the looms of Granada could stand comparison with the coveted fabrics of Bagdad and the Orient, and with Moorish tissues, velvets, and brocades, found ready purchasers in Venetian markets, through the medium of thriving ports on the Mediterranean, such as Velez-Malaga and Almeria.
By these same ports, the rulers of Granada could receive assistance from their Mahometan allies on the African coast, whether in the shape of provisions or of men, though of the latter they possessed sufficient for any ordinary campaign. Not only did the healthy climate and abundance of food tend to a natural increase of the population, but for centuries there had been a steady influx of Mahometan refugees from the provinces reconquered by the Spaniards.
It has been estimated that towards the end of the fifteenth century, the population of Granada was between three or four millions, and was capable of sending into the field a force of 8000 horse and 25,000 foot. The Moors, whether supple Arab or hardy Berber, were as fine soldiers as they were skilful artisans and traders. Trained to shoot from early boyhood, their archers had no match with the cross-bow; while their lightly armed cavalry could manœuvre on the wide plains, or make their way by narrow mountain paths, to the utter discomfiture of the crusader in his heavy mail.
These were facts the Christian army was to learn to its cost during ten years of unceasing war. They were not unknown beforehand to the more seasoned warriors; but the peaceful character of the old Sultan Ismail, and his readiness to pay the yearly tribute to Castile of 20,000 doblas of gold rather than take advantage of Henry IV.’s weakness, had aroused the latent scorn felt for the Infidel by a hot-headed younger generation.