Exactly a hundred and ten years had elapsed since Mohammed fled from Mecca like a common malefactor, under sentence of execution by the leaders of his tribe, with a reward of a thousand pieces of gold upon his head, and Islam was regarded as the dream of a half-demented enthusiast. Now the name of the Prophet was revered from the Indies to the Atlantic. The new sect numbered its adherents by millions. Its arms had invariably been victorious. Its energy had surmounted every obstacle. The most venerated shrines of Christianity and the cradle of that religion,—Antioch, Alexandria, Carthage, and Jerusalem,—places associated with all that is dear to the followers of our Saviour, and made sacred by miracle, legend, and tradition, were in its hands. Rome and Constantinople, the remaining great centres of Christian faith—the one destined to be attacked by the Moslems of Sicily, the other now menaced by the Moslems of Spain—trembled for their safety. Saracen fleets were already cruising in the eastern Mediterranean. The Mussulman standard had been planted on the Loire, thirty-six hundred miles distant from Mecca. In every country into which Islam had penetrated, it had found faithful allies and adherents. Religious indifference, public oppression, the burdens of feudalism, and the evils of slavery paved the way for its acceptance. The Jews opened the gates of cities. The leaders of depressed factions contributed to the ruin of their countrymen with purse and sword. Vassals and slaves apostatized by thousands. Most ominous of all, the test of spiritual truth and inspiration invariably dependent, in the estimation of the credulous, upon superiority in arms, was steadily on the side of the infidel. It is not strange, therefore, that Christian Europe looked with undisguised dismay upon the portentous advance of the Mussulman power. It is a matter of some doubt whether the doctrines of Mohammed could have obtained a permanent foothold in the frozen regions of the North. The geographical distribution of religions is largely determined by climate. Islam is essentially exotic. It has survived, but never flourished, beyond the tropics. A learned historian has advanced the hypothesis that it cannot exist in a latitude where the olive does not grow, a statement which seems to be justified by the experience of history. It is highly improbable that the dogmas and customs of the Orient would have found, under a leaden sky and amidst the chilling blasts of Holland and Germany, conditions propitious to their propagation. Important modifications must have resulted, and, with these modifications, religious and social revolution. The steadiness and prowess of the Teutonic soldiery had forever assured the safety of Europe from serious molestation by the princes of the Hispano-Arab empire. The irregular and ill-concerted attacks, which subsequently followed at long intervals, were easily repulsed. Whether the world at large was profited by the victory of Charles Martel may, in the light afforded by the brilliant results of Moslem civilization, well be questioned. It is hardly possible to conjecture what effect would have been produced upon the creeds and habits of the present age by the triumph of the Saracen power, but, in the words of an eminent writer, “the least of our evils had now been that we should have worn turbans; combed our beards instead of shaving them; have beheld a more magnificent architecture than the Grecian, while the public mind had been bounded by the arts and literature of the Moorish University of Cordova.”
CHAPTER VII
FOUNDATION OF THE SPANISH MONARCHY
718–757
The Northern Provinces of Spain—Their Desolate and Forbidding Character—Climate—Population—Religion—Peculiarities of the Asturian Peasantry—Pelayus—His Birth and Antecedents—He collects an Army—Obscure Origin of the Spanish Kingdom—Extraordinary Conditions under which it was founded—Battle of Covadonga—Rout of the Arabs—Increase of the Christian Power—Favila—Alfonso I.—His Enterprise and Conquests—His Policy of Colonization—Survival of the Spirit of Liberty—Religious Abuses—State of Society—Beginning of the Struggle for Empire.
The general topography of the Spanish Peninsula exhibits a gradual and continuous increase in altitude, beginning at the tropical plains of Andalusia and terminating in the mountain range which traverses its northern extremity from the eastern boundary of France to the Bay of Biscay. This rugged chain of mountains, some of whose peaks attain an elevation of almost ten thousand feet, throws out innumerable spurs to the north and south, which are separated by impassable gorges and gloomy ravines, occasionally relieved by valleys of limited extent but remarkable fertility. Its proximity to the ocean, whose vapors are condensed and precipitated by contact with the summit of the sierra, renders the climate of this region one of exceptional moisture, but its foggy atmosphere is not unfavorable either to the health or the longevity of man. In certain localities, rains are almost incessant, and the depths of many of its defiles are never gladdened by the genial and vivifying rays of the sun. The most untiring industry is requisite to procure the means of a meagre subsistence, and the laborious efforts of the cultivator of the soil are supplemented by the vigilance of the shepherd, whose fleeces, generally preferred to the coarse products of the loom, furnish the male population with clothing. Upon the coast entire communities obtain their livelihood by fishing; and the increased opportunities for intercourse with the world have produced noticeable modifications in the character of these people, who, while deficient in none of the manly qualities of the denizens of hill and fastness, seem less uncouth, and are possessed of a greater degree of intelligence than their brethren of the interior. The customs of these famous mountaineers, variously known as Basques, Asturians, Cantabrians, and Galicians, according to the respective localities they inhabit, have varied but little in the course of many centuries. They have ever been distinguished by simplicity of manners, sturdy honesty, unselfish hospitality, and a spirit of independence which has seldom failed to successfully assert itself against the most persistent attempts at conquest. A mysterious and unknown origin attaches to the Basques, whose strange tongue and weird traditions are supposed to connect them with the original inhabitants of the Peninsula, and who, in this isolated wilderness, have preserved the memory of one of the aboriginal races of Europe. The rugged districts lying to the westward of what is now called Biscay, the home of the Basques, were formerly inhabited by the Iberians, a branch of the Celts, which, by force of circumstances and through the necessities of self-preservation, has become fused with colonists from the southern provinces until its distinguishing features have disappeared. The well-known bravery of the defenders of this bleak and forbidding country, its poverty—which offers no allurements to either the avarice or the vanity of royal power—its ravines swept by piercing winds, and its mountains draped with perpetual clouds, long secured for it freedom from invasion. The Carthaginians never passed its borders. The Romans, under Augustus, succeeded, after infinite difficulties, in establishing over its territory a precarious authority, disputed at intervals by fierce and stubborn insurrections. It yielded a reluctant obedience to the Visigothic kings, whose notions of liberty, coarse tastes, barbaric customs, and frank demeanor were more congenial with the nature of the wild Iberian than the luxurious habits and crafty maxims of Punic and Latin civilization.
The most barren and inaccessible part of this secluded region at the time of the Moslem conquest was that embraced by the modern principality of the Asturias. A formidable barrier of lofty peaks, whose passes readily eluded the eye of the stranger, blocked the way of a hostile army. Within this wall a diversified landscape of mountain and valley presented itself, with an occasional village, whose huts, clustered upon a hill-side or straggling along some narrow ravine, indicated the presence of a settlement of shepherds or husbandmen. These dwellings, whose counterparts are to be seen to-day in the wildest districts of the Asturias and Galicia, were rude hovels constructed of stones and unhewn timbers, thatched with straw, floored with rushes, and provided with a hole in the roof to enable the smoke to escape. Their walls and ceilings were smeared with soot and grease, and every corner reeked with filth and swarmed with vermin. The owners of these habitations were, in appearance and intelligence, scarcely removed from the condition of savages. They dressed in sheepskins and the hides of wild beasts, which, unchanged, remained in one family for many generations. The salutary habit of ablution was never practised by them. Their garments were never cleansed, and were worn as long as their tattered fragments held together. Their food was composed of nutritious roots and herbs and of the products of the chase, a diet sometimes varied by vegetables, whose seeds had been imported from the south, and by a coarse bread made from the meal of chestnuts and acorns. Total ignorance of the courtesies and amenities of social life prevailed; privacy was unknown; and the peasant entered the hut of his neighbor without fear or ceremony. An independent political organization existed in each of these communities, whose isolated situation, extreme poverty, and primitive manners dispensed with the necessity for the complicated and expensive machinery of government. Old age, as among many nations in the infancy of their existence, was a title to authority and respect, and the elevation of an individual to a certain degree of power was not unusual when he had distinguished himself among his fellows for skill in hunting or valor in warfare. Christian missionaries had, centuries before, carried the precepts of the Gospel into the depths of this wilderness, and chapels and altars, where the idolatrous practices of Druidical superstition were strangely mingled with the ceremonies of the Roman Catholic ritual, attested the persistence of a faith which had existed for ages. Many of the personal habits and social customs of the Iberians, while well deserving the attention of the antiquary, were of such a nature as to preclude description. Under these manifold disadvantages were now to be laid the foundations of an empire destined to embrace the richest portions of two great continents; to extend its language, its ideas, its policy, its religion, its authority, to the extreme limits of a world as yet unknown; to humble the pride of the most renowned sovereigns of Europe; to perfect the most formidable engine for the suppression of free thought and individual liberty which the malignity of superstition has ever devised; to perform achievements and accomplish results unparalleled in the most fantastic creations of romance; and to devote to extermination entire races whose sole offence was that they had never heard of the God of their persecutors,—a people whose civilization was far inferior to their own.
The terror inspired by the approach of the Saracens, after the battle of the Guadalete, had driven great masses of fugitives to the north. Such of these as escaped the hardships of flight and the swords of their pursuers sought refuge in the most secret recesses of the Asturian mountains. They carried with them their portable property, their household gods, all the relics of the saints, all the sacred furniture of the altars, which they had been able to rescue from the sacrilegious grasp of the infidel. The refugees had forgotten alike, in the presence of universal misfortune, the long-cherished prejudices of race and the artificial distinctions of rank; and Goth, Roman, Iberian, and Basque, master and slave, mingled together upon a friendly equality. Received by the frank and hospitable mountaineers with a sympathy which was strengthened by the bond of a common religion, the unhappy fugitives became reconciled to the privations of a life which secured to them immunity from infidel oppression; and, by intimate association and intermarriage with their benefactors, formed in time a new nation, in which, however, mixture of blood and altered physical surroundings produced their inevitable effects, causing the traits of the Iberian to predominate, in a conspicuous degree, over those of the Latin and the Goth. As the rest of the Peninsula submitted to the domination of the Moors, the population of this province was largely augmented. Persecution, arising during the civil wars, still further increased immigration; deposed prelates, ruined artisans, and discontented slaves sought the companionship and aid of their fellow-sectaries; many, in apprehension of future evil, voluntarily abandoned their possessions; and the Asturias became the common refuge of all who had suffered as well as of all who were willing to renounce a life of comparative ease and dependence for the toils and privations which accompanied the enjoyment of political and religious liberty. With the advantages of freedom were also blended associations of a more sacred character. The greater number of the most celebrated shrines of a country remarkable for the virtues of its relics and the splendor of its temples had been desecrated by the invader. He had destroyed many churches. Others he had appropriated for the uses of his own religion. The piety of their ministers had, however, secreted, and borne away in safety, the most precious of those tokens of divine interposition whose efficacy had been established by the performance of countless miracles supported by the unquestionable testimony of the Fathers of the Church. Transported by reverent hands from every part of the kingdom, these consecrated objects were now collected in fastnesses impregnable to the enemies of Christ. Where, therefore, could the devout believer better hope for security and happiness than under the protection of holy souvenirs which had received the oblations and the prayers of successive generations of his ancestors? The wars and revolutions of more than a thousand years have not diminished the feeling of popular veneration attaching to these mementos of the martyrs, which, enshrined in quaint and costly reliquaries of crystal and gold, are still exhibited in the Cathedral of Oviedo.
Engrossed with the cares which necessarily attended the establishment of a new religion and the organization of a new government, the first viceroys of Spain took no notice of the embryotic state which was gradually forming in the northwestern corner of the Peninsula. Their scouting parties, which had penetrated to the borders of the Asturias, had long since acquainted them with the severity of the climate and the general sterility of the soil. No booty, save, perhaps, some sacred vessels and a few flocks of sheep, was there to tempt the avarice of the marauder. Domiciled in the genial regions of the South, whose natural advantages continually recalled the voluptuous countries of the Orient, the Moor instinctively shrank from contact with the piercing winds and blinding tempests of the mountains far more than from an encounter with the uncouth and warlike savages who defended this inhospitable land. Musa had already entered Galicia at the head of his troops when he was recalled to Damascus by the peremptory mandate of the Khalif; and foraging parties had, on different occasions, ravaged many of the settlements of the Basques; but as yet the Moslem banners had never waved along the narrow pathways leading into the Asturian solitudes, nor had the echoes of the Moorish atabal resounded from the stupendous walls which protected the surviving remnant of the Visigothic monarchy and the last hope of Christian faith and Iberian independence.
At an early period, whose exact date the uncertainty of the accounts transmitted to us renders it impossible to determine, the settlements of the coast fell into the hands of the Saracens, who fortified the town of Gijon, a place whose size might not improperly assert for it the claims of metropolitan importance. The government of this city was entrusted to one of the most distinguished officers who had served in the army of Tarik, the former Emir, Othman-Ibn-Abu-Nesa, who, as we have already seen, having contracted a treasonable alliance with the Duke of Aquitaine, had been pursued and put to death by the soldiers of Abdal-Rahman immediately before the latter’s invasion of France.
Their communications with the sea-coast having been thus interrupted, the Asturians, impatient of confinement, determined to secure an outlet by extending the limits of their territory upon the southern slopes of the mountains. The adventurous spirit of the mountaineers welcomed with ardor a proposal which must necessarily be attended with every circumstance of excitement and glory. Among the refugees who constituted the bulk of the population were many who had seen service in the Visigothic army, and some who were not unfamiliar with the tactics and military evolutions of the Saracens. One of the most eminent of these was Pelayus, a name associated with the most glorious traditions interwoven with the origin of the monarchy of Spain. The imagination of subsequent ecclesiastical chroniclers has exhausted itself in attempts to exalt the character and magnify the exploits of this hero. The Moorish authorities, however, while they afford but scanty details concerning him, are entitled to far more credit, as their material interests were not to be subserved by the fabrication of spurious miracles and preposterous legends. From the best accounts now attainable,—which, it must be confessed, are far from reliable,—it appears that Pelayus was of the mixed race of Goth and Latin. The Arabs invariably called him the “Roman,” an appellation they were not in the habit of conferring upon such as were of the pure blood of the Visigoths. He was of noble birth, had held an important command in the army of Roderick, and was not less esteemed for bravery and experience than for hatred of the infidel, and for the reverent humility with which he regarded everything connected with the ceremonies and the ministers of the Church. To this chieftain, with the unanimous concurrence of both refugees and natives, was now entrusted the perilous and doubtful enterprise of openly defying the Saracen power. With the caution of a veteran, and an enthusiasm worthy of a champion of the Faith, Pelayus began to assemble his forces. The peasantry, ever alive to the attractions of a military expedition, and the fugitives, whose present distress recalled the more vividly their former prosperity, their pecuniary losses, and their personal bereavements, incident to the catastrophe which had befallen the nation, answered the call to arms with equal alacrity. The army which placed itself at the disposal of the new general did not probably number two thousand men. The majority were clad in skins. But few wore armor,—antiquated suits of mail which had rusted under the pacific rule of the successors of Wamba and had survived the disasters of Merida and the Guadalete. The Iberian javelin, the sling, and the short and heavy knife of the Cantabrian peasant composed their offensive weapons. Not one in ten had ever seen a battle. Not one in a hundred could understand or appreciate the necessity for the uncomplaining patience and implicit obedience indispensable to the soldier. Yet the soaring ambition, the patriotic pride, the belief in the special protection of heaven—feelings equal to the conquest of a world—rose high in the bosoms of these savage mountaineers. Their courage was unquestionable. Their native endurance, strengthened by simple food and habitual exposure to the tempests of a severe climate and the incessant exertions of a pastoral life, was far greater than that of their enemies. To invest the cause with a religious character, and to rouse to the highest pitch the fanaticism of the soldiery, a number of priests attended, with censer and crucifix and all the sacred emblems of ecclesiastical dignity. Of such materials was composed the army whose posterity was led to victory by such captains as Gonzalvo, Cortes, and Alva, and whose penniless and exiled commander was destined to be the progenitor of a long line of illustrious sovereigns.
The original realm of Pelayus afforded no indication of the enormous dimensions to which it was destined to expand. It embraced a territory five miles long by three miles wide. Its population could not have exceeded fifteen hundred souls. Its fighting men were not more than five hundred in number. The bulk of the army was composed of Basques and Galicians, attracted by the hope of spoil, held together for the moment only by the sense of common danger; impatient of restraint; scarcely recognizing the authority of popular assemblies of their own creation; valiant in action; brutal in victory; selfish and cowardly in defeat. They were without organization, officers, suitable arms, or commissariat. Of the art of war, as practised by even semi-barbarians, they knew nothing. Their military operations were controlled by the usual stratagems of savages, the nocturnal attack, the sudden surprise, the ambuscade.