The number of victims of this awful crime is variously stated at from seven hundred to five thousand. As the bodies were decapitated, they were cast into a trench which had been dug during the construction of the castle; and from this fact the deed which violated the rites of hospitality so sacred in the eye of the Arab became known in the annals of the Peninsula as the “Day of the Ditch.”
The next morning the heads of those who, by an act of unparalleled treachery, had so severely expiated their past offences and the faults of their kindred, were ranged in bloody array upon the battlements. There was scarcely a household among those of the most distinguished residents of the city which was not filled with mourning. A feeling of deep but smothered exasperation pervaded the community. But the object of the tyrant was attained; a lesson of terror had been inculcated; the leaders were gone; the spirit of insurrection was effectually crushed; and many years elapsed before Toledo was again vexed by the tumults and the violence of a seditious demonstration.
About this time a serious difficulty arose at Merida. Esbah, the wali of that city, was, as will be remembered, at once the cousin and the brother-in-law of the Emir. For some cause he dismissed his vizier, and the latter, by false statements concerning the ambitious designs of his superior, induced Al-Hakem to deprive him of his office and confer it upon himself. The wali, indignant at being thus unjustly accused, defied the royal edict; the people, by whom he was greatly beloved, espoused his cause; and a formidable rebellion seemed imminent, when the beautiful Kinza, the sister of Al-Hakem, succeeded by her entreaties in averting the impending calamity. Explanations were tendered, the incensed and alienated kinsmen were reconciled, and Esbah was reinstated in his authority amidst the congratulations of his wife and the acclamations of the people.
The habitual distrust of Al-Hakem, his love of military pomp, and the knowledge of the turbulence and duplicity of a large proportion of his subjects, had led him to increase his body-guard to the number of six thousand. The impatience of the Arab under restraint, as well as his suspicious fidelity, excluded him from the select corps entrusted with the protection of the life of the sovereign. The lessons of experience, and the well-recognized principle of despotism which discourages all sympathy between the people and the army, suggested the enlistment of foreigners and infidels. Three thousand of the guard were Spanish Christians, the rest were slaves—Ethiopian and Asiatic captives purchased in the marts of the eastern Mediterranean, who were popularly designated mutes on account of their ignorance of the Arabic language. Their arms and equipment were of the finest and most expensive description. Their discipline was as thorough as the tactics of the age could inculcate. Two thousand were quartered in extensive barracks erected on the southern side of the Guadalquivir, whose banks were constantly patrolled by their sentinels. The others, whose numbers were swelled by hundreds of eunuchs and retainers of the Emir’s household, were stationed in the palace, whose defences were more characteristic of an impregnable fortress than of the ordinary abode of a sovereign. The great mass of the people, and especially the severely orthodox, viewed the establishment of this large military force—whose existence was a silent reproach to their loyalty and whose opinions were considered idolatrous—with mingled feelings of hatred, jealousy, and contempt. The fierce zealots and ecclesiastical demagogues, whose arts had acquired for them a dangerous pre-eminence and whose influence had been of late years a perpetual menace to the government, regarded the royal guards with sentiments of peculiar aversion. The maintenance of this splendid body of soldiers, whose expenses far exceeded those of an ordinary division equal to it in numbers, was a heavy charge upon the treasury. To meet the increasing expenditure, a new duty was levied upon all merchandise imported into the capital. The burdens arising from the imposition of this tax, and the inconvenience attending its collection, were the most keenly felt by the southern suburb. Of this densely populated quarter, fully one-fifth of the inhabitants were teachers and students of theology. Not only over these, but over the various guilds of merchants, tradesmen, and laborers, the authority of a few faquis, who united the qualifications of religious instructors with the privileged attributes of saints, was despotic. A soldier who ventured alone into the stronghold of these desperate fanatics did so at the risk of his life. No opportunity was suffered to pass whereby indignity could be heaped upon the guards of the Emir. The monarch himself was not less unpopular. The theological faction constantly made unfavorable comparisons between his skepticism and luxury and the austere virtues of his father, Hischem, whose partiality for their sect had formerly obtained for its dogmas the highest respect and consideration. The failings and vices of royalty received scant indulgence at the hands of the Malikites. When, from the summit of the minaret, the muezzin proclaimed the hour of public devotion, a hundred voices responded in derision from street, bazaar, and garden: “Come to prayer, O Drunkard, come to prayer!” Aided by the encouragement and sympathy of their companions, the culprits foiled without difficulty every attempt at detection. Neither the sacred associations of the mosque, nor the moments consecrated to divine communion, when the assembly of the faithful bowed reverently before the Kiblah, nor the prospect of condign punishment, were sufficient to deter fanatical agitators, who prided themselves on their piety and orthodoxy, from the perpetration of outrage and insult. They vilified the monarch while in the exercise of his sacred duties as the officiating minister of Islam. They ridiculed his actions and mocked his resentment in the streets. Exasperated beyond all endurance, Al-Hakem ordered that ten of the leaders should be arrested and delivered to the executioner to be crucified. This summary proceeding, far from allaying the excitement, only intensified it. The desire to wreak their vengeance on the persecutor of their martyred brethren was now the paramount consideration, compared with which the prevalence of vice, the evils of taxation, and the tolerance of heretics were matters of trifling importance. It soon became evident that a serious disturbance was impending.
The most influential and dangerous instigator of the populace was another Yahya, part knave and part zealot, whose learning and effrontery had procured for him great renown both as a saint and a politician. He had been a pupil and disciple of the famous Malik-Ibn-Anas at Medina, and had been distinguished by the favor of that oracle of Islam. The fame of his sanctity, and an extravagant idea of his attainments and his virtues entertained by the members of his sect, had increased his reputation and inflated his pride. His intriguing genius was now exerted to precipitate the explosion.
It was the month of Ramadhan, the Mohammedan Lent, and the outbreak had been planned for the last Wednesday, a day of ill omen in the Moslem calendar. The efforts of Yahya and his coadjutors were being constantly exerted to inflame the passions of the populace by private exhortations and public discourses under the pretext of religious instruction, when a quarrel arose between a soldier and an armorer which resulted in the death of the latter. In an instant the southern suburb was in arms. The contagion of rebellion and vengeance spread fast through the other disaffected quarters of the capital. A raging mob rolled down upon the citadel, driving before it the scattered eunuchs and dependents of the palace and the soldiers of the outposts. In vain was the cavalry ordered to clear the streets; the veteran troopers of the Emir were overwhelmed and driven back in confusion. The gates of the castle were closed and barred, and the multitude, wild with baffled rage, at once prepared, with the aid of fire and heavy timbers, to force an entrance. The serious aspect of the situation was fully appreciated by the inmates of the palace, who knew that in case the fanatics succeeded in penetrating the walls not a soldier or servant of the royal household would be left alive. As conscious of his peril as the rest, not a sign of emotion clouded the placid visage of Al-Hakem. While the shouts of the mob were resounding through the courts and gardens, he ordered his favorite page to bring him a bottle of civet. The lad in wonder obeyed, and the monarch carefully and deliberately poured the perfume upon his hair and beard. The curiosity of the page prevailing over his discretion, he inquired the cause of this singular proceeding at a time of such imminent danger. “O son of an unbeliever,” responded the Emir, “how can he who will cut off my head distinguish my rank unless by the sweet odor that exhales from my beard!”
His toilet completed, Al-Hakem directed the captain of the guard to expose at once upon the battlements the heads of certain faquis who had been imprisoned since the former insurrection. Then, clothing himself in complete armor, he summoned his cousin, Obeydallah, and ordered him, at the head of a picked body of cavalry, to cut his way through the streets and set fire to the southern suburb, shrewdly judging that the attention of the insurgents would be distracted when they perceived that their homes were in flames. The event justified his expectations. The sudden sally of Obeydallah disconcerted the rabble; the river was reached and forded; and in a few moments, the smoke rising in twenty different places beyond the Guadalquivir announced the success of the stratagem. The insurgents, forgetting the animosity to their sovereign in their solicitude for their families and their property, rushed in confusion over the bridge. Then Al-Hakem fell upon their rear with his guards, and Obeydallah, reinforced by detachments from the neighborhood which had been attracted by news of the revolt, assailed them in front. Overcome with terror and incapable of resistance, the unhappy fanatics were massacred by thousands. Three hundred of those conspicuous for their rank, or for the part they had taken in fomenting disorder, were nailed, head downward, to posts on the bank of the river. A council was then held to determine the fate of the survivors. Some of the viziers advocated extermination, but milder opinions prevailed, and it was decreed that the suburb should be razed and the inhabitants banished, within three days, under penalty of crucifixion. This sentence was ruthlessly executed; the condemned quarter was delivered to pillage and the houses destroyed. The exiles, driven from their country, variously experienced the effects of both good and adverse fortune. Many parties were plundered by brigands before they reached the border. Eight thousand families were invited by Edris to form a part of the population of the new city of Fez, where neither the hospitality of their reception nor their subsequent prosperity was able to prevent them from indulgence in perpetual strife with their neighbors, the Arabs. A great body, which included fifteen thousand fighting-men, was transported by sea to Egypt at a time when the country was in arms against the Khalif of Bagdad. Forming an alliance with the malcontents, they stormed Alexandria; and then, declaring their independence, retained possession of that great entrepôt of the Mediterranean against all the power of the Abbasides for more than twelve years. Finally, reduced by the forces of Al-Mansur, they were removed to Crete, a part of which still acknowledged the authority of the Emperor of Constantinople. This island they conquered, and they then founded a state whose piratical expeditions for more than a century were the scourge of the Mediterranean until Crete once more, in the year 961, was added to the dominions of the Byzantine Empire. A reminiscence of the Moslem occupation of the island is suggested by its present name, which, a corruption of the Arabic khandik, a “trench” or “fortification,” survives in the name of Candia.
But while the offences of the populace were thus punished with inexorable rigor, the principal offenders, the promoters of sedition, were the recipients of extraordinary clemency. The explanation of this partiality is to be found in the fact that the mass of the insurgents was of a foreign and, despite their bigoted adherence to the orthodox faith, of a detested caste. The religious teachers of the Malikites, on the other hand, were largely descended from the Koreish, and the ties of blood and the antipathies of race were considerations of greater moment in the mind of Al-Hakem than the insult to his person or the danger to his crown. Some of the leaders who had been prominent in the late troubles were permitted to escape; others underwent short terms of imprisonment; many received the benefit of a general amnesty. The arch-conspirator, Yahya, was of this number, and his talents or his audacity soon restored him once more to a certain degree of royal favor.
The military operations maintained for years in Eastern Spain by the ambition of the Franks, the treachery of the walis, and the weak and faltering policy of Al-Hakem, were not productive of decisive action or enduring results. The city of Tortosa was twice invested, and twice abandoned in disgrace, by the armies of Charlemagne. The first siege was raised after a disastrous defeat sustained by the Franks, of which the Arabs neglected to take advantage; the second was undertaken without adequate preparation, and relinquished under circumstances suggestive of irresolution and cowardice. The hostilities gradually assumed the character of predatory expeditions rather than the systematic efforts of organized warfare. The crusading ardor of the new colonists of the Gothic March soon abated under the tyranny of their feudal masters, who appropriated their lands, oppressed them with taxes, and violated the rights which had been solemnly guaranteed to them conditional upon their allegiance. The justice of Charlemagne was invoked to suppress these increasing disorders, but the distance from his court and the arrogance of the nobles enabled the latter to practically nullify his edicts. The præcepta, or fueros, addressed to the Counts of the Gothic March, and issued from time to time by the Emperor, exhorting these lords to equity, and defining minutely the privileges of their dependents, constitute some of the most interesting and remarkable documents of mediæval jurisprudence. The last three years of the reign of Al-Hakem were passed in peace with the Franks, under a truce concluded between the courts of Aix-la-Chapelle and Cordova.
The hostilities between the Asturian and Moorish kingdoms were, during the reign of Hischem and Al-Hakem, prosecuted with energy, but with constantly varying success. The Christians had not become sufficiently strong to provoke with impunity the power of the Moslem sovereigns. The attention of the latter was so occupied with the suppression of intestine turmoil and ineffectual attempts to counteract the ambitious projects of the Franks that they suffered many of the incursions of their infidel neighbors to pass unnoticed. Some expeditions that entered the Asturias returned in triumph, others were annihilated. The forays of the Christian princes spread dismay through the Moorish settlements of Galicia and Lusitania. Occasionally they met with serious reverses, but these were generally retrieved in the next campaign; and when the results of the year were compared, the advantage was always with the Christians. They enlarged their influence and cemented their power, by alliances with the Basques, with the lord of the Gothic March, with the renowned Charlemagne. The limits of their little monarchy, once so insignificant, began to extend south of the mountains, those natural barriers beyond whose protecting peaks and ravines they at first had feared to venture. Constant practice in warfare formed a race of warriors whose prestige increased with their success, and whose experience taught them the importance of loyalty, obedience, and discipline. Their monarchs were, for the most part, eminently fitted for the arduous duties imposed upon them by the accidents of birth and fortune. Of these princes none attained to such eminence in the pursuits of peace or the art of war as Alfonso II., surnamed The Chaste, whose singular title has been variously attributed by historians to mistaken piety and constitutional impotence. His life was one long crusade against the infidel. By every resource of diplomacy, by every exertion of courage, by every sacrifice of comfort and even of independence, he endeavored to promote the interest of that cause which was identified with the honor of the Christian name. He sent gifts and did homage to Charlemagne to secure his aid; and thus, within less than a century of its foundation, the Asturian monarchy twice became the fief of a foreign power; under Alfonso II., whose allegiance was rendered to a Christian king in contradistinction to the conduct of his predecessor Mauregato, the natural son of Alfonso I. and a Berber captive, who had acknowledged the Emir of Cordova as his suzerain, and whose dependence was, in addition to the customary acts of fealty, manifested by the humiliating annual tribute of a hundred virgins. The arms of Alfonso were carried repeatedly beyond the Douro and the Tagus. He took and plundered Lisbon, already a flourishing city, but its distance from his dominions and the small force at his command compelled him soon afterwards to relinquish his prize. His desperate valor and his superiority in partisan warfare frustrated every attempt of the Moslems to effect a permanent lodgement in his dominions. Amidst the excitement of his campaigns, he found time to erect churches, to endow convents, to enlarge and embellish Oviedo, the capital of his little monarchy. The clergy derived liberal support and patronage from his devotion. It was during this period that the invention of an absurd legend produced effects upon the political and religious destinies of Spain little anticipated by the unscrupulous ecclesiastics who promulgated it. In an unfrequented portion of the wilderness of Galicia a mysterious light of celestial radiance, watched by an angel, revealed the burial spot and the body of St. James the Apostle. The Bishop of Iria, to whom posterity is indebted for the discovery of this priceless treasure, communicated without delay the intelligence of the miracle to his sovereign; and a chapel was erected upon the hallowed spot, which, in time, became a magnificent temple and a place of pilgrimage for thousands of the faithful and the curious from every country of Europe. A city sprang up around the church, which, by the translation of the Bishopric of Iria, at once rose to the greatest importance, and its inhabitants were benefited by the trade of the pilgrims, as the shrine was enriched with the contributions prompted by their piety and their gratitude. The simple Asturians never questioned the truth or even the probability of the legend; the priesthood, who sustained the credit of the fiction by every expedient of intimidation and imposture, advanced steadily in consideration and wealth, while the miracles daily wrought by the precious relic confirmed its holy character,—a relic which surpassed in the efficacy of its miraculous virtues the wonderful mementos of the martyrs which had been rescued from obscurity and decay in the catacombs of Rome. Such was the origin of the city and cathedral of Santiago de Compostella, whose foundation contributed so materially to the extension of the Castilian empire and the triumph of the Christian religion. Here first appeared the germ of that enthusiastic spirit—partly military, partly monastic—which prompted the foundation of the numerous orders of knighthood and culminated in the disastrous expeditions for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre. The retired situation and primitive surroundings of the shrine, corresponding with the humble origin of the Saint and his mission, increased the popular faith in its genuineness and sanctity. The fact that the relics were spurious and their discovery a fable was wholly indifferent so long as the reverent credulity of the masses remained unshaken. The hope of salvation, the religious aspirations of the devout, the increase in prestige of the hierarchy, were all centred in the pretended tomb of the Apostle. The apparition of the Saint upon his white charger in the critical moments of battle roused the faltering courage of the champions of the Cross on many a doubtful field, and it may safely be asserted that neither the policy of the wisest statesmen nor the victories of the most accomplished generals of any reign effected more for the glory of the Spanish arms than did the fabrication of a preposterous legend by an obscure prelate in the savage and almost unknown region of Galicia.