It was to the architects of Constantinople that the Moors were indebted for this excellent substitute for the stairway, by which the loftiest buildings could be ascended with comparatively slight fatigue. Byzantine influence, which has left such an impress upon the architecture of Venice, has provided its towers with this ingenious device, of which the Campanile offers a familiar example. Instances of its employment also exist in many cities of Africa, some of whose mosques, constructed by the Almohades, present, upon a greatly reduced scale, minarets in form and decoration almost counterparts of the Giralda as it was in the day of its original splendor. It is not uninteresting to note that the architect who superintended the completion of the Giralda was Abu-Layth, a Sicilian, whose country, long a province of Constantinople, had never, even under Moslem domination, completely abandoned the traditions or renounced the influence of the Christian capital of the East.
Mohammed-Ibn-Yakub, whose hereditary title had been confirmed by the exercise of regal authority during the lifetime of his father, succeeded to the perilous honors of the Almohade throne. A prince of amiable character but mediocre talents, without ambition and destitute of self-reliance, his accession augured ill for the maintenance of order among a score of jealous nations, which all the genius of great statesmen and warriors had hardly sufficed to restrain within the bounds of loyalty and discipline. The death of Yakub was the signal for revolt to the turbulent spirits who inhabited the mountains of Fez, and their defection was immediately followed by a formidable insurrection in the Balearic Isles. There, where Almoravide influence was nourished by descendants of that family,—who, expelled from the main-land, had for a time enjoyed in that sequestered region a nominal independence,—the standard of rebellion was raised by Yahya, an active partisan, who traced his descent from the last Almoravide emperor, Yusuf-Ibn-Tashfin. The sedition of the mountain tribes was easily suppressed, but that of the Balearic Isles was far more serious, and demanded the adoption of the most stringent measures. The name of the Almoravides had by no means lost its potency in Africa. Among the inhabitants of the coast and the denizens of the Sahara, the exploits of the dynasty that had first consolidated the vagrant tribes of that continent into the semblance of a nation, had brought to their knowledge the benefits of letters and the arts, and had, by its conquests, raised them to the height of military glory, were still remembered. The sympathies of the people of the Balearic Isles were almost unanimously with the representatives of their ancient masters. Before such an event could be anticipated, an army landed on the coast of Africa. The Berbers, allured by novelty and by the prospect of license, began to show signs of discontent. The political agitation enveloped the northern portion of the Desert, and the following of the intrepid Yahya was increased by the enrolment of many warlike tribes. One element, however, and a most important one, was lacking to insure success. The enterprise of the Almoravides was a purely political one. In every revolution which had previously aroused the enthusiasm and enlisted the support of the Africans, religion was the alleged incentive and the most prominent feature. A certain degree of mystery, a plausible exhibition of imposture, were indispensable to the excitement and the control of the credulous and fanatical wanderers of the Sahara. No movement could prosper in that benighted region unless presided over by the sombre genius of superstition.
The first operations of Yahya were highly successful. Several fortresses along the coast opened their gates to the invader. The city of Almahadia was carried by storm. Kairoan, once the seat of the Fatimite khalifs, and still the centre of an extensive trade between the Desert and the Mediterranean, was threatened. The discernment of Mohammed convinced him that the occupation of this ancient capital would impart a dangerous impetus to the rebel cause, a contingency which must, at all hazards, be prevented. The young prince acted with extraordinary decision. The forces of Yahya were beaten. Some fortresses were retaken, others voluntarily submitted. The insurgent leader, hotly pursued by the enemy, was unable to re-embark, and was driven to implore the hospitality of his Berber allies in the heart of the Desert. A great force besieged Almahadia, which was bravely defended by the Almoravide governor, Al-Hadshi. But the courage and determination of the garrison could not prevail against the science of the Sicilian and Spanish engineers who served in the army of the Sultan. The walls were undermined. The towers were crushed by immense projectiles of iron and stone hurled against them from engines of novel construction and prodigious size. To avert the calamities of an assault, the city was surrendered. With a generosity without precedent in the annals of mediæval warfare, a general amnesty was proclaimed. The garrison was persuaded to enlist under the banners of the conqueror, and Mohammed, charmed with the gallantry of Al-Hadshi, received him into his confidence and conferred upon him an important command in his army.
The Balearic Isles, captured in 1115 by Raymond Berenger III., Count of Barcelona, and afterwards occupied by the surviving leaders of the Almoravide party, now for the first time in their history experienced the effects of Berber invasion. Majorca was devastated by the Mauritanian cavalry, its cities were burnt, and its population enslaved. Minorca and Ivica, profiting by this example, hastened to solicit the clemency of their sovereign, and the heads of the Almoravide chieftains, carefully embalmed with camphor and enclosed in an elegant casket, were sent to Morocco as conclusive evidence that nothing more was to be feared from a crushed and disorganized faction.
The propitious beginning of a reign fated to end in ruin and disgrace encouraged the youthful Sultan to undertake enterprises of far greater importance. The truce unwisely conceded by Yakub to the entreaties of the King of Castile had not yet expired. But the deliberate violation of a treaty contracted with an infidel was considered an offence scarcely worthy of absolution by the Christian casuists of that age. Present expediency alone regulated the observation of public engagements. The prince, who, to his own disadvantage, honorably fulfilled the terms of a contract with a Moslem, would have been rewarded with the derision of his subjects and the anathemas of the clergy. Long anterior to the time of Mendoza and Ximenes, who made the broadest application of that infamous principle, its adoption had been approved by both the civil and ecclesiastical powers of Christian Spain, and faith was kept with an unbeliever or a heretic only so long as it suited the convenience of the other contracting party.
The death of Yakub had in a measure revived the spirits of the disheartened Christians. Alfonso had succeeded with much difficulty in collecting the scattered fragments of his defeated army. The military orders, which had left their bravest members on the field of Alarcos, began to fill the vacancies in their decimated ranks. In the larger cities the impatient youth again longed for the excitements and the plunder of the foray. Importuned by the solicitations of his subjects, and fortified by the opinions and assurances of the clergy, Alfonso violated the truce and descended unexpectedly upon the plains of Baeza and Jaen. His success encouraged the organization of other expeditions, and the bloody scenes of former years were re-enacted, until no portion of Andalusia was secure from the ravages of the enterprising Christian partisan. The subjection of the Almoravide rebels had inspired Mohammed with a thirst for conquest, and with a desire to punish the perfidy and the boldness of an adversary who, but a few years before, had in abject and humiliating terms sued for peace. The proclamation of the Holy War was issued. The Berber chieftains and their followers responded with enthusiasm. With all the naval facilities of the empire at their command, nearly two months were required by the immense body of troops—more than three hundred thousand in number—for transportation across the Strait; and, assembled at Seville, their tents and bivouacs dotted the landscape for leagues around that city.
It was with the greatest consternation that tidings of the impending invasion were received by the Christians. From the presence of the African had dated not only the political misfortunes of the Peninsula, but the most serious disasters ever experienced by the Spanish arms. Thrice already in its history the landing of a Mussulman host had been the precursor of a national catastrophe. Sixteen years had passed since the fatal day of Alarcos, but the memory of that appalling defeat was still fresh in the memory of almost every family in Castile; and so destructive and wide-spread had been its effects that the resources of that kingdom, which had sustained the brunt of the attack, had never been completely restored. In the present emergency the Holy See was appealed to; the war against the Moslems was invested with the character and privileges of a crusade, and the anathemas of the Church were denounced against all who should impede the movements or assist the enemies of the King of Castile, now the champion of Christendom. Emissaries furnished with the letters of the Supreme Pontiff went forth from the Vatican to rouse the flagging religious spirit of Europe. While the entire country north of the Tagus was in a state of terror, and few preparations had been made for resistance, the army of the Sultan, organized in five grand divisions, broke camp at Seville. Remembering the issue of similar undertakings, the Christian population were stricken with the apathy of despair. Everything was favorable to the plans of Mohammed, and had he improved his opportunity the Moslem domination might have been re-established throughout the Peninsula. In the path of the invading force rose the castle of Salvatierra, a fortress of such insignificance that even its ruins cannot now be identified; but the conceit of the Sultan was so great that he was unwilling to leave behind him a single Christian stronghold, and the siege of an obscure frontier outpost, on whose endurance, however, now depended the destinies of Spain, was formed. In the indulgence of this foolish whim eight precious months passed away, while the severities of the season and the pangs of famine fast depleted the ranks of the Moorish army. The capture of Salvatierra was finally accomplished, at the greatest cost probably ever incurred in the conquest of a place of so little importance, and the Moslems retired to their quarters in Andalusia. Encouraged by this unexpected check of the enemy, the Christians, while realizing that the danger was only postponed, began to exhibit unwonted activity. Amidst the snows of winter, the warriors of Spain, about to make an expiring and desperate effort for the defence of their homes and the salvation of their country; crusading fanatics, animated by the fury of religious zeal, and representing almost every nationality of Europe; ferocious soldiers of fortune, whose swords still dripped with the blood of the Albigensian heretics; eminent prelates, who discharged with equal dexterity the duties of the confessional and the office of command, assembled at Toledo, once the civil and ecclesiastical centre of the Visigothic power, now the capital of a growing monarchy predestined for many coming centuries to abject subserviency to the See of Rome.
The influence of the Papacy, no less than the imminent peril of the state, had successfully appealed to the religious instincts and national honor of every Christian potentate in the Peninsula. Many of these came in person, followed by the nobles and ecclesiastical dignitaries of their dominions. In this strange array, which could so easily reconcile the din of battle with the peaceful services of the altar and the pilgrimage, and which substituted without hesitation for the monotonous intonations of the mass the martial notes of the trumpet, were numbered the principal officials of the Church, headed by the celebrated Roderick, Primate of the Kingdoms of Spain. The grand-masters of all the military orders, including those of the Hospitallers and the Templars, who with a considerable following had come from distant countries to share in the honor and the glory of a new crusade, formed no unimportant accession to the ranks of the Christian army. Every organization in the land—civil, political, military, and religious—had despatched its representatives to the appointed rendezvous, full of patriotic confidence, yet with a thorough realization of the fatal consequences to their liberties and their faith which must inevitably result from another great Moslem victory obtained over a people which had already well-nigh lost its recuperative power. A remarkable concourse was that whose various dialects and often discordant accents were heard in the streets, and whose daily increasing numbers, exceeding the capacity of the old Visigothic capital to contain, were distributed through the pastures and gardens of its environs. An abundance of provisions supplied by the timely foresight of Alfonso kept the motley host content, but want of occupation soon developed the prevalent vices of the camp. Quarrels, provoked by the claims of different nationalities to superiority, were not unusual, and the narrow thoroughfares of the ordinarily sedate and tranquil city became nightly the scene of brawls and disorder. Among the crusaders were many who had served in Palestine and were accustomed to unrestrained indulgence in every variety of crime. To these adventurers, whose religious fervor was largely stimulated by avarice, the wealth of the numerous and thriving Hebrew population of Toledo was a prize too valuable to be overlooked. The prejudices of the age were favorable to persecution, and the Jew, especially if prosperous, was to the ignorant zealot the worst of infidels. A plan was formed for the massacre of the entire Jewish colony; and it required all the influence of the clergy and all the authority of Alfonso to prevent the destruction of a large portion of his most industrious and useful subjects in the very heart of his capital.
Finally, in June, 1212, the crusading army prepared for the active operations of a campaign. In its order of arrangement, the advance guard was composed of the foreigners, the centre was allotted to the Aragonese, and the rear was closed by the soldiers of the remaining states and kingdoms, who had most at stake and on whose efforts the issue of a battle must principally depend.
The crusaders had advanced but a few days’ march beyond Toledo, when signs of insubordination began to appear among the French and Italians. There is probably not in all Europe a region so inhospitable and so desolate during any season as the plateaus of Central Spain. No tree rises to relieve the dull monotony of the landscape. In winter the plain is swept by icy blasts from the sierras. In summer the exhausted traveller is prostrated by the fierce rays of an almost tropical sun. That country even now, for scores of leagues in every direction, presents the aspect of a desert; and in the thirteenth century, marking the boundary between two nations involved in continuous hostility, was yet more dreary and uninhabited than it is to-day. To the old crusader it recalled only too forcibly the hardships and the perils of the Holy Land, privations long since gladly exchanged for a life of luxury and license in the service of generous and indulgent European princes. The prelate sighed for the cloister, reluctantly abandoned for the camp at the command of the Holy Father, and longed to return to the scenes of wassail,—to the gay hunting parties in the forest; to the festive board, with its convivial and unclerical guests, its appetizing dishes, and sparkling wines; to the embraces of those beautiful companions who, chosen for their rare fascinations, whiled away, behind the walls of palace and monastery, the leisure of the epicurean bishop with Oriental dances and with the lively notes of lute and castanet. To men who had been induced to take up the cross by glowing descriptions of the Moorish cities of Andalusia, the experiences of a march through La Mancha were a grievous disappointment. So universal and serious was the discouragement among the foreigners, that the indignant remonstrances of the King and the prelates were scarcely sufficient to prevent their desertion in a body. At length, after a few insignificant frontier castles had been stormed and little booty obtained, the Italians and French, instigated by the ecclesiastics, abandoned their allies and marched homeward. Their freebooting instincts were disclosed by an ineffectual attempt to surprise Toledo, whose wealth they had never ceased to covet; but the inhabitants refused them admission to the city, and they were compelled to return to their homes empty handed, covered with infamy and objects of derision and contempt to the devout of every Christian nation of Europe.