History of the Moorish Empire in Europe, Vol. 2 (of 3)

by S. P. Scott

The military operations of the ensuing year were checked by a disastrous famine which, through a total failure of the harvests, afflicted the kingdom of Castile. The characteristic improvidence of a people unaccustomed to anticipate or counteract the effects of such a contingency aggravated the public distress. The highways, the fields, the banks of streams were strewn with moaning and emaciated wretches helpless from privation and exposure. Contrary to the rule which ordinarily obtains during similar visitations, the mortality in the country greatly exceeded that of the towns. Vast numbers of cattle died in pastures denuded of vegetation by the drought, unclean animals were sought with avidity by the famishing, and the revolting resource of cannibalism was adopted by those in whose breasts the last feelings of humanity had been eradicated by intense and prolonged suffering. The immunity afforded the Moslems by this calamity was confirmed by renewed quarrels between the monarchs of Leon and Castile. The projects of the latter which looked to the deliverance of Spain from the Saracen yoke were destined to disappointment, for a fever, the result of inhaling an atmosphere polluted with the exhalations from thousands of decaying bodies, ended the career of the victor of Las Nevas in the fifty-ninth year of his age.

With the death of an imbecile sovereign and the accession of an infant, new and even more intolerable evils beset the unhappy Moslems of Andalusia. The provinces of the South were partitioned among the kinsmen of the successor of Mohammed, who habitually violated, in his name, every principle of honor and rectitude. The most responsible official positions were made objects of purchase. Corruption such as had never been previously known, even under the most unscrupulous of rulers, flourished in every department of the government. The four uncles of Yusuf-Abu-Yakub, who had appropriated his Peninsular inheritance, regarded the country that fortune had placed in their power as their legitimate prey. The wealthy, fortified by bribes, openly defied the execution of the laws. The poor, placed at the mercy of the inexorable tax-gatherer, were reduced to starvation. Such was the arrogance of these usurpers that they acknowledged no responsibility to any superior, and the authority of the Sultan was practically ignored in this portion of his dominions. The people, exasperated by such treatment and without hope of redress, were ready to welcome any change as a benefit, and the projects of the Christians received in the sequel no small encouragement and support from the despairing victims of Moslem tyranny. Long before the King of Castile occupied the cities of Andalusia, the way had been paved for their conquest by generations of misgovernment and oppression. After ten years passed amidst the sloth and enervating pleasures of the seraglio, Yusuf-Abu-Yakub died, without having, in reality, exercised control over his extensive empire for even a single day; nor had he, since his accession, ever issued from the gates of his capital. Abd-al-Melik, one of his numerous uncles, whose life had been passed as a dervish, and whose previous experience hardly fitted him for the arduous and practical duties of royalty, was raised by the combined voice of the nobles and the populace to the throne of the Almohades.

In Spain, the Moorish princes of the same family that had heretofore administered the affairs of the Peninsula, without regard to the claims of the court of Morocco, openly asserted their independence. The Emir of Murcia, Abu-Mohammed, by reason of age and superior talents, obtained an acknowledged ascendency over his brethren. His diligence and liberality secured many active partisans in the capital of the empire; his ambition to supplant a weak and inexperienced monarch unable to sustain the weight of a crown was approved by the populations of both Andalusia and Al-Maghreb, and the pious Abd-al-Melik returned without reluctance to the practice of a life of devotion and solitude, after having relinquished the sceptre to his able and fortunate kinsman.

It is beyond the province of this work to minutely describe the interminable intrigues, quarrels, and petty revolutions which preceded the extinction of the Mussulman power in the South of Spain. The governors of the different provinces exhausted, as usual, the resources of their subjects by constant and destructive hostility. Such as were successful were certain to be eventually overwhelmed by their recent adversaries, who invoked the ready aid of infidel allies. No permanent advantage was secured excepting by the Christians, whose cause was materially advanced by the universal prevalence of Moslem discord. Castilian troops continued to visit with devastation the fertile plains of Andalusia. Every alliance with the invaders was concluded at the expense of the Moors, who were compelled to accede without alternative to the exorbitant demands, by whose acceptance alone they could hope to retain their power. Fortresses which commanded vital points on the frontier and the passes and highways into Andalusia were surrendered as the price of military assistance in the settlement of some insignificant dispute. Among those who had thus secured the precarious and expensive friendship of the Christians was Abu-Ali-Edris, surnamed Al-Mamun, Emir of Seville. By the co-operation of Ferdinand III., King of Castile, he had dispersed an army of Africans sent to reduce him to subjection. The Castilians, not accustomed to observe the faith of treaties longer than it coincided with their immediate interest, persisted in gratifying their rapacity by destructive incursions on Moslem soil. Ferdinand, whose reputation as a saint has been somewhat tarnished by his perfidy as a sovereign and his cruelty as a soldier, directed in person these raids against his allies. His adventurous spirit carried him to the very borders of the Vega of Granada. The frontier strongholds of Priego, Loja, and Alhama fell into his hands. After menacing the capital, he laid siege to Jaen. Consideration of the character of the forces engaged in the attack and defence of this city discloses the peculiarity of this double warfare. In the army of Ferdinand was a large body of Moorish troops, of which the Emir of Baeza furnished not less than three thousand horse and twenty thousand foot. The besieged were assisted by a detachment of Christians whose nationality is not mentioned, but who were probably Spanish soldiers of fortune or Italian and French mercenaries.

The enterprise was unsuccessful; the assaults of the besiegers were vigorously repelled, and Al-Mamun, having collected an army, relieved the city and routed the Christians in a pitched battle; and the expedition heralded with such extravagant boasts and begun under the most auspicious circumstances terminated in defeat and ignominy. The spoils of conquest were relinquished, the captured fortresses were speedily retaken, and the booty abandoned in the camp before Jaen more than recompensed the soldiers of Al-Mamun for the dangers and exposure of a short and glorious campaign.

That prince was now at liberty to pursue unmolested his schemes of ambition. The incapacity of the Almohades had left the empire without a master and the capital without defence. In the absence of the sovereign, public affairs were administered by the two councils organized by the Mahdi, an institution which, through all the vicissitudes attending the development and decline of the Almohade power, had remained unchanged. With a rapidity that anticipated the swiftest courier, Al-Mamun, at the head of a strong force of cavalry, hastened to Morocco. The councillors and the sheiks who had questioned his authority and disputed his title were peremptorily summoned before him. In vain they protested their innocence. In vain they confronted the spies who had reported their treasonable and insulting speeches to the tyrant. With their families and their friends, who atoned for their relationship and attachment with a similar fate, they passed to immediate execution. Their slaves and retainers shared the fate of their unfortunate lords; and neither the weakness of youth nor the attractions of beauty availed to secure immunity from the bloody and indiscriminate sacrifice. A row of five thousand gory heads was ranged along the walls of the capital, and the sight and odor of these significant emblems of despotic cruelty effectually checked all disposition to revolt. With an insolent disregard of religious prejudice and political tact which it is difficult to comprehend, Al-Mamun denounced the name and memory of the Mahdi as that of an unscrupulous and cunning impostor. The form of government he had instituted had been already abolished by the murder of the Councillors of State. The name of the false prophet was omitted from the prayer in the mosques. His title was erased from the inscriptions of the coinage. All magistrates were prohibited from alluding to him in their decisions. These measures, adopted in defiance of public sentiment, were not conducive to the permanence of usurpation. The memory of the Mahdi was still revered by the illiterate and fanatical masses of Africa. In all ages sacrilege has been the most dangerous offence of which a monarch could be guilty; and after these impolitic exhibitions of jealousy nothing but the ferocious character of their sovereign deterred the exasperated Berbers from rebellion.

While Al-Mamun was strengthening his empire in Africa, his influence was rapidly declining in Spain. A new antagonist, well worthy to assert, in an age of national decadence, the rights of an outraged people, had arisen as the representative of Andalusian liberty. Mohammed-Ibn-Hud, who concealed under the mask of patriotism an ambition which aimed at despotic power, stood forth as the champion of the oppressed. His extraction was noble,—he was a lineal descendant of the famous dynasty of Saragossa; but no royal ancestry was required to dignify a character eminent for military genius, political sagacity, and the exercise of every princely virtue. Influential chieftains at once ranged themselves around him. His increasing power enabled him to seize and retain the Emirate of Murcia. His cause was promoted by the assurance that all taxes imposed by Almohade tyranny would be abolished, and that the Africans would be either expelled or exterminated. These pledges were speedily fulfilled. An overwhelming proportion of the inhabitants of Moorish Spain supported the claims of the alleged representative of freedom. The doctrines introduced by the Mahdi were declared schismatical, and his disciples branded as public enemies. The mosques in which their rites had been celebrated for more than a century were cleansed and rededicated with the same solicitude and ceremony as would have been displayed in the purification of Pagan temples. Those of the hostile faction who had made themselves offensively conspicuous were promptly executed; the less obnoxious were exiled. White, the official color of the followers of the Mahdi, was superseded by black, the distinguishing badge of the Abbasides; for Ibn-Hud had already publicly announced his allegiance to the khalifs of Bagdad. The revolution soon spread to the confines of the Moslem territory. The Arabs and the Andalusians avenged the accumulated evils of generations by the butchery of every African who fell into their hands. The emirs of Granada and Valencia were expelled by the exasperated populace. Al-Mamun, having undertaken to suppress the rebellion, sustained a decisive defeat at Tarifa, and the prestige of Ibn-Hud, increased by this fortunate event, now became greater than ever.

But a severe reverse was in store for this adventurer, who, elated by his success, was blinded by illusory visions of imperial splendor. Alfonso IX. of Leon, after a blockade of many months, took the city of Merida. This place, the metropolis of Lusitania in the days of the Roman Empire, was the largest and strongest of the cities of Western Spain. Its geographical position, in a measure, commanded the frontier, and its proximity to the valley of the Guadalquivir rendered its hostile occupation a constant and dangerous menace to the peace of Andalusia. No one recognized these facts more readily than Ibn-Hud, and, having for the time suspended his operations against the Sultan of Morocco, he advanced without misgivings to encounter the Christian enemy. The latter formed but a handful when compared with the Moslems, but they did not shrink from the conflict; and we are edified by the statement of the pious chronicler that St. Jago, with an innumerable host of angels, fought on the side of the champions of Christ. The Moors were defeated with great loss, and the entire province of Estremadura was, in consequence, annexed to the domain of Leon. The sovereign of that kingdom died soon afterwards, while returning from a pilgrimage to the shrine of Santiago; the credit of the Saint was greatly enhanced by this signal victory; and his apparition, mounted upon a white horse and wielding a flaming sword, was henceforth visible to the eyes of all true believers in every important engagement which resulted favorably to the Christian cause.

While in the West the policy and valor of the Kings of Castile and Leon were gradually undermining the already shattered fabric of Moslem government, in the East the prowess of another Christian hero had begun to make serious encroachments upon the fertile and populous region extending along the Mediterranean from the Alpujarras to the borders of Catalonia. The acquisition of the latter province by the crown of Aragon at once raised that kingdom to a prominent rank among the sovereignties of Western Europe. From a comparatively unknown inland power it was at once brought into intimate contact with the principal commercial emporiums of the civilized world. The city of Barcelona, as has already been mentioned in these pages, attained at an early date a high and deserved celebrity as a centre of enterprise and industry. Its maritime facilities equalled those of any European port. In the thrift and activity of its inhabitants it was superior to all others, unless, perhaps, Venice or Genoa. Its ships and cargoes were eagerly welcomed by every trading nation. Long accustomed to a condition of independence, it had developed a naval power which scarcely yielded in number and equipment to the forces of its celebrated neighbors,—the republics of Italy. It presented the sole exception among all the Moslem communities which had submitted to the Christian arms, in that this occupancy had not produced stagnation and decay. Under the rule of its counts, its progress, instead of being retarded as in other instances, seemed to acquire a new and greater impetus. The population increased in an unusual, even a phenomenal, ratio, and soon it became one of the most opulent, one of the most polished, of cities. Its merchants were the first in Europe to perfect a system of banking and exchange. The source of Barcelona’s extraordinary commercial vitality—to which also must be attributed the energy and acuteness which distinguished its citizens—was the large Hebrew population. Numerous and intellectual under the Moors, as soon as Catalonia attained to the dignity of a virtually independent state, the Jews, save alone in the domain of religious belief, became predominant in influence. They controlled the treasury. In all but name they administered the government. Their institutions of learning instilled, without remonstrance, the most heterodox opinions into the minds of the Christian youth. Their native practitioners were, since the decline of the University of Cordova, the most learned medical men of the age. The unreasonable prejudice attaching to the nationality and the faith of the Barcelona surgeon did not prevent his employment by the most bigoted princes of Christendom. The presence of such an accomplished, shrewd, and highly educated people could not fail to react on those with whom they were associated in daily intercourse. As a consequence, Barcelona had acquired, and indisputably merited, the reputation of being one of the most intelligent, wealthy, and cultivated communities of mediæval times. With all its advantages, there was still one serious drawback to its prosperity. The Balearic Isles, lying a hundred and fifty miles from the main-land,—which, from some inexplicable cause, have always enjoyed a consideration out of all proportion to their political or maritime importance,—were still in possession of the Moslems. They constituted a dependency of the Emirate of Valencia, having been sold by the Genoese to that principality, after having remained for a considerable period under the jurisdiction of the Counts of Barcelona. The governor, Mohammed-Ibn-Ali, who belonged to the Almohade faction, had provoked the enmity of the Catalonians by repeated acts of piracy, which were the more inexcusable as he was in no condition to defend by arms the consequences of his imprudence.

Jaime I., King of Aragon, who had planned the conquest of these islands, was now about to enter upon that career which eventually raised him to such an eminent rank among the most celebrated princes of the thirteenth century. Reared amidst exciting scenes of conquest, from childhood he seemed inspired with the martial spirit of the crusader. In the military and chivalrous exercises which formed an indispensable part of the education of every aristocratic youth, he had no superiors. Such was the formidable antagonist with whom the Moslems of Eastern Spain were now to contend for the prize of empire.