Under such unfavorable circumstances, it is not surprising that the conversion of Christians to Islamism was permanently arrested. Outrages upon proselytes, frequent insurrections, confusion of doctrines, vulgarity of theologians, infidelity of those best qualified to determine the value of established opinions, and the unrestricted enjoyment of educational facilities were serious impediments, rather than incentives, to a change of religious belief.
The fierce hostility that has always been manifested by the Apostolic Church against every kind of profane learning—the outgrowth of the tremendous power successfully exerted for many centuries to degrade the mind, to pervert the understanding, to dwarf the noble faculty of reason—had no terrors for the more enlightened part of the Christian population of the khalifate. There, in the presence of the unrivalled achievements of Moslem genius, the stern intolerance of Patristicism could not stand before the liberal policy of Islam and the daily application of the lofty sentiment of its Prophet, “Whoso pursues the road of knowledge, God will direct him to the road of Paradise. Verily, the superiority of a learned man over a mere worshipper is like that of the full moon over all the stars!” The exhibition of universal charity, of broad philanthropy, of educational advantages impartially bestowed, as contrasted with the narrow maxims of their own communion; the overwhelming superiority of Mussulman civilization; the powerful influence of daily intercourse and example; the prodigious augmentation of commercial prosperity and worldly grandeur; the alluring prospect of carnal pleasures, while they might not conduce to proselytism, nevertheless undermined the faith and constancy of the Christian youth.
The teachings of the philosophers of Cordova were not propitious to the maintenance of either established dogma or ecclesiastical superiority; and the clergy saw, with undisguised dismay, the growing prevalence of lukewarmness and skepticism. The predominance of the Spanish Arabs in every branch of literary culture, their eminent success in arms, their intelligence, their valor, their courtesy, the seductive power of their splendor and their opulence had far more effect upon the minds of the rising generation of Christians than the delusive promises and impotent anathemas proclaimed every week from a thousand pulpits. And, indeed, the contrast presented by the two rival religions was most striking to the unprejudiced seeker after truth. On the one hand was the church, with its resounding vaults and its gloomy and sepulchral crypt; the monastery, with its privations; the reliquaries, with their offensive hoards of withered flesh and mouldering bones; the inconsistencies of a system which inculcated charity and commanded persecution; the inexorable tyranny of the priesthood; the systematic discouragement of learning; the confessional with its enforced revelation of secrets; the mass with its monotonous services and its ritual in an unknown tongue; the penance with its sufferings and humiliation. On the other hand rose the mosque, light, airy, beautiful; its graceful minaret pointing towards the heavens; its court shaded by palm- and orange-trees, redolent with the mingled fragrance of a thousand exotics, musical with the plashing of crystal waters; its walls covered with a maze of intricate and brilliant stuccoes; its ceiling emblazoned with the golden texts of the Koran; its sanctuary sparkling with mosaics, whose exquisite tracery rivalled the fabled creations of the genii; the sermon, intelligible to the most humble and untutored listener; the prayer, remarkable for earnestness, simplicity, reverence. On this side were exhibited the factitious virtues and revolting license inseparable from the unnatural condition of celibacy; the sacrifice of every diversion that renders health attainable or existence attractive; the morose austerity of monastic solitude; the ill-concealed excesses by which human nature attempts to indemnify itself for the restraints imposed by organized hypocrisy; the solicited martyrdom of the half-crazed zealot; the savage pursuit of infidels and schismatics; the sanctified example of ecclesiastical ignorance, moral abasement, and physical impurity. On the other were the delights of the harem; the physical and mental vigor derived from constant exercise of the muscular system and the intellectual faculties; the benefits arising from the practice of frequent ablution; the palatial appointments of the public bath; the innumerable conveniences invented or adopted by a society ever alert to grasp every new idea, to profit by every past experience; the advantages of a method of education unparalleled in excellence and unapproached by even the wisest teachers of antiquity; the vast libraries, filled with the stores of ancient learning; the lectures of the lyceum; the curious experiments of scientific observers; the entertaining scenes of social festivity; the animated disputations of learned assemblies.
The jurisprudence of the orthodox believer was basely subservient to the claims of superstition. His cause was determined by the uncertain results of judicial combat, by the oaths of prejudiced compurgators, by the frivolous ordeals of water and fire. The sectary of Mohammed was tried by the kadi, a magistrate governed by established principles of law, and bound by religious as well as by temporal considerations to an impartial administration of justice.
When a Christian became ill, attempts were made to exorcise the evil spirit to which his sufferings were attributed by binding him to the altar, by the invocation of saints, by the application of relics and consecrated amulets. The Moslem was conveyed to the hospital provided and maintained by royal beneficence; the cause of his complaint was ascertained; and during his stay he received gratuitously the assiduous attentions of the nurse and the intelligent care of the surgeon.
While the priest-ridden peasantry of the Pyrenees and the Rhone denounced the Saracen as a foe of God and a scourge to humanity, the Christian who lived in security under his government, enjoyed his favor, shared his hospitality, profited by his instruction, knew but too well the calumny of these assertions, and that their maligned object exhibited upon occasion all the noble attributes of a faithful friend and a brave and chivalrous enemy. The dissensions of the Arabs, and their ungenerous treatment of those who voluntarily embraced their faith, were largely instrumental in preventing the amalgamation of races, even then far on the way towards accomplishment. Had not these causes intervened, only a few centuries would probably have elapsed before the subject nation, already closely united with the predominant caste by the bonds of marriage, consanguinity, and interest, by intimate mercantile associations, by the powerful influence of habits, education, and language, might have become thoroughly Mohammedanized. As it was, a greater affinity always existed between the Christian vassals of the Spanish khalifs and their lords than between the members of the several factions of the Arabs themselves, whose inextinguishable hatred, the fruit of countless generations of hostility, eventually compassed the destruction of their empire.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE MORISCOES
1492–1609
State of the Kingdom after the Conquest—Superiority of the Moors—Policy of the Crown—Introduction of the Holy Office—Administration of Talavera—His Popularity—He is superseded by Ximenes—The Two Great Spanish Cardinals—Their Opposite Characters—Influence on Their Age—Violence of Ximenes—He burns the Arabic Manuscripts—Insurrection of the Moriscoes—Rout in the Sierra Bermeja—Bigotry of Isabella—The Moors under Charles V.—Persecution by the Clergy and the Inquisition under Philip II.—War in the Alpujarras—Ibn-Ommeyah—Operations of Don John of Austria—Removal of the Moors of Granada—Death of Ibn-Ommeyah—Ibn-Abu becomes King—Siege of Galera—Atrocities of the Campaign—Fate of Ibn-Abu—Condition of the Moriscoes in Spain—They are Exiled by Philip III.—Their Sufferings—Effect of their Banishment upon the Prosperity of the Kingdom.
The close of the Reconquest left the Spanish monarchy in a condition of physical and financial collapse. The maintenance of a great army for ten years, with the resultant casualties of battle, exposure, and disease, had sensibly diminished the population. The treasury had long been depleted. The Queen had pawned her jewels to the bankers of Valencia and Barcelona. Wealthy subjects had been induced to advance funds to the government by methods equivalent to confiscation, and which held out but slender hopes of ultimate reimbursement. National credit was practically destroyed. The absence of the more industrious citizens in military service, the incorrigible idleness of those who remained, had impaired the pursuit of agriculture, upon which the resources of the kingdom depended. Had it not been for the taxes and extraordinary contributions levied upon the Jewish and Moslem tributaries, the war could not have been prosecuted to a successful conclusion. These two sects, which occupied an anomalous position in the body politic, numbered over two million. Although so inferior in numbers, they engrossed the trade and controlled the personal property of the Peninsula. The Jew, who practised with enormous profit the congenial but unpopular profession of usury, converted his gains into money and jewels. The Mudejar, who, after the Conquest, gave place to the Morisco, mindful of the Koranic precept which inculcates industry as a virtue and stigmatizes idleness as a crime, was the most laborious and successful of agriculturists, the most skilful of artisans. Representatives of these two classes directed the operations of the largest mercantile houses in the principal cities, and the commerce of the entire country was practically in their hands. Their prosperity was regarded with an evil eye by their Castilian masters, and the Moslem was especially the object of this animadversion. For generations the former had pursued the glorious but brutalizing calling of arms. With them, every occupation that implied or necessitated the performance of manual labor was considered undignified and degrading. Centuries of unremitting warfare had impressed upon the whole nation a military character, with its inevitable concomitants of pride, tyranny, and insolence; and these sentiments were intensified a hundred-fold by racial hatred and sectarian prejudice. From the earliest times the Moors had been regarded as interlopers, scarcely entitled to the ordinarily indisputable rights of conquest. The acquisition of their domain by Spanish prowess was always considered as the recovery of former inalienable possession, not as new territory wrested from an adversary by dint of superior strength and valor. The establishment of the Catholic faith was, in the opinion of adroit casuists, an additional argument in favor of their title, for it was held that the consecration of altars to Christianity conferred rights which could never be abrogated through occupation by infidels. With the inconsistency of ignorance, the Castilians asserted their title both by inheritance and prescription. They forgot that Spain had ever been the rich prize for which almost every warlike nation of the ancient world had contended. The Visigoths overran and ravaged it in the fifth century, and their occupancy, derived solely from conquest, lasted three hundred years. Then came the Saracens, whose domination, obtained in precisely the same manner, required about the same length of time for the conquest, but endured for more than twice as long. It was evident, therefore, to every mind not obscured by prejudice, that the title of the Moslems, even from the Spanish point of view, was better than that of their conquerors. In more than one respect, indeed, had the followers of Mohammed claims upon the country of their adoption as well as upon the gratitude and admiration of mankind. Their industry and enterprise had developed beyond all precedent the wonderful resources of the Peninsula. Its prosperity had never been so great, its people so happy, its sovereigns so renowned, as at the meridian of the Moslem power. In intellectual attainments, and the skilful adaptation of scientific principles to the practical affairs of life, the subjects of the khalifate far surpassed all their contemporaries. The civilization—if it is worthy of the name—which the Saracens overthrew was infinitely inferior to the one that they created. The Visigoths had scarcely emerged from barbarism. Their monarchs attempted to emulate, in their magnificence and luxury, the brilliant court of the Eastern Empire, and to supply, by the splendor and richness of the materials, the glaring deficiencies in skill and workmanship which characterized the productions of their artisans. They never discarded the savage customs engendered and perpetuated by ages of violence and injustice. Sedentary and industrial occupations were repugnant to the genius of a people whose national traditions from time immemorial had breathed a spirit of truculence and war. And yet, even in their chosen field, they at once demonstrated their inferiority to an enemy who had hardly completed his apprenticeship in arms.
After the Conquest, the insignificant number of Christians saved by the inaccessible fastnesses of the Asturias from Mohammedan subjection had little left but their swords and their independence. Their previous habits had unfitted them for labor. The ungenerous nature of the soil and the severity of the climate offered few inducements for tillage. They had, therefore, no resource but war by which to maintain their existence and repair their broken fortunes. Their children were reared in ignorance and under conditions favorable to the development of the highest degree of ferocity and fanaticism. They were taught to regard their enemies as monsters, unworthy of the name and attributes of humanity, and having nothing in common with the remainder of mankind but an erect form and the capacity of speech. In the course of time, greater familiarity with their adversaries insensibly produced a change of feeling, and many of these absurd and unjust prejudices were modified or entirely discarded. Numerous Mohammedan customs were adopted, especially by the nobility of Castile, whose inherent profligacy especially inclined them to the forbidden and unorthodox license of the seraglio. Moslem kings were not infrequently appointed arbiters of disputes between Christian princes of the blood. In arms, in manners, in costume, in amusements, the despised infidel furnished models to the proud and boorish descendants of Pelayus and his mountaineers. Even the language was contaminated. Thousands of terms familiar to the reader of the Koran were incorporated unchanged into its comprehensive vocabulary, and the noble and sonorous Castilian idiom remains to-day almost one-third Arabic. The system of warfare, the evolutions of cavalry, the adoption of lighter armor, all exhibited the effect of the pervading Moorish influence. Architects from Granada were employed by Castilian monarchs in the construction of palaces, and even by orthodox prelates in the ornamentation of cathedrals. It was the custom of many sovereigns in those turbulent times to intrust their safety to a body-guard of Saracen mercenaries, who could neither be intimidated nor corrupted. The honors paid to deceased Castilian royalty by the Moslems were not inferior to those with which the obsequies of the greatest emirs were celebrated. The court of Granada went into mourning for Ferdinand III., and a guard of Moorish nobles escorted his remains to the tomb. Henry IV. gave audience to ambassadors seated upon a divan and supported by cushions, in the traditional Saracen fashion. The tilt of reeds and the bull-fight, the exercises of the grand arena, which, requiring the greatest address and agility, were so popular with the Spanish chivalry, superseded the ruder and more dangerous exhibitions of the tournament. In innumerable examples, in every phase of the public and domestic life of the Christians, the influence of Mohammedan association was manifested. It is a curious fact, as already stated, that, in spite of this, the deep-seated prejudices of the two races, so far from being eradicated, were scarcely even perceptibly modified. Notwithstanding intermarriages, the formal and elaborate display of public courtesy, the frequency of appeals to royal arbitration, the adoption of official ceremonials by one people, the voluntary solicitation of protection by the other, all appearances of amity were fallacious, and a feeling of irreconcilable hostility constantly prevailed between the two races. Both reduced their prisoners to slavery, a condition which generally implied the most inhuman treatment. The captives taken by the Castilians were branded upon the forehead, a mark of degradation which could never be erased; the slaves of the Moslems were confined in damp and unwholesome dungeons, and compelled to labor daily in the construction of mosques and fortifications. It was no unusual occurrence, when a place had provoked the animosity of either by an obstinate resistance, for the entire population, irrespective of age or sex, to be ruthlessly put to the sword. In the heat of conflict, quarter was seldom expected. Despite the omnipresent and irrefutable evidences of superior knowledge, refinement, and culture, the arrogant and conceited Castilians always stigmatized their adversaries as barbarians. With them, implicit belief in and attachment to the Roman Catholic faith was the infallible touchstone of civilization. Whatever they did not understand they attributed to magic. The mysterious accents of the Arabic language, and the intricate manner in which its characters were combined in the inscriptions which adorned the public edifices, aroused in the minds of the ignorant suspicions of sorcery, with its accompaniments of talismans, amulets, charms, and incantations. The magnificent architectural works of Arab genius were attributed to infernal agency, as beyond the efforts of unaided human power; an opinion still entertained by the Spanish peasantry, who not only firmly believe that the Moslem palaces were constructed by evil spirits, but also ascribe the origin of the gigantic, and apparently eternal, monuments of classic antiquity to the hands of the devil himself.