Gabriel forgot all his prudence in the ardour of discussion. He felt no fear of Silver Stick, with his manner of an inquisitor incapable of reasoning. He wished to convince him; he felt all the fervour, all the irresistible impulse of his proselytising days, without trying in any way to disguise his feelings from consideration of the atmosphere surrounding him. Don Antolin listened to him in astonishment, fixing on him his cold glance. The others listened, feeling confusedly the marvel that such ideas should be enunciated in the cloister of a cathedral. Don Martin, the chaplain of the nuns, who stood behind his miserly protector, showed in his eyes the eager sympathy with which he heard Luna's words.
He described the Hispano-Roman people over whom the Gothic invasion swept, without, however, causing a gap, because before long the conquerors had succumbed to the lower Latin degeneration, remaining without strength, spending themselves in theological struggles and dynastic intrigues like those of Byzantium. The regeneration of Spain did not come from the north with the hordes of barbarians, but from the south with the invading Arabs. At first they were few, but they were sufficient to conquer Roderick and his corrupt courtiers. The instinct of the Christian nationality revolting against the invaders, and the gathering together of the whole soul of Spain on the rocky heights of Covadonga to fall once more upon their conquerors, was all a lie. The Spain of those days gratefully welcomed the people from Africa and submitted without resistance. A squadron of Arab horsemen was sufficient to make a town open its gates. It was a civilising expedition more than a conquest, and a continual current of immigration was established over the Straits. Over them came that young and vigorous culture, of such rapid and astonishing growth, which seemed to conquer though it was scarcely born: that civilisation created by the religious enthusiasm of the Prophet, who had assimilated all that was best in Judaism and in Byzantine civilisation, carrying along with it also the great Indian traditions, fragments from Persia and much from mysterious China. It was the Orient entering into Europe, not as the Assyrian monarchs into Greece, which repelled them seeing her liberties in danger, but the exact opposite, into Spain, the slave of theological kings and warlike bishops, which received the invaders with open arms. In two years they became masters of what it took seven centuries to dispossess them. It was not an invasion contested by arms, but a youthful civilisation that threw out roots in every part. The principle of religious liberty which cements all great nationalities came in with them, and in the conquered towns they accepted the Church of the Christians and the synagogues of the Jews. The Mosque did not fear the temples it found in the country, it respected them, placing itself among them without jealousy or desire of domination. From the eighth to the fifteenth century the most elevated and opulent civilisation of the Middle Ages in Europe was formed and flourished. While the people of the north were decimating each other in religious wars, and living in tribal barbarity, the population of Spain rose to thirty millions, gathering to herself all races and all beliefs in infinite variety, like the modern American people. Christians and Mussulmans, pure Arabs, Syrians, Egyptians, Jews of Spanish extraction, and Jews from the East all lived peaceably together, hence the various crossings and mixtures of Muzarabes, Mudejares, Muladies and Hebrews. In this prolific amalgamation of peoples and races all the habits, ideas, and discoveries known up to then in the world met; all the arts, sciences, industries, inventions and culture of the old civilisations budded out into fresh discoveries of creative energy. Silk, cotton, coffee, oranges, lemons, pomegranates, sugar, came with them from the East, as also carpets, silk tissues, gauzes, damascene work and gunpowder. With them also came the decimal numeration algebra, alchemy, chemistry, medicine, cosmology and rhymed poetry. The Greek philosophers, who were nearly vanishing into oblivion, saved themselves by following the footsteps of the Arab conquerors. Aristotle reigned in the university of Cordoba. That spirit of chivalry arose among the Spanish Arabs, which has since been appropriated by the warriors of the north, as though it were a special quality belonging to Christian people. While in the barbarous Europe of the Franks, the Anglo-Normans, and the Germans, the people lived in hovels, and the kings and barons in rocky castles blackened by the smoke of their fires, devoured by vermin, dressed in coarse serge, and fed like prehistoric man, the Spanish Arabs were raising their fantastic Alcazars, and, with the refinement of ancient Rome, they met at their baths to converse on all literary and scientific questions. If any monk from the north felt the hunger of learning, he came to the Arab universities or the Jewish synagogues of Spain, and the kings of Europe thought they would be cured of their infirmities if, by dint of golden bribes, they could procure a Spanish physician.
When little by little the aboriginal element separated itself from the invaders and small Christian nationalities arose, the Arabs and the old Spaniards (if indeed after the constant mingling of blood there was any difference between the two races) fought chivalrously without exterminating each other after the battles, mutually respecting one another, with long intervals of peace, as though they wished to retard the moment of final separation, and often joining in various enterprises.
A system of liberty ruled in most of the Christian States. The Cortes arose much earlier than in the other western countries of Europe, and the Spanish people governed and regulated their expenses themselves, seeing only in their king a military chief. The municipalities were little republics with their own elected magistrates. The town militia realised the ideal of a democratic army. The Church at one with the people lived peacefully with the other religions in the country; an intelligent bourgeoisie created large industries in the interior, and fitted out the first navy of the times at their own cost, and Spanish products were more sought after than any other in all the ports of Europe. There were towns then as populous as any of the modern capitals; whole populations devoted themselves to weaving different kinds of stuffs, and everything was cultivated on the soil of the Peninsula.
The Catholic kings marked the apogee of national strength, but it was the beginning also of its decadence. Their reign was great because the flow of energy begun in the Middle Ages lasted till their times; but it was execrable, because their tortuous policy turned Spain from the right way, rousing in us religious fanaticism and the ambition of universal empire. Two or three centuries ahead of the rest of Europe, Spain was for the world of those days what England is for our own times. If we had followed the same policy of religious toleration, of fusion of races, of industrial and agricultural work in preference to military enterprises, where should we not be now?
Gabriel asked this question, interrupting his ardent description of the past.
"The Renaissance," continued Luna, "was more Spanish than Italian. In Italy the literature of antiquity, and Greco-Roman art revived, but the Renaissance was not entirely literary. The Renaissance represents the springing into life of a new and cultivated society, with arts and manufactures, armies and, scientific knowledge, etc. And who accomplished this but Spain, that Arab-Hebrew-Christian Spain of the Catholic kings? The Gran Capitan taught the world the art of modern warfare; Pedro Navarro was a wonderful engineer; the Spanish troops were the first to use firearms, and they created also the infantry, making war democratic, as it gave the people the superiority over the noble horsemen clad in armour; finally, it was Spain who discovered America."
"And does all this seem little to you?" interrupted Don Antolin. "Do you not exactly agree with what I said? We have never seen so much power and greatness united in Spain as in the times of those kings, who with reason some call the Catholics."
"I agree that it was a grand period of our history; the last that was really glorious, the last gleam that flashed before that Spain, who alone walked in the right way, was extinguished. But before their deaths the Catholic kings commenced the decadence by dismembering that strong and healthy Spain of the Arabs, the Christians and the Jews. You are right, Don Antolin, to say that those kings are not called the Catholics for nothing. Doña Isabel with her feminine fanaticism established the Inquisition, so science extinguished her lamp in the mosques and synagogues, and hid her books in Christian convents. Seeing that the hour for praying, instead of reading, had come, Spanish thought took refuge in darkness, trembling in cold and solitude, and ended by dying. What remained devoted itself to poetry, to comedies and theological tracts. Science became a pathway that led to the bonfire; and then came a fresh calamity, the expulsion of the Spanish Jews, so saturated with the spirit of this country, loving it so dearly, that even to-day, after four centuries, scattered on the shores of the Danube or the Bosphorus there are Spanish Jews who weep, like old Castillians, for their lost country:
'Perdimos la bella Sion;
Perdimos tambien España
Nido de consolacion.'[1]