The king, having now gained full possession of the city, began to repair, embellish, and improve it. The grand mosque, the greatest and most magnificent in Spain, was now converted into a holy Catholic church. The bishops and other clergy walked round it in solemn procession, sprinkling holy water in every nook and corner, and performing all other rites and ceremonies necessary to purify and sanctify it. They erected an altar in it, also, in honor of the Virgin, and chanted masses with great fervor and unction. In this way they consecrated it to the true faith, and made it the cathedral of the city.
In this mosque were found the bells of the church of San Iago in Gallicia, which the Alhagib Almanzor, in the year of our Redemption nine hundred and seventy-five, had brought off in triumph and placed here, turned with their mouths upward to serve as lamps, and remain shining mementos of his victory. King Fernando ordered that these bells should be restored to the church of San Iago; and as Christians had been obliged to bring those bells hither on their shoulders, so infidels were compelled in like manner to carry them back. Great was the popular triumph when these bells had their tongues restored to them, and were once more enabled to fill the air with their holy clangor.
Having ordered all things for the security and welfare of the city, the king placed it under the government of Don Tello Alonzo de Meneses; he appointed Don Alvar Perez de Castro, also, general of the frontier, having his stronghold in the castle of the rock of Martos. The king then returned, covered with glory, to Toledo.
The fame of the recovery of the renowned city of Cordova, which for five hundred and twenty-two years had been in the power of the infidels, soon spread throughout the kingdom, and people came crowding from every part to inhabit it. The gates which lately had been thronged with steel-clad warriors were now besieged by peaceful wayfarers of all kinds, conducting trains of mules laden with their effects and all their household wealth; and so great was the throng that in a little while there were not houses sufficient to receive them.
King Fernando, having restored the bells to San Iago, had others suspended in the tower of the mosque, whence the muezzin had been accustomed to call the Moslems to their worship. “When the pilgrims,” says Fray Antonio Agapida, “who repaired to Cordova, heard the holy sound of these bells chiming from the tower of the cathedral, their hearts leaped for joy, and they invoked blessings on the head of the pious King Fernando.”
CHAPTER IX.
Marriage of King Fernando to the Princess Juana.— Famine at Cordova.— Don Alvar Perez.