[55] By an article of the primitive instructions, the inquisitors were required to set apart a small portion of the confiscated estates for the education and Christian nurture of minors, children of the condemned. Llorente says, that, in the immense number of processes, which he had occasion to consult, he met with no instance of their attention to the fate of these unfortunate orphans! Hist. de l'Inquisition, tom. i. chap. 8.
[56] Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 44.—Torquemada waged war upon freedom of thought, in every form. In 1490, he caused several Hebrew Bibles to be publicly burnt, and some time after, more than 6000 volumes of Oriental learning, on the imputation of Judaism, sorcery, or heresy, at the autos da fe of Salamanca, the very nursery of science. (Llorente, Hist. de l'Inquisition, tom. i. chap. 8, art. 5.) This may remind one of the similar sentence passed by Lope de Barrientos, another Dominican, about fifty years before, upon the books of the marquis of Villena. Fortunately for the dawning literature of Spain, Isabella did not, as was done by her successors, commit the censorship of the press to the judges of the Holy Office, notwithstanding such occasional assumption of power by the grand inquisitor.
[57] Pulgar, Reyes Católicos, part. 2, cap. 77.—L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, fol. 164.—The prodigious desolation of the land may be inferred from the estimates, although somewhat discordant, of deserted houses in Andalusia. Garibay (Compendio, lib. 18, cap. 17,) puts these at three, Pulgar (Reyes Católicos, part. 2, cap. 77,) at four, L. Marineo (Cosas Memorables, fol. 164,) as high as five thousand.
[58] Llorente, Hist. de l'Inquisition, tom. i. chap. 7, art. 8; chap. 8, art. 6.
[59] Nic. Antonio, Bibliotheca Vetus, tom. ii. p. 340.—Llorente, Hist. de l'Inquisition, tom. i. chap. 8, art. 6.
[60] "Per la fè—il tutto lice." Gerusalemme Liberata, cant. 4, stanza 26.
CHAPTER VIII.
REVIEW OF THE POLITICAL AND INTELLECTUAL CONDITION OF THE SPANISH ARABS PREVIOUS TO THE WAR OF GRANADA.
Conquest of Spain by the Arabs.—Cordovan Empire.—High Civilization and
Prosperity.—Its Dismemberment.—Kingdom of Granada.—Luxurious and
Chivalrous Character.—Literature of the Spanish Arabs.—Progress in
Science.—Historical Merits.—Useful Discoveries.—Poetry and Romance.—
Influence on the Spaniards.
We have now arrived at the commencement of the famous war of Granada, which terminated in the subversion of the Arabian empire in Spain, after it had subsisted for nearly eight centuries, and with the consequent restoration to the Castilian crown of the fairest portion of its ancient domain. In order to a better understanding of the character of the Spanish Arabs, or Moors, who exercised an important influence on that of their Christian neighbors, the present chapter will be devoted to a consideration of their previous history in the Peninsula, where they probably reached a higher degree of civilization than in any other part of the world. [1]