[27] Casiri, Bibliotheca Escurialensis, tom. ii. pp. 250-258.—The fifth volume of the royal Spanish Academy of History contains an erudite essay by Conde on Arabic money, principally with reference to that coined in Spain, pp. 225-315.
[28] A specification of a royal donative in that day may serve to show the martial spirit of the age. In one of these, made by the king of Granada to the Castilian sovereign, we find twenty noble steeds of the royal stud, reared on the banks of the Xenil, with superb caparisons, and the same number of scimitars richly garnished with gold and jewels; and, in another, mixed up with perfumes and cloth of gold, we meet with a litter of tame lions. (Conde, Dominacion de los Arabes, tom. iii. pp. 163, 183.) This latter symbol of royalty appears to have been deemed peculiarly appropriate to the kings of Leon. Ferreras informs us that the ambassadors from France at the Castilian court, in 1434, were received by John II. with a full-grown domesticated lion crouching at his feet. (Hist. d'Espagne, tom. vi. p. 401.) The same taste appears still to exist in Turkey. Dr. Clarke, in his visit to Constantinople, met with one of these terrific pets, who used to follow his master, Hassan Pacha, about like a dog.
[29] Conde, Dominacion de los Arabes, tom. iii. cap. 28.—Henriquez del Castillo (Crónica, cap. 138,) gives an account of an intended duel between two Castilian nobles, in the presence of the king of Granada, as late as 1470. One of the parties, Don Alfonso de Aguilar, failing to keep his engagement, the other rode round the lists in triumph, with his adversary's portrait contemptuously fastened to the tail of his horse.
[30] It must be admitted, that these ballads, as far as facts are concerned, are too inexact to furnish other than a very slippery foundation for history. The most beautiful portion perhaps of the Moorish ballads, for example, is taken up with the feuds of the Abencerrages in the latter days of Granada. Yet this family, whose romantic story is still repeated to the traveller amid the ruins of the Alhambra, is scarcely noticed, as far as I am aware, by contemporary writers, foreign or domestic, and would seem to owe its chief celebrity to the apocryphal version of Cinés Perez de Hyta, whose "Milesian tales," according to the severe sentence of Nic. Antonio, "are fit only to amuse the lazy and the listless." (Bibliotheca Nova, tom. i. p. 536.)
But, although the Spanish ballads are not entitled to the credit of strict historical documents, they may yet perhaps be received in evidence of the prevailing character of the social relations of the age; a remark indeed predicable of most works of fiction, written by authors contemporary with the events they describe, and more especially so of that popular minstrelsy, which, emanating from a simple, uncorrupted class, is less likely to swerve from truth, than more ostentatious works of art. The long cohabitation of the Saracens with the Christians, (full evidence of which is afforded by Capmany, (Mem. de Barcelona, tom. iv. Apend. no. 11,) who quotes a document from the public archives of Catalonia, showing the great number of Saracens residing in Aragon even in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the most flourishing period of the Granadian empire,) had enabled many of them confessedly to speak and write the Spanish language with purity and elegance. Some of the graceful little songs, which are still chanted by the peasantry of Spain in their dances, to the accompaniment of the castanet, are referred by a competent critic (Conde, De la Poesía Oriental, MS.) to an Arabian origin. There can be little hazard, therefore, in imputing much of this peculiar minstrelsy to the Arabians themselves, the contemporaries, and perhaps the eye- witnesses, of the events they celebrate.
[31] Casiri (Bibliotheca Escurialensis, tom. ii. p. 259) has transcribed a passage from an Arabian author of the fourteenth century, inveighing bitterly against the luxury of the Moorish ladies, their gorgeous apparel and habits of expense, "amounting almost to insanity," in a tone which may remind one of the similar philippic by his contemporary Dante, against his fair countrywomen of Florence.—Two ordinances of a king of Granada, cited by Conde in his History, prescribed the separation of the women from the men in the mosques; and prohibit their attendance on certain festivals, without the protection of their husbands or some near relative.—Their femmes savantes, as we have seen, were in the habit of conferring freely with men of letters, and of assisting in person at the academical séances.—And lastly, the frescoes alluded to in the text represent the presence of females at the tournaments, and the fortunate knight receiving the palm of victory from their hands.
[32] Conde, Dominacion de los Arabes, tom. i. p. 340; tom. iii. p. 119.
[33] Casiri, on Arabian authority, computes it at 200,000 men. Bibliotheca Escurialensis, tom. i. p. 338.
[34] Pulgar, Reyes Católicos, p. 250.
[35] Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. p. 169.—These ruined fortifications still thickly stud the border territories of Granada; and many an Andalusian mill, along the banks of the Guadayra and Guadalquivir, retains its battlemented tower, which served for the defence of its inmates against the forays of the enemy.