In the history of nations there is one fact which again and again with startling uniformity repeats itself. The rough, strong races from the north menace, and at last rudely dominate more highly civilized but less hardy races at the South, to the ultimate benefit of both, although with much present discomfort to the conquered race!
In Greece it was first the rude Hellenes who overran the Pelasgians. And again, long after that, there was another descent of fierce northern barbarians,—the Dorians from Epirus,—who, when they took possession of the Peloponnesus and became theSpartans, infused that vigorous strain without which the history of Greece might have been a very tame affair. In the British Isles it was the Picts and Scots, who would have done the same thing with England, perhaps, if the Angles and Saxons had not come to the rescue, while Spain had her own Picts and Scots in the mountain tribes of the Pyrenees. Butin the fifth century there was the most stupendous illustration of this tendency, when all of Southern Europe was at last inundated by that northern deluge, and the effete Roman Empire was effaced.
The process had been a gradual one; had commenced, in fact, two centuries before the overthrow of the Roman Republic. But not until the fourth century, after the wicked old empire had espoused Christianity, did it become obvious that its foundations were undermined by this flood of barbarians. In 410 A.D., when the West-Goths, under Alaric, entered and sacked Rome, her power was broken. The roots no longer nourished the distant extremities in Britain and Gaul, and it was only a question of time when these, too, should succumb to the inflowing tide.
The Ostro-Goths—or East-Goths—in Northern Italy, and the Visigoths—or West-Goths—in Gaul, were setting up kingdoms of their own, under a Roman protectorate. The long period of peace in Spain was broken. The Pyrenees, with their warlike tribes, defended her for a time; but the Suevi and the Vandals—the latter a companion tribe of the Goths—had found an easier entrance by thesea on the east. They flowed down toward the south, and from thence across to the northern coast of Africa, which they colonized, leaving a memorial in Spain, in the lovely province of Andalusia, which was named after them—Vandalusia. But before the sacking of Rome a wave of the Gothic invasion had overflowed the Pyrenees, and Northern Spain had become a part of the Gothic kingdom in Gaul, with the city of Toulouse as its head.
A century of contact with Roman civilization had wrought great changes in this conquering race. They were untamed in strength, but realized the value of the civilities of life, and of intellectual superiority; and even strove to acquire some of the arts and accomplishments of the race they were invading. They were not yet acknowledged entire masters of Gaul and northern Spain. On condition of military service they had undisputed possession of their territory, with their own king, laws, and customs, but were nominally subjects of the Roman Emperor, Honorius.
Their attitude toward the Romans at this period cannot better be told than in the words of Ataulf himself (or Ataulfus, or Adolphus),whose interesting story will be briefly related. He says:
"It was my first wish to destroy the Roman name and erect in its place a Gothic Empire, taking to myself the place and the powers of Cæsar Augustus. But when experience taught me that the untamable barbarism of the Goths would not suffer them to live under the sway of law, and that the abolition of the institutions on which the state rested would involve the ruin of the state itself, I chose instead the glory of renewing and maintaining by Gothic strength the fame of Rome; preferring to go down to posterity as the restorer of that Roman power which it was beyond my power to replace."
These are not the words of a barbarian; although by the corrupt and courtly nobles in Rome he was considered one; but no doubt he towered far above the barbarous host whom he helped to lead into Rome in the year 410 A.D.
Ataulf was the brother-in-law of Alaric, and succeeded that great leader in authority after his death (410 A.D.).
At the time of the sacking of Rome this Gothic prince fell in love with Placidia, thesister of the Emperor Honorius; and after the fashion of his people, carried her away as his captive; not an unwilling one, we suspect, for we learn of her great devotion to her brave, strong wooer, with blond hair and blue eyes. Ataulf took his fair prize to the city of Narbonne in southern France, and made her his Queen. But when Constantius, a disappointed Roman lover of Placidia's, instigated Honorius to send an army against him and his Goths, he withdrew into Spain, and established his court with its rude splendor in the ancient city of Barcelona.
He seems to have had not an easy task between the desire to please his haughty Roman bride and, at the same time, to repel the charge of his people that he was becoming effeminate and Romanized; and, finally, so jealous did they become of her influence that Ataulf was assassinated in the presence of his wife, all his children butchered, and the proud Placidia compelled to walk barefoot through the streets of Barcelona.
Constantius, the faithful Roman lover, came with an army and carried back to Rome the royal widow, who married him and became the mother of Valentinian III., who succeededhis uncle Honorius as Emperor of Rome in 425 A.D., under the regency of Placidia during his infancy.
This romance, lying at the very root of a Gothic dynasty in Spain, marks the earliest beginnings of a line of Visigoth kings. Ataulf's successor removed his court to Toulouse in France, and Spain for many years remained only an outlying province of the Gothic kingdom; her turbulent northern tribes refusing to accept or to mingle with the strange intruders. When driven by the Romans from their mountain fastnesses the Basques, many of them, were at that time dispersed through southern and central France; which accounts for the presence of that race in France, before alluded to.
In the second half of the fifth century Attila, "the Scourge of God," swept down upon Europe with his Huns,—mysterious, terrible, as a fire out of heaven, and more like an army of demons than men,—destroying city after city, and driving the people before them, until they came to Orléans. There they met the combined Roman and Gothic armies. Theodoric, the Visigoth king, was killed on the battlefield. But to him, and to the Romangeneral Ætius, belongs the glory of the defeat of the Huns (451 A.D.).
It was Evaric, the son of this Theodoric, who finally completed the conquest of the Spanish Peninsula, and with him really commences the line of Visigoth kings in Spain, and the conversion of that country into a Gothic empire,Aentirely independent of Rome.
The GermanFranks, under Clovis, established their kingdom in Gaul 481 A.D. TheAnglesandSaxonsin 446 A.D. did the same in Britain. TheOstrogothshad their own kingdom in northern Italy and southern Gaul (Burgundy). So, with theVisigothsruling in Spain, the "northern deluge" had in the fifth century practically submerged the whole of Europe, and above its dark waters showed only the somber wreck of a Roman empire.
From this fusing of Roman and Teutonic races there were to arise two types of civilization, utterly different in kind, theAnglo-Saxonand theLatin. In one the prevailing element, after the fusing was complete, wasto be the Teutonic; in the other, the Roman. Herein lies the difference between these two great divisions of the human family, and this is the germinal fact in the war raging to-day between Spain and the United States. It is a difference created not by the mastery of arms, but by the more efficient mastery of ideas.
When the Angles and Saxons conquered Britain, after a Roman occupation of over three hundred years, they swept it clean of Roman laws, literature, and civilization. Untamed pagan barbarians though they were, they had fine instincts and simple ideals of society and government, and they cast out the corrupt old empire, root and branch.
The Visigoths in Spain, more enlightened than they, already Christianized, and, perhaps, even superior in intelligence, were content in the words of Ataulf—"to renew and maintain by Gothic strength the fame of Rome." So they built upon the ruins of decaying institutions of a corrupt civilization, a kingdom which flourished with the enormous vitality drawn from the conquering race, which race was in turn conquered by Roman ideals.
So, in the conflict now existing betweenSpain and the United States, we see the Spaniard, the child of the Romans; valorous, picturesque, cruel, versed in strategic arts, and with a savor of archaic wickedness which belongs to a corrupt old age. In the American we see the child of the simple Angles and Saxons, no less brave, but just, and with an enthusiasm and confiding integrity which seems to endow him with an imperishable youth.
Footnote A:(return)The famous Gothic code established by him still linger in much of Spanish jurisprudence.
The famous Gothic code established by him still linger in much of Spanish jurisprudence.
The story of Ulfilas, who Christianized the pagan Goths in the last half of the fourth century, is really the first chapter not alone in the history of Gothic civilization but in that of the German and English literatures; which, with their vast riches, had their origin in the strange achievement of Ulfilas. He had, while a boy, been captured by some Goths off the coast of Asia Minor, and was called by them "Wulf-ilas" (little wolf). In his desire to translate the Bible to his captors Wulf-ilas reduced the Gothic language to writing. He had first to create an alphabet; taking twenty-two Roman letters, and inventing two more: the letterw, and still another forth. So while, after Constantine, the Christian religion was being adopted by the Roman Empire, and while its simple dogmas were being discussed and refined into a complicated and intricate system by men versed in Greek philosophy, and then formulatedby minds trained in logic and rhetoric, the same religion was being spelled out in simple fashion by the Goths in central Europe from the book translated for them by Ulfilas.
All they found was that Jesus Christ was the beloved son of God and the Saviour of the world; that he was the long-promised Messiah, and to believe in him and to follow his teachings was salvation. They knew nothing of the Trinity nor of any theologic subtleties, and this was the simple faith which the Goths carried with them into the lands they conquered.
The Romans, who had spent three centuries in burning Christians and trying to obliterate the religion of Christ, were now its jealous guardians. They considered this "Arianism," as it was called, a blasphemous heresy, so shocking that they refused to call it Christianity at all. The history of the first century of the Gothic kingdom in Spain was therefore mainly that of the deadly strife between Arianism and Catholicism, or orthodoxy. The Goths could not discuss, for they were utterly unable to understand even the terms under discussion; but they could fight and lay down their lives for the faith which had done somuch for them; and this they did freely and fiercely.
So the simple Gothic people were bewildered by finding themselves in the presence of a Christianity incomprehensible to them; a complicated, highly organized social order, equally incomprehensible; and a science and a literature of which they knew nothing. They might struggle for a while against this tide of superiority, but one by one they entered the fascinating portals of learning and of art, accepted the dogmas of learned prelates, and a few generations were sufficient to make them meek disciples of the older civilization.
The Spanish language fairly illustrates the result from this incongruous mingling of Roman and Gothic. It is said to be a language of Latin roots with a Teutonic grammar.
The Goths laid rough hands on the speech they consented to use, and the smooth, sonorous Latin was strangely broken and mixed with Gothic words and idioms; yet it became one of the most copious, flexible, and picturesque of languages, with a literature marvelously rich and beautiful.
In precisely the same way was the classicold ruin of a Roman state re-enforced with a rough Gothic framework, and after centuries have hidden the joints and the scars with mosses and verdure, we have a picturesque and beautiful Spain!
But barbarous kings were fighting other things besides heresy. There were rebellions to put down; there were remnants of Sueves and of Roman power to drive out, and there were always the fierce mountain tribes who never mingled with any conquerors, nor had ever surrendered to anything but the Catholic faith.
There were intermarriages between the three Gothic kingdoms, in Burgundy, Gaul, and Spain, and the history of some of these royal families shows what wild passions still raged among the Goths, and what atrocities were strangely mingled with ambitious projects and religion.
Athanagild, one of the Visigoth kings, gave his daughter Brunhilde in marriage to the King of the Franks in Gaul. The story of this terrible Queen, stained with every crime, and accused of the death of no less than ten kings, comes to a fitting end when, we are told, that in her wicked old age she was tiedto the tail of an unbroken horse and dragged over the stones of Paris (600 A.D.).
At this time Leovigild (570-587), the Visigoth King, was ruling Spain with a strong hand. He had assumed more splendor than any of his predecessors. He had erected a magnificent throne in his palace at Toledo, and his head, wearing the royal diadem, was placed on Spanish coins, which may still be seen. A daughter of the terrible Brunhilde, the Princess Ingunda, came over from France to become the wife of Ermingild, the son of the great King Leovigild, and heir to his throne.
All went smoothly until it was discovered that this fair Princess was a Catholic, and was artfully plotting to win her husband over to her faith from the faith of his fathers—Arianism.
Although Catholicism had made great inroads among their people, never before had it invaded the royal household. And when his son declared his intention to desert their ancient creed there commenced a terrible conflict between father and son, which finally led to Ermingild's open rebellion, and at last to his being beheaded by his father's order. But thiscrime against nature was in vain. Arianism had reached the limit of its life in Spain. Upon the death of Leovigild, his second son, Recared (587-601), succeeded to the throne, and one of his first acts was to abjure the old faith of the Gothic people, and Catholicism became the established religion of Spain.
Toledo, the capital of the Visigoth Kings, is the city about which cluster the richest memories of Spain in her heroic age. When Leovigild removed his capital there from Seville in the sixth century, it was already an ancient Jewish city, about which tradition had long busied itself. To-day, as it sits on the summit of a barren hill, one looks in vain for traces of its ancient Gothic splendor. But the spot where now stands a beautiful cathedral is hallowed by a wonderful legend, which Murillo made the subject of one of his great paintings. It is said that the Apostle St. James founded on that very spot the Church ofSanta Maria; and that the Virgin, in recognition of the dedication to her, descended from heaven to present its Bishop, Ildofonso, with a marvelous chasuble. In proof of this miracle, doubting visitors are still shown the marks of Mary's footprint upon a stair in the chapel! However this may be, it is on this very spotthat King Recared formally abjured Arianism; and preserved in a cloister of the cathedral may still be seen the "Consecration Stone" which reads: that the Church of Santa Maria,—built probably on the foundation of the older church,—was consecrated under "King Recared the Catholic, 587 A.D." It also tells of the councils of the Spanish Church held there—at one of which councils was the famous canon which decreed that all future Kings must swear they would show no mercy to "that accursed people"—meaning the Jews. It was these very Jews who had brought commercial success and created the enormous wealth of the city, from which it was now the duty of the pious Visigoth Kings to harry and hunt them as if they were frightened deer.
The Visigoth monarchy, although in many cases hereditary, was in fact elective. And the student of Spanish history will not find an orderly royal succession as in England and France. Disputes regarding the succession were not infrequent, and sometimes there will occur an interval with apparently no king at all, followed by another period when there are two—one ruling in the north and another inthe south. "The King is dead—long live the King!" might do for France, but not for Spain.
During one of these periods of uncertainty, in the latter half of the seventh century, it is said that Leo, a holy man (afterward Pope), was told in a dream that the man who must wear the crown was then a laborer, living in the west, and that his name was Wamba. They traveled in search of this man almost to the borders of Portugal, and there they found the future candidate for the throne plowing in the field. The messengers, bowing before the plowman, informed him that he had been selected as King of Spain.
Wamba laughed, and said, "Yes, I shall be King of Spain when my pole puts forth leaves."
Instantly the bare pole began to bud, and in a few moments was covered with verdure!
In vain did Wamba protest. What could a poor man do in the face of such a miracle, and with a Spanish Duke pressing a poniard against his breast, and telling him to choose on the instant between a throne and a tomb!
The unhappy Wamba suffered himself to be borne in triumph to Toledo, and there tobe crowned. And a very wise and excellent King did he make. He seemed fully equal to the difficult demands of his new position. A rebellion, fomented by an ambitious Duke Paul, who gathered about his standard all the banished Jews, was a very formidable affair. But Wamba put it down with a firm hand, and then, when it was over, treated the conspirators and rebels with marvelous clemency. When his reign was concluded he left a record of wisdom and sagacity rare in those days, in any land.
His taking off the stage was as remarkable as his coming on. He fell into a trance (October 14, 680), and after long insensibility it was concluded that the King was dying. According to a custom of the period Wamba's head was shaved, and he was clothed in the habit of a monk. The meaning of this was that if he died, he would, as was fitting, pass into the Divine presence in penitential garb. But if, peradventure, the patient survived, he was pledged to spend the rest of his life in that holy vocation, renouncing every worldly advantage.
So when, after a few hours, Wamba, in perfect health, opened his eyes, he found that insteadof a King he was transformed into a Monk!
Whether this was a cunning device of this philosophic King to lay down the burdens which wearied him, and spend the rest of his days in tranquility; or whether it was the work of the Royal Prince, who joyfully assumed the diadem which he had so unwillingly worn, nobody knows. But Wamba passed the remainder of his days in a monastery near Burgos, and the ambitious Ervigius reigned as his successor.
The Visigoth kingdom, which had stood for three centuries, had passed its meridian. It had created a magnificent background for historic Spain, and a heritage which would be the pride and glory of the proudest nation in Europe. The Goths had come as only rude intruders into that country; but to be descended from the Visigoth Kings was hereafter to be the proudest boast of the Spaniard. And the man who could make good such claim to distinction was aHidalgo; or in its original form,hijo-de-algo—son of somebody.
But many generations of peace had impaired the rugged strength and softened the sinews of the nation. It was the beginning of the end when, at the close of the seventh century, there were two rival claimants to the throne; and while the vicious and cruel Witiza reigned at Toledo, Roderick, the son of Theodofred, also reigned in Andalusia. There had been a long struggle, during whichit is said that Theodofred's eyes had been put out by his victorious rival, and his son Roderick had obtained assistance from the Greek Emperor at Byzantium in asserting his own claims. He succeeded in driving Witiza out of the country; and in 709,—"the last of the Goths,"—was crowned at Toledo, King of all Spain.
But the struggle was not over; and it was about to lead to a result which is one of the most momentous in the history, not alone of Spain,—nor yet of Europe,—but ofChristendom. Witiza was dead, but his two sons, with a formidable following, were still trying to work the ruin of Roderick. A certain Count Julian, who, on account of his daughter Florinda, had his own wrongs to avenge, accepted the leadership of these rebels. The power of the Visigoths had extended across the narrow strait (cut by the Phenicians) over to the opposite shore, where Morocco seems to be reaching out in vain endeavor to touch the land from which she was long ago severed; and there, at Tangiers, this arch-traitor laid his plans and matured the scheme of revenge and treachery which had such tremendous results for Europe. With an appearance of perfectloyalty he parted from Roderick, who unsuspectingly asked him to bring him some hawks from Africa when he returned. Bowing, he said: "Sire, I will bring you such hawks as never were seen in Spain before."
For one hundred years an unprecedented wave of conquest had been moving from Asia toward the west. Mahommedanism, which was destined to become the scourge of Christendom, had subjected Syria, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and northern Africa, until it reached Ceuta—the companion Pillar to Gibraltar on the African coast.
At this point the Goths had stood, as a protecting wall beyond which the Asiatic deluge could not flow.
Count Julian was the trusted military commander of the Gothic garrisons in Morocco, asMusa, the oft-defeated Saracen leader, knew to his cost. As this Musa was one day looking with covetous eyes across at the Spanish Peninsula, he was suddenly surprised by a visit from Count Julian; and still more astonished when that commander offered to surrender to him the Gothic strongholdsTangier,Arsilla, andCeutain return for the assistance of the Saracenarmy in the cause of Witiza's sons against Roderick.
Amazed at such colossal treason, Musa referred Count Julian to his master the Khalif, at Damascus, who at once accepted his infamous proposition. In Spanish legend and history this man is always designated asThe Traitor, as if standing alone and on a pinnacle among the men who have betrayed their countries.
Musa, half doubting, sent a preliminary force of about five hundred Moors under a chief namedTarif, to the opposite coast; and the Moors found, as was promised, that they might range at their own will and pleasure in that earthly paradise of Andalusia. The name of this Mussulman chief, Tarif, was given to the spot first touched by the feet of the Mahommedan, which was calledTarifa; and as Tarifa was afterward the place where customs were collected, the wordtariffis an imperishable memorial of that event. In like manner Gibraltar was namedGebel-al-Tarik, (Mountain of Tarik) after the leader bearing that name, who was sent later by Musa with a larger force; which name has been gradually changed to its present form—Gibraltar.
Poor King Roderick, while still fighting to maintain his own right to the crown he wore, learned with dismay that his country was invaded by a horde of people from the African coast. Theodemir wrote to him: "So strange is their appearance that we might take them for inhabitants of the sky. Send me all the troops you can collect, without delay." The hawks promised by Count Julian had arrived!
The hour of doom had sounded for the last King of the Visigoths, and for his kingdom. There is a legend that a mysterious tower existed near Toledo, which was built by Hercules, soon after Adam, with the command that no king or lord of Spain should ever seek to know what it contained; instead of that it was the duty of each King to put a new lock upon its mysterious portal.
It is said that Roderick, perhaps in his extremity, resolved to disobey the command, and to discover the secret hidden in the Enchanted Tower. In a jeweled shrine in the very heart of the structure he came at last to a coffer of silver, "right subtly wrought," and far inside of that he reached the final mystery,—only this,—a white cloth folded betweentwo pieces of copper. With trembling eagerness Roderick opened and found painted thereon men with turbans, carrying banners, with swords strung around their necks, and bows behind them, slung at the saddle-bow. Over these figures was written: "When this cloth shall be opened, men appareled like these shall conquer Spain, and be the lords thereof."
Such is the picturesque legend. Men with "turbans and banners and swords slung about their necks," were assuredly now in Andalusia, led by Tarik, who had literally burned his ships behind him, and then told his followers to choose between victory or death.
The two armies faced each other at a spot near Cadiz. It is said that Roderick, the degenerate successor of Alaric, went into battle in a robe of white silk embroidered with gold, sitting on a car of ivory, drawn by white mules. Tarik's men, who were fighting for victory or Paradise, overwhelmed the Goths; Roderick, in his flight, was drowned in the Guadalquivir, and his diadem of pearls and his embroidered robe were sent to Damascus as trophies.
Count Julian urged that the victory beimmediately followed up by Musa before there was time for the Spaniards to rally. One after another the cities of Toledo, Cordova, and Granada capitulated, the persecuted Jews flocking to the new standard and aiding in the conquest of their oppressors.
As well might one have held back the Atlantic from rushing through that canal upon the isthmus, as to have stayed the inflowing of the Saracens through the breach made by "the Traitor," Count Julian! In less than two years Spain was a conquered province, rendering allegiance to the Khalif at Damascus, and theMoor,—as the followers of the Prophet in Morocco were called,—reigned in Toledo.
It was in the year 412 that Ataulfus, with his haughty bride Placidia, had established his Court at Barcelona, and Romanized Spain became Gothic Spain. In 711—just three centuries later—the Visigoth kingdom had disappeared as utterly beneath the Saracen flood as had its ill-fated King Roderick under the waters of the Guadalquivir; and fastened upon Christian Europe was a Mahommedan empire; an empire which all the combined powers of that continent have never since beenable entirely to dislodge. From that ill-omened day in 709, when Tarif set foot on the Spanish coast, to this June of 1898, the Mahommedan has been in Europe; and remains to-day, a scourge and a blight in the territory upon which his cruel grasp still lingers.
Tarik and his twelve thousand Berbers,Aor Moors, had at one stroke won the Spanish Peninsula. The banner of the Prophet waved over every one of the ancient and famous cities in Andalusia, and the turbaned army had marched through the stubborn north as far as the Spanish border. As Musa, intoxicated with success, stood at last upon the Pyrenees, he saw before him a vision of a subjugated Europe. The banner of the Prophet should wave from the Pyrenees to the Baltic! A mosque should stand where St. Peter's now stands in Rome! So, step by step, the Moslems pressed up into Gaul, and in 732 their army had reached Tours.
It was a moment of supreme peril for Christendom. But, happily, the Franks had what the Goths had not—a great leader. Charles Martel,—thenMaire du Palais, and virtually King of France, instead of the feeble Lothair,—ledhis Franks into what was to be one of the most decisive of the world's battles; a battle which would determine whether Europe should be Christian or Mahommedan.
The tide of infidel invasion had reached its limits. The strong right arm of Charles dealt such ponderous blows that the Moslems broke in confusion, and this savior of Christendom was thenceforth known as Charles Martel: "Karl of the Hammer."
After this crushing disaster at Tours the Moors realized that they were not invincible. Their vaulting ambition did not again try to overleap the Pyrenees; and they addressed themselves to settling affairs in their new territory.
It has been wisely said that if the Mahommedan state had been confined within the borders of Arabia, it would speedily have collapsed. Islam became a world-wide religion when it clothed itself with armor, and became a church militant. It wasconquestwhich saved the faith of the Prophet. In its home in Asia the Empire of Mahommed was composed of hostile tribes and clans, and as it moved westward it gathered up Syrians, Egyptians, and the Berbers on the Africancoast, who, when Morocco was reached, were known as Moors. This strange, heterogeneous mass of humanity, all nourished from Arabia, was held together by two things: theKoranand thesword.
When conquest was exchanged for peaceful possession, all the internecine jealousies, the tribal feuds, and old hatreds burst forth, and the first fifty years of Moorish rule in Spain was a period of internal strife and disorder—Arabs and Moors were jealously trying to undermine each other; while the Arabs themselves were torn by factions representing rival clans in Damascus.
But a singular clemency was shown toward the conquered Spaniards. They were permitted to retain their own law and judges, and their own governors administered the affairs of the districts and collected the taxes. The rule of the conquering race bore upon the people actually less heavily than had the old Gothic rule. Jews and Christians alike were free to worship whom or what they pleased; but, at the same time, great benefits were bestowed upon those who would accept the religion of the Prophet. The slave class, which was very large and had suffered terriblecruelties under its old masters, was treated with especial mildness and humanity. There was a simple road to freedom opened to every man. He had only to say, "There is one God, and Mahommed is his Prophet," and on the instant he became a freeman!
Such gentle proselytizing as this speedily won converts, not alone among slaves but from all classes. The pacification of Spain by the Romans had required centuries; while only a few years sufficed to make of the vanquished in the southern provinces, a contented and almost happy people; not only reconciled, but even glad of the change of masters. Never was Andalusia so mildly, justly, and wisely governed as by her Arab conquerors.
The most delicate of all problems is that of dealing with a conquered race in its own land. That this should have been so wisely and so skillfully handled would be incomprehensible if this had been really, what it is always called, a Moorish conquest. But to be accurate, it was a Moorish invasion and a Saracen conquest!
The fierce Berber Moor contributed the brute force, which was wielded by Saracen intelligence.
The Saracens were the leaven which penetrated the whole sodden mass of Mahommedanism. With a civilization which had been ripening for centuries under Oriental skies,—rich in wisdom, learning, culture, science, and in art,—they had come into Europe, infidels though they were, to build up and not to destroy.
The Roman conquest of Spain had civilized a barbarous race. The Gothic conquest of Romanized Spain had converted an effete civilization into a strong semi-barbarism. Now again the Saracen had come from the East to convert a semi-barbarism into a civilization richer than any Spain had yet known, and, more than that, to hold up a torch of learning and enlightenment which should illumine Europe in the days of darkness which were at hand. Although this difference between Arab and Moor primarily existed, they became fused, and we shall speak of them only as Moors. But we should not lose sight of the fact that the superior intelligence which made the Moorish kingdom magnificent was from the land of the Prophet.
The Saracen dealt gently with theconquered Spaniard, not because his heart was tender and kind, but because he was crafty and wise, and knew when not to use force, in order to accomplish his ends. For the same reason he refrained from trying to break the spirit of the independent northern provinces, where the descendants of the old Visigoths—the Hidalgos ("sons-of-somebody")—proudly intrenched themselves in an attitude of defiance, making in time a clearly defined Christian north and Moslem south, with a mountain range (the Sierra Guadarrama) and a river (the Ebro) as the natural boundary line of the two territories. The Moor was a child of the sun. If the stubborn Goth chose to sulk, up among the chilly heights and on the bleak plains of the north, he might do so, and it was little matter if one Alfonso called himself "King of the Asturians," in that mountain-defended and sea-girt province. The fertile plains of Andalusia, and the banks of the Tagus and Guadalquivir, were all of Spain the Moor wanted for the wonderful kingdom which was to be the marvel of the Middle Ages.
Footnote A:(return)The old Phenician name for the North African tribes, derived from the word Iberi.
The old Phenician name for the North African tribes, derived from the word Iberi.
But, at the early period we are considering, the "Christian kingdom" was composed of a handful of men and women who had fled from the Moslems to the mountains of the Asturias. Its one stronghold was the cave of Covadonga, where Pelagius, or Pelayo, had gathered thirty men and ten women. Here, in the dark recesses of this cave,—which was approached through a long and narrow mountain pass, and entered by a ladder of ninety steps,—was the germ of the future kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, and also of the downfall of the Moor. An Arab historian said later: "Would to God the Moslems had extinguished that spark which was destined to consume the dominion of Islam in the north" and, he might have added, "in Spain."
When Alfonso of Cantabria married the daughter of Pelayo in 751, the cave of Covadonga no longer held the insurgent band. He roused all the northern provinces against the Moors and gathered an army which drovethem step by step further south, until he had pushed the Christian frontier as far as the great Sierra, so that the one-time Visigoth capital of Toledo marked the line of the Moslem border fortresses. Too scanty in numbers and too poor in purse to occupy the territory, Alfonso and his army then retreated to their mountains, there to enjoy the empty satisfaction of their conquest.
But the Moors in Andalusia had too many troubles of their own at that time to give much heed to Alfonso I. and his rebellious band hiding in the mountains. The Berbers and the Arabs on the African coast were jealous and antagonistic; the one was devout, credulous, and emotional; the other cool, crafty, and diplomatic. Suddenly the long-slumbering hatred burst into open revolt, and the Khalif sent thirty thousand Syrians to put down a formidable revolution in his African dominions.
In full sympathy with their kinsmen across the sea, the Moors in Spain began to realize that while that land had been won by twelve thousand Berbers, led by one Berber general, that the lion's share of the spoils had gone to the Arabs, who were carrying things with ahigh hand! There were signs of a general uprising, in concert with the revolution in Africa; and it looked as if the new territory was to be given up to anarchy; when suddenly all was changed.
The Khalif, who was the head of all the Mahommedan empire, was supposed to be the supreme ruler in spiritual and temporal affairs. But as his empire extended to such vast dimensions, he was obliged to delegate much of his temporal authority to others; so gradually it had become somewhat like that of the Pope. He was the supreme spiritual head, and only nominally supreme in affairs of state.
The family ofOmeyyadhad given fourteen Khalifs to the Mahommedan empire from 661 to 750; at which time the then reigning Omeyyad was deposed, and the second dynasty of Khalifs commenced, calledAbbaside, after Abbas, an uncle of the Prophet.
Abd-er-Rahman was a Prince belonging to the deposed family of the Omeyyads. He was the only one of his family who escaped the exterminating fury of the Abbasides. There was no future for him in the east, so the thoughts of the ambitious youth turned tothe west—to the newly won territory of Spain.
The coming of this last survivor of the Omeyyads to Andalusia is one of the romances of history, and was not unlike the coming of another young Pretender to Scotland, one thousand years later. It aroused the same wild enthusiasm, and as if by magic an army gathered about him, to meet the army of the Governor, Yusuf, which would resist him. Victory declared itself for the Prince, and he entered Cordova in triumph. Before the year had expired the dynasty of the Omeyyads—which was to stand for three centuries—was finally established, and its first king—Abd-er-Rahman—reigned at Cordova.
His hereditary enemies the Abbasides followed him to Spain, and found supporters among the disaffected. But it was in vain. The Abbaside army of invasion was utterly annihilated; and the qualities slumbering in this son of the Khalifs may be judged when we relate that the heads of the Abbaside leaders were put into a bag with descriptive labels attached to their ears, and sent to the reigning Khalif as a present.
This little incident does not seem to haveinjured him in the estimation of Mansur, the new Khalif, who said of him: "Wonderful is this man! Such daring, wisdom, prudence! To throw himself into a distant land; to profit by the jealousies of the people; to turn their arms against one another instead of against himself; to win homage and obedience through such difficulties; and to rule supreme—lord of all! Of a truth there is not such another man!" Abd-er-Rahman (the Sultan, as he was called) merited this praise. He knew when to be cruel and when to show mercy; and how to hold scheming Arab chiefs, fierce, jealous Berbers, and vanquished Christians, and could placate or crucify as the conditions required.
Charlemagne was at this time building up his colossal empire. His Christian soul was mightily stirred by seeing an infidel kingdom set up in Andalusia; and when, in 777, the Saracen governor and two other Arab chiefs appealed to him for aid against the Omeyyad usurper, Abd-er-Rahman, he eagerly responded. His grandfather Charles Martel had driven these infidels back over the Pyrenees; now he would drive them out of Spain, and reclaim that land for Christianity!
His army never reached farther than Saragossa. He was recalled to France by a revolt of the recently conquered Saxons, and the "Battle of Roncesvalles" is the historic monument of the ill-starred attempt. The battle in itself was insignificant. No action of such small importance has ever been invested with such a glamour of romance, nor the theme of so much legend and poetry. It has been called theThermopylæ of the Pyrenees, because of the personal valor displayed, and the tragic death of the two great Paladins (as the twelve Peers of Charlemagne were called) Roland and Olivier. TheChanson de Rolandwas one of the famous ballads in the early literature of Europe, and Roland and Olivier were to French and Spanish minstrelsy what the knights of King Arthur were to the English.
The simple story about which so much has been written and sung is this: As the retreating army of Charlemagne was crossing the Pyrenees, the rear of the army under Roland and Olivier was ambuscaded in the narrow pass of Roncesvalles by the Basques and exterminated to a man.
These Basques were the unconquerable mountain tribe of which we heard so much in the early history of Spain. They had been on guard for centuries, keeping the Franks back from the Pyrenees. They may have been acting under Saracenic influence when they exterminated the rear-guard of Charlemagne's army. But it was done, not because they loved the Saracen, but because they had a hereditary hatred for the Franks.
Mediæval Europe never tired of hearing of the Great Charles' lament over his Roland: "O thou right arm of my kingdom,—defender of the Christians,—scourge of the Saracens! How can I behold thee dead, and not die myself! Thou art exalted to the heavenly kingdom,—and I am left alone, a poor miserable King!"
The tide which had flowed over southern Spain was a singular mixture of religious fervor, of brutish humanity, and refinements of wisdom and wickedness. No stranger and more composite elements were ever thrown together. Permanence and peace were impossible. Nothing but force could hold together elements so incongruous and antagonistic. As soon as the hand of Abd-er-Rahman I. was removed disintegration began. Clashing races, clans, and political parties had in a few years made such havoc that it seemed as if the Omeyyad dynasty was crumbling.
It might have been an Arab who said "he cared not who made the laws of his country, so he could write its songs." Learning, literature, refinements of luxury and of art had taken possession of the land, which seemed given up to the muses. When in 822 Abd-er-Rahman II. reigned, he did not trouble himself about the laws of his crumbling empire.The one man in whom he delighted wasZiryab. What Petronius was to Nero,Aand Beau Brummel to George IV., that was Ziryab to the Sultan Abd-er-Rahman II., the elegant arbiter in matters of taste. From the dishes which should be eaten to the clothes which should be worn, he was the supreme judge; while at the same time he knew by heart and could "like an angel sing" one thousand songs to his adoring Sultan.
Even the Gothic Christians were seduced by these alluring refinements. They felt contempt for their old Latin speech and for their literature, with the tiresome asceticism it eternally preached. The Christian ideal had grown to be one of penance and mortification of the flesh, and to a few ardent souls these sensuous delights were an open highway to death eternal.Eulogiusbecame the leader of this band of zealots. In lamenting the decadence of his people, he wrote, "hardly one in a thousand can write a decent Latin letter, and yet they indite excellent Arabic verse!" Filled with despairing ardor this man aroused a few kindred spirits to join him in a desperateattempt to awaken the benumbed conscience of the Christians. They could not get the Moslems to persecute them, but they might attain martyrdom by cursing the Prophet; then the infidels, however reluctant, would be compelled to behead them. This they did, and one by one perished, to no purpose. The Gothic Christians were not conscience-stricken as Eulogius supposed they would be, and there was no general uprising for the Christian faith.
In 912 the threatened ruin of the dynasty was arrested by the coming of another Abd-er-Rahman, third Sultan of that name. Rebellion was put down, and fifty years of wise and just administration gave solidity to the kingdom, which also then became aKhalifate.
The Abbaside Khalifs, after the deposition of the Omeyyads, had removed the Khalifate from Damascus to Baghdad. But the empire had extended too far west to revolve about that distant pivot. Abd-er-Rahman—perhaps remembering the old feud between his family and the Abbasides—determined to assume the spiritual headship of the western part of the empire. And thereafter, the Mahommedan empire—like the Roman—had twoheads, an Eastern Khalif at Baghdad, and a Western Khalif at Cordova.
While thus extending his own power the Khalif was extinguishing every spark of rebellion in the south and driving the rebellious Christians back in the north, and at the same time he was clothing Cordova with a splendor which amazed and dazzled even the Eastern Princes who came to pay court to the great Khalif. His emissaries were everywhere collecting books for his library and treasure for his palaces. Cordova became the abode of learning, and the nursery for science, philosophy, and art, transplanted from Asia. The imagination and the pen of an arab poet could not have overdrawn this wonderful city on the Guadalquivir,—with its palaces, its gardens, and fountains,—its 50,000 houses of the aristocracy,—its 700 mosques,—and 900 public baths,—all adorned with color and carvings and tracery beautiful as a dream of Paradise. One hears with amazement of the great mosque, with its 19 arcades, its pavings of silver and rich mosaics, its 1293 clustered columns, inlaid with gold and lapis-lazuli, the clusters reaching up to the slender arches which supported the roof; the whole of thismarvelous scene lighted by countless brazen lamps made from Christian bells, while hundreds of attendants swung censers, filling the air with perfume.
After the ravages of a thousand years travelers stand amazed to-day before the forest of columns which open out in endless vistas in the splendid ruin, calling up visions of the vanished glories of Cordova and the Great Khalif.
There is not time to tell of the city this Spanish Khalif built for his favorite wife, "The Fairest," and which he called "Hill of the Bride," upon which for fifteen years ten thousand men worked daily; nor of the four thousand columns which adorned its palaces, presents from emperors and potentates in Constantinople, Rome, and far-off Eastern states; nor of the ivory and ebony doors, studded with jewels, through which shone the sun, the light then falling on the lake of quick-silver, which sent back blinding, quivering flashes into dazzled eyes. And we are told of the thirteen thousand male servants who ministered in this palace of delight. All this, too, at a time when our Saxon ancestors were living in dwellings without chimneys, and castingthe bones from the table at which they feasted into the foul straw which covered their floors; when a Gothic night had settled upon Europe, and blotted out civilization so completely that only in a part of Italy, and around Constantinople, did there remain a vestige of refinement!
It is said that when the embassy from Constantinople came bearing a letter to the Khalif, the courtier whose duty it was to read it was so awed by all this splendor that he fainted!
And yet the owner and creator of this fabulous luxury,—Sultan and Khalif of a dominion the greatest of his time, and with "The Fairest" for his adored wife,—when he came to die, left a paper upon which he had written that he could only recall fourteen days in which he had been happy.
Footnote A:(return)See "Quo Vadis?"
See "Quo Vadis?"