Chapter VI: The Emirate (3)

The history of Spain under the emirs presents a melancholy succession of tragic events arising from antipathy of race, political ambition, religious zeal, and private enmity. An extraordinary degree of instability, misrule, distrust, and avarice characterized their administration. The revolutions which constantly afflicted the Khalifate of Damascus exercised no inconsiderable influence over the viceregal capitals of Kairoan and Cordova. The Ommeyade princes of Syria lived in constant apprehension of death by violence. The methods by which they had arisen in many instances contributed to their overthrow. The assassin of yesterday often became the victim of to-day. The perpetration of every crime, the indulgence in every vice, by the Successors of the Prophet, diminished the faith and loyalty of their subjects and seriously affected the prestige and divine character believed to attach to their office. The subordinates necessarily shared the odium and ignominy of their superiors. The Emir of Spain labored under a twofold disadvantage. He held under the Viceroy of Africa, while the latter was appointed directly by the Khalif. This division of authority and responsibility was not conducive to the interests of good government, social order, or domestic tranquillity. The people of the Peninsula, subject to the caprices of a double tyranny, could not be expected to feel much reverence for the supreme potentate of their government and religion thirteen hundred miles away. With the accession of each ruler arose fresh pretexts for the exercise of every resource of extortion. The rapacity of these officials rivalled in the ingenuity of its devices and the value of its returns the exactions of the Roman proconsuls. The methods by which the majority of them maintained their power provoked universal execration. Under such political conditions, loyalty, union, and commercial prosperity were impossible. The ancient course of affairs--an order which had existed for three hundred years--had been rudely interrupted. Even under favorable auspices the foundation of a government and the reorganization of society would have been tasks fraught with many perplexities and dangers. The Visigothic empire had, it is true, been subdued, but its national spirit, its religion, and its traditions remained. The changes of Moslem governors were sudden and frequent. The average duration of an emir’s official life was exactly twenty-seven months. It required the exertion of the greatest wisdom, of the most enlightened statesmanship, to avert the calamities which must necessarily result from the collision between a heterogeneous populace subjected suddenly to the will of a still more heterogeneous mass of foreigners; to reconcile the interests of adverse factions; to appease the demands of wild barbarians unaccustomed to be denied; to decide alike profound questions of policy and frivolous disputes connected with the various gradations of ecclesiastical dignity, of hereditary rank, of military distinction, and of social precedence. The inflexibility of the Arab character, the assumed superiority of the Arab race, the unquenchable fires of tribal hatred, the necessity of maintaining the rights accorded under solemn treaties to the vanquished, enhanced a hundred-fold the difficulties which confronted the sovereign. As an inevitable consequence a chronic state of disorder prevailed. The authority of the Khalifs of Damascus was in fact but nominal, and was never invoked except to countenance revolt or to assure the obedience of those who faltered in their loyalty to the emirs, the actual rulers of Spain. But, despite these serious impediments, the genius of the Arabian people advanced rapidly in the path of civilization, while the dense and sluggish intellect of the northern barbarians, who, in their origin, were not less ignorant, remained stationary. It took Spain, under the Moslems, less than half a century to reach a point in human progress which was not attained by Italy under the popes in a thousand years. The capacity of the Arab mind to absorb, to appropriate, to invent, to develop, to improve, has no parallel in the annals of any race. The empire of the khalifs included an even greater diversity of climate and nations than that of Rome. The ties of universal brotherhood proclaimed by the Koran; the connections demanded by the requirements of an extended commerce; the intimate associations encouraged by the pilgrimage to Mecca, awakened the curiosity and enlarged, in an equal degree, the minds of the Moslems of Asia, Africa, and Europe. Yet more important than all was the effect of the almost incessant hostilities waged against the infidel. By its constantly varying events, its fascinations, its thrilling excitements, its dangers, its victories, defeats, and triumphs, war has a remarkable tendency to expand the intellectual faculties, and thereby to advance the cause of truth and promote the improvement of every branch of useful knowledge. The advantages derived from travel, experience, and conquest the Moslems brought with them into the Spanish Peninsula. Under the emirate, however, these were constantly counteracted by the ferocious and indomitable character of the Berbers. The latter did not forget the part they had taken in the Conquest. It was one of their countrymen who had led the victorious army. It was the irresistible onset of their cavalry which had pierced the Gothic lines on the Guadalete. The rapidity of their movements, the impetuosity of their attacks, had awed and subdued, in a few short months, the populous states of a mighty empire. Scarcely had they begun to enjoy the pleasures of victory before the greed of an hereditary enemy of their race snatched from their hands the well-earned fruits of their valor. Their commander was imprisoned, insulted, and disgraced. Their plunder was seized. Those who evinced a desire for a sedentary life were assigned to the bleak and sterile plains of La Mancha, Aragon, and Galicia, while the Arabs of Syria and the Hedjaz divided among themselves the glorious regions of the South, which tradition had designated as the Elysian Fields of the ancients. The arrogant disposition of these lords heaped upon their Berber vassals every outrage which malice could devise or tyranny execute. The accident of African extraction was sufficient to exclude the most accomplished and capable soldier from an office of responsibility under the Khalifate of Damascus. In Spain, as in Al-Maghreb, the fairest virgins of the Berber camps were torn from the arms of their parents to replenish the harems of the Orient. Under such circumstances, it is not strange that the acute sensibilities of a proud and independent people should have been deeply wounded by the infliction of every fresh indignity, and their disaffection endanger the stability of the new government and imperil the institutions of religion itself by fostering the violent spirit of tribal animosity, that ominous spectre which constantly haunted with its fearful presence the society of city and hamlet, and stalked grimly and in menacing silence in the very shadow of the throne.

The moral and political aspect of the Western world coincided in many particulars with that of Spain during the age of transition which preceded the establishment of the Khalifate of Cordova. Of all the states which had composed the vast fabric of the Roman Empire scarcely one was at peace with its neighbors or exempt from the calamities incident to religious discord and civil war. The scanty remains of art and learning which had escaped the fury of the barbarians had taken refuge in Constantinople, now the intellectual centre of Europe. The noble productions of the ancients had, however, been cast aside with contempt for the homilies of the Fathers, and arguments concerning the miraculous virtues of images, together with daily riots and chariot-races, engaged the attention and amused the leisure of the weak and pusillanimous Byzantine, whose character, deformed by abject vices, had long since forfeited all right to the honored name of Roman. The turbulent populace of that great city, which virtually dictated the edicts of its rulers, protected by its impregnable walls, had seen, with craven indifference, its environs plundered and its sovereignty defied by the powers of Persian, Goth, and Saracen. The genius and energy of its founder had been supplanted by the superstitions and cruelties of a succession of feeble tyrants, whose manifold crimes were now, for a short interval, redeemed by the martial talents and political virtues of Leo the Isaurian.

In Italy, the peace of society was disturbed by the iconoclastic heresy and the disorders which accompanied the foundation of a republic, commotions destined soon to provoke the interference of the Lombards and the subsequent impolitic alliance with those perfidious barbarians. The stern and uncompromising character of Gregory the Great had established the Church upon a basis so solid that the efforts of all its enemies have to this day been unable to prevail against it; and the sagacity of this distinguished pontiff had vindicated the policy of a system prompted by the inspiration of almost superhuman wisdom, sanctified by the precepts of antiquity, strengthened by the enthusiasm of its saints and martyrs, and confirmed by the prescription of centuries.

No country in Europe during the eighth century exhibited such a picture of unredeemed barbarism as Britain. The Romans had never been able to more than temporarily establish their institutions in that island. The legions with difficulty held in subjection a people whom neither force nor the arts of persuasion could make amenable to the benefits of civilized life. The cruel rites which characterized the worship of the Druids had been abolished, but the elegant mythology of Italy obtained no hold upon the minds of the degraded aborigines, who welcomed with delight the savage ceremonies which were performed around the altars of the Scandinavian Woden. Upon this uncongenial soil the refining genius of Rome left no permanent traces of its occupancy, no splendid memorials of its art and culture. The nature of the transitory impressions emanating from the possession of Britain by the masters of the world was disclosed by the crushing misfortunes which befell the empire in the fifth century. Unable to sustain the cares of government, hostile chieftains abandoned the island to all the woes of anarchy, and partisan jealousy invoked the perilous aid of the pirates of Germany, whose dominion was finally established only by a war of extermination involving both ally and foe. The obscurity of the British annals concerning the period under consideration, dense of itself, is increased by the popular acceptance of myth and legend as historic truth. The chroniclers of Western Europe, however, have made us acquainted with the national character of the Saxons. We know that in Britain the customs of the aborigines and the laws of the empire were alike abrogated; that no worship prevailed but the basest form of idolatry; that every vestige of Roman institutions was swept away; that the religion whose maxims had been proclaimed by the eloquence of Augustin was extirpated; and that the voice of faction which had evoked this barbarian tempest was silenced in the convulsions which preceded the foundation of the Saxon Heptarchy. The island, whose name is now the most familiar one known to mankind, became more mysterious than it had been in the remotest ages of antiquity; the country whose constitution is now inseparably associated with the enjoyment of the largest measure of freedom was then noted as the most advantageous market for the purchase of slaves. In the cultivated society of Constantinople, learned men believed that Britain was a region of pestilence and horrors, whither, as to a place of eternal punishment, the spirits of the Franks were ferried at midnight by a tribe of weird fishermen, who, by reason of this service, were exempted from certain burdens and enjoyed peculiar privileges. Among the luxurious ecclesiastics of Gaul, the slaves imported from Britain were greatly esteemed as being both cheap and serviceable; and the sacred office of priest or abbot was not degraded by the ownership of hapless beings in whose unnatural parents the feelings of humanity and the instincts of affection had been subordinated to the debasing passion of avarice.

The general complexion of affairs in Gaul offered a striking analogy to that prevailing in Spain at the time of the subversion of the kingdom of the Visigoths. In one respect, however, a difference more apparent than real existed; no monarch was deluded by the professed allegiance, and was at the same time constantly threatened by the treasonable plots of his subjects. A dynasty of puppet kings, restricted to a limited territory, displayed amidst every temptation to sensual indulgence the idle pomp of sovereignty. A race of hardy warriors and statesmen, ignorant of letters, experienced in arms, controlled, by the power of military enthusiasm and the superior influence of diplomatic ability, the destinies of the Frankish nation. With the exception of the clergy, whose attainments were at the best but superficial, the people were plunged into the deepest ignorance. In the regions of the North and East the influence of the idolatrous Germans and Scandinavians had retarded the progress of Christianity. Elsewhere, however, a mongrel religion, in which were incorporated the mummeries of polytheistic worship, the degrading superstitions and sanguinary rites of the Saxons, and the worst features of the Arian heresy, prevailed. This debased form of faith, which recognized neither the tolerance of Paganism nor the charity of the Gospel, satisfied the spiritual requirements of a barbarian populace. In one province idolatry was practised. In another, the principles of Christianity were in the ascendant. Not infrequently these forms of worship existed side by side; and within the sound of the cathedral bell the incense of sacrifice rose from the altars of the Teutonic deities, or the haruspex exercised his mysterious office, and, grovelling in the steaming vitals of the newly slaughtered victim, read, in the shape of the liver or the folds of the entrails, the signs of the future and the unerring decrees of fate.

Wherever the authority of the Roman Pontiff prevailed, the inclination to a monastic life predominated among all classes of society. Virgins of the wealthiest families, warriors of the greatest renown, alike voluntarily sought the retirement of the cloister, amidst the congratulations of their relatives and the applause of their companions. When the attractions of the world were too powerful to be resisted, the proudest chieftains compromised with conscience either by the donation of their serfs to the abodes consecrated to the service of God, or by the ransom and purchase of slaves to increase the lordly abbot’s imposing retinue. In the foundation of religious houses in France there existed an emulation unknown to any other country embraced in the spiritual domain of the Papacy. The fame and piety of the patron of one of these establishments was in a direct proportion to the number of recluses whom his riches or his influence was able to assemble within its walls. As a consequence, no inconsiderable portion of the population of France was devoted to a conventual life, and the number of monks congregated in a single monastery was prodigious, in many instances amounting to as many as eight hundred. The generosity and devotion of the founder of a religious community were certain to be rewarded with the coveted honor of canonization, and records of the Gallic Church during the first half of the eighth century include the names of more saints than any corresponding period in the history of Latin Christianity. Liberality to these holy institutions was esteemed not only a virtue of supreme excellence but a certain proof of orthodoxy, and their vaults enclosed treasures whose value was sedulously exaggerated by the vanity of the clergy and the credulity of the rabble. The accounts of the enormous wealth of these establishments, disseminated far and wide through the garrulity of pilgrims and travellers, by stimulating the cupidity of the Arabs and inciting them to crusade and colonization, produced a decided effect upon the political fortunes and social organization of France, and through France indirectly upon those of all Europe.

Rudeness, brutality, coarse licentiousness, affected sanctity, and barbaric splendor were the prominent characteristics of the society constituted by the nominal sovereigns and their courts, the mayors of the palace and their retainers, and the lazy ecclesiastics who swarmed in every portion of the dominions of the Merovingian princes. The will of the most powerful noble was the law of the land. Apprehension of intestine warfare and the mutual jealousy and unscrupulous ambition of the feudal lords perpetually discouraged the industry of the husbandman. A feeling of indifference pervaded the ranks of the ignorant populace, stupidly content with the pleasures of a mere animal existence. The priesthood, assiduous in the exactions of tithes, evinced a marked repugnance to contribute pecuniary aid in times of national emergency when even their own existence was imperilled. Unnatural crimes, fratricide, incest, and nameless offences against public decency were common. Concubinage was universally prevalent among the wealthy. In a practice so fatal to the purity of domestic life the clergy obtained a disgraceful pre-eminence, and in the cloistered seclusion of convents and monasteries, those apparent seats of austerity and devotion, were enacted with impunity scenes which shrank from the publicity of cities and indicated the alarming and hopeless extent of ecclesiastical depravity.

In the provinces of the South, formerly subject to the jurisdiction of the Visigoths, a greater degree of intelligence and a more polished intercourse existed, the inheritance of the ancient colonists who had bequeathed to their posterity the traditions of Roman luxury and Grecian culture. Here, upon the shores of the Mediterranean and in the valley of the Rhone, the gifts of nature were better adapted to progress in the arts; the climate was more propitious to the intellectual development of the masses. While social equality was yet strictly observed in the assemblies of the Teutons and the Franks, the pride of aristocracy here first asserted its superior claims to consideration. It was from this region, favored by its geographical position, its commercial relations, and its sympathy with the philosophical ideas and literary aspirations of the inhabitants of Moslem Spain, that was to spread the refining influence of chivalry and letters afterwards so prominently displayed in the courts of the Albigensian princes.

The unsatisfactory nature of the information afforded by the defective chronicles of the eighth century is a serious impediment to the satisfactory elucidation of events whose paramount importance has been recognized by every historian. A lamentable want of detail, and an utter absence of philosophical discrimination, are the characteristic traits of these illiterate annalists. Of the gradual unfolding of national character; of the secret motives which actuated the rude but dexterous statesmen of that epoch; of the incessant mutations of public policy; of the silent but powerful revolutions effected by the inexorable laws of nature and the failings of humanity, they tell us next to nothing. And yet no period mentioned in history has been more prolific of great events. No achievement of ancient or modern times was perfected with such rapidity or produced such decided effects upon the intellectual progress of the human race as the Mohammedan Conquest of Spain. The valor of the idolater, Charles Martel, prepared the way for the vast empire and boundless authority of Charlemagne. The zeal of his orthodox successor assured the permanence and supremacy of the Holy See. Upon the success or failure of the Moslem crusade hung, as in a balance, the political fortunes of Europe and the religious destiny of the world. The battle of Poitiers was not, as is generally asserted, a contest between the champions of two hostile forms of faith, for the army of the Franks was largely composed of Pagans, and the ranks of the invaders were filled with Berbers, Jews, and infidels. Moslem zealots, like those who had shared the bitter privations of the Prophet, who had upheld his falling banner at Ohod, who had prevailed over fearful odds commanded by the bravest generals of the Roman and Persian empires, who had witnessed the capture of Damascus and Jerusalem, were rare in that motley host of adventurers whose religion was frequently a disguise assumed for the ignoble purpose of rapine. The fierce ardor and invincible spirit of the original Mussulmans had departed. A tithe of the fiery enthusiasm which had evoked the astonishment and consternation of their early antagonists must have changed the fortunes of that eventful day.

Upon the other hand, the Franks were not inspired with zeal for the maintenance of any religious principle. Their fickle homage was paid to Zernbock and Woden, the sanguinary gods of the German forests, or to that weird priesthood which delivered its oracles from the cromlechs of Brittany. The pressing requirements of the emergency, the prospect of plunder and glory, had summoned the warriors of a hundred tribes from the banks of the Danube to the limits of Scandinavia. So little were these wild barbarians entitled to the appellation of Christians that they were, even then, under the ban of ecclesiastical displeasure, and had been loaded with anathemas for the sacrilegious use of the property of the Church to avert the danger impending over Christendom. But leaving out of consideration the motives which actuated the combatants, there can be no question as to the decisive results of the battle of Poitiers. It was one of the few great victories which, like conspicuous landmarks in the pathway of human affairs, indicate the advancement or the retardation of nations. The prospect of Mohammedan conquest had long been the terror of Europe. The Pope trembled in the Vatican. The pious devotee, as he prostrated himself before the image of his patron saint, vowed an additional penance to ward off the calamity which every day was expected to bring forth. Imagination and fear painted the Saracens as a race of incarnate fiends, whose aspect was far more frightful, whose atrocities were far more ruthless, than those of the Huns who had been routed by Ætius four hundred years before on the plains of Chalons. The lapse of twelve centuries has not sufficed to dispel this superstitious dread, and the Saracen, as a monster and a bugbear, still figures in the nursery tales and rhymes of Central France.

The Spanish Emirate includes the most obscure epoch of Moslem annals. Its events have been, for the most part, preserved only by tradition. Its chronicles are chaotic, defective, and contradictory. Its dates are confused. It abounds in anachronisms; in the confusion of localities; in the multiplication of individuals under a variety of names. The credulity and prejudice of annalists, few of whom were contemporaneous with the occurrences they profess to describe, render their statements suspicious or absolutely unworthy of belief. With such drawbacks attainment to accuracy is manifestly impracticable, and a reasonable degree of probability can alone be hoped for from the baffled and perplexed historian.

Exactly a hundred and ten years had elapsed since Mohammed fled from Mecca like a common malefactor, under sentence of execution by the leaders of his tribe, with a reward of a thousand pieces of gold upon his head, and Islam was regarded as the dream of a half-demented enthusiast. Now the name of the Prophet was revered from the Indies to the Atlantic. The new sect numbered its adherents by millions. Its arms had invariably been victorious. Its energy had surmounted every obstacle. The most venerated shrines of Christianity and the cradle of that religion,--Antioch, Alexandria, Carthage, and Jerusalem,--places associated with all that is dear to the followers of our Saviour, and made sacred by miracle, legend, and tradition, were in its hands. Rome and Constantinople, the remaining great centres of Christian faith--the one destined to be attacked by the Moslems of Sicily, the other now menaced by the Moslems of Spain--trembled for their safety. Saracen fleets were already cruising in the eastern Mediterranean. The Mussulman standard had been planted on the Loire, thirty-six hundred miles distant from Mecca. In every country into which Islam had penetrated, it had found faithful allies and adherents. Religious indifference, public oppression, the burdens of feudalism, and the evils of slavery paved the way for its acceptance. The Jews opened the gates of cities. The leaders of depressed factions contributed to the ruin of their countrymen with purse and sword. Vassals and slaves apostatized by thousands. Most ominous of all, the test of spiritual truth and inspiration invariably dependent, in the estimation of the credulous, upon superiority in arms, was steadily on the side of the infidel. It is not strange, therefore, that Christian Europe looked with undisguised dismay upon the portentous advance of the Mussulman power. It is a matter of some doubt whether the doctrines of Mohammed could have obtained a permanent foothold in the frozen regions of the North. The geographical distribution of religions is largely determined by climate. Islam is essentially exotic. It has survived, but never flourished, beyond the tropics. A learned historian has advanced the hypothesis that it cannot exist in a latitude where the olive does not grow, a statement which seems to be justified by the experience of history. It is highly improbable that the dogmas and customs of the Orient would have found, under a leaden sky and amidst the chilling blasts of Holland and Germany, conditions propitious to their propagation. Important modifications must have resulted, and, with these modifications, religious and social revolution. The steadiness and prowess of the Teutonic soldiery had forever assured the safety of Europe from serious molestation by the princes of the Hispano-Arab empire. The irregular and ill-concerted attacks, which subsequently followed at long intervals, were easily repulsed. Whether the world at large was profited by the victory of Charles Martel may, in the light afforded by the brilliant results of Moslem civilization, well be questioned. It is hardly possible to conjecture what effect would have been produced upon the creeds and habits of the present age by the triumph of the Saracen power, but, in the words of an eminent writer, “the least of our evils had now been that we should have worn turbans; combed our beards instead of shaving them; have beheld a more magnificent architecture than the Grecian, while the public mind had been bounded by the arts and literature of the Moorish University of Cordova.”