History of the Moors of Spain Part 4

The praise due to a despotic sovereign capable of such an action, is inferior only to that which should be accorded to the cadi who induced him to perform it.

After reigning twelve years, El Hakkam died, A.D. 976, Heg. 366. His son Hacchem succeeded him.

This prince was an infant when he ascended the throne, and his intellectual immaturity continued through life. During and after his minority, a celebrated Moor named Mohammed Almanzor, being invested with the important office of _Hadjeb_, governed the state with wisdom and success.

Almanzor united to the talents of a statesman the genius of a great commander. He was the most formidable and fatal enemy with whom the Christians had yet been obliged to contend. He {81} ruled the Moorish empire twenty-six years under the name of the indolent Hacchem. More than fifty different times he carried the terrors of war into Castile or Asturia: he took and sacked the cities of Barcelona and Leon, and advanced even to Compostella, destroying its famous church and carrying the spoils to Cordova.

The genius and influence of Mohammed temporarily restored the Moors to their ancient strength and energy, and forced the whole Peninsula to respect the rights of his feeble master, who, like another Sardanapalus, dreamed away his life in the enjoyment of effeminate and debasing pleasures.[16]

But this was the last ray of unclouded splendour that shone upon the empire of the Ommiades in Spain. The kings of Leon and Navarre, and the Count of Castile, united their forces for the purpose of opposing the redoubtable Almanzor.

The opposing armies met near Medina-Celi. The conflict was long and sanguinary, and the victory doubtful. The Moors, after the termination of the combat, took to flight, terrified by the fearful loss they had sustained; and {82} Almanzor, whom fifty years of uninterrupted military success had persuaded that he was invincible, died of grief at this first mortifying reverse.

With this great man expired the good fortune of the Saracens of Spain.

From the period of his death, the Spaniards continued to increase their own prosperity by the gradual ruin of the Moors.

The sons of the hadjeb Almanzor successively replaced their ill.u.s.trious father; but, in inheriting his power, they did not inherit his talents.

Factions were again created. One of the relations of the caliph took up arms against him, and possessed himself of the person of the monarch, A.D. 1005, Heg. 596; and, though the rebellious prince dared not sacrifice the life of Hacchem, he imprisoned him, and spread a report of his death.

This news reaching Africa, an Ommiade prince hastened thence to Spain with an army, under pretext of avenging the death of Hacchem. The Count of Castile formed an alliance with this stranger, and civil war was kindled in Cordova. It soon spread throughout Spain, and the Christian princes availed themselves of its disastrous effects to repossess themselves of the cities of {83} which they had been deprived during the supremacy of Almanzor.

The imbecile Hacchem, negotiating and trifling alike with all parties, was finally replaced on the throne, but was soon after forced again to renounce it to save his life.

After this event a mult.i.tude of conspirators[17] were in turn proclaimed caliph, and in turn deposed, poisoned, or otherwise murdered. Almundir, the last lingering branch of the race of the Ommiades, was bold enough to claim the restoration of the rights of his family, even amid the tumult of conflicting parties. His friends represented to him the dangers he was about to encounter. "Should I reign but one day," replied lie, "and expire on the next, I would not murmur at my fate!" But the desire of the prince, even to this extent, was not gratified; he was a.s.sa.s.sinated without obtaining possession of the caliphate.

Usurpers of momentary authority followed. Jalmar-ben-Mohammed was the last in order. His death terminated the empire of the Caliphs {84} of the West, which had been possessed by the dynasty of the Ommiades for the period of three centuries, A.D. 1027, Heg. 416.

With the extinction of this line of princes vanished the power and the glory of Cordova.

The governors of the different cities, who had hitherto been the va.s.sals of the court of Cordova, profiting by the anarchy that prevailed, erected themselves into independent sovereigns--That city was therefore no longer the capital of a kingdom, though it still retained the religious supremacy which it derived from its mosque.

Enfeebled by divisions and subjected to such diversity of rule, the Mussulmans were no longer able successfully to resist the encroachments of the Spaniards. The Third Epoch of their history, therefore, will present nothing but a narrative of their rapid decline.

[1] See Note A, page 208.

[2] The dynasty of the Ommiades, whose capital, as M. Florian informs us, was Damascus, is most familiarly known in history as that of the _Caliphs of Syria_; and the Abba.s.sides, who succeeded them upon the throne of Islam, are usually designated as the _Caliphs of Bagdad_, which city they built, and there established the seat of their regal power and magnificence. It may be observed, in connexion with this subject, that though the authority of the Caliphs of Damascus continued to be disputed and resisted after the death of Ali, yet with that event terminated the temporary division of the civil and sacerdotal power which had been at first occasioned by their usurpation of sovereignty. The political supremacy of the party of Ali ceased with his existence, and the authority that had belonged to the immediate successors of Mohammed long continued to centre in the family of the Ommiade princes.--_Trans_.

[3] See Note B, page 209.

[4] A.D. 752, Heg. 134.

[5] See Note C, page 209.

[6] It was under the government of the Abba.s.sides that the empire of the East possessed that superiority in wealth, magnificence, and learning for which it was once so celebrated. Under the sway of the Caliphs of Bagdad, the Mohammedans became as much renowned for their attainments in the higher branches of science as in the elegant and useful arts. To them the civilized world is indebted for the revival of the exact and physical sciences, and the discovery or restoration of most of the arts that afterward lent such beneficial aid to the progress of European literature and refinement. The far-famed capital of the Abba.s.sides was adorned with every attraction that the most unbounded wealth could secure, or the most consummate art perfect. There taste and power had combined exquisite luxury with unparalleled splendour, and there all that imagination could suggest to fascinate the senses or enrapture the mind, was realized. These princes of Islam, by their unbounded liberality, attracted the learning and genius of other countries to their brilliant court, several of them were the ardent lovers of science as well as the munificent patrons of its devotees. Thus Bagdad became the favoured and genial home of letters and the arts; and luxury and the pursuit of pleasure were enn.o.bled by a graceful union with the more elevated enjoyments of cultivated intellect and refined taste. Nor were these beneficent influences confined to the Mohammedan court, or to the period of time when they were so powerfully exercised. The Moslem sovereigns gave laws to a wide realm in arts as well as arms; and if the whole of Europe did not acknowledge their political superiority, in the world of science their supremacy was everywhere undisputed. That, like the gradually enlarging circles made by a pebble thrown into calm water, continued to spread farther and farther, until it reached the most distant sh.o.r.es, and communicated a generous impulse to nations long sunk in intellectual night.

Such was the celebrated empire of the Abba.s.sides in its halcyon days of undiminished power--such the beautiful City of Peace, the favoured home of imperial magnificence, ere the despoiling Tartar had profaned its loveliness and destroyed its grandeur. Yet, when we look beneath the brilliant exterior of these Oriental scenes and characters, we discover, under the splendour and elegance by which the eyes of the world were so long dazzled, the corruption and licentiousness of a government containing within itself the seeds of its own insecurity and ultimate destruction. We behold the absence of all fixed principles of legislation; we frequently find absolute monarchs guided solely by pa.s.sion or caprice in the administration of arbitrary laws, and swaying the destinies of a people who, as a whole, were far from deriving any substantial advantage from the wealth and greatness of their despotic rulers. We are thus led to observe the evils that necessarily result from a want of those principles of vital religion, without which mere human learning is so inadequate to discipline the pa.s.sions or direct the reason, and of those just and equal laws, the supremacy of which can alone secure the happiness of a people or the permanency of political inst.i.tutions.--_Trans_.

[7] See note D, page 212.

[8] See note E, page 218.

[9] See note F, page 313.

[10] Cardonne, in his History of Spain.

[11] This word signifies, in the Arabic, _Flower_, or _Ornament of the World_.

[12] See Note G, page 213.

[13] The _dinar_ is estimated by M. Florian to be equal to at least _ten livres_. According to that computation, the aggregate cost of the palace and city of Zahra would amount to considerably more than $14,000,000.

_Trans_.

[14] See note H, page 214.

[15] About $22,500,000.

[16] See Note I, page 214.

[17] Mahadi, Suleiman, Ali, Abderamus IV., Casim, Jahiah, Hacchem III., Mohammed, Abderamus V., Jahiah II., Hacchem IV., and Jalmar-ben-Mohammed.

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THIRD EPOCH.

CONTAINING AN ACCOUNT OF THE PRINc.i.p.aL KINGDOMS THAT SPRANG FROM THE RUINS OF THE CALIPHATE.

_Extending from the Commencement of the Eleventh to the Middle of the Thirteenth Century._

At the commencement of the eleventh century, when the throne of Cordova was daily stained by the blood of some new usurper, the governors of the different cities, as has been already remarked, had a.s.sumed the t.i.tle of kings. Toledo, Saragossa, Seville, Valencia, Lisbon, Huesca, and several other places of inferior importance, each possessed independent sovereigns.

The history of these numerous kingdoms would be nearly as fatiguing to the reader as to the writer. It presents, for the s.p.a.ce of two hundred years, nothing but accounts of repeated ma.s.sacres, of fortresses taken and retaken, of pillages and seditions, of occasional instances of heroic conduct, but far more numerous crimes. Pa.s.sing rapidly over two centuries of {86} misfortunes, let it suffice to contemplate the termination of these petty Moorish sovereignties.

Christian Spain, in the mean time, presented nearly the same picture as that exhibited by the portion of the Peninsula still in possession of the Mohammedans. The kings of Leon, Navarre, Castile, and Aragon were almost always relatives, and sometimes brothers; but they were not, for that reason, the less sanguinary in their designs towards each other.

Difference of religion did not prevent them from uniting with the Moors, the more effectually to oppress other Christians, or other Moors with whom they chanced to be at enmity. Thus, in a battle which occurred A.D. 1010 between two Mussulman leaders, there were found among the slain a count of Urgel and three bishops of Catalonia.[1]

And the King of Leon, Alphonso V., gave his sister Theresa in marriage to Abdalla, the Moorish king of Toledo, to convert him into an ally against Castile.

Among the Christians, as among the Moors, crimes were multiplied; civil wars of both a local and general nature at the same time distracted Spain, and the unhappy people expiated with {87} their property and their lives the iniquities of their rulers.

While thus regarding a long succession of melancholy events, it is agreeable to find a king of Toledo called Almamon, and Benabad, the Mussulman king of Seville, affording an asylum at their courts, the one to Alphonso, the young king of Leon, and the other to the unfortunate Garcias, king of Galicia, both of whom had been driven from their kingdoms by their brother Sancho, of Castile, A.D. 1071 Heg. 465.

Sancho pursued his brothers as though they had been his most implacable enemies; and the Moorish monarchs, the natural enemies of all the Christians, received these two fugitive princes as brothers. Almamon, especially, lavished the most affectionate attention upon the unfortunate Alphonso: he endeavoured to entertain him at Toledo with such varied pleasures as should banish regret for the loss of a throne: he gave him an income, and, in short, treated the prince as though he had been a near and beloved relative. When the death of the cruel Sancho (A.D. 1072, Heg. 466) had rendered Alphonso king of Leon and Castile, the generous Almamon, who now had the person of the king of his enemies in his {88} power, accompanied the prince to the frontiers of his kingdom, loaded him with presents and caresses, and, at parting, offered the free use of his troops and treasures to his late guest.