Part 4 (1/2)

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 to the 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 have injured 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.

CHAPTER XI.

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 the Thermopylae 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. The _Chanson de Roland_ was 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 pa.s.s 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.

Mediaeval 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!”

CHAPTER XII.

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.

Clas.h.i.+ng 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 was _Ziryab_. What Petronius was to Nero,[A] and 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. _Eulogius_ became 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 desperate attempt 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 a _Khalifate_.

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 a.s.sume the spiritual heads.h.i.+p of the western part of the empire. And thereafter, the Mahommedan empire--like the Roman--had two heads, an Eastern Khalif at Baghdad, and a Western Khalif at Cordova.

While thus extending his own power the Khalif was extinguis.h.i.+ng 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 cl.u.s.tered columns, inlaid with gold and lapis-lazuli, the cl.u.s.ters reaching up to the slender arches which supported the roof; the whole of this marvelous 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.