Chapter V: Appendix: I

THE GREAT MOSQUE OF CORDOVA

It is not a little singular that the present Cathedral of Cordova is better known to the inhabitants of the city as _La Mezquita_, or Mosque, than by its Christian designation; which circumstance may be taken as a proof of the great influence exerted over Spanish thought and feeling by the Moorish occupation of the Peninsula.

The truth is that Spanish and Moorish interests had much in common, and both nations had equal pride in the celebration of notable deeds performed by Mussulman or Christian. The mingling of the two peoples after the conquest of Granada gave, at least to the commonalty of both nations, a spirit of charity which it had been better to foster than to extinguish.

This gentle sentiment is well expressed in a lament by Amados de los Rios, a great Spanish antiquary and Orientalist, who sings a mournful requiem over the departed glories of the Mosque, once the model of Arab architecture, and the pride of Islam:--

‘Neither the sumptuous Christian fabric that to-day rises in the midst of those countless columns, nor all the treasures of art lavished upon it by the celebrated artists of the sixteenth century who erected it, nor that interminable series of chapels of every epoch which, resting against the walls of the Mosque, disfigure it; nor the clumsy angels that seem to suspend their flight to shed glory over the divine service, nor the words of the Evangelist sounding from the seat of the Holy Spirit, can dispel or banish in the slightest degree the majesty of those wandering shades, that in vain seek in the sanctuary the sacred volume whose leaves, according to tradition, were enamelled with the blood of the Khalif Othman, martyr to the faith. A world of souvenirs here enthralls the mind of the traveller as he gazes with a feeling of sorrow upon these profanations,--works dictated by the intolerant yet sincere faith of our ancestors, impelled by the desire of banishing for ever from that spot consecrated to the law of Jesus, the spirit of Mohammed and the ghosts of his slaves that haunt it, and will for ever haunt it while it exists. For, in spite of the mutilations it has endured, and of the changes it has undergone, there is impressed upon it, by a superior ineradicable law, the seal of the art that inspired it, and the character of the people by whom it was planned and erected.’

Don Amados is not alone in his eloquent, if unavailing protest. When Charles V., in 1526, visited Cordova, and observed St. Peter’s (the Coro) rising out of the very centre of the Mosque, he rebuked the Bishop, Alonso Manriquez, who had erected the incongruous edifice, in no measured terms. When the king saw the extent of the mischief, he said: ‘You have built here what you or any one might have built elsewhere; but you have spoilt what was unique in the world.’ Alas! the monarch had forgotten, or did not choose to remember, that the declaration came with a very bad grace from one who, for his never-completed palace at Granada, had torn down whole Courts and Halls of the Alhambra.

Like most Moorish buildings, the exterior of the Great Mosque of Cordova has a somewhat forbidding aspect, and rises before one much unlike a house of prayer.

The vast interior of the Mosque may be likened to a petrified grove of palm-trees, their stems strangely varied in colour, and in amazing perspective to all points of the compass. Marble columns of every hue, from pure white and translucent alabaster, through the intervening red, the precious verde antique, jasper, porphyry, all shades, to the deepest black; the variety only to be explained by the fact that the great builders Abd-er-Rahman I., together with his son and successor, Hisham I., procured their materials whenever and wherever they could ‘acquire’ them. Many of the columns being too tall, were ‘topped’ to supply a deficiency in the length of another--a process eloquent of the pillage of many a distant city.[1]

All historians agree that the great Mosque of Cordova owes its inception to Abd-er-Rahman I., the first sovereign to reign independently over Andalus. Directly the Sultan found himself comparatively free from his turbulent rivals, and firmly established on the throne, he began the building of his royal palace--that of the pleasure-house called Rissafah, and of the great Mosque. The circumstances which led to the erection of the Mosque are thus related:--

When a city surrendered to the Moors by capitulation, it was their custom to divide with the Christians the principal temple of that city. So, for instance, when Damascus was taken, the principal temple was divided, half of it remaining in the hands of the inhabitants for their form of worship, while the other half was appropriated to the use of the Moslems, who forthwith converted their moiety into a Mosque.

According to this usage, when the Arabs entered Cordova they divided with the Christians their principal place of worship, all other churches, both within and without the city, being immediately pulled down. The Moslems remained for a long time satisfied with this state of affairs, until their number increased, and Cordova became a very populous city, owing to the Arabian Amirs having taken up their abode in it, and made it the seat of Government. The Mosque could then no longer contain the worshippers, and roof after roof was added to accommodate them, the roof of each successive addition being inferior in height to the preceding structure, until the roof of the latest addition was so low as to be but a few feet from the floor, preventing the people from standing with any comfort under it.

Upon the consolidation of the Omeyyah dynasty, Abd-er-Rahman at once turned his attention to the enlargement of the Mosque. He sent for the chiefs of the Christian Church, and proposed to purchase from them that part of the building which remained in their hands, in order that he might utilise the space for the better observance of the religion of the Prophet.

After much negotiation, the Christians agreed to relinquish their moiety, on condition of being allowed to rebuild or repair a church outside the walls, and of holding it independently of the Moslems. The church of the Christians was consecrated wholly to the worship of their God.[2] This being granted by Abd-er-Rahman, and the Christians having received the sum agreed upon, the Sultan demolished the old place of worship (A.D. 784-5), and laid upon its site the foundations of the great Mosque, which became one of the wonders of the world.

The building was carried on with incredible activity during the whole of his reign, for the Sultan begrudged no expenditure that could add to its magnificence; yet it was not until nine years after the death of Abd-er-Rahman that the Mosque was completed according to the original plan. The design was accomplished by the Sultan Hisham I. in the years 794-5, and the Mosque received considerable improvements at the hands of his successors; indeed, it can be safely said that none of the Sultans of the illustrious family of Omeyyah who reigned in Cordova failed to make some estimable addition, or contributed in some way to the decoration of the sumptuous building. Hisham’s son, Abd-er-Rahman II. (A.D. 822-852), ordered much ‘gilt work’ (_Zak-hrafah_) to be made, but died before the work was carried out. Mohammed, his son and successor (A.D. 852-886), continued the work begun by his father, and brought it to a close. Mohammed’s son, Mundhir, in a short reign (A.D. 886-888), is recorded as having made improvements in the building. The great Khalif, An-nassir (Abd-er-Rahman III., A.D. 912-961), caused the old minaret to be pulled down and a more magnificent one to be erected. Al-hakem Al-mustanser-billah (Hakem II., A.D. 961-976) made important additions. Seeing, on his accession, that Cordova was every day increasing in extent, and the population rapidly growing, he directed his attention to the enlargement of the Mosque, and completed the additional building known by his name, by which the structure, already gorgeous, reached the highest perfection, the work of his time being executed in a manner that bewilders by its excellence.

Lastly, in the reign of his successor Hisham II. (A.D. 976-1009), and under the administration of his famous _Hajib_ (Lord Chamberlain and Prime Minister) Al-Mansur, or Almanzor, as he is more commonly called, an addition was made which almost doubled the capacity of the building. A vast number of houses were pulled down, the sites and the lands belonging to them appropriated for the extension of the Mosque; the addition falling nowise short, in respect of solidity, beauty of design, and boldness of execution, of those of any of his predecessors, unless we except the transcendent work of Hakem II.

The grace and purity of construction and decoration in Cordova reached their zenith during the reign of Hakem II. He it was who built the _maksurrah_[3] within the Mosque, a production that has been described by contemporary writers as one of the most exquisite fabrics ever raised by man. In the two jambs of the arch forming the entrance to the _mih-rab_[4] were four columns of great value: two were made of green marble, the other two of lapis-lazuli.[5]

Near the mih-rab there once stood a pulpit constructed by Hakem II., equalled by none other in the world for workmanship and materials. It was built of ivory and the rarest woods, such as ebony, sandal, almond, Indian plantain, citron, aloe, and so forth. This beautiful object was to be seen in the Cathedral of Cordova as late as the middle of the sixteenth century, when it was dismembered and its materials employed in the construction of a Christian altar. It was known to the Spaniards under the name of _carro de Almanzor_, the chariot of Al-mansur--probably because it stood upon wheels.

Not only did the Khalif Hakem II. make many additions to the great Mosque of Cordova, but improvements which greatly benefited the city. In place of the old reservoir for purification in the Court of the Mosque, he built four others at two sides of the Mosque, and these he filled by means of a canal which, taking the water from the hills of Cordova, poured it into an immense reservoir of marble which fed the four minor cisterns. These marble receptacles for water may yet be seen in the Mezquita of Cordova; the quarry whence they were extracted is likewise indicated by the peasants at a few miles from the city. The water, running constantly, after supplying the needs of the Mosque, was distributed into three conduits parting from three sides of the Mosque, East, North, and West, thus supplying the city and suburbs.

The actual dimensions of the Mosque are difficult to establish. An excellent authority says that in length from North to South, the Mosque measures six hundred and twenty feet, in width four hundred and forty feet. Mr. Waring, in his _Notes of an Architect in Spain_ says the Mosque is an oblong of three hundred and ninety-four feet by three hundred and sixty feet. The famous Orange Court is in length two hundred and twenty feet, and, being within the boundary walls of the Mosque, is probably included in the first measurement given.

It is impossible to fix with any degree of certainty the number of columns contained in the Mosque during the time of Mohammedan supremacy. Ambrosio de Morales and the Infante Don Juan Manuel, both of whom described the Mosque before the columns were reduced in number by the unnecessary, not to say barbarous, alterations to which the building has been subjected, estimate the figures at one thousand and twelve; but it is only too certain that when the Mosque was converted into a Christian Church very many columns were removed to make room for altars, chapels, and the like.

No less than one hundred columns were comprised within the _maksurrah_, which was further provided with three doors of exquisite workmanship, one of which was covered with pure gold, as were the walls of the _mih-rab_. The floor of the _maksurrah_, it is said, was paved with silver, and that the pavements adjacent to it were covered with _sofeysafa_, an obscure word which Don Pascual de Gayangos believes to be a transposition of the Arabic word _foseyfasa_,[6] signifying enamel work of exceptional brilliancy, laid down by Greek workmen whom Abd-er-Rahman had brought to Cordova for the task.

The ceiling of the Mosque was formerly covered with oval cartouches bearing appropriate monitory inscriptions and pious sentences, such as ‘Be not one of the negligent,’ ‘Felicity,’ ‘Blessing,’ ‘There is no God but God, to whom all beings address themselves in their need,’ thus inciting the minds of the faithful to contemplation and prayer. Some few of the cartouches are still remaining, but the inscriptions were carefully effaced at the time when the Mosque was transformed into a Christian temple. Those in the _mih-rab_, and in the angles near the tower, were spared.

The number of brazen chandeliers of different sizes in the Mosque is computed at upwards of two hundred, and the number of cups attached and containing oil, at upwards of seven thousand. Some of the oil-reservoirs for the great lamps were Christian bells deprived of their clappers, afterwards inverted, and suspended from the roof. It is known that in the many expeditions against the Christian, bells were frequently removed from their churches and brought to Cordova. Sometimes the metal of the bells was recast into forms more in accordance with the Moorish style of ornament.